Begin Japanology

Today, 80% of the world's excavators are built from Japanese designs. There's hardly a country in the world where Japanese excavators haven't made a contribution. And Japanese engineers continue to design innovative excavators - ones that can do much more than just shovel dirt. One state-of-the-art model has a versatile pair of arms; it's essentially a robot! And some models have such precise control that they can hold brushes and write Japanese calligraphy! One watershed moment in Japan came when a new kind of excavator greatly accelerated infrastructure development in the run-up to the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. In Cambodia, where land mines left over from past conflict often injure and kill people, one Japanese man modified an excavator so that it could save lives. On this edition of BEGIN Japanology, our theme is excavators. Through an examination of these machines, we'll dig deep into Japanese craft expertise.