For hundreds of years, Japanese have used name stamps, known as Hanko, to prove their identity. People use stamps in everyday situations, such as receiving a parcel, and in formal contexts, such as business transactions. Our guest, Hanko carver Kobayashi Shigehito, shows us how a Hanko is made by hand. We also learn how the move towards remote working, triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, is affecting how Hanko are used.

Claudio Feliciani is a Swiss-Italian scientist whose main interest is the movement of crowds. He worked alongside 3 Japanese scientists on a study that examined why people bump into each other when some of them are looking at a smartphone. It won an Ig Nobel Prize, which honors research that first makes you laugh, then makes you think. In a Japanophiles interview, Feliciani tells Peter Barakan how he ended up in Japan, and why he finds crowds so fascinating.