Quotes About Japan

I remember my very first encounter with Japan. At that time, I was Deputy Mayor of St Petersburg. Out of nowhere, Japan's Consul General in St Petersburg came to my office and said Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs wanted to invite me to Japan. I was very surprised because I had nothing to do with Japan except being a judoka. This was an opportunity to visit Tokyo and a couple of other cities. And, you know, a capital is a capital everywhere: there is the official script and certain protocol. It is always easier to talk in the provinces, the conversation is more natural.

Japan is our rival, not our enemy. Japan is a competitor... Bashing a Toyota won't make a better car.

Take Germany and Japan, both defeated in the Second World War. Germany has acknowledged its monstrous crimes to a certain extent, has paid reparations and so on. Japan, in contrast, apologizes for nothing and has paid no reparations, with one exception: It pays reparations to the United States, but not to Asia.

The average taxpayer in Germany or Japan pays less for the defense of his country than the average taxpayer in America pays for the defense of Germany or Japan.

I often look ridiculous in Japan. There's really no way to eat in Japan, particularly kaiseki in a traditional ryokan, without offending the Japanese horribly. Every gesture, every movement is just so atrociously wrong, and the more I try, the more hilarious it is.

When I go to Japan and do shows I play for 1,000 to 1,500 people. I like a lot about Japan. Their popular culture and mass commercialization appeals to me.

Japan's diplomatic efforts could have had a broader international perspective. Relations with the U.S. are, of course, the cornerstone of Japan's diplomacy, but the U.S. acts on its global strategy. For instance, Washington suddenly got closer to China in the early 1970s as part of its strategy against the Soviet Union.

The industry in Japan moving toward CGI is not as severe and extreme as in the U.S. The animation industry in the U.S. is firing 2D animators and closing those studios, but I think it's possibly because the national traits of the U.S. prefer super-realism. Since Japan is a country that prefers plane vision, I don't think we will leave 2D and substitute hand-drawing with CGI entirely.

People don't think that bread is part of Asian culture or Asian food culture, but it's quite prevalent in Northern China, and you see it throughout Japan and as you go to Taiwan.

In Japan, employees occasionally work themselves to death. It’s called Karoshi. I don’t want that to happen to anybody in my department. The trick is to take a break as soon as you see a bright light and hear dead relatives beckon.

I couldn't tell how many times I've been to Japan off the top of my head, I just have a few standout moments that were very defining and inspirational at different parts of my life. As far as moving there, I don't know. That's a tall order there. I feel there's people that go so far as to do that, and good for them, but I just can't. For me it's not a misplaced passion or a weird infatuation - it's more like I've just had a good chance to realize how immensely their art has affected our American culture, and I don't take it for granted. I've got a very big appreciation.

We're not going to walk into the World Cup thinking, 'Ah, you know, we beat Norway 5-0 and we beat Japan so now we're great and we're untouchable'. It's a reality check for a few guys and that's a good thing at this time so it doesn't happen on June 12 (when the U.S. team opens World Cup play against the Czech Republic).

The conflict between Japan and Chiang is little affected by the fall of the Wuhan cities and Sino-Japanese hostilities have just started.

Fish from all over the world, from deep in the sea, wind up in countries from Germany to Japan. That is just crazy.

North Korea will never give up its arsenal. It's all that is keeping us alive. Look at Saddam Hussein - and we never forget that North Korea was named as part of the "axis of evil" a year before the United States invaded Iraq. Do you think we would be stupid enough to believe American promises after all this? We are a nuclear power. That is not negotiable. We are willing to talk about limits freezes - but we would need to be given something in return security, in the form of diplomatic recognition by Washington and guarantees of nonaggression from China, Japan and the United States.

I guess they needed a maze in Japan, where everything's neat and tidy. In America everybody's already wandering around lost.

Everybody in the states is so relaxed, and everybody in Japan is so uptight.

My observation is that after one hundred and twenty years of modernisation since the opening of the country, present-day Japan is split between two opposite poles of ambiguity.

I get constantly mistaken for Elijah Wood. I was in Japan and someone held out a photo of him for me to sign.

Using virtual world, a scientist in Japan can conduct an experiment using a special facility in California, watching the entire thing via a live stream - and possibly controlling the experimental equipment remotely. We can use that same kind of technology to control a robot on Mars.

Japan never considers time together as time wasted. Rather, it is time invested.

If we could muster the same determination and sense of responsibility that saves a country like Japan - or a company like Xerox - then investing to save women and children who are dying in the developing world would be very good business.

I was an actor in Japan and I'm a regular on about three shows. I'm grateful for all of it. My personal activities like that help Big Bang as a whole as well.

I think in Japan I think there is a lot of style and a lot of subcultures, but it will be interesting to see how much of them... how much of the people wearing those clothes are really expressing something about who they are or who they want to be and it will be very interesting to see, especially once you get there, once you get to a certain city like in Stockholm you really get to know the people a little bit and what they're saying through their clothes. It's more... To me I think it's much more interesting than just the clothes they're wearing or the length of the skirt.

Finding a master of the dark art of ninjutsu in modern westernized Japan seems as unlikely as finding an active practitioner of the magic of Merlin in contemporary industrialized England.

Living in Europe, I was surprised to find out just how little everyone knows about Japan.

I think that people here expect miracles. American management thinks that they can just copy from Japan - but they don't know what to copy!

The last time I was in Japan as President of Russia was 11 years ago, if memory serves. I later visited in my capacity as Prime Minister.

You can say that I lived in Asia for a long time and in Japan I became close to several CIA agents. And you could say that I became an adviser to several CIA agents in the field and, through my friends in the CIA, met many powerful people and did special works and special favors.

The world is very disparate, in terms of the US using the most energy per person, and then the other rich countries - Europe, Japan, New Zealand - using about half of what we do, and then the world average being about a fifth of what we use, with China just now surpassing the world average.

For decades, Japan has been a friend and reliable trading partner with the United States, and I anticipate that relationship will prosper.

We pray that henceforth not only Japan but all mankind may know the blessings of harmony and progress.

I want Japan to think and say that we are better off for JPMorgan having been here through thick and thin.

I want to reassure our allies in Japan and South Korea and elsewhere that we have mutual defense treaties and we will honor them.

Japan actually is an aging population, and so as the population has aged, they have had a lot more problems with health.

When you have the countries like Germany, China, and Russia decline, and be replaced by others, that's when systemic wars start. That's when it gets dangerous, because they haven't yet reached a balance. So Germany united in 1871 and all hell broke loose. Japan rose in the early 20th century, and then you had chaos. So we're looking at a systemic shift. Be ready for war.

Fracking is our biggest enemy right now in the U.S. Actually, not just in the U.S., because all our water systems are interconnected. Whether you're reading this in New York State or in Japan, fracking is screwing you over.

Further, Japan is the second largest donor in Iraq after the United States, with over $5 billion dollars for humanitarian, infrastructure and reconstruction projects.

I love Japan, and Tokyo is my favorite city.

The Japanese Prime Minister has apologized for Japan's part in World War II. However, he still hasn't mentioned anything about karaoke.

My first Indy 500 was one of my high points. I ended up qualifying fourth and I finished fourth. I had a win in Japan a few years later, and then qualifying for Daytona was great as well.

But I didn't walk a single step. I stopped a lot to stretch, but I never walked. I didn't come here to walk. I came to run. That's the reason-the only reason-I flew all the way to the northern tip of Japan. No matter how slow I might run, I wasn't about to walk. That was the rule.

It is Japan's mission to be supreme in Asia, the South Seas and eventually the four corners of the world.

I love going somewhere like Japan where you can't understand a word of the advertising - you just see it for its aesthetic beauty, without feeling that you're being sold something.

I have to decide Japanese strategy - shall we invade Japan proper or shall we bomb and blockade? That is my hardest decision to date. But I'll make it when I have all the facts.

The US economy, because it's so energy wasteful, is much less efficient than either the European or Japanese economies. It takes us twice as much energy to produce a unit of GDP as it does in Europe and Japan. So, we're fundamentally less efficient and therefore less competitive, and the sooner we begin to tighten up, the better it will be for our economy and society.

Japan is dealing us a dead hand. For two years we have watched the Japanese drag their feet and we can't let them continue to slam the door in our faces.

When you're a kid and you're in a classroom, anybody would die to be hanging out in London or having their sixteenth birthday in Japan.