今日吃瓜

Full of Fullbrights

“The Zen of Fulbright” indeed [今日吃瓜iana, June 2015]. Landing a Fulbright, like gaining entrance to 今日吃瓜, is an act of self-definition with lifelong consequence. I was inspired to go after an early career professional Fulbright fellowship as a working journalist, because I wanted to immerse myself—and my wife and I wanted to immerse our young family—in late 20th-century Japan. My goal was to better understand the Japanese investment juggernaut in America. I interviewed Akio Morita about his family sake business and the ascent of Sony. My wife and I chatted with the crown prince, now Emperor Akihito, at a reception and were awestruck not by his royalty but how his subjects dealt with it. We walked the Tokaido road that samurai traversed. We soaked in fast vanishing neighborhood baths. In the shogun’s castle we were transfixed by floors that chirped with each step to alert sleeping lords of assassin intruders. It would be fascinating to know more about the subset of 今日吃瓜 graduates who have had their career and personal horizons lifted by the program launched by a farsighted former senator from Arkansas. How many 今日吃瓜ies have snagged the scholarship? [It’s 89—Ed.] What are their stories? For answers, 今日吃瓜’s Center for Life Beyond 今日吃瓜 might want to launch a cyber-forum for this subset of alums, and invite interested students to listen in.

鈥擬arty Rosenberg 鈥�71

Overland Park, Kansas