{"id":260,"date":"2014-03-01T17:00:54","date_gmt":"2014-03-01T09:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tembusu.nus.edu.sg\/treehouse\/?p=260"},"modified":"2025-09-25T16:50:00","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T08:50:00","slug":"masters-teas-take-students-from-japan-to-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tembusu3.nus.edu.sg\/treehouse\/2014\/03\/masters-teas-take-students-from-japan-to-new-york\/","title":{"rendered":"Master\u2019s Teas take students from Japan to New York"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tembusu College recently hosted two prominent Japanese figures in conversation sessions known as\u00a0Master\u2019s Teas. Famed hairstylist Shunji Matsuo, who incidentally held a hair show in Tembusu two\u00a0years ago, returned to Tembusu on Jan 22. Shunji, who has over 40 years of international hairstyling\u00a0experience, used to work in the major fashion capitals of Japan, Europe and the United States. He\u00a0arrived in Singapore from Jakarta in 1999, and is now a Permanent Resident of Singapore, with\u00a015 salons around the region in Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Philippines and Indonesia under his\u00a0eponymous group. The very next day Tembusu hosted Ambassador Takaaki Kojima, who was Japan\u2019s\u00a0Ambassador to Singapore from 2004 to 2007. He was also Ambassador to Australia (2007-2010),\u00a0and then Ambassador in charge of International Counter-Terrorism Cooperation from 2010 until he\u00a0retired from Public Service in 2011. He is currently a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Institute\u00a0of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS).<\/p>\n

Ambassador Kojima\u2019s session was dominated by questions on the China-Japan territorial tussle\u00a0over the Diaoyu\/Senkaku islands \u2013 a particularly relevant topic, especially coming off the Regional\u00a0Outlook Forum organized on Jan 9 by ISEAS. Associate Professor Clancey, Master of Tembusu\u00a0College, opened the discussion by asking for the Ambassador\u2019s views on Professor Tommy Koh\u2019s\u00a0suggestion that China and Japan take their dispute to the International Court of Justice. Ambassador\u00a0Kojima does not think that likely to happen due to differing interpretations of history.<\/p>\n

Having been based in Beijing from 1989 to 1992, Mr. Kojima noted that history education in Chinese\u00a0schools had intensified since he left, and that younger people tended to hold more anti-Japanese\u00a0sentiments than those who had actually been through the Second World War. He gave the reason\u00a0for this as being a push to reclaim the legitimacy of the CCP after the fall of the USSR in 1991.<\/p>\n

The Ambassador laid out the Japanese perspective: Japan had incorporated the Senkaku Islands in\u00a01885, following surveys conducted in 1884 showing that the islands were terra nullius, or belonging\u00a0to no one. They had done so before the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which ended the First Sino-Japanese\u00a0War. He noted that China did not subsequently claim the islands (as it had claimed Formosa, now\u00a0known as Taiwan) until much later, in 1971, following another survey which showed the islands\u00a0having resources of potential benefit to China. \u201cThe past behaviour is very important,\u201d he said. \u201cUp\u00a0to the early 1970s, they had not laid any claim, even after the defeat of Japan.\u201d Japan, therefore,\u00a0feels itself in no position to bring the case to the ICJ as a dispute, and China in turn seems unlikely to\u00a0do so.<\/p>\n

Another question asked was whether having no standing army made the Japanese felt like second-class world citizens. Ambassador Kojima did not think so, noting that the Japanese people accept the\u00a0constitution (which prohibits a military) and can revise if they wish with a two-thirds majority vote.\u00a0So far, there has been no successful effort to revise this aspect of the constitution, though Japan has\u00a0a strong Self-Defence Force. However, one area the constitution leaves unclear is whether or not\u00a0Japan is allowed to participate in collective defense \u2013 defending a country that is being attacked by a\u00a0third party \u2013 in the face of the rising military strength of China.<\/p>\n

Ambassador Kojima also addressed other issues such as pressures for additional Japanese apologies\u00a0for the Second World War, amongst others. He also spoke about his recent book, entitled ASEAN-Japan Relations, published by ISEAS, which he co-edited with Professor Takashi Shiraishi from the\u00a0Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Kyoto University.<\/p>\n

\"Ambassador<\/a>
Ambassador Kojima speaks with students after the session (Photo: Gerald Mui Kai Yuan)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Shunji Matsuo deals with negotiations of style. Having worked in New York for 22 years, and\u00a0styled the likes of Donna Karan and Madonna, he has plenty of experience under his belt. In fact,\u00a0responding to the opening question by Prof Clancey about his experiences as a young man striking\u00a0out in a foreign land, Shunji showed great humility in deferring to his mentor, Suga Yusuke. Suga\u2019s\u00a0was the first salon Shunji worked at in New York, launching his career as a celebrity hairstylist. Suga\u00a0enjoyed great fame for his styling of 1976 Olympic figure skating gold medalist Dorothy Hamill\u2019s hair\u00a0\u2013 her \u201cwedge\u201d haircut became a huge hit all over America and the world. \u201cThere is only one star,” he\u00a0said of Suga, “there cannot be another\u201d.<\/p>\n

Asked about how he negotiates disputes with his customers, he gave the example of a lady who\u00a0was unhappy with his styling as she had wanted something simpler. \u201cI was very sad for the whole\u00a0day,\u201d he recalled. \u201cBut the next day, you wake up, you forget.\u201d The celebrity stylist claims he\u00a0\u201cknows what women want\u201d, and how to make them look good \u2013 a claim that few would dispute. He\u00a0describes the negotiation of style with his customers as \u201cinitially tense\u201d, due to the personal nature\u00a0of one\u2019s hairstyle. But he is steadfast about not wanting to do a simple trim. \u201cFor me, I like to change\u00a0[people\u2019s hairstyles]. This is my specialty,\u201d he said. As for his personal style, he has a preferred stylist\u00a0of his own, and also gets his inspiration mostly from fashion magazines or the streets of Japan, in\u00a0cities like Tokyo and Osaka.<\/p>\n

Recently Shunji has launched a new project encouraging stylishness in older people. \u201cThere are\u00a0so many others who can take care of young people,\u201d he said. \u201cI will take care of older people.\u201d 25\u00a0per cent of Japan\u2019s population is 65 years old and above, and too many are drab, he believes. In\u00a0contrast, older people in New York he describes as colourful and independent. \u201cI want to change this\u00a0slowly, make them happy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Shunji also gave some business advice. \u201cYou have to sell yourself\u201d, he advised young entrepreneurs\u00a0amongst the Tembusu students in the room. He used a PR company to spread news about his salon\u00a0to more people in the early days, letting him concentrate on cutting hair and running the shop.\u00a0He also gave three other pieces of advice: Don\u2019t overstock, let queues form, and it\u2019s better to be\u00a0understaffed than overstaffed. In other words, less is more.<\/p>\n

There was media coverage of the session by NHK, the Japanese national broadcaster, which was in\u00a0Singapore to film a programme on Shunji’s life and career. This is the first time a Tembusu Master’s\u00a0Tea will be featured in a national television broadcast.<\/p>\n

During their respective Master\u2019s Teas, both Shunji and Ambassador Kojima expressed their fondness\u00a0for Singapore. Shunji credited much of his current success to his being in Singapore. Ambassador\u00a0Kojima declared that out of the 25 countries he had been to, he was particularly fond of Singapore,\u00a0and would visit ISEAS every two months. \u201cWhen we are in Changi Airport, we don\u2019t feel like we\u2019re in\u00a0a foreign airport,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tembusu College recently hosted two prominent Japanese figures – Ambassador Takaaki Kojima and hairstylist Shunji Matsuo – in conversation sessions known as Master\u2019s Teas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","publication_type-report","theme-college-affairs","theme-politics","scope-asia","flavour-informative"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tembusu3.nus.edu.sg\/treehouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tembusu3.nus.edu.sg\/treehouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tembusu3.nus.edu.sg\/treehouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tembusu3.nus.edu.sg\/treehouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tembusu3.nus.edu.sg\/treehouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/tembusu3.nus.edu.sg\/treehouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":387,"href":"https:\/\/tembusu3.nus.edu.sg\/treehouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260\/revisions\/387"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tembusu3.nus.edu.sg\/treehouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tembusu3.nus.edu.sg\/treehouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tembusu3.nus.edu.sg\/treehouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tembusu3.nus.edu.sg\/treehouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}