Tokyo Station: An Ambassador's Diary

By Radu Șerban

Tokyo Station, the captivating diary of Radu Șerban, ambassador to Japan between March 14, 2012 and August 14, 2016, is the starting point for a reflection on the notion of culture and civilization in terms of maximum otherness.
In addition to highlighting his own diplomatic experience coupled with a prodigious culture, the author explores what Roland Barthes called the Empire of Signs, a "revolution in the ownership of symbolic systems," a suite of codes in a world which sees good conduct as highly-praised individual performance.
Without lacking an emotional aeration, cutting into relevant exoticism, Radu Şerban's Japanese diary still represents the analysis of a lucid and polemical spirit confronted with the dream of a paradox. Japan appears here as a unique symbiosis between the tradition printed in the ritual of the most modest act of daily gesture and the hi-tech universe of one of the most advanced societies--bordering utopia.
Inevitable and tempting, marked by the punctuation of a critical spirit, the comparison between East and West, between Japan and Romania offers the reader--be it by ricochet--a reflected identity profile, the coordinates of possible dialogues and a picturesque Balkan-Eastern narrative.

Angelo Mitchievici

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B08M8FNXDB
• ISBN13: 9798553694371
• Release Date: October 2020
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 636 Pages
• Weight: 2.57 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"