About Us

The AJS (aka Japanese Cultural Society) provides a friendly interface between Japanese and non-Japanese in Cambridge: socially at the pub meetings, dinners and clubbing events, but also by organising Japanese cultural events during the term. These include sushi parties, film nights, language lessons and karaoke! We have an annual Joint Oxbridge Dinner with the Oxford Japan Society in London, as well as a New Year's Party (involving Japanese food and umeshu!) and an end-of-term BBQ in the summer.

We are open to all who are interested in finding out more about Japanese culture, of any nationality, whether university students or not. You don't need to know any Japanese to join in, either! For the past three academic years we have also run successful Japanese conversation classes. Membership is £5 for a year, or £10 for life (definitely worth it as members get much cheaper entry to paying events). If you haven't paid already and would like to join, please either send cash or a cheque addressed to Hideaki Mitani at Gonville & Caius College. Please make all cheques payable to "CU Anglo-Japanese Society".

You can subscribe to our mailing list to receive up-to-date information on the society (please note that Soc-AJS is reserved for members only).

Events

For information on the upcoming events, please visit the events page.

You can also join our Facebook group.

2011 Japan Earthquake

AJS Fundraising

Both individuals and AJS as a society will be doing their utmost to help alleviate conditions after this tragedy. In total at the end of Lent Term we have raised an amazing £11865.49 for the Red Cross, with the help of Japanese students and locals.

2011 Toohoku earthquake and tsunami

At 14:43 Japan Standard Time on the 11/03/11 a 9.0 magnitude earthquake on the Richter scale occured 80 miles off the east coast of the Oshika Peninsula. This created a tsunami with waves of up to 10 metres in height that washed across the entire Tohoku region, devastating all the land and buildings in its way. As of 03/04/11 the Japanese National Police Agency have confirmed 11,938 deaths, 2,876 injuries and 15,478 people missing.

The earthquake and tsunami caused extensive damage in Japan, including heavy damage to roads and railways as well as fires in many areas, and a dam collapse. Around 4.4 million households in northeastern Japan were left without electricity and 1.4 million without water. Many electrical generators were taken down, and 11 nuclear reactors were shut down. Currently 1 of the reactors in Fukushima is undergoing meltdown, resulting in dangerous levels of radiation around the plant. The government has advised residents within 20km of the plant to evacuate, and those within 30km to stay indoors. Radiation levels near Tokyo have subsided back to just above average currently.

The government has estimated the cost of the earthquake and tsunami to be US $309 billion, making it the world's most expensive natural disaster on record. Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan said that "in the 65 years after the end of World War II, this is the toughest and the most difficult crisis for Japan".

Current Membership

Currently (dated October 2010) the CUAJS involves around 100 active members, excluding those with life membership who have left University, and a mailing list of around 700 people. This includes Japanese and non-Japanese undergraduate and graduate students in Cambridge University as well as other people within the Cambridge area with a strong interest in Japan.

Many native Japanese students are older, often graduate students, or visiting students from Japan, while undergraduates are an even mix of non-Japanese and Japanese students with familiarity to international environments.

History of AJS

The direct ancestor of the Cambridge University Anglo-Japanese Society was the Japanese Club at Cambridge, founded by Inagaki Manjiro (1861-1908), diplomat at Gonville & Caius College who later became Japan's first Minister Resident in Siam/Thailand in 1897 and a scholar of international relations.

Inagaki, born in Nagasaki as the son of a samurai of the Hirado clan, entered the Department of Literature of the Tokyo Imperial University in 1882. From January 1888 to December 1890 he went to Great Britain to study at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.

It was then that he founded the Japanese Club at Cambridge University, a society consisting of students studying Japanese as well as male scholars from Japan, to study the ways of English gentlemen. He became a very popular figure at the University, especially with the Master of Pembroke College and the Vice-Chancellor, the Reverend Dr Charles Edward Searle. After graduating he returned to Japan, and entered the Foreign Ministry, becoming Japan's first deputy Minister Resident in Siam (now Thailand) in 1897. He was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary in 1899 and continued in that role until July 1907 when he was transferred to Spain.

The meetings of the Japanese Club at Cambridge were probably held around 15 times from 1888 to 1895. After the Japan Society of London had been founded in 1891, the members of the Japanese Club at Cambridge joined it and the Japanese Club at Cambridge disappeared since then. After this, the Cambridge University Anglo-Japanese Society was founded as a continuation of these old traditions and, at least officially, it celebrated the centenary in 2005 (with the Cambridge and Oxford Japanese society), supported by the Japanese Embassy, with ambassadorial appearance and speeches.

(Special thanks to Dr. Noboru Koyama)