Steven Herman spent 1990-2006 in Japan, most of those years with Voice of America. He served as South East Asia Bureau Chief as well as North East Asia Bureau Chief for the Korean Penninsula & Japan. Over his 16 years living in Japan he covered the Kobe Earthquake as well as the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake-tsunami-nuclear disaster, which he said was "covering three disasters at the same time."

He also recounts his more recent days as a White House Foreign Correspondent, especially his time as a traveling pool reporter. You'll learn what it's like to fly on Air Force One, why he got banned (twice) from X by Elon Musk, that "Presidential M&M's" are a thing, and his best advice for those wanting to write a book about their experiences in a foreign country.

Finally, he gives a concise account of what happened to VOA in the Trump Administration, his role as a whistle-blower, and tells us why DOGE shut them down. Herman retired from VOA in mid 2025 and now teaches journalism. In this latter discussion, he reveals how he blew the biggest scoop ever in his journalism career.

Herman is currently the executive director of the Jordan Center for Journalism Advocacy & Innovation in the School of Journalism & New Media at the University of Mississippi.

Some of Herman's favorite books on Japan are:

Notes in Japan, by Alfred Parsons (1896)

No Surrender: My 30-year War the autobiography of Noda Hiro (1974, transl. Charles S. Terry)

The Warrior's Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa (Princeton Univ. Press, 1991)

Links

You can find Steve Herman on social media at:

Mastadon, Blue Sky, Threads, Substack, LinkedIn and Instagram

The Books on Asia Podcast is co-produced with Plum Rain Press.

Podcast host Amy Chavez is author of The Widow, the Priest, and the Octopus Hunter: Discovering a Lost Way of Life on a Secluded Japanese Island. and Amy's Guide to Best Behavior in Japan.

The Books on Asia website posts book reviews, podcast episodes and episode Show Notes. Subscribe to the BOA podcast from your favorite podcast service. Subscribe to the Books on Asia newsletter to receive news of the latest new book releases, reviews and podcast episodes.

John Ross speaks with English travel writer and photographer David Leffman about his new book, A Murder in Yunnan: The Unsolved Killing of a British Diplomat on China’s Southwestern Frontier. The conversation begins with David’s own long engagement with China, which started with a difficult first trip in 1985, and then continued a decade later with work on The Rough Guide to China.

In the 1860s, the British dreamed of opening a profitable overland trade route into China from British India via Burma. The 1868 Sladen Expedition scouted a route from Bhamo in Burma to Tengyue/Tengchong in Yunnan, China. The going was difficult because the southwestern frontier area had been devastated by prolonged Muslim uprisings and banditry. The Browne Expedition tried again in 1875. Augustus Raymond Margary, a young British diplomat and gifted Chinese speaker, joined this second expedition after making a remarkable overland journey from Shanghai across the breadth of China. But tragedy soon struck.

Margary’s murder near the border – what became known as the Margary Affair – turned into a diplomatic crisis, nearly provoking a third Anglo-Chinese war. This BOA episode contains no spoilers; David doesn’t reveal who he thinks killed the young Englishman, but we do run through some of the many suspects and look at the fallout from this true crime case. And, as icing on the cake, we even hear about a Burmese mission to Peking with elephants as tribute.

A Murder in Yunnan is published by the Hong Kong-based Blacksmith Books. It’s due out April 7, 2026 but can be preordered now.

To learn more about David Leffman’s writing, visit his website.

John has written reviews for Bookish Asia of David’s earlier China books.

The Mercenary Mandarin: How a British adventurer became a general in Qing-dynasty China. John also did a related author interview with David for this book.

Paper Horses: Woodblock Prints of Gods from Northern China

The Books on Asia Podcast is co-produced with Plum Rain Press.

Podcast host Amy Chavez is author of The Widow, the Priest, and the Octopus Hunter: Discovering a Lost Way of Life on a Secluded Japanese Island. and Amy's Guide to Best Behavior in Japan.

The Books on Asia website posts book reviews, podcast episodes and episode Show Notes. Subscribe to the BOA podcast from your favorite podcast service. Subscribe to the Books on Asia newsletter to receive news of the latest new book releases, reviews and podcast episodes.

Amy discusses the relationship between anti-foreign sentiment, overtourism, and tourist manners in Japan. Protests in Kyoto, Kamakura, and Tokyo claim that overtourism negatively impacts the daily lives of locals. Right-wing populist groups like the Sanseito party further use overtourism to fuel anti-foreign sentiment. With Japan's aging population, and only 59% of the Japanese people in the working age range, foreign workers are being brought to Japan to fill jobs, creating a perceived burden to locals, who are already battling overtourism. Amy also shares examples of poor tourist behavior that exacerbates anti-foreign sentiment. She emphasizes the importance of understanding and respecting Japanese culture to improve the tourist experience. Lastly, she offers tips from her book on how to be polite because, actually, many Japanese manners are not that obvious!

The Books on Asia Podcast is co-produced with Plum Rain Press.

Podcast host Amy Chavez is author of The Widow, the Priest, and the Octopus Hunter: Discovering a Lost Way of Life on a Secluded Japanese Island. and Amy's Guide to Best Behavior in Japan.

The Books on Asia website posts book reviews, podcast episodes and episode Show Notes. Subscribe to the BOA podcast from your favorite podcast service. Subscribe to the Books on Asia newsletter to receive news of the latest new book releases, reviews and podcast episodes.

Robert Norris has lived in Japan since 1983, mostly in Dazaifu, near Fukuoka, Kyushu. After retiring from university teaching in 2016, he returned to his long-standing passion for writing. The result was a heartfelt memoir about his life – and his mother’s – titled: The Good Lord Willing and the Creek Don’t Rise: Pentimento Memories of Mom and Me (Tin Gate, 2023).

In this episode with John Ross, we hear about Robert’s decades in Japan, from his early days learning Japanese through a local softball team, to his later academic career, including his time as a university dean. Naturally, the conversation also turns to books, and some of his favorite works of Japanese fiction.

Books & Authors mentioned:

The Woman in the Dunes by Abe Kōbō (published in Japanese in 1962; English edition, and film adaptation 1964).
No Longer Human by Dazai Osamu (Original Japanese title Ningen Shikkaku, published 1948, English. Edition 1958).
The Breaking Jewel by Oda Makoto (English edition, 2003, translated by Donald Keene)
Sakaguchi Ango’s short story “The Idiot” ("Hakui," published 1946).
In the discussion, Robert Norris referred to the "Buraiha" (無頼派 “decadent school” literary movement), comparing these post-WWII writers to the Beat Generation in the US. The school is associated with Dazai Osamu, Sakaguchi Ango, and contemporaries.

Learn more about Robert Norris and his writing at his website.

(This episode was originally released on the Bookish Asia Podcast with Plum Rain Press in 2024).

The Books on Asia Podcast is co-produced with Plum Rain Press.

Podcast host Amy Chavez is author of The Widow, the Priest, and the Octopus Hunter: Discovering a Lost Way of Life on a Secluded Japanese Island. and Amy's Guide to Best Behavior in Japan.

The Books on Asia website posts book reviews, podcast episodes and episode Show Notes. Subscribe to the BOA podcast from your favorite podcast service. Subscribe to the Books on Asia newsletter to receive news of the latest new book releases, reviews and podcast episodes.

In a tribute to the 2026 Winter Olympics being held right now in Cortina, Italy, Amy takes up a discussion of skiing in Japan. Japan has hosted the Winter Olympics 2 times: 1972 (Sapporo) and 1998 (Nagano). Amy introduces previous Washington Post Tokyo Bureau Chief T.R. Reid's guidebook called Ski Japan! (Kodansha, 1993).

T.R. Reid lived in Japan for five years during the early 1990's. When the Gulf War started, the world turned its attention to that news, leaving foreign journalists in Japan with some unexpected free time. Reid and his family took action: they went skiing! The result is his 1993 guide to skiing in Japan, called Ski Japan!

Tasked with updating the book for 2026-27 skiing and snowboarding audience, Amy talks about some of the points in Reid's book: things that have changed as well as those that have not, and the affects of mass-tourism on Japan's ski resorts.

Ski Resorts Mentioned:

Niseko, Asahidake, Furano, Naeba, Hakuba Valley, Madarao and Tangram Ski Circus, and Myoko Ski Resorts.

Literary Ski Spots

Yasunari Kawabata's Snow Country took place in Yuzawa Onsen, the train station you get off at to get to Naeba Ski Area. There's a Snow Country museum behind the station which is excellent.

In Sapporo's Odori Park, there is a statue of Ishikawa Takuboku (1886-1912), author and poet: A Handful Of Sand, Romaji Diary and Sad Toys.

In Asahikawa, Hokkaido, there is the lovely, contemplative Miura Ayako Literature Museum dedicated to the Christian novelist who lived from 1922-1999, and wrote Shiokari Pass as well as other works not yet translated into English. It's a lovely 30-40 minute walk through the snow from the back of Asahikawa station.

There are also several statues and plaques dedicated to the two Austrian fathers of Japanese Skiing: Theordore Von Lerch and Hannes Schnieder. Von Lerch monuments can be found in the front of Asahikawa Airport in Hokkaido, and at Joetsu, Niigata, the latter considered the birthplace of skiing in Japan.

The Books on Asia Podcast is co-produced with Plum Rain Press.

Podcast host Amy Chavez is author of The Widow, the Priest, and the Octopus Hunter: Discovering a Lost Way of Life on a Secluded Japanese Island. and Amy's Guide to Best Behavior in Japan.

The Books on Asia website posts book reviews, podcast episodes and episode Show Notes. Subscribe to the BOA podcast from your favorite podcast service. Subscribe to the Books on Asia newsletter to receive news of the latest new book releases, reviews and podcast episodes.

John Ross talks to Lee Moore about his book, China’s Backstory: The History Beijing Doesn’t Want You to Read (2025, Unsung Voices Books). The book looks at the four important China-related stories that often make headlines: Taiwan, Xinjiang, the Chinese economy, and Hong Kong. In this conversation, Lee and John focus mainly on the history of Xinjiang and the Uyghurs, but also cover a wide range of other topics. Hoping to reach a broad audience, Lee took an unusual approach to writing China’s Backstory; although a scholar, he uses colloquial translations of Chinese texts, peppers his paragraphs with colorful language, and generally has a lot of fun. The approach is sure to generate controversy. The book is factually sound, however (it comes with endnotes), and has numerous literary references, as we would expect from the host of the long-running Chinese Literature Podcast.

Lee Moore’s book: China’s Backstory: The History Beijing Doesn’t Want You to Read (2025, Unsung Voices Books).

Lee’s podcast: Chinese Literature Podcast

Lee Moore’s book recommendations

He went with three books on China which he describes as “old school scholarship” and ones that most BOA listeners will likely not have read.

1. Michael Pollak’s Mandarins, Jews and Missionaries: Jewish Experience in the Chinese Empire (1980, Jewish Publication Society of America)

2. Sarah Paine’s Imperial Rivals: China, Russia and Their Disputed Frontier (1996, M. E. Sharpe)

3. Hodong Kim’s Holy War in China: The Muslim Rebellion and State in Chinese Central Asia, 1864-1877 (2004, Stanford University Press)

The Books on Asia Podcast is co-produced with Plum Rain Press.

Podcast host Amy Chavez is author of The Widow, the Priest, and the Octopus Hunter: Discovering a Lost Way of Life on a Secluded Japanese Island. and Amy's Guide to Best Behavior in Japan.

The Books on Asia website posts book reviews, podcast episodes and episode Show Notes. Subscribe to the BOA podcast from your favorite podcast service. Subscribe to the Books on Asia newsletter to receive news of the latest new book releases, reviews and podcast episodes.

Amy muses on the death of guidebooks due to the internet and reminisces about some oldies but goodies on Japan, from John Murray's Handbook for Travellers in Japan (1891) to more recent guidebooks specializing in hiking mountains and pilgrimages.

Books Mentioned

John Murray's Handbook for Travellers in Japan (1890's)

Japanese Customs and Manners by Mock Joya (Sakurai Shoten/JTB, 1951)

Japanese Etiquette: An Introduction (World Fellowship Committee of the Tokyo WYCA, Charles E Tuttle Co., 1955)

Japanese Etiquette, by Bun Nakajima (1955, 1957)

Western Manners and English Conversation, by Glenn F. Baker (Sanseido, 1937)

Japan Inside Out by Jay, Sumi & Garet Gluck (1964, 1992)

Tokyo Subway Guide: Including 40 Bilingual Station Maps, by Boye Lafayette DeMente (Kodansha, 2002)

A Guide to Food Buying in Japan, by Caroyn R. Krouse (Tuttle, 1986)

A Birdwatcher's Guide to Japan, by Mark Brazil (Kodansha International, 1987)

Etiquette Guide to Japan, by Boye De Mente (Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1990)

Amy's Guide to Best Behavior in Japan (Stone Bridge Press, 2018)

Hiking and Trekking the Japan Alps and Mount Fuji by Tom Fay and Wes Lang (Cicerone, 2019)

Japan's Kumano Kodo Pilgrimage, by Kat Davis (Cicerone, 2019)

The Books on Asia Podcast is co-produced with Plum Rain Press.

Podcast host Amy Chavez is author of The Widow, the Priest, and the Octopus Hunter: Discovering a Lost Way of Life on a Secluded Japanese Island. and Amy's Guide to Best Behavior in Japan.

The Books on Asia website posts book reviews, podcast episodes and episode Show Notes. Subscribe to the BOA podcast from your favorite podcast service. Subscribe to the Books on Asia newsletter to receive news of the latest new book releases, reviews and podcast episodes.