February offers a chance to experience both modern and traditional Japan. The Embassy�fs third annual Manga competition will present awards to talented young British artists. It is encouraging to see how the quantity and quality of entries have increased over the last two years. On 25 February, Sir Hugh Cortazzi, former British Ambassador to Japan, will give a talk about the Japanese village in Knightsbridge which opened in 1885.�@It gave people in Victorian London a chance to have a taste of Japanese life which must have been very foreign and exotic to them.

The exhibition at Goldsmith�fs will feature innovative silver vessels produced by the award-winning Japanese artist, Hiroshi Suzuki. Meanwhile, the British Film Institute is showing films by Yasujiro Ozu, a prominent Japanese film director in the post-war period. For those inclined towards more traditional Japanese art, The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge will open a diplay of netsuke, miniature sculpture pieces worn by the Japanese during the Edo period.