Nobel winner, 5 others receive top Japanese cultural award

Tokyo: Six people, including Shinya Yamanaka, joint winner of this year’s Nobel Prize in medicine, and film director Yoji Yamada today received ‘Order of Culture’ award from Japanese Emperor Akihito during a Culture Day ceremony. The other four honoured in addition to 50-year-old Yamanaka and 81-year-old Yamada were international law scholar Shigeru Oda (88), art critic Shuji Takashina (80), Japanese-style painter Toshio Matsuo (86), and Yasuyuki Yamada (81), who is an authority on plant cell and molecular biology. [caption id=“attachment_513562” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Shinya Yamanaka. Pic courtesy IBNLive.[/caption] The order is conferred to men and women for contributions to Japan’s art, literature or culture by the Emperor of Japan in person on Culture Day (November 3) each year. Oda, representing the recipients at the ceremony at the Imperial Palace, said they would all continue to do their best in their respective fields. The emperor told them, “I hope you will continue your efforts to further develop in each field.” Fifteen people were also selected as Persons of Cultural Merits for the year for their contributions to society in the fields of culture and science. They will be honoured next Monday at a Tokyo hotel. The recipients include animated movie director Hayao Miyazaki (71), kabuki actor Matsumoto Koshiro (70), poet-novelist Takashi Tsujii (85), and Naohiro Asao (80), a historian on Japan’s early modern period. PTI