Duncan Harley

The four-star Maryculter House Hotel was today the venue for the Scottish Samurai Awards. Scotland and Japan have long enjoyed both trade and cultural links – well for just around 150 years in truth. Japan sent many students to the UK between the late Edo period (1603-1867) and the early Meiji period (1868-1912) in order to explore and import Western technology and the various international trade exhibitions of the 19 th and early 20 th Century provided useful platforms for the sharing of both scientific and aesthetic ideas. Cities such as Glasgow and Aberdeen provided ripe-pickings for the aspiring technologists and alongside acquisition of new skill-sets the two nations exchanged cultural and artistic aesthetics which continue to create broad-ripples to this day. Japan, of course, had participated in the second Glasgow International Exhibition in 1901. The Japan Pavilion was located near the main exhibition hall at Kelvingrove and there is a likelihood that Renni...