Into the Woods: Meiji Jingu and the Hunger for Modernity

November 25, 2025.Reading time 38 minutes.

Editor’s note: This is our final entry in The Metropole theme for November 2025, Metropolitan Consumption. To see additional posts on the theme from November, see here. By Emi Higashiyama Tokyo epitomizes hunger. A metropolis spanning 2,195 square kilometers and home to 14 million people, the city operates less like an organism and more like […]

Waterworld: How Water Engineering Became Imperial Japan’s Method of Building Cities

April 15, 2025.Reading time 23 minutes.

Editor’s note: This is the fourth post in our theme for April 2025, The City Aquatic. For additional entries in the series, see here. By Emi Higashiyama The story of Taiwan’s emergence into modernity can be difficult to interpret because it is a story that has been caught in the fierce rivalry between China and […]