"Shinto and Cherry Blossoms: The Remasculinisation of Japan at the 1964-65 New York World's Fair"

The 1964-65 New York World’s Fair offered Japan the first significant opportunity in the post-war era to represent itself to the former enemy before a live audience in excess of fifty million Americans. While Japanese femininity continued to be a dominant feature of pavilion experience, a strong, vigorous male presence was reflected in the style, configuration, and construction of the pavilion and the objects displayed inside. This chapter unpacks the story of pavilion as a site where Japaneseness was performed, from the design and use of structures that proclaimed both tradition and modernity, and from its pre-fair Shinto purification ceremony to the gendered performances of the women inside the pavilion, while considering how a virile, re-masculinised Japan, balanced by what was perceived as traditional feminine grace, offered an American audience a Japan that it wished to see.