EAST 212

EAST 212 DIY GALLERY

2011-12-14T20:45:00.000-05:00

Many thanks to Chris for creating and running the EAST 212 DIY GALLERY! Click here to view it. 5 pages of projects are already posted – with many more to come!

DIY Invitation #2: Assassinate a Story

2011-11-09T11:04:00.001-05:00

"From Tales of Assassinations to Assassinations of Tales"

In the introduction and chapter 6 of her book Empires and Assassinations, Naitô Chizuko examines storytelling patterns in late Meiji (and contemporary) newspapers. You are invited to look for similar storytelling patterns in recent journalism. For example, you might look for patterns Naitô analyzes in media stories about the Fukushima meltdowns, radiation, or nuclear power. Take some time to think about the storytelling pattern and how it functions. Jot down the similarities, but also note the variations and differences. Think carefully about the words used in the article or report you analyze.

You may choose to analyze and "assassinate" print media in any language and produced anywhere for this 2nd DIY project.

It will probably be easiest to choose only one news report or article, but some of you may end up wanting to look at several short examples or excerpts that share a storytelling pattern. Either way is acceptable.

Create a 1-page flyer or poster in which you "assassinate" a story (in a news report or article) and email it to me (as a PDF or JPEG file) before the last day of class.

Welcome to Quiz #2

2011-10-31T12:37:00.000-04:00

Welcome to your second take-home quiz, which is due at the beginning of class on Wednesday, November 2nd. Please answer all of the following questions. Each answer should consist of no more than 2 sentences. Please type or write your answers and make sure your name and student number appear at the top of the page. (A cover sheet is not necessary.) You may write your quiz in English, French, or Japanese. Make sure to proofread for typos, grammatical errors, etc.!

1. What is the historical context for Ochiai’s claim that “the Japanese youth of today are absolutely lawless” and/or the phrase “Tel Aviv guerrilla-phobia” in the story “Sayonara Tsai-chien” by Hwang Chun-ming?

2. How were colonized communities depicted as both parts of “the national body” and outside (or external to) the nation in the context of Japanese colonialism?

3. Describe one way in which photographic images of Hirohito (the Shôwa Emperor) on horseback were compatible with (or useful for the promotion of) the notion of a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

4. How does the Yasukuni Shrine’s war memorial museum represent Japan’s military history and why is this view controversial?

5. Describe two significant changes to Japan Post brought on by the Koizumi administration’s privatization reforms that were addressed in lecture.

6. Describe one way in which the folk tale of Momotarô (the Peach Boy) was adapted for use as wartime propaganda.

7. Who has been meeting in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul for weekly protests since 1992, and what is their purpose in doing so?

8. In the radio/podcast interview conducted by Bridget Gagné, how does Thomas Lamarre characterize the role of “state centralization” in relation to energy policies and disasters?

9. In your own words, summarize Thomas Lamarre’s understanding of how the “workings of psychic powers in Akira follow logically from nuclear radiation.”

10. In what context does Amamiya Karin describe “experiencing competition at the lowest echelons” of Japanese society?

Short reading for Monday

2011-10-28T20:22:00.000-04:00

Please read the following article that appeared in the NY Times in 1970.

"Forces in Japan See Mishima as Yesterday's Dreamer"

New York Times, December 12, 1970

By TAKASHI OKA

Gotemba, Japan, Dec. 5--"To try to revive an Emperor-centered Japan--in this day and age people simply aren't going to go along with a scheme like that," said Lance Cpl. Nobuyuki Fujimoto.

He was speaking of Yukio Mishima, the renowned Japanese writer, who killed himself Nov. 25. He added that he thought Mr. Mishima had been born 30 years too late.

Five of Corporal Fujimoto's companions, all volunteers serving their second two-year enlistments in the ground Self-Defense Forces nodded agreement.

"Mr. Mishima was a writer," said another lance corporal, Kengo Ueno. "If he wanted to appeal to the people, he should have used his pen, not his sword."

Stronger Force Was Goal

Had Mr. Mishima heard the conversation, he might have gnashed his teeth in despair. The purpose of his dramatic hara-kiri was to arouse the 260,000-man Self-Defense Forces into demanding a revision of the Constitution that would restore to them what he considered their rightful place as a proper army, navy and air force, dedicated to reviving an Emperor-centered nation.

The very men to whom he directed his impassioned appeal rejected it almost unanimously. They booed and heckled him at Camp Ichigaya in Tokyo when he harangued them from the central balcony of Eastern Command Headquarters.

Here at Camp Fuji, where Mr. Mishima and his Shield Society, a private army, learned the martial arts of bayonet and target practice or went tenting on the broad slopes of the majestic snow-capped mountain, the men with whom he had trained shook their heads and said that his suicide, in the office of a Self-Defense Force commander, was incomprehensible.

Emphasis on Skills

To an outsider there is a kind of Boy Scout atmosphere about the Self-Defense Forces. The emphasis is on teaching skills and building character. The effort is to give the enlistees--all volunteers ranging from their late teens to their early twenties; there is no conscription--a variety of tasks to keep them interested and occupied.

Col. Masatada Yagi, commander of the Fuji Regiment, said: "Our modern Self-Defense Forces requires so many different skills that two years is barely enough to learn them all. We try to get our men to stay in two terms--four years--so that they are of some use to us, not leaving just as they become able to stand on their own two feet."

A lot of time is spent practicing the three martial arts--shooting, long-distance running and jukendo, a sports version of bayonet drill using wooden rifles and padded clothing.

The commander of Company 3 of the 1,700-man regiment, Maj. Masahiro Horimura, who was a staff officer when Mr. Mishima came here to train said:

"He never showed the least sign of wanting to propagandize us, into getting us to agree that an Emperor-centered Japan should be restored. I was bowled over Nov. 25 when I heard he had invaded Camp Ichigaya with four followers. I couldn't believe it--I thought that radical leftist students were to blame and that Mr. Mishima had gone to persuade them to give up."

Still another corporal, Katsuyuki Yamashita, alluding to the fact that the Self-Defense Forces are not equipped with offensive weapons and that the Constitution forbids "war potential," said:

"In his appeal, Mr. Mishima wanted to revise the Constitution so as to turn the Self-Defense Forces into a proper army. I wish we enjoyed a more clear-cut legal position, but I'm against revising the Constitution. I wish that instead of doing what he did, Mr. Mishima had tried to help us in a more long-term sense, to get public opinion to favor a better position for us.

Said S. Sgt. Takaji Amma, an 18-year veteran of the Self-Defense Forces:

"I met Mr. Mishima four times--the last time just a couple of weeks before his suicide--when he came up here to Camp Fuji with his Shield Society students. The first time, he was here almost a month. He loves Japanese fencing, and so do I. We often fenced together. I was most impressed by him.

"He never put on airs, never acted as if he were a famous novelist. When we put on our masks and measured sword against sword, we were just two devotees of kendo, opening our hearts to each other in the unspoken language of Budo, the way of the samurai."

"Why did he have to do what he did?" the sergeant asked. "Was there no other way? We are a democratic nation. If you want to change the system, you should do so peacefully, through elections."

Sergeant Amma is from a village in Shizuoka, some hundred miles south of Tokyo. He joined the Self-Defense Forces as an 18-year-old, he said, because "I came from a rather poor family and my brother had been killed during the war."

He said he had found happiness and fulfillment in the force. He deeply respects Emperor Hirohito, and his family still cuts pictures of the Emperor from newspapers and magazines to paste up in a special album.

But, the sergeant added, he feels that the Constitution, which calls the Emperor a symbol of state rather than a living god, as before, is right.

Asked if he would join a coup d'état, Sergeant Amma thought a moment.

"That would depend," he said. "If one commander, say my colonel, asked me, I would refuse. If it were the whole Self-Defense Forces moving as one, I would go along. But that kind of a situation is not going to arise suddenly. We would all see it coming--for instance, if it looked as if some Communist regime were about to take over."

Questioning of Orders

Younger members were more categorical.

"I see no need to obey an order I think is wrong," said 22-year-old Lance Cpl. Ryuichi Sasaki. "We'd make our officers stop such a thing right away."

Corporal Sasaki, who is from Niigata on the Japan Sea coast, enlisted at the age of 18, after finishing high school. Of 350 boys in his graduating class, he said 25 entered the Self-Defense Forces. He will quit next year when his second enlistment will be over.

"I've learned a lot from the experience," he said. "I've learned discipline, and how to get along with others. Now I want to go into some kind of job in the service field--a department store, or a travel agency, or something similar. The Self-Defense Force is helping me find a job."

Combat Experience Lacking

"We think we're as good as any other army in this region," said a staff officer, "but of course the one thing we lack is actual combat experience. I know the Koreans think they are stronger than we are. I don't agree, but there's no way we can prove this.

"All I can say is that I think we have a force capable of performing the mission assigned to it-- which is to defend the homeland but not to go on expeditions to other countries."

"We don't want to be anything other than what we are," he added, "and until Nov. 25 we never dreamed that Mr. Mishima wanted us to be anything else either."

Welcome to Quiz #1

2011-10-03T19:57:00.005-04:00

Welcome to your take-home quiz, which is due at the beginning of class on Wednesday, Oct. 5th.

Please type or write your answers on a piece of paper and make sure your name and student number appear on the top of the page. (If you choose to submit a handwritten quiz, please write legibly.) You may write your quiz in English, French, or Japanese. Make sure to proofread for grammar, typos, etc.!

Remember that your answers should be no more than two sentences each.

My apologies to those of you who submitted proposed questions this afternoon. I didn't see them all in time to include them in today's list. There were many great questions! All but one of the following questions were written by students in class (with only very minor modifications in a few instances)!

1. In many typical depictions of Monju, we see the bodhisattva holding a sword. What does this sword symbolize?

2. In your own words, explain how Scott Schnell justifies his use of literary fiction as a source for historical and ethnographic research in "Ema Shû's 'The Mountain Folk': Fictionalized Ethnography and Veiled Dissent"?

3. Describe one of the reasons for the Chichibu Incident and one of the alternative forms of governance or community organization that the Chichibu Revolutionary Army attempted to create.

4. Describe how the term "senpai" is used in the story "The Legend of the Senpai" by Hoshino Tomoyuki.

5. According to Christopher Byrne's lecture, what are the three marks of existence in Buddhism?

6. Briefly explain why there was there a large gathering of protesters surrounding the Diet Building in 1960.

7. Why is it difficult to ascertain the number of Ainu living in Japan today? (Provide at least 2 reasons.)

8. In the story "Comrade Taguchi's Sorrow" by Kobayashi Takiji, why is Taguchi's sister afraid of being seen?

9. How long can one be held in jail in contemporary Japan without charge? According to lecture, what are some repercussions of this?

10. Briefly explain the significance of "impermanence" in Kamo no chômei's "An Account of my Hermitage."

Although they didn't make the final list, the questions by C (about Kappaya Oraku) and M (about how unification is "homogenizing") were particularly sophisticated and insightful. C and M, please come by office hours some time. I will give you each a book as a present for writing such great questions.

For those who are interested, click here to view the video I mentioned in class today. You can learn more by clicking here and here. For a related story even closer to Montréal, you might also want to watch this documentary film.

Feel free to use the comments section below to discuss the questions with one another or arrange study groups. However, please also remember this blog is public and anyone can view any information you post here.

Quiz #1

2011-09-29T17:45:00.001-04:00

You have received an email via WebCT/MyCourses regarding next Monday's quiz.

Please post your suggestions for questions for the first quiz in the comments section below.

Myth of Tomorrow

2011-09-24T18:02:00.000-04:00

While reading "The Legend of the Senpai" by Hoshino Tomoyuki, we'll be thinking about Okamoto Tarô's "Myth of Tomorrow."

Here are two short videos addressing how some artists in Japan are engaging Okamoto's artwork today.

Click here to watch "Atomic Artists," a piece produced for the US media outlet PBS's Frontline series.

Click here to watch part 3 of "Tokyo Rising," a film series featuring Pharrell of the Neptunes interviewing artists and friends in Japan in the aftermath of 3.11.

Messages for our guests

2011-09-15T13:28:00.000-04:00

Now that you've completed your first assignment, you are hopefully reflecting back on what we have experienced thus far. If you have messages for the guests who visited our class on Monday, please feel free to post them in the comments section below.

To leave a comment, click on the word "comment" or "comments" below this post. A small window will appear, and you may write your comment in the box beneath the words "Leave your comment." You may sign in anonymously if you choose. Click on the circle that appears before the posting option you prefer. You may need to complete a security question to prove you are not a machine. If anyone has any questions, please let me know.

Visual Underground and La Cinémathèque québécoise

2011-09-14T16:58:00.001-04:00

Don't forget Visual Underground is happening this weekend! Check your course outline for information on how to earn extra credit. Added to the list of extra credit options are any of the Japanese films being screened by La Cinémathèque Québécoise this month, especially the following three.

Dare mo shiranai (Nobody Knows)

Koshikei (Death by Hanging)

Nikudan (Human Bullet)

This doesn't mean you have more extra credit assignments. It just means you have more options from which to choose.

Small Group Assignment

2011-08-22T03:05:00.021-04:00

Please refer to your course outline to find the instructions for your first assignment, which is based on the following required readings and videos. Recommended optional readings appear at the end of this post, along with a suggestion for future study.

Required Readings and Videos:

Click here to read "Japan's Nuclear Half-Century" by Mark Pendleton.
Click here to read "Social Fallout: Marginalization after the Fukushima Nuclear Meltdown" by Robert Jacobs.
Click here to read "The Day the Sun Rose in the West" by Oishi Matashichi and Richard Falk.
Click here to read "Fukushima Clouds Hiroshima Anniversary" by Suvendrini Kakuchi. (You can access the same piece here if you have trouble with the first link.)
Click here and here to read information and a report about JPEPA (the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement).
Click here to read "We Became Completely Indifferent" by Tomoyuki Hoshino.
Click here to read "Towards a Day of Anger" by illcommonz.

To view a larger version of the following videos, click on the word "YouTube" to access the webpage where this video is hosted. There, you will be able to view the video in full screen mode if you like. This could make it easier to read the subtitles.

Optional Supplementary Readings:

Click here to read a short statement by Yupo Abe and Oki Kano (scroll down to the end for the English).
Click here to read "To Fellow Adults of My Generation" by illcommonz.
Click here to read "An Inundation of Rumors is Already Announcing the Advent of Revolution."
Click here to access a PDF file of the full Policy Brief by the Philippine Senate's Economic Planning Office on the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA). See especially sections 3.30 - 3.36 (pp. 9-10).
Click here to read the press release entitled "Japan's nuke waste knocking on Philippine doors."
Click here to read "Youth Green Warriors Tell Japan: Philippines is Not a Free Waste Trade Zone" (Independent Media Center in Quezon City).
Click here to read "Bikini: 50 Years of Nuclear Exposure."
Click here to read "The Truth of the Fukushima 50" by Kenji Higuchi.

Suggestion for Future Study:

"Bikinis and Other S/pacific N/oceans" by Teresia K. Teaiwa. In Militarized Currents: Toward a Decolonized Future in Asia and the Pacific, edited by Setsu Shigematsu and Keith L Camacho, University of Minnesota Press, 2010: 15-31. Originally published in The Contemporary Pacific, Volume 6, Number 1, University of Hawai'i Press, 1994.

DIY Invitation #1: Critically Engage and Participate in Visual Culture

2011-08-22T02:46:00.003-04:00

Answers for pregnant women

and mothers of small children

who are concerned

about radiation

~for your peace of mind when it comes to water, air, and food~

The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare

The image above is the cover of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan's "Pamphlet for Mothers," which was distributed in early April of 2011.

The pamphlet instructs pregnant women to manage their health as usual (いつもどうりの健康管理) without excessive fear of radiation exposure for their own health and the health of their soon-to-be born babies.

Readers are also instructed that there is no cause for alarm regarding infants and children when it comes to radiation exposure and that breastfeeding mothers should continue nursing as usual.

This pamphlet quickly circulated via Twitter and blogs in April. In this Tweet, the award-winning novelist Hoshino Tomoyuki describes it as a pamphlet that "treated people like fools"(人をバカにしたパンフだな). Others pointed out that while the pamphlet was intended to quell fears and reassure pregnant women and mothers, it provided no substantive information to justify any admonition to trust the government. In other words, the pamphlet was criticized for encouraging people not to worry and trust the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's assurances without providing evidence or sufficient explanation.

What kinds of messages about radiation and pregnancy might one have encountered even prior to March 11th that could contribute to worries?

Typically, teenage girls or women who need an x-ray are asked whether there is a chance they might be pregnant before a technician will take an x-ray. It is also common to see the following kinds of signs near x-ray equipment.

... please inform us ahead of time

if you are pregnant

or think you might be pregnant...

Click here if you'd like to read the U.S. Center for Disease Control's Fact Sheet on Radiation and Pregnancy.

Certain corporations produce and market products such as "belly armor" as a "precautionary measure" to minimize the amount of everyday radiation exposure.

You may also want to read about Alice Stewart, an epidemiologist behind the Oxford Childhood Cancer Survey.

In April and May of 2011, as concerns over reports of radioactive iodine and cesium detected in the breast milk of some women in Japan continued along with other radiation-related concerns, anti-nuclear protest movements gained momentum. Many posters that have been used at de-nuke demonstrations suggest it's in the best interest of people, including children, not to trust the government when it comes to information related to nuclear safety and radiation. The following are a few examples, and you can find many more here.

Do you still believe "there are no immediate effects?"

Is it okay to be born in this Japan? De-Nuke

It's like this.

Let's protect them.

Images of children have also figured prominently in energy industry public relations campaigns. One well-known example is Tokyo Electric Power Company's character Denko-chan, who has appeared not only in print advertisements, but on clothing, lunch boxes, and other goods. In the following image, she tells us to "get along well with" or "be friends with" electricity.

How do you understand the use of images in the TEPCO ad, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's pamphlet, and the de-nuke posters? How are the images used to persuade or convey a story, a message, and/or an argument?

Feel free to use the comments section below to discuss the images and share ideas with one another.

Here is your DIY Project Invitation:
You are invited to make your own poster or other visual piece to respond to one or more of the images above or otherwise further related discussion, inquiry, or action. Send your image as a PDF or JPEG file (and an artist's statement if you like) to me via email, and I'll post it on the blog. If you make a poster or image that is too large to scan, a JPEG from a photograph is also acceptable.

The second DIY invitation will appear on this blog in mid-November. Both are due no later than December 6th.

Follow-up on the last class

2009-04-09T17:43:00.003-04:00

Here's a fun fact: I first learned about Tanaka Mitsu and Tokoro Mitsuko from a McGill grad! Her undergraduate advisor was Thomas LaMarre! Yes, the very same Prof. La Marre who wrote your Akira essay! Although I wouldn't get to meet her in person until about six years ago, I started corresponding with her (as an academic "pen pal") when we were both still graduate students at different universities in the U.S. Her name is Setsu Shigematsu, and she is now a professor at the University of California-Riverside. She is also one of the smartest people I know. She wrote about Tanaka and Tokoro in her dissertation on the women's liberation movement in Japan in the 1960s and 70s, and she does interesting research in many other areas too. Anyway, I learned about the quote I shared at the end of class from her too. Here it is as a reminder:

“In any group [organization], it is vital to foster trust continuously by recognizing the totality of the other's existence, to train each other and to build up each other's subjectivity.”

What does that mean? How would it work?

How can you relate this idea to Monju’s mission?

Finally, in case you want to watch the whole thing and reflect on the questions I posed in class, here is the clip of Yuri Kochiyama's interview in its entirety. You can access the print interview I referenced here.

important annoucement!

2009-04-09T08:00:00.001-04:00

I received the following announcement from the Associate Dean for Student Affairs:

Effective immediately, the procedures for students who need to request a deferred exam for a formal final take-home exam will be as follows:

Students who do not submit the formal final take-home exam on the scheduled date, and have serious, documented reasons, must apply for a deferred exam on Minerva. The request will be processed by Arts OASIS as for all formal final exams.

Instructors may no longer grant deferrals of formal final take-home exams. Instructors must submit a grade of J for students who do not submit the formal final take-home exam. These students may apply for a supplemental exam through the Minerva supplemental exam module if their request for a deferral is not approved.

Public Art Inspired By Our Class?

2009-04-08T23:06:00.003-04:00

Along with some more profiles I've been meaning to post (and soon will), I've received many other very wonderful links, photos, and films to share with the class. I will get to them all -- maybe some after the final grades are submitted, so keep checking. Tonight's post comes from e.T., who documented some writing on a bathroom stall door in a women's bathroom in our building. Click on any of the images to view larger versions.

So, what did you think of the movie? And Heather's lecture?

2009-04-07T18:36:00.003-04:00

So, what did you all think of the movie tonight? What was it about? How did Ichigo and Momoko handle the rules and expectations in their lives? How did they both change through their connection?

The title for English distribution is Kamikaze Girls. The original title is Shimotsuma Monogatari, which means “The Tale of Shimotsuma.” Shimotsuma is a town in Ibaraki Prefecture.

In the film, you also got to see what I believe is still the world's tallest statue. This statue is called the Ushiku Buddha, because it is located in the town of Ushiku. It’s relatively new (finished in 1995) and has an elevator inside that will take you to the top. It’s 120 meters (385 feet) tall!! Almost all of the tallest statues in the world feature Buddhist figures.

What did you think of Heather's lecture? One of the things she talked about was the Heian Court space in which women like Sei Shônagon lived. Perhaps you can make connections to some of the spaces represented in the film. Also, what do you make of the following image? You'll find these signs on certain subway/train cars in Tokyo and elsewhere in Japan today.

Why would this sort of rule be introduced? Who do you think made this rule? How effective do you think it might be? What do you think of the sign itself (language, color, etc.)?

Yamamba

2009-04-03T15:25:00.004-04:00

Are any of you familiar with the word yamamba as a slang term for young women who dress like this? Their salon tans, white eye shadow, and bleached hair only loosely resemble their namesake, who is more like the so-called "goblin" in your final folk tale for next week.

The yamamba or yama-uba is a figure from folk tales and literature.

As I said in class, she may be able to read minds. She may chase after people who are lost. She may eat victims, especially young men. She may be a mother, and a fiercely protective mother at that. The poster is for a performance of a yamamba tale, and, as you can see, she doesn't look terribly friendly.

Maybe you can start thinking about why on earth we are ending the semester with this folk tale and the other readings for next week.

If you are taking Japanese classes, maybe you can try asking your teachers what they think of yamamba.

I'll post some more profiles over the weekend. In the meantime, maybe you'll have some things to say about the following scary videos.

Final Exam Info and Reminders FAQ

2009-04-02T19:16:00.004-04:00

1. When is my exam due?
Your exams are due by April 15th at 4pm!
2. How do I submit my exam?
Follow the submission instructions explained on the final exam sheet you received.
3. May I get an extension?
No. There will be NO extensions, and late exams will NOT be accepted.
4. Why are you so inflexible about late submissions?
Because graduation is earlier this semester, the deadline for submitting course grades is April 21st. Jodie, Heather, and I will need every minute we have to grade your exams and calculate course grades. Be advised that we will not respond to email messages between 4pm on April 15th until after the 21st. Grading your work and making sure your grades are submitted on time is our top priority, so I've instructed the TAs NOT to respond to email messages during that time.
5. Can I discuss my exam answers or specific questions with a TA?
No. As indicated on your exam, you are not to contact the TAs about exam questions. The questions are very straight forward, and you have ample time to complete them. Starting tonight, I will dock points from the final exams of anyone who sends the TAs email messages asking about exam questions and/or how to answer them.
6. What if I have a general question about the exam?
Send them to me (Adrienne). Please note that I will not discuss specific exam questions, possible or acceptable answers, or whether you are "on the right track."
7. Some of the named places on the map question have more than one location. What am I supposed to do?
Use the place discussed in class. For the two locations on the map question that include the slash mark (Takayama/Hida and Koza/Kadena), you only need to identify one of the two locations on the map. The extra name is there to help you remember the place discussed in class. Note that some locations are cities and others are prefectures or facility/institution names. The extra names are there to help you figure out the location based on readings and/or lecture. Each location was discussed specifically in lecture, so none of these (or any other exam questions) are trick questions. There are several places called Koza, for example, which is why you get the extra information (Kadena). You are to find the place called Koza located near a place called Kadena (or vice versa).
8. I heard we can submit our exams as groups. Is this true?
No! This is not a group exam. It's entirely appropriate for students to study together, and you are encouraged to discuss the course material and exam questions. However, it is NOT acceptable to submit exams as pairs or groups. I'm not sure how that rumor started, but you can't complete the exam as teams. It's a neat idea, and maybe someday I'll come up with a plan for a group exam, but your final exam is designed to be completed (and evaluated) as your own (individual) work. It's possible that some of you may formulate similar responses to some questions or use the same examples, and that is expected, but you must do your own work. It will be very easy for us to tell if different students submit the same answers.

WOOPS!

2009-03-31T17:01:00.003-04:00

There is one boo-boo on your final. The deadline is actually 4PM on April 15th. Of course, you are welcome to submit it sooner.

A gift to the class from David Whitaker

2009-03-30T15:50:00.007-04:00

Before I resume posting profiles, I wanted to share some material one of your classmates kindly offered to share with the class.

As I mentioned earlier this semester, one of the sad things about reorganizing the course to focus so much on the Yasukuni controversy was cutting some material I really enjoy teaching and consider to be very important. As I've said before, we are only skimming the surface of many topics given the "drive-by" nature of big survey courses, and there are many issues we aren't covering at all. For example, I would like to have been able to fit in a book and a movie. Maybe some of you will add those to your summer to-do lists. (If you haven't read this one, I'd recommend it too.)

David Whitaker offered to share personal stories and photos from his family to give us all more to think about and hopefully explore on our own. If you appreciate this material, much of which relates to material we've studied, let him know in the comments section below.

David wrote:

The material is from my great-aunt Betty Miyamoto (referred to as "Boppy" because I was unable to pronounce Betty when I was learning to talk, and the nickname stuck) and great-uncle Owen Miyamoto. They were born and raised in Honolulu and reside there currently. They're essentially my grandparents. I see them every year - my parents and I visit Hawaii every summer and stay with them.

I'm forwarding you a couple emails they sent to me. The accounts were written mainly by Owen. He included:
- answers to a set of questions I sent him about WWII and the Holocaust several years ago
- his experiences and reflections on the war (which I'm pretty sure he just wrote)
- pictures of them (during?) the war
- a pamphlet about Waialae (a neighborhood of Hawaii - totally different today compared to how it was during the war)

David also wrote:

I would love to tell you about my Boppy's experience - they're pretty different from the stuff my great-uncle Owen wrote. She had a more negative experience to be sure, according to the stories she told me - versus the pretty neutral stories my uncle told.

David, maybe you can tell us more in the comments section below?

The following is the material David has generously given me permission to share with the class. Click on any of the images to view larger versions.

Experiences During the Second World War Betty and Owen Miyamoto April 6, 2007

What were you and your family doing during the years from 1939-1945?

In 1939 we were just entering our teenage years and living in different areas of Honolulu. Coincidentally, both of our fathers worked for the same company but our families did not socialize together and I was not to meet my future bride until 1947 when I was a sophomore at the University of Hawaii. We both attended what was known as English standard schools, which were public schools for children that were required to pass an English language proficiency test to enroll. After World War II, the system was abolished since it was an obvious case of class segregation. All Japanese and Chinese kids attended language school after completing their day at public schools. From time to time we would prepare care bags to send to Japan for their troops engaged in the war in China. We continued these and other customs that came from our ancestral home. However, our parents insisted that we speak only English and that we must be loyal to the US as good American citizens. Other than that our lives were fairly routine with very little awareness of the tension that was building in the Pacific. That changed completely on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941.

Were you caught up in the war at all? Did the war affect you in any way?

Everyone in Hawaii was affected by the start of war in the Pacific. Although we were not aware of it at the time, many US citizens of Japanese ancestry in Hawaii were detained under the suspicion of being enemy operatives of the Japanese government. We did hear about the Japanese in the mainland US who were all imprisoned in camps for the duration of the war. We later heard that the Japanese in Hawaii were considered for similar treatment but it was decided that the relocation of more than half of the population in Hawaii would have a severe impact on the support needed for the war effort in the islands. Martial law was imposed on the islands and everyone was placed under military rule during the war. Everyone was required to carry gas masks and drilled in its use with tear gas. Our parents dug bomb shelters and we recall many alarms, fortunately false ones, where we scurried into the shelters, sometimes late at night. At the beginning of the war Hawaii was under blackout and all homes and buildings were required to be sealed to prevent any escaping light that might reveal the location of the islands to the enemy. It was a common sight to see convoys of trucks and tanks running up and down the streets as the war effort expanded. Food, gasoline, and other essentials were in short supply and rationed for distribution although I don’t recall any time when went hungry.

How did you first learn about the Holocaust in Europe and/or the atrocities in Eastern Asia and/or the dropping of the atomic bombs? Newspapers, radio, TV, survivors, word of mouth? When did you learn about these events? What information did you receive?

We were not aware of the Holocaust in Europe until articles began to appear in the newspapers, magazines, and radio at the end of the war in 1946. We did not have TV in our home until our marriage in 1953. There was some news about atrocities by the Japanese during the war. Many of the details did not surface until many years later. We understand much of the information during the war may have been censored for security reasons and it was difficult to confirm the validity of the news reports. The dropping of the atomic bombs on Tokyo and Hiroshima was reported immediately and Japan surrendered soon thereafter. I was most impressed by the tragic events of the Holocaust during my visit to the museum in Washington DC a few years after it opened.
Did you gain any other information later? How much later, and from what sources?

We doubt that all the details of the war will ever be told completely and without bias. New of the events that took place continued to trickle out following the end of the war and continue to this day. For instance, the search continues for Amelia Earhart, who some say was kidnapped by the Japanese before the start of World War II, with hopes to find some evidence of what happened to her and her plane. With modern media coverage the stories are released by TV, radio, news, magazines, and the Internet.

What was your reaction to these events? Did this reaction change as you gained more information?

As loyal American citizens, we felt the atomic bombing of Tokyo and Hiroshima was justified by the saving of thousands of American lives should our armed forces be forced to invade Japan. We were shocked by the inhumane behavior of Japanese soldiers toward their prisoners and the people in the countries they occupied. We are concerned that the Japanese educational system is slow in correcting their history books about what actually happened during the war.

Did you have any direct or indirect contact with any victims, perpetrators, or others who experienced these events first hand? Did you participate in the war effort in some way?

We had no direct or indirect contact with people directly affected by these events. Mrs. Miyamoto’s father had relatives living in Hiroshima during World War II but we never heard if they were affected by the atomic bomb. We participated in the war effort by buying War Bonds, folding bandages, collecting beans used for cattle feed, working in the pineapple fields to replace the workers sent to the army, building model planes for training of spotters watching for enemy aircraft, training to be messengers to assist in emergencies, building cots for use in hospitals, and other tasks to support civil defense for the community.

Did people talk openly about the Holocaust and atrocities in east Asia and the atomic bomb? What were their attitudes/reactions?

We do not recall ever hearing any discussion of the Holocaust, the atrocities in East Asia, or the atomic bomb.

Did you ever hear your parents or other relatives or friends talking about this subject? What did you say? What did you think about that?

Neither the Holocaust nor the events in the Pacific were ever discussed with us by our parents or our relatives and we never initiated any discussions on the subject with them. We can only speculate as to the reason for lack of discussions. It may be due to the location of our islands and these events seemed to have occurred far away. It also may be because of our age when they did occur and our interest in other activities with our friends at that time. Much of it may be due to our culture which has its roots in the East.

I mentioned earlier about the slow trickling in of information about the war in Europe as well as the Pacific till this day. It is probably urgent that we never forget the cruelty of mankind if similar events are allowed to happen. We are pleased that your class is discussing this and there is hope that each generation will get a clear picture of the horrors of war.

An optional reading for Tuesday

2009-03-28T18:12:00.002-04:00

I'll catch up posting profiles soon! In the meantime, I thought some of you might be interested in this article.

Why this week's folk tale?

2009-03-25T18:57:00.002-04:00

I'll begin posting profiles again soon, so stay tuned. In the meantime, I'd like you to think about the Jellyfish and the Monkey.

The King is desperate (to save his beloved’s life).
The doctor is desperate (to save his own life).
The chief steward is desperate (to obey and maintain his status).
The jellyfish is desperate (to perform his difficult duty).
The monkey is desperate (to save his own life).
The jellyfish, the lowest ranking figure back in the kingdom, returns and is punished brutally.
Where is the justice in this story?
To whom would you assign responsibility (and for what)?
What on earth are we to learn from it?

It might not seem at first like this week’s folk tale has much to do with social justice. At first glance, it might even seem like a simple story about trickery, about the dangers of being fooled by others. However, if we look at the structure of relationships in the story, we can see how the society in the story shapes, in some ways, the outcome.

We might, for example, read this as a fairy tale about differential power, about how hierarchy can make life very precarious for those at the bottom of the social pecking order. Such an interpretation might lead us to wonder if differential power itself prevents social justice.

Regardless of how compelling the original motivations of some characters might be (to save a loved one’s life, for example), the jellyfish is in a socially vulnerable position and is made into a scapegoat.

Differential power is not always easy to identify. Sometimes various systems of differential power are at work at the same time as we've seen in our material on Okinawa. How would you relate the representation of differential power in this week's folk tale to any or all of your readings for this week?

Chrys left an iphone in the classroom (back row). Did you pick it up?

2009-03-19T16:08:00.002-04:00

Chrys will be eternally grateful (as will I) if you have it. He can meet you, etc. You know the deal. You can reach him at chrys.vilvang@mail.mcgill.ca.

Help Chrys get his iphone back!

2nd Highlighted Profile: Dhani's

2009-03-18T13:47:00.003-04:00

Enjoy Dhani's profile (below), which he has generously allowed me to share. There are still more to come, so stay tuned. New profiles will be posted every few days.

My name is Dhani Caro, and I have just completed my sophomore year at Western New England College in International Relations. While in my first year of University, I was fortunate enough to have attended an “Introduction to Japanese Culture” course with a visiting professor from the University of Bristol, Simon Donnelly; a self-proclaimed “shinnichika” who had first opened my eyes to the rather infamous Yasukuni Shrine Controversy. Much of what I have learnt from the aforementioned controversy has come from Professor Donnelly’s class, as well as from the various readings and media sources such as the films and documentaries that had accompanied the course material. As such I have been inspired, and greatly encouraged by Professor Donnelly, to formulate my own views regarding the matter; contextualizing my perspective by evaluating some of my own life experiences and gauging my stance relative to the information and testimonies that I have received from various, unavoidably biased sources. Opinions matter; and my goal, through the study of numerous source materials, is to construct a foundation that I will use to evaluate the Yasukuni Shrine Controversy when I attend the Anniversary Ceremony on August 15th, 2009.

In his text Legacies of Empire: The Yasukuni Shrine Controversy, Takahashi Tetsuya’s assessment of the reasoning behind the Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP’s) attempts to revisit Japan’s post-war Constitution stems from the ultimate desire of reviving the ‘Japanese Empire’ built upon the “triadic base […] of the military, [the] Yasukuni shrine, and [the] patriotic education [system that had all but] [appeared] to be dismantled in 1945 with Japan’s defeat in the Asia-Pacific War” (Tetsuya, 106). The intended “‘breakaway from the post-war regime’” (Tetsuya, 106) would mean the remilitarization of Japan through the revision of Article 9 of the post-war Constitution that effectively abolished the right for the Japanese to hold arms and create a military power in the face of war: “Very simply, no war and no arms”1. Accompanying such an intended amendment would be the LDP’s further proposal to rectify the Constitution’s Article 20 which states, rather succinctly, that: “Freedom of religion is guaranteed to all. No religious organization shall receive any privileges from the State nor exercise any political authority” (Okuyama, 100). Described as nothing more than “ominous” by Takahashi Tetsuya would be the “scenario whereby Yasukuni will be nationalised again2, making it possible for the Emperor to pay visits to the Shrine” (Tetsuya, 107).

Expounding further on the subsequent ramifications of the abovementioned endeavour by the LDP to re-examine the Constitution’s “secularization of state affairs” clause, author Michiaki Okuyama outlines the rather explicit adverse reactions that Japan has incurred in foreign relations when official visits had been made from former Japanese Prime Ministers to the Yasukuni Shrine. The shrine, which is known to house fourteen executed Class A war criminals; revering them as ‘glorious spirits’ (Tetsuya, 108), raises fierce opposition from both the Chinese and Korean peoples who are adamantly against the deification of the men in charge of the brutal, inhumane acts that had been committed during Sino-Japanese War through to the end of World War II. A shrine that honours such criminals, and to have said individuals honoured by the political head of the nation, strikes strong sentiments of hatred due to the explicit neglect of historical recognition for past sins3, and the more than obvious lack of respect for the communities still enduring the effects of such brutal massacres. “[…] at the very least, high-ranking officials should refrain from visits to a place like Yasukuni where Class A war criminals are enshrines. This seems to be the solution that the Chinese government favours. But this only partially tackles the problem and additional public discussions are called for” (Okuyama, 107). As asserted by both Okuyama and Tetsuya, the problem of the Yasukuni Controversy “does not lie solely in the entombment of the fourteen war criminals, and assert that their removal from the shrine would not quell the distain from Korean and China. There are deeper undertones surrounding the Yasukuni Controversy that extends past the delivery of formal apologies and encompasses the explicit historical recognition of such militarily sanctioned” mass exterminations; issues that can only be evaluated through greater public discourse and debate” (Hurley, Lecture Jan. 8, 2009).

Through my studies I have learnt of the various atrocities and crimes that have been committed by the Japanese and American forces alike throughout their histories of military aggression. During the course of our study, Professor Donnelly had shown us the documentary film Japanese Devils (Riben Guizi) by director Minoru Matsui, which set to record the vicious, subhuman atrocities committed by former Imperial Japanese soldiers, laid out quite matter-of-factly in the form of live testimonials from fourteen men who had chosen to speak out for the crimes they had inflicted in the past. While the reasons for which these veterans have chosen to relay their stories continues to be an object of debate4, the bitter truth of “Japan’s policy of ‘Strict Disposal’, better known as unprovoked genocide” (Johnson, Japanese Devils 2002), explained calmly and openly by former veteran Yoshio Tsuchiya5, remains difficult to digest. As Taisuke Funyu, another war veteran relays: “‘Bayoneting a whore doesn't exactly feel good,’ […] ‘But if you didn't do it... you'd never get promoted. I completely lost my humanity, I lost my human conscience. I was just like a fiend. The more I killed, the more I began to enjoy it’” (Johnson, Japanese Devils 2002).

As I continue to investigate and record my findings onto paper, I am becoming increasingly aware of the inevitability of my own biased outlook upon this issue that has caused such great media and political attention. I am reminded immediately of my own experience in listening to such acts of inhumane brutality, in a context that can only be described as “close to home”. As it so happens, my uncle was an American veteran who fought in the Vietnam War for one tour following his training as a Marine soldier. Upon his return from the “bush” he had participated in the Winter Soldier Investigation of 1971, in which Vietnam War veterans publically admitted to both witnessing and committing crimes similar to that of the Imperial Japanese Army veterans of Japanese Devils (Winter Soldier Part 1, 00:00-00:08). At the Detroit meeting a reporter had commented on having heard countless accounts of soldiers testifying to personal atrocities they had committed during the war, and inquired as to what truly “[…] happens to a man over in Vietnam” (Winter Soldier Part 1, 17:54-18:04). To this a soldier replied that their mentality was a product of their “general conditioning; […] [that] America is always right, the Government’s right; you don’t question them. We’re the best, God’s on our side […] Things like what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki showed it’s OK to kill civilians if it’s for the best interest of the nation” (Winter Soldier Part 1, 18:05-18:20). Another veteran recounts that “[…] it was like a hunting trip, and the more people we killed, the happier our officers were. It got to be like a game, like the object was to see who could kill the most people […] whoever had the most ears [trophies from killing NVC soldiers] […] would get the most beers” (Winter Soldier Part 3, 16:07-16:30). Echoing the Vietnam soldier’s account is, once again, Taisuke Funyu’s testimony from Japanese Devils, in which he proclaimed that “‘In Japan, arson and rape and murder are felonies,’ […] ‘But in the military, the more crimes you commit, the better your record’ (Johnson, Japanese Devils 2002).

In light of all that I have presented from my research and learning, I feel as though I need to question the moral legitimacy of the Japanese National movement in their insistence on commemorating and honouring the men who had, as expressed above, been highly responsible for the massacres of innocent casualties of war. Witnessing men only slightly older than myself from the White Soldier documentary, admitting to the crimes for which they endured no punishment other than the scorn from “fellow Americans and fellow veterans [who] called them traitors for speaking what they experienced as truth about the war”6, I felt a surge of mixed emotions ranging from hatred to a mild undertone of understanding for their intentions. I sympathized with the ultimate desire of the veterans to shed light on the truth that had been too long swept under the rug of selective media propagation, while at the same time feeling a strong disdain for the countless accounts of brutal torture, murder, and obvious violations of “human rights” in the broadest sense. How similar criminals could be revered as “Kami” in Japan, regardless of their possible intent for reconciliation, is fundamentally beyond my moral comprehension. From this stance alone I must agree with the Left movement in their protests against the public worship of such “holy warriors”. As such, Kenzaburo Ōe’s novel, Seventeen, seems in my eyes, to depict the root of the contemporary Japanese Right-wing movement as simply an outlet for the youth desire of “belonging”7 that is only fulfilled within the bonding and unification experienced within such a social organization. The protagonist in Seventeen embraces his acceptance into the Nationalist Right-wing association and feels as though he has found purpose within his otherwise meaningless existence. He is overcome by a strong sensation of authority and significance as a “rightist young man” who has “conquered the eyes of others […] [who has] the right to commit any atrocity on the weak others […] [and who is] a child of His Majesty the Emperor” (Ōe, 69). This notion of the “all powerful”, “noble youth” of the Right-wing organization, while idolized in Yukio Mishima’s views of the “holy nation” under the “holy Emperor” expressed symbolically in his short story Patriotism, is presented as a blatant criticism of the skewed perceptions held by the nationalist doctrine supporters. Individuals who, under the veil of the “pure race” mentality, would support the deification of the Class A war criminals who were effectively the pawns in mass genocide, are represented as the spawn of mere confused adolescent chronic masturbators. While heavily subjective in his presentation, I feel as though my loyalties lie with Ōe’s criticism of such a morally corrupt, Right-wing, ultra-nationalist movement.

I had arrived in Japan on the 2nd of August, respecting my intentions of visiting the Yasukuni Shrine on the morning of the 15th. While on my way to visit a former classmate at Hōsei University, I was approached by a very kind reporter from the Asahi Shimbun, Camil Leon8, who inquired about my intentions on visiting Yasukuni on the day of the anniversary of Japan’s surrender to the United States. I told her that I was looking forward to asking people what they think about the entire controversy; touching upon such issues confronted in my research and attempting to elicit responses from, what I hope, is a wide selection of individuals who hold fundamentally contrasting views. I believe that with a firm overview of the various conflicting positions expressed by numerous political orientations and points of view that I might be able to validate my own response in accordance to one, if not many of the notions expressed by such socially diverse groups.

Endnotes

1. Kenzaburo Ōe quote extracted from Course Blog entry: Jan. 24, 2009.
2. Following the Religious Corporations Ordinance, issued on December 28th, 1945, which demanded the “incorporation by registration” (Okuyama, 103) of all religious organizations, “the Yasukuni Shrine, along with other Shinto shrines, lost its national patronage” (Okuyama, 103). Despite the establishment of roughly 80,000 Shinto shrines into a new religious corporation known as the “Jinja Honchō” or Association of Shinto Shrines, the Yasukuni Shrine chose to remain independent of the Association and “established itself as a religious corporation by registering at the Tokyo local government in September 1946” (Okuyama, 103).
3. This “lack of recognition” for previous crimes seems is all to reminiscent of the ongoing struggle of former “Comfort Women” who continue to protest the Japanese government for the official recognition of the forced entry of thousands of women, most of whom were Korean and Chinese, into brutal sexual enslavement by the Japanese Army during the Second World War (Beck, Lecture Feb. 12, 2009).
4. Whether a means of unburdening the stress of keeping hidden such acts of manslaughter and torture, or simply the attempt at gaining recognition and acknowledgment of crimes (Beck, Lecture Feb. 12, 2009), the veterans of Japanese Devils chose to forgo all thoughts of shame, reprisal, and alienation from society and family members in order to, what critic G. Allen Johnson asserts, ensure that everybody will remember their brutality in the face of war “so that hopefully it will not happen again” (Johnson, Japanese Devils 2002).
5. Riben Guizi, dir. Minoru Matsui, 2001.
6. Extracted from the official Winter Soldier film webpage under the heading: “About the Film and Winter Soldier Investigation”.
7. Such an overwhelming desire for acceptance and acknowledgment from their social surroundings seems all too reminiscent the sentiments expressed by both Karin Amamiya and Hidehito Itō from Yutaka Tsuchiya’s film The New God (Atarashī Kamisama) in which their wildly oscillating political orientations and opinions are attestations to their conformist attitudes of “belonging”. Case in point: Hidehito Itō’s explicit acknowledgment of becoming a nationalist sympathizer for the sole reason of wanting to stop being a “nerd”; to amount to something more in his life (Tsuchiya, Atarashī Kamisama 1999).
8. Camil Leon quote extracted from Course Blog entry: Feb. 15, 2009.

“Works Cited”
• “Legacies of Empire: the Yasukuni Shrine Controversy” by Takahashi Tetsuya in Yasukuni: the War Dead and the Struggle for Japan’s Past, Edited by John Breen. (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2008) pp. 105-124
• Hurley, Adrienne. “Introduction to East Asian Culture: Japan.” [Weblog The author of this week's reading] 24 Jan 2009. 15 Feb 2009 .
• “Historicizing Modern Shinto: A New Tradition of Yasukuni Shrine” by Michiaki Okuyama in Historicizing Tradition in the Study of Religion. Edited by Steven Engler, Gregory P. Grieve. (New York: Walter de Gruyter & Co, 2005) pp. 93-108
• Beck, Jodie. “Comfort Women.” McGill University. Introduction to East Asian Culture: Japan Course, Montreal. 12 Feb 2009.
• Hurley, Adrienne. “Introduction.” McGill University. Introduction to East Asian Culture: Japan Course, Montreal. 08 Jan 2009.
• Japanese Devils (Riben Guizi). Dir. Minoru Matsui. Perf. Yoshio Tsuchiya, Hakudo Nagatomi, Yoshio Shinozuka. DVD. Directors System Co., 2001.
• Johnson, G. Allen. “Japanese Devils.” Midnight Eye: the Latest and Best in Japanese Cinema. 05 Jun 2002. Midnight Eye. 15 Feb 2009 .
• Winter Soldier. Perf. Rusty Sachs, Joe Bangert, Scott Shimabukuro. DVD. Winterfilm Collective, 1972.
• “Winter Soldier: The Film.” About the Film and the Winter Soldier Investigation. Milliarium Zero. 15 Feb 2009 .
• Atarashī Kamisama. Dir. Yutaka Tsuchiya. Perf. Karin Amemiya, Hidehito Itô. DVD. W-TV Office, 1999.
• Ōe, Kenzaburo. Seventeen. New York: Foxrock Books, 2002.
• Mishima, Yukio. Patriotism. 7th. New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1966.
• Hurley, Adrienne. “Introduction to East Asian Culture: Japan.” [Weblog Another Special Report by Camil Leon!] 15 Feb 2009. 15 Feb 2009 .

Good Morning!

2009-03-17T18:50:00.004-04:00

So, what did you think of the movie? After all the really heavy stuff I've made you watch, was it a nice change of pace?

笠智衆 Ryû Chishû (pictured here) plays the father in Good Morning. Ozu Yasujirô, the director of Good Morning used Ryû in many films. He started out on the path to become a Buddhist priest, but he ended up a career actor, often playing a beleaguered father.

Film buffs often note Ozu's distinctive style. For example, he often shot scenes from a low angle, and his characters are often looking directly into the camera even when they are speaking to someone else. (Think about how Isamu looks at the camera when he tells his mother and others, "I love you.")

Here, along with another photo of Isamu (just because he is so cute!), is s a reminder of the questions I asked you to consider while watching the film:

Why are appliances (televisions, washing machines, etc.) so important?
Why is marriage so important?
What is the image of childhood?
What is the image of adulthood?
Why is studying English important?
What’s up with all the farting in the movie?

I look forward to your answers! Feel free to comment on favorite scenes, etc. too!

Profile Highlights! Beginning Right Now with Jayda's!

2009-03-16T15:27:00.006-04:00

Several of you have graciously offered to let me share your profiles with the class and even future classes. I will post a new one every few days or so.

Today, the first highlighted profile comes from Jayda. Enjoy!!!
Please click on the images below to view larger versions so you can enjoy all the details!

Japan Times: How Could We Forget?
Explanation

1This was taken directly from the “Nihon Hidankyo” website, extracted out of the Atomic Bomb Victim’s Demand . I chose to include this line in its entirety, because I felt that I could in no way match the feeling within these words. This is what they saw and this is exactly what happened, I couldn‘t write my message any clearer than they already have and neither could this reporter. http://www.ne.jp/asahi/hidankyo/nihon/rn_page/english/demand.html

2This is another very common theme among Hibakusha victims, discrimination and lack of recognition. Many of them continue to be ignored, fail to be given proper treatment, and are discriminated against for being Hibakusha. The prejudice against the Hibakusha and their children were societal driven, causing broken engagements, divorces, shunning, and complete isolation. Many Hibakusha have never actually come out as such, or wait years until after their children are safely married before revealing themselves. This can make it financially difficult for them to live, as many Hibakusha have long-term health problems and are unable to work, but as they do not get a certificate (for fear of ostracization) from the government as Hibakusha they cannot get compensation.
http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/~mickbrod/postmodm/m/text/hibakeds.html ; http://www.nci.org/0new/hibakusha-jt5701.htm ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibakusha

3 This term is used by Hibakusha to describe the sensations (pika-don literally translated means ‘flash-boom‘) of the bomb; the flash of light and the explosion that came five seconds later.
http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/~mickbrod/postmodm/m/text/hibakeds.html

4 This idea was taken from the film “Japanese Devils” that we viewed. I wanted to show the other side of the coin, and by bringing in the memories of the Japanese soldiers I hoped to create a bridge between all of the victims of WWII weaponry be they civilian or soldier, nuclear victim or victim of conventional warfare.
http://www.midnighteye.com/reviews/japdevil.shtml

5 I used this as a title to further associate the nuclear bomb victims with the Imperial soldiers. While many of them enjoyed what they did during the war, while Japanese soldiers did cause horrendous pain and committed acts of complete brutality against their neighbours, many of those soldiers were just victims. In the end, they were ordered to do much of what they performed overseas, and that tends to haunt a person. Doubts, grief, and regret can all form scars that continue to grow and mutate over time, and like keloid scars, those feelings are almost impossible to get rid of and they are painful to the touch.

POETRY
Explanations:
Why Poetry?
I have always found literature, and poetry, to be the soul of expression. In times of war, in peace, of heartbreak or joy, and especially in times of sorrow we turn to poetic expressions for solace. Be it lyrics, a book, or a piece of poetry, the written word has always been solace for the reader and the writer. By making my character, Niyamaki Kyoko, a writer I gave her a means to convey her feelings and experiences to a greater public. But poetry does not need to be published to be meaningful and nor does it need to be read, but it does need to be written. Niyamaki Kyoko is a woman pushed by her memories and by her ill health, and only by writing out her life is she able to keep even some part of herself.
Each piece of poetry represents a different period in her life.
The first, {untitled} describes her feelings as a child before, during, and after the bomb fell. It is written as a child, and describes not only the horror of that day, but also of the confusion of her situation, and of her longing for a mother ripped from her by the war. Each paragraph represents a different time period, but they are jumbled, no longer in chronological order, and this adds to the chaos.
The second piece {124} is a poem of Hibakusha, and the alienation and sense of violation that comes not only from the tests, but from her failures as a woman and as a wife, and her shame.
The last piece of poetry {Sleeping in the Rough} is a poem about homelessness. But it is not despairing, it is not sad. It is a hopeful piece, and it is satirical as well. It is written by a woman on the streets not because she wishes to be, but because she has no other choice. So she makes the best of it, she stays clean and respectful, and she begins to heal among the people rejected by society.

{Untitled}
1The shiny stares are a reference to both the cameras used to document the victims of the A-bomb by the ABCC, and to the glasses (or goggles) worn by the researchers. It is inhuman, to be stared by depthless reflective mirrors and to be unable to look away as you are studied by a bug.

2These are a reference to tests performed by the ABCC

3The guilt here over leaving her house when she wasn‘t supposed to in order to play outside, overlooks the reality of her situation. She went outside and was distracted by the sky, red from the mushroom cloud (as described by survivors in lectures etc.). The death of her puppy is an afterthought, she loved the animal yet she is less horrified than confused. After-all, how could her puppy be dead when before it was playing right next to her; this shows the child’s inability to comprehend the gravity of the attack.

4I Again, she is tested and observed by doctors, but ever the brave Japanese girl, she will do as her mother taught her and not cry. So she focuses on something to distance herself from her situation and looks down at the burn scars of the imprint of her school uniform where the pattern burned into her flesh. This image was based on a picture I saw in class.

5When we were discussing the Buraku on the blog and in class, we had talked about how the Buraku were used as cannon fodder for the soldiers. Buraku men and women were the first to die in WWII, used for slave labour, suicide missions, and also as comfort women. This describes the young girl watching as her mother is dragged away from her, most likely to be taken as a comfort woman for the Japanese soldiers

6”little cups of onigiri” is a reference to Sake (aka rice wine). In other words, her father is drinking to forget the pain of losing his wife, and the funny smell is a child’s understanding of this act, he is less like her father and instead a strange smelling stranger.

7“village” is a reference to Buraku. In other words, Maki is revealing her to Buraku (or a member of a caste excluded by the Japanese due to their association with non-Buddhist practices). But with a little girl’s incomprehension, she understands only the word’s literal meaning “village”, not the negative connotations.

{124}
1“124 is a reference to the number given by the ABCC to Niyamaki Kyoko for their experiments

2“White skin…jackets” is a reference to the American doctors who worked in and ran the ABCC

3 “Burns and ugly parts” is the damage done by the atomic blast on the Hibakusha

4“Glass” was a cause of more death than the actual atomic blast. The blast of the bomb caused all of the glass to shatter, and anyone even relatively near windows was in danger.
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/hidankyo/nihon/rn_page/english/witness.htm

5Part of my character’s life, and one of the reasons she suffered her breakdown (and eventually ended up on the streets) was the death of her baby due to miscarriage. Unfortunately this was a problem for many Hibakusha, who (due to the radiation) contracted diseases like cancer. One of the unfortunate affects of cancer is that the treatment causes decreased likelihood of being able to carry a baby to term (and this is true of atomic radiation as well).
http://www-sdc.med.nagasaki-u.ac.jp/n50/nishimori/nishimori-E3.html

6The husband who abandons his wife after a miscarriage or due to the increasing health problems associated with the Hibakusha. Many women were abandoned by their families, and this subsequently led many (due to divorce and their inability to work) to homelessness.
http://www.nci.org/0new/hibakusha-jt5701.htm ;
http://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/110004624368/

7Pika-don is a Japanese word used to describe the sensation of the atomic bomb, it means flash-bang

{Sleeping in the Rough}
1“Bubble of sky” is a reference to the blue tarps used by homeless people to make up their tents. The homeless people have built what could be considered villages in the parks, made up of their blue tents and small ditches.
http://www.japan-101.com/culture/culture_homeless.htm;
http://www.post-gazette.com/World/20020805japanp2.asp

2”Her brothers” refers to the multitudes of these tents. While they are a normal sight in Osaka, the homeless culture has only just begun to move to Tokyo. Most of these people are men, homeless because of the lack of construction jobs and the state of the economy, but more women have begun to join the ranks. Although it is dangerous for many of them, they have no other choice.
http://www.jil.go.jp/english/JLR/documents/2008/JLR20_sekine.pdf ;
http://pingmag.jp/2007/02/13/homeless-in-osaka-reappropriate-public-space/;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/asia_pac/04/japans_homeless/html/1.stm ; http://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/110004624368/;
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20000827b9.html

3“No jyuku sha” or “field camper” is the self-coined term of many of the homeless people who have become more or less permanently entrenched within parks or public places.
http://pingmag.jp/2007/02/13/homeless-in-osaka-reappropriate-public-space/

4“Rough Sleepers” is a reference to the actual definition of the word homeless in Japanese. It is a ironic definition, for a group of people who are surviving on nothing more than plastic bottles and the occasional garden plot.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/asia_pac/04/japans_homeless/html/1.stm

Analysis of Subject #124:
Explanation
Explanation for profile:
When we learned about the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC) in lectures, I was intrigued by the short clip of film we watched in class, where a Hibakusha described his treatment by the ABCC. His story- that of being a child taken from school by the ABCC by whom he was poked, prodded, photographed, tested, and watched without treatment- struck me as an important experience for my character. Niyamaki Kyoko, is a homeless woman who lives on the streets after a mental breakdown due to stress within her marriage caused by her existing health problems because of the bombings. In addition, I wanted to create a character with reason to hate not only the American government, but also the Japanese government. As a writer, I wanted her to have the sorts of experiences conducive to expressing the reality of her situation and to affect change. This does not mean that she actually is anti-governmental however, only that she has the capacity to be. This profile is something that might very well resemble original ABCC documentation, and parts of it were modeled on Nazi medical documents for their experiments within the concentration camps.

1In the film, the man described being given a number. He always remembered that number, being marked like that haunted him. I wanted my character to experience that feeling, one that many of the Hibakusha experienced, and felt degraded by.

2This date is important as the ABCC was first established in Hiroshima in 1947 (Nagasaki 1948), funded by the American government with the permission of the Japanese Emperor. I chose 1948, because that time was a period of huge growth within the ABCC. In 1948 they were given more space, more employees, more funding, and most importantly more subjects.
http://www.pnas.org/content/95/10/5424.abstract ; http://www7.nationalacademies.org/archives/ABCC_1945-1982.html ; http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Atomic_Bomb_Casualty_Commission

3These were the names of the actual men who were in charge of the ABCC at its conception. They are two of the five principle men who were in charge of ABCC operations.
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Atomic_Bomb_Casualty_Commission

4Keloid scarring is a type of scar that- while it does form on other kinds of injuries- are mostly associated with radioactivity and the after-affects of the nuclear bombs. Many survivors suffered after the keloids appeared and grew over wounds after the A-bombs. They do not stop growing, causing irritability, tenderness, and pain.
http://www.medicinenet.com/keloid/article.htm ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibakusha ; http://www-sdc.med.nagasaki-u.ac.jp/n50/nishimori/nishimori-E3.html

4We saw this picture, and others in class. The image of a woman with the imprint of her kimono burned into her skin stayed with me. It was also a very common wound at the time.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/97/Radiation_burns_on_a_Japanese_woman_after_a_nuclear_explosion_in_1945.jpg/538px-Radiation_burns_on_a_Japanese_woman_after_a_nuclear_explosion_in_1945.jpg

6Numerous stories told by survivors have included testimony of severe damage to their eyes, and especially to their retinas.
http://www-sdc.med.nagasaki-u.ac.jp/n50/nishimori/nishimori-E3.html

7This is just to state clearly, one of the biggest problems with the ABCC, they did not treat a single victim for any of their wounds, they were strictly a research facility. This led many victims and survivors to feel very unfavourably towards the organization.
http://www.pnas.org/content/95/10/5424.abstract ; http://www7.nationalacademies.org/archives/ABCC_1945-1982.html ; http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Atomic_Bomb_Casualty_Commission

8As we learned in classes and in the film (Radiation: Hibakusha at the End of the World), they would later discover links between the radiation suffered and many types of cancers along with all kinds of other long-term health problems
http://www7.nationalacademies.org/archives/ABCC_1945-1982.html

9This is again a reference to the old man from our lecture material. He described the humiliation of having the doctors photographing him and his injuries. This is metaphor is also used in the upcoming poetry. In addition, for a woman at that point in time it was highly unlikely that anyone other than her husband would ever see her naked. Thus the photography of her body and necessary lack of clothes for the exams made this a violation, and culturally the lack of care for modesty was completely taboo.

10The genetic studies performed by the ABCC were centered for the most part on a study of the long-term effects of the ionizing radiation on the pregnant women and their unborn babies (and the subsequent mutations); but the survivors- and later their children- were also an important part of the genetic studies.
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Atomic_Bomb_Casualty_Commission

Jun's Report on Yasukuni for Québéc media

2009-03-15T23:05:00.001-04:00

March 3, 2009
Yasukuni Shrine issue, No clear resolution promised yet again
The prime minister of Japan made another official visit to the controversial Yasukuni shrine last day, August 15th 2009, the day of surrender to Japan and the day of liberation to many other neighbouring Asian countries. Despite of the concerns about historical issues and controversies, the prime minister made another official visit to the shrine yet again on this particular day, saying the visit to the shrine is not to forget what they have done in the past and not to repeat the same. She also claims that it is her freedom to exercise any religion and beliefs according to the Japanese constitution article number 9. She rationalizes her visit saying she is only there to console the spirits who gave their life willingly for the country they believed in what is the best for the world, and also those of who tragically lost their lives during the war time who did not believe that the war was the answer, and also the civilians and the victims who lost their lives simply being at a particular location at a particular time. She asked for their forgiveness and guidance to remind Japanese of the “worthless death” are the consequences of the war. She repeatedly claims that her being at the shrine is neither to avoid Japan’s responsibility for the atrocity of the war they have caused nor to glorify the aggressive act. She also mentions that Japan has learned a lot through the defeat, and in order to confront the spirits confidently and to make the enshrined spirits’ death meaningful, it is this generation’s job to resolve the conflicts between Japan and the neighbouring nations, and also the conflicts within Japanese nation itself. She also announced Japan should acknowledge that inducing and participating in a war by imperialistic drive was wrong and Japanese soldiers were misguided in their actions. Though, having said that Japan has to admit its wrong her utterance, around the end of her speech, about the hypocritical power and armed forces involved during the war time by other nations such as the atomic bomb threat by US brings confusion and controversy at the press conference.
Vague answers and decisions earned at press conference
Having said that you want to make a good relationship with Korea and China, what do you plan to do about the class-A-war-criminals?
→ I plan to acknowledge that they had an important part of responsibility in the war. But, as I have mentioned I think that who ever they were and whatever the position of the power they had, it is really odd question of context. But I do intend to have a clear discussion with presidents of Korea and China to go through this issue so we can finally put it through with.
What if Korea and China refuse to negotiate with the official visit to the shrine?
→ I think that the new way of the shrine will be regarded and may influence their decisions, but I am always open to negotiate. We will figure it out somehow.
Retrieving some of the enshrined souls back as wished by other nations?
→ I do not think it is a simple matter to deal with. The shrine considers the individual souls as one big united soul, thus it would be controversial to take out a part of it from the religion point of view. Though, I would absolutely talk it over with the heads of each nation.
How can you explain your visit to the shrine?
→ My visit to the shrine is because I think I owe some respect to the people who died in wars whether they were unjustified in their actions or not. I think that people often get overwhelmed by the living situation they are in and thus that is why we cannot hold responsible, accountable, some of the people who are laid here.
Which of the crimes that Japan has committed are you willing to admit at this point?
→ I would like to answer this question more concisely at the official meeting with presidents and prime ministers of neighbouring countries. I hope to know what they think we did wrong before I apologize.
What is the purpose of being here if you are not going to apologize right now?
→ I do not apologize right now because my present knowledge about the war may not be enough to properly or to clearly explain what I am apologizing. I do not want to go and say “oh I’m sorry because we people kidnapped your people before” and this is not going to be the way I do it. That’s why I am not apologizing right now but I do intend to be much more honest and transparent about the war situations and the ancestors.
Thousands of people assembled at Yasukuni
Many different people visited and gathered at Yasukuni yesterday for many different reasons. The anti-Yasukuni group gathered to go against the prime minister’s official visit to the shrine and to ask for proper official apologies to other nation. They were singing and shouting for “a freedom we cannot seem to see yet, and the truth”. “I believe the Yasukuni Shrine is promoting worship of who murdered others during WW2, it is enshrining war criminals and I think it is ethically horrific. Many Japanese soldiers admitted that they committed genocide against Chinese and also Koreans in WW2. In my opinion, the best way to solve the problem is to remove class A war criminals enshrined.” says 48 years old Michiko Uehara, a Saitama resident. On the other hand rightists also gathered to support the way of shrine it is and for the perpetuation of the tradition. They were worshiping the shrine for its enshrinement of the ancestors they believe in, singing “all holy emperor, you are my sun, you are my god, you are my eternity, it is for you that I truly started to live”. There were also lots of visitors with no political opinions such as teenagers, elderly regular shrine visitors, merchants, and tourists. Most of them states that they did not know about this controversy until yesterday. Teenagers were passing by on their way to shopping in downtown, and merchants were gathered because the news announced there will be official visit by the prime minister and they predicted more visitors will be gathered on this particular day. Despite of the huge numbers of people gathered, hardly any physical violence occurred and the assembly was rather peaceful. Police officers planted an officer within civilians, the leftist group, and let her act out which was followed by a fake physical suppression by other officers preventing the potential of the assembly turning into a riot. Unexpectedly, a homeless woman was repeatedly making troubles but the police officers somehow managed to solved the problem without any physical violence. Since the prime minister’s vague announcement and commitments in the afternoon yesterday, this controversy around the history text book, comfort women, Dok-do Island, class A war criminals enshrinement and all many other issues intertwined are not seemingly going to be solved in the near future.

Super Cool Amazing Life-Changing Extra Credit Opportunity

2009-03-12T20:39:00.004-04:00

Okay, maybe that's a little hyperbolic, but one of the things I always love to do is bring exciting speakers to campus so you all can have the chance to learn from people you might not otherwise encounter. I'm especially excited about this event! The two people who are coming will be speaking about issues that directly relate to our course content, and they also happen to be the two Japan-based scholars whose work inspires me the most.

Here are the details:

Monday March 23, 2009
East Asian Studies Lecture Series presents:
(1) "Exit the Heroine: Representations of Women Assassins and the Emperor System" by Chizuko Naito, Otsuma University in Tokyo
(2) "The Pitfall Called the Face of the Nation:Japan-Korea Currency and the Image of Higuchi Ichiyo" by Youngran Ko, University of Tokyo
6:00pm-7:30pm
Desautel Faculty of Management (Room 451)

To earn extra credit, all you need to do is attend the event and write a short (roughly 5-page, but the length is not as important as the content) response to the presentations. I'll be more interested in YOUR ideas and reactions, as well as any connections you make than a summary since I'll be listening to the talks too. :)

Here's some information to help get you excited.

Chizuko Naitô is Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Japanese Literature and Media at Ôtsuma University in Tokyo. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo, and her critically acclaimed book Empires and Assassinations was awarded the 2008 Women’s History Prize. Her research interests include the representation of women’s bodies, Ainu, colonies, and infectious disease in modern Japanese literature and mass media. She also studies contemporary women authors. Professor Naitô’s faculty profile is accessible here (in Japanese).
She is also a founding member of the Mars Club, a group of four women scholars committed to the study of contemporary literature written in Japanese. See: http://www007.upp.so-net.ne.jp/kaseiclub/index.html (in Japanese).

Youngran Kô is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Tokyo Center for Philosophy and a specialist in modern Japanese literature studies. Contributor to the influential volume entitled Empires of Discourse (2000), she has written on subjects ranging from proletarian culture in Korea under Japanese colonization to the relationship between the U.S. empire and
images of a “peaceful” Japan in contemporary Japanese fiction. Dr. Kô’s profile and blog are accessible (in Japanese) here. Along with Professor Naitô, Dr. Kô is a founding member of the
Mars Club.

This is a photo of (from the left) Professor Naitô (in a McGill t-shirt, but only the "M" is visible), Dr. Kô, and me in Oxford last September. We were there for a conference about a writer we will study later this semester, Kobayashi Takiji.

They will be presenting their talks in Japanese, but Jodie and I are translating the talks into English and will have the texts projected on a screen behind Naitô and Kô while they talk, so you do NOT need to know Japanese to attend and understand. We'll also offer translation for the Q&A.

To get a better sense of what the event here will be like, check out the Abstracts [.pdf].

Chosun Ilbo Report! (Click on images below to view larger versions)

2009-03-11T21:40:00.003-04:00

Woops!

2009-03-10T17:41:00.002-04:00

I had a "senior" moment today. The video bit I showed you was from an earlier uprising (1990) in the same city. Brent was savvy enough to notice the video looked "old," which totally escaped me. Here's a report from last June, and here is a series of reports from an activist group issued the previous year. The following are some press releases by activists from last year's uprising.

We Denounce the Arrest of Squatter Activist and Comrade Tabi Rounin!

On the morning of June 5th, the squatter liberation activist Tabi Rounin was arrested via warrant claiming that he was a member of the “Black Helmets, a violent ultra-left group” and charged with “falsifying address registration” (the ‘crime’ of registering his driver’s license at his parent’s house), which led to his residence being searched three times and 21 items being taken by the police including his PC, cell phone, work resume, texts related to social movements and flyers. Tabi was taken to Nara prefecture’s Koriyama police station and slapped with a 10 day extension of custody the next day. Special detectives in Nara prefecture assigned to the ‘ultra-left’ and Osaka city public order police came to investigate.

We only feel contempt for the idiocy and greed for budget money which motivates the public order police in their incessant tailing and eavesdropping over the past six months. Their focus was absolutely on the movement against the G8 summit, foreign guests, Tabi Rounin’s relationship with social and solidarity movements, and of course the naked aim of economically bankrupting Tabi Rounin, who had a job interview the next day. The material seized in the search of his apartment verifies all this.

Thanks to all those who supported Tabi, we were able to win his freedom on June 13th.. Allow us to thank you for your efforts and support.

However the twists and turns continue here. Hearing the story of a worker who was brutally beaten in the investigation room of the Nishinari police department in Kamagasaki, hundreds of day laborers and squatting/homeless workers gathered for several days in response to the call of the Kamagasaki labor union in front of the Nishinari police station and begun an autonomous, physical struggle with many arrests in the late nights after the labor unions leave. One of our number who went to visit an arrestee in jail was stopped by police and questioned, leading to our Free Worker offices here in Osaka to be watched by public order police. Just yesterday, June 18th, our offices were searched in relation to another G8 arrestee although no items were taken. We are preparing for second and third waves of repression against our members.

Please keep a focus on the events here as they transpire.

June 17th, 2008
Anarchist Black Cross
Osaka-shi Kita-ku Nakazakicho 3-3-1-401

Next, excerpts from an update by the activist known as "Ka-os" on the uprising in Kamagasaki, Osaka:

Over the past week and a half, an unprecedented political crackdown has been enacted in advance of a series of economic summits around the country. Despite this, the brave workers of Kamagasaki stood up against the stiff security environment in riots against the brutal beating of a day laborer over the past five days. The twin situations of repression and revolt deserve to be examined in more detail.

Repression

In the run-up to the series of summits, over 40 people were arrested in pre-emptive sweeps of broad left and anarchist groups. On May 29th, 38 people were arrested at Hosei University in Tokyo at a political assembly against the G8. These large-scale arrests were carried out by over 100 public security agents after the students staged after a march across campus protesting the summits. All of the arrestees are still jailed, and among them are apparently some leadership of the Chuukaku-ha Leninist organization, one of the largest organizations of its kind in Japan.

...

On June 12th, an activist from the Kamagasaki Patrol (an Osaka squatter and anti-capitalist group), was arrested for allegedly defrauding lifestyle assistance payments. This person has been constantly followed by plainclothes police and even helicopters during demonstrations. Clearly, his arrest was planned with the idea of keeping him away from the major anti-summit mobilizations and he will be held without bail for the maximum of 23 until the summit is over. The office of an anarchist organization called the Free Worker was raided in order to look for 'evidence' in this comrade's case.

The same day the Rakunan union in Kyoto was raided, with police officers searching their offices and arresting two of their members on suspicion of fraudulent unemployment insurance receipt. One of these two arrested are accused of funneling money received from unemployment insurance to the Asian Wide Campaign, which was organizing against the economic summits.

In the meantime, Osaka city mobilized thousands of police with the pretext of preventing terrorism against the summit, setting up inspection points and monitoring all around the city. But the strengthened state high on its own power inevitably deployed it in violence, and turned the day laborers of southern Osaka against it in riot.

Revolt

Kamagasaki is a traditionally day laborer neighborhood that has experienced over thirty riots since the early 1960s. The last riot in Kamagasaki was sparked in 1990 by police brutality and the exposure of connections between the police and Yakuza gangs. The causes this time were not much different. A man was arrested in a shopping arcade near Kamagasaki and taken to the Nishinari police station where he was punched repeatedly in the face by four detectives one after another. Then he was kicked and hung upside down by rope to be beaten some more.

He was released the next day and went to show his friends the wounds from the beatings and the rope. This brought over 200 workers to surround the police station and demand that the police chief come out and apologize. Later people also started demanding that the four detectives be fired. Met with steel shields and a barricaded police station, the crowd began to riot, throwing stones and bottles into the police station. Scraps with the riot police resulted in some of their shields and equipment being temporarily seized. The riot stopped around midnight with the riot police being backed into the police station. The next day they brought over 35 police buses and riot vehicles into the Naniwa police station with the intention of using these against the rioters.

During the riot, the police surveilled rioters from the top of the police station, from plainclothes positions and from a helicopter. Riot police with steel shields were deployed all around the neighborhood in strategic places to charge in when the action kicked off. The workers organizations which by the second day were maintaining the protest had chosen a good time to do so because the police department proved unwilling to unleash the direct, brutal charges seen in the 1990 riot due to the international spotlight focused on them. On Saturday a police infiltrator was found in the crowd, pushed up against a fence and smashed in the head with a metal bar.

The riot has lasted since the 13th and every night there is a resumption of hostility between the day laborers and the cops. Workers so far refuse anything less than the fulfillment of their demands in light of the police brutality incident. Despite the call from more ‘moderate’ NGOs to ‘stop the violence’ there has been no let-up in hostility towards the police, although the real level of violent confrontation is not as strong as the weekend of the 13th-15th. The riot has been characterized by the participation of young people as well as the older day laborers in confrontation with the police. As the guarantors of everyday exploitation under capitalism who have to assertively maintain the constant dispossession of the urban working class, the police have many enemies. This they are finding out every night.

Over the past couple of days there have been points where more than 500 people have gathered and rioted around the neighborhood. Police have responded mainly by defending the Nishinari police station, their home base, while getting back up from the local Naniwa police station, which has a riot countermeasure practicing lot, and holds tens of anti-riot vehicles. Despite this mighty arsenal, the police were perhaps surprised when they deployed their tear gas cannon on the first day only to be met with cries of joy and laughter. The use of force no longer has any spell of intimidation, it is simply expected. Still, the combined brutality of the police and their riot vehicles has netted over 40 arrests (including of many young people), many injuries and even blinded one worker with a direct shot of tear gas water to his right eye.

...

It is unclear exactly where the situation is headed, but we can know for sure that the real repression in Kamagasaki will arrive after the summits have ended and the focus is off of the Japanese government. Then we will see the raids, the arrests and the scapegoating of particular individuals for the righteous outburst of class violence that these riots are. Instead of quietly accepting their fates as people to be trampled upon, the participants have directly attacked the wardens of wage labor who guarantee the violence of everyday slum life.
...

Genji Nishikawa's blog

2009-03-10T12:46:00.000-04:00

Click here!

Go Ask Aya!!

2009-03-10T12:44:00.000-04:00

Click here!

25 years of passion for Taiko: in Montréal this weekend

2009-03-10T11:50:00.000-04:00

Click here for info.

“Ema Shû’s ‘The Mountain Folk’: Fictionalized Ethnography and Veiled Dissent” by Scott Schnell

2009-03-08T14:22:00.002-04:00

I still have some Yasukuni reports to format and upload. I'll try to finish that within the next few days. In the meantime, we still need to keep moving forward. Tuesday's reading is going to take us back to a moment when some of the major issues in Thomas LaMarre's essay were first emerging in Japan. In keeping with the context-driven approach of our class, Scott Schnell's essay will have us thinking about a specific place and a specific history. It happens to be a very pretty place, as you can see here:
This is what Takayama looks like in the fall. Too bad EAST 212 doesn't have a field trip budget.

Here are 5 initial questions on Professor Schnell's essay that I'd like you to answer in the comments section below.

1. How does the Umemura Rebellion in Hida relate to issues we have studied thus far (especially the Yasukuni controversy material)?

2. What was Ema Shû’s personal relationship to the history of the Umemura Rebellion?

3. What is significant about the story of Kappaya Oraku?

4. Although Ema’s text is set in the past, Professor Schnell suggests it is also a form of “veiled protest” of developments during Ema’s time. How is that the case?

5. Like Kobayashi Takiji, whom we will study later this semester, Ema was known as a proletarian writer. What is a proletarian writer?

New Operative Logics?

2009-03-04T22:50:00.004-05:00

There are lots of examples of media attention paid to famous people who go through a dramatic change. I'm sure you can think of examples. One of the first stories like that I remember learning was of Eldridge Cleaver, a former member of the Black Panther Party in the U.S. who later became a staunch Republican and supporter of Ronald Reagan. Another example from the U.S. would be David Horowitz, a former Marxist who is now a conservative editor of FrontPage Magazine. The story about the death of Misawa Chiren below comes from the September 8, 2005 Mainichi Daily News. Amamiya Karin mentions Misawa in the essay Jodie translated. Amamiya describes some of the ways in which her political views have changed. Misawa is perhaps best known for his own political transformation. Maybe you can think about the last paragraph in Professor LaMarre's essay in relation to questions people like Amamiya and Misawa or maybe Cleaver and Horowitz (or others) have tried to engage, answer, avoid, or overcome. Better yet, maybe you can tell us all what you think? Are you hoping "for new operative logics to emerge" too? Do you have anything in mind?

Novelist Chiren Misawa leaps to his death from Yokohama apartment

YOKOHAMA -- Novelist Chiren Misawa fell to his death from his eighth floor apartment here on Wednesday, and local police believe he committed suicide. He was 46.

Misawa, whose real name is Tetsuo Takahashi, was arrested in 1982 over his involvement in a murder case while he was a member of a right-wing organization. While he was serving his 12-year prison term, he released a novel, "Tenno Gokko" (Playing Emperor), in 1994, for which he won the Shin-Nihon literary prize.

Misawa is also known for his novel, "Choritsu-no-Teikoku" (The Empire of Tuning) describing prison life.

Relatives will presently hold funeral services for the novelist, however they will be closed to outsiders, including Misawa's friends. (Mainichi)

Movie Blues

2009-03-04T19:25:00.003-05:00

I'm hoping the film Kansai Kouen: Public Blue works tomorrow! It turns out the library has not yet received the copy we were supposed to have by now, and yesterday's bad DVD is still not working properly even after some creative cleaning attempts. I'm still hoping for the best. I really want you all to see this film. Do any of you happen to have a copy? If so, please let me know.
This is a photo of one of the people interviewed in the film. Click here to see the website.

So, what did you think of AKIRA?

2009-03-04T09:13:00.001-05:00

Feel free to share your own ideas, respond to Professor LaMarre's, or pose questions!

SHOCKING!!!!!!!!

2009-03-03T18:36:00.002-05:00

Click here to read a shocking multimedia report on what happened when the PM visited Yasukuni! Juicy stuff!

AP Reports on Yasukuni!

2009-03-03T18:23:00.003-05:00

Click on the images below to view larger versions so you can read this "AP report" on the recent events at Yasukuni Shrine!

Works Cited

Byun, Young-Joo. (1997) Habitual Sadness (Film), Documentary Film Production Boim.

Michiaki, O. (2005) “Historicizing Modern Shinto: A New Tradition of Yasukuni Shrine” in Historicizing Tradition in the study of Religion. NY: Walter de Gruyter & Co. pp. 93- 108.

Minoru, Matsui. (2001) Japanese Devils (Film), Directors System Co.

Sadako, K. (1999) “When We Say Hiroshima” in When We Say Hiroshima: Selected Poems by Sadako Kurihara. Ann Arbor: Michingan P, pp. 20 - 1.

Takahashi, T. (2008) “Legacies of Empire: the Yasunkuni Shrine Controversy” in Yasukuni: the War Dead and the Struggle for Japan’s Past. NY: Columbia, pp. 105-24.

"TBS Special Report"

2009-03-02T21:26:00.003-05:00

From the TBS Online NEWS WEBSITE (see below left)

Yasukuni Shrine
August 15 2009

In the video: A courageous rightist street vendor trying to appeal to the leftist protesters, a teenage rightist protester explaining her views and a Korean leftist protester telling us about her view of a possible solution, followed by highlights of the Prime Minister’s speech.

Yasukuni, August 15 2009
Uploaded by tbsonline

In the morning

Today, like every year at this date, hundreds of people gathered at Yasukuni Shrine. Rightist and leftist activists of all ages were there to make their voices heard but they were not the only ones present at the scene. There were also curious tourists and teenagers, street vendors in search of good business – Kintarô seemed to be a popular theme this year, “so the kids who buy my cookies can grow strong and like a hero” one vendor told us – as well as elderly people who were simply paying a visit and praying for their relatives enshrined in Yasukuni Shrine.

Although both sides of protesters were trying hard to be heard and it resulted in a few rounds of heated slogan shouting, it all happened without a glitch thanks to the police officers who managed the situation professionally. Some other people tried a more subtle way for their opinions to be noticed, like the vendor we interviewed who, even though he was selling cookies labeled with the words “emperor” “and patriotism”, as well as American devils and Kintarô shaped cookies, had his stand right next to the leftist protesters.

Everybody was extremely anxious to hear the new Prime Minister’s speech about all the issues people were there to protest for and we were able to talk with a Korean woman about how she thought the controversy could be solved. “[Either] close the Yasukuni Shrine or at least take off the war criminals” was her reply, which also seems to be the opinion of the Chinese government.

The Prime Minister’s speech

Although every time the Prime Minister of Japan visits Yasukuni on that particular day triggers reactions around Asia, this year’s visit wasn’t in vain. Prime Minister Tokugawa used her right to visit Yasukuni Shrine as a Japanese citizen to honor those who courageously gave their life for their country and talk about many important issues that she plans to solve in the next weeks, her focus being on improving Japan’s relations with other Asian countries. Meetings with the Prime Ministers of China and Korea are to be planned and carried out in the next couple of weeks to discuss about important matters to better Japan’s relations with its neighboring countries. Matters to be taken to these meetings include the removal of Class A war criminals, which seems to be a really important issue to both the Chinese and Korean people, as it seems like the only solution to this whole controversy. Also to be discussed is Japan’s responsibility in the war, although no clear statement has been said yet.

Prime Minister Tokugawa assured everybody present that she was going to be much more transparent than her predecessors, and that she had no intention to make excuses for the things that happened, but that she was going to acknowledge Japan’s past wrongdoings that happened during the war. Although that statement will most likely be used by some people or organization to go in their favor, like the people claiming that the history textbooks are not accurate, it is surely a good thing that Japan has the opportunity to have good relations with its neighbors.

Credits:
Thanks to all the people who agreed to be in the video!
The Yasukuni Shrine picture is available on zell0s’s flickr account and is under a
Creative Commons license. (http://www.flickr.com/photos/zell0ss)
The TBS logo is property of Tokyo Broadcasting System, Inc.
The song in the beginning of the video is Hikawa Kiyoshi’s “Ougi”

The Blog of Max Chill

2009-03-01T22:55:00.005-05:00

Max Chill is an English conversation teacher in Japan from Montreal, Quebec Canada. You can find his blog with his thoughts on Yasukuni HERE

Anime Seminar at Université de Montréal Tomorrow

2009-03-01T12:55:00.002-05:00

Kintarô sent the following announcement!

Seminar on Anime and Contemporary Japanese Society
March 2, 2009, 2:30 - 4:50 MST

Centre d'études de l'Asie de l'Est, Université de Montréal
3744 Jean-Brillant, room 420-14 (4th floor)
________________________________________

Otaku Culture: Personality, Space, and City of Anime Fans
Prof. Kaichiro MORIKAWA , Associate Professor, Meiji University

In Japan, optimism about an ever-progressing technological future ran out in the 70's. It was in the mid-80's that the term otaku was coined to signify a new personality that had emerged as a reaction to the loss of “future.” The term evokes a stereotyped image of an unfashionable computer nerd, preoccupied with games and anime even after his adolescence. The presentation shall explore how this otaku personality became a geographical phenomenon in a district called Akihabara, together with its role in the development of Japanese anime.

Prof. Kaichiro MORIKAWA is currently an associate professor of Contemporary Culture in the School of Global Japanese Studies at Meiji University. Born 1971. MS Architecture, Waseda University. Prior to current position, taught as Visiting Professor at Kuwasawa Design School. Served as Commissioner of the Japan Pavilion at the Venice Biannual 9th International Architecture Exhibition, to produce the exhibit OTAKU: persona=space=city (2004). Publications include Learning from Akihabara: The Birth of a Personapolis (2003) and Studies in 20th Century Architecture (co-editor/author; 1998).
________________________________________

Postcritical Anime: Observations on its ‘Identities’ within Contemporary Japan
Prof. Jaqueline BERNDT, Associate Professor, Yokohama National University

While anime is being watched on a global scale, there are significant differences in its contemporary reception. The gap between regular consumers and critical spectators, sometimes appearing in the form of Japanese audiences vs. foreign Japanologists, deserves special attention since it raises a number of questions, such as what sort of animated film is identified as ‘anime’; who relates anime to politics, history and society; what kind of meaning is at play in anime’s performative images, and to what extent one can read ‘Japanese society’, or even ‘culture’, out of anime. Comparing Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai” (1954) and Gonzo’s “Samurai 7” (2004) as well as touching upon anime’s history, this lecture focuses on aesthetic and cultural identities ascribed to anime in modern Japan and their contemporary relevance.

Professor Jaqueline BERNDT is currently an Associate Professor of Art and Media Studies at Yokohama National University. Born and raised in Germany, Prof Berndt received her D.phil. from Humboldt-Universitaet in Berlin in 1991. Working in the discipline of Aesthetics and the Sociology of Art, Prof Berndt's research focus is on the Aesthetics of Comics and in particular, Manga and Anime. Previous to her current position, Prof Berndt was an Associate Professor of Art Sociology at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan. In April 2009 Prof Berndt will take on a new role as Professor for Art and Media Studies, Kyoto Seika University, Faculty of Manga & International Manga Research Center/International Manga Museum Kyoto.

Broadcasted from the University of Alberta

"Eeko Reopens War Wounds In Shocking Speech At Yasukuni" by C Holden

2009-02-28T15:14:00.004-05:00

Click on the image above to view a larger version. The full text of the article follows.

Eeko Reopens War Wounds In Shocking Speech At Yasukuni
August 15th, 2009
Tokyo

Prime Minister Tokugawa Eeko was acutely aware of the significance of her visit to the Yasukuni shrine, the contentious site where Japan’s war dead are memorialized. Thousands of people gathered in front of the shrine and many millions more the world over gathered around their television sets, to hear her speak. But we have all been disappointed and insulted yet again. Japan has been shamed once more by a failure in dealing with its war past.

Eeko began her speech on Thursday by explaining the importance of her choice of time and location for her speech, as if anyone needed reminding. She explained that the people enshrined here were courageous and patriotic. This is something most leaders must say in order to quell the nationalistic tendencies of certain groups. This could perhaps have been forgiven if not for the way Eeko treated the memory of all the other war dead: “Some of the people buried here did not believe that war was the answer, or they were unsuspecting civilians hauled out of life simply for being somewhere, then.” Eeko adds that “worthless deaths are the consequences of any war, just or unjust”. But it was not a question of bad luck; it has nothing to do with fate. How dare the Prime Minister accuse the war’s victims of being at the wrong place, at the wrong time! She refuses to acknowledge the willful and organized way in which Japan abused its neighbors and all those it considered inferior and unworthy of dignity. How can you say that Nanjing’s rapists and arsonists’ intentions were “pure and courageous”? In China we call that cowardly and depraved.

She claimed that her “being here intends not to gloss over the atrocities of war or to glorify this aggressive act.” According to her, “the men and women here were part of something much bigger than themselves; and [cannot be held] responsible for some of their lack of judgment, induced without doubt by the context in which they found themselves.” But then who is to be held responsible? If, as Eeko says, “the war makes the soldier, and not the other way around,” then Japan should be held fully accountable for the war it engendered. Indeed, China has never sought to blame the Japanese people, including the individual soldiers who fought in the war, but rather to receive a formal and detailed apology for the crimes the country committed on the whole; for all atrocious and planned acts of violence its government conjured up and signed off on.

Eeko concluded her speech by claiming to recognize Japan’s criminal past, and then pointing fingers: “Let us also seek recognition! Japan was not the only hypocritical power. […] By simply say that Japan was wrong and then turn around and point the finger at other nations. Who recognizing our past wrongdoings, I also seek to redress our own victimization!” How dare Eeko exactly is being hypocritical here? Japan’s leader is behaving like a child.

Not only this, but she has also emboldened the right wing. One member of a rightist group was wearing the typical kamikaze headband. He explained his intentions at the shrine: “My headband represents a simpler time in the country’s imperial history when we fought for what we believed in and had an army that truly represented our values and beliefs. I believe that the Prime Minister’s worshipping today is valued and I believe that the Prime Minister should put the wheels in motion to remilitarize our nation.”

Two rightist women had similar militaristic reasons for being there: “We are here because we want to support our emperor and the entire revision of the constitution. This is a very important event and we think it’s very good that the Prime Minister is coming to visit the shrine because it’s a very important part of Japanese history. We think she should bring back the Meiji constitution and that she should bring Japan back to the Japanese.”

Thankfully there was also a large gathering of left wing members who were protesting the very existence of the shrine. One of their members was beaten up by the police and then taken into custody. A co-member commented: “It was awful. They were way too rough with that girl. There was no reason for it.” Others added: “It was crazy, ridiculous, I don’t know. We’re just here protesting. She was behind the line and they just hit her.”

These groups were clearly angry towards their government. Many were calling out slogans like “Free speech!” and “The enshrined are murderers”. Others recognized the darker currents beneath the Prime Minister’s behavior: “I want the Prime Minister to stop lying to the Japanese people. She knows about this kind of thing that’s going on and I think she’s using us to increase her own political standing and I think it’s totally selfish of her not to care about us as a people. I want her to know how I feel.”

These moderate views are echoed by many contemporary scholars and intellectuals in Japan. As Michiyaki Okuyama has pointed out, every Prime Minister’s visit engenders anger from the international community. Jun’ichirō’s visit to the shrine in 2005 created a controversy and increased the tensions in Japan’s relations with China and Korea (1). This is not new. So why do Japan’s leaders continue to visit the shrine? It is a clear affront to everyone and serious diplomatic strain is a naturally and necessary consequence.

Previous Prime Ministers, as well as the rightists and historical revisionists, have argued that Yasukuni is merely a private religious institution and that Japanese people, be it ordinary folk or political appointees, should be able to visit it without international meddling. As Okuyama explains, officially Yasukuni is merely a symbol (2). But what does it seek to symbolize? According to Takahashi Tetsuya, and rightly so, Yasukuni is a celebration of war (3). And this is precisely what we Chinese find unacceptable.

Various solutions have been thought up that would potentially satisfy Japan’s neighbors. For example, China’s ambassador has hinted at a positive outcome if Japan were to remove the class- A war criminals from the Shrine in 2001 (4). But it seems that the government is in complete denial and this will most assuredly have severe consequences. As Tetsuya puts it, “today Japan faces the risk of losing the opportunities it was afforded by the ‘post-war’ settlement”(5). Instead, the Japanese government clings to a refusal of the past and ignores the lessons of their ancestors, Izanami and Izanagi, taught them. It must cast out its militaristic leech-child (6) that is Yasukuni.

An important Japanese scholar, John Dower, warned of the misuse of folk tales in the Japanese education system. The story of Momotarō, the Peach Boy, was used to trigger and justify an imperialistic attitude in the Japanese people. What the educators forgot when they taught children this story, is to instill in their students the ethical dimension of Momotarō. Where are his noble and valiant qualities in the Japanese attitude towards the war? Perhaps Eeko needs to go back to elementary school and relearn her lessons. Maybe then she wouldn’t point fingers and plug her ears to the voices of reason.

Indeed, Japan’s leaders must hear the pleas of their own people. They quickly forget the moving words of their poets, such as those written by Sadako Kurihara in “The Flag, I”:

Ah! Red-on-white flag of Japan!
The many nightmarish atrocities carried out at your feet.
Manila and Nanjing, where they splashed gasoline
over women and children
and burned them alive -
consummate crimes of the twentieth century.
Yet today the flag flutters again, shameless,
all those bloody memories
gone;
fluttering, fluttering in the breeze,
it dreams once more of redrawing the map. (7)

Perhaps the voices of the People’s Republic of China will ring louder and clearer.

Notes:
1
Okuyama, 93
2
Okuyama, 104
3
Takahashi, 112-113
4
Takahashi, 113
5
Takahashi, 112
6
Oxford Tales from Japan, 17
7
Kurihara, 37-38

Works Cited

Dower, John. “The Demonic Other” in War Without Mercy. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1986).
Kurihara, Sadako. “The Flag, I” from When We Say Hiroshima: Selected Poems by Sadako
Kurihara. Translated by Richard Mineaar (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 1999).
Okuyama, Michiaki. “Historicizing Modern Shinto: A New Tradition of Yasukuni Shrine” in
Historicizing Tradition in the Study of Religion. Edited by Steven Englor, Gregory P.
Grieve. (New York: Walkter de Gruyter & Co, 2005).
“The Birth of Japan” in Oxford Tales from Japan (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1958).
Tetsuya, Takahashi. “Legacies of Empire: the Yasukuni Shrine Controversy” in Yasukuni: the
War Dead and the Struggle for Japan’s Past, Edited by John Breen. (New York: Columbia
Univ. Press, 2008).

Random News of Violence...

2009-02-26T13:51:00.002-05:00

Hmm... looks like the stereotypical "kireru" age is getting younger ...

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/090226/world/japan_crime_bomb_child

Stay Tuned for Reports on What Transpired Today!

2009-02-19T17:44:00.002-05:00

Hyun Ok Park's flight is delayed a bit, so I have time to say: "Way to go, everyone!" I think you did an absolutely fabulous job as a class! Feel free to share your comments about the midterm activity! And stay tuned to find out what the media response is!

If you are free for Professor Park's talk tomorrow, please come! It's not required, but it's a great opportunity! Her talk is entitled "Everyday Life of North Koreans as Problematic: History, Capital, and Becoming Human" and will be from 4:30 - 6:00 in the Arts Building (Room 260).

Attention Leftwingers: You've been asked to be familiar with this song for tomorrow!

2009-02-18T09:23:00.003-05:00

A performance artist contacted me and asked that I share the following video of "TRAIN-TRAIN" by the Blue Hearts with you.

This person will provide additional information in the comments section below. It's okay if you don't know Japanese, but maybe you can at least be familiar with the tune and "look" of the original.

Here's a rough copy of the performance artist's substituted lyrics in case you do read Japanese:

栄光に向って走る　　　　　あの列車に乗ってみた
無知のままで飛び出して　あの列車に乗ってみた
若者たちの夕暮れ　　　　フリーターの罠に嵌ってる
その怒号が響き渡れば　　　ブルースが加速して行く
　見えない自由がほしくて
　見えない銃を撃ちまくる
本当の平和を見せておくれよ

これは愛国じゃないんだ　　どうして暴力を祀るのかい？
栄光ばかりじゃないんだ　　　　戦争では誰も勝たない
死と罪をロマンチックな　　　昔話として語らない
人間と呼ばれたいわたしが　　　誠実な世界を見ていたい
　見えない自由がほしくて
　見えない銃を撃ちまくる
本当の自分は真実にあるよ

ＴＲＡＩＮ−ＴＲＡＩＮ　　走って行け
ＴＲＡＩＮ−ＴＲＡＩＮ　　どこまでも
ＴＲＡＩＮ−ＴＲＡＩＮ　　走って行け
ＴＲＡＩＮ−ＴＲＡＩＮ　　どこまでも

運命に定められた　　　　日本が負けた日なんかより
歴史を変えられる今日は　どんなに素晴しいだろう
世界中に建てられてる　　　どんな神社なんかより
侵略を支える場所は　　　どんな意味があるだろう
　見えない自由がほしくて
　見えない銃を撃ちまくる
本当の日本を聞かせておくれよ

ＴＲＡＩＮ−ＴＲＡＩＮ　　解除して
ＴＲＡＩＮ−ＴＲＡＩＮ　　どこまでも
ＴＲＡＩＮ−ＴＲＡＩＮ　　解除して
ＴＲＡＩＮ−ＴＲＡＩＮ　　どこまでも
ＴＲＡＩＮ−ＴＲＡＩＮ　　走ってゆけ
ＴＲＡＩＮ−ＴＲＡＩＮ　　どこまでも
ＴＲＡＩＮ−ＴＲＡＩＮ　　走ってゆけ
ＴＲＡＩＮ−ＴＲＡＩＮ　　どこまでも

栄光に向かって走る　　　　あの列車に乗ってみた
怒っているままで飛び出して　あの列車に乗ってみた
生きづらさの中を　　　傘もささず走っている
憎しみも悲しみも　　　　剥き出しにして走っている
「臆病者」と呼んでいいけど　真実を叫ぶ方がいい
だから僕は歌うんだよ　　　精一杯でかい声で
　見えない自由がほしくて
　見えない銃を撃ちまくる
本当の声を聞かせておくれよ

ＴＲＡＩＮ−ＴＲＡＩＮ　　走って行け
ＴＲＡＩＮ−ＴＲＡＩＮ　　どこまでも
ＴＲＡＩＮ−ＴＲＡＩＮ　　走って行け
ＴＲＡＩＮ−ＴＲＡＩＮ　　どこまでも
ＴＲＡＩＮ−ＴＲＡＩＮ　　解除して
ＴＲＡＩＮ−ＴＲＡＩＮ　　どこまでも
ＴＲＡＩＮ−ＴＲＡＩＮ　　解除して
ＴＲＡＩＮ−ＴＲＡＩＮ　　どこまでも

New Brunswick national anthem news

2009-02-16T19:25:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone,

Has everyone heard about the teacher (or was it principal?) in a New Brunswick school that banned singing "O Canada" at school after receiving complaints from several parents that it was "divisive"?

http://www.nationalpost.com/scripts/story.html?id=1232716

It is also very interesting to read some of the comments that come up online on various sites in response to the story. I find that this issue highlights a lot of the issues that we discuss in class regarding nationalism, militarism, and so on. Apparently in Canada the singing of the national anthem is something that differs according to province. I sang it in elementary school in Alberta, and apparently they still do. I have heard that in Quebec and Ontario they dont sing it. So it might be interesting for us to consider this - especially when we might have thought that it wasnt as controversial an issue in Canada as it is in Japan - I think this piece of news shows how important the issue really is to a wide variety of people and the huge range of opinions that people have on it. Any thoughts?

The Prime Minister's Speech

2009-02-16T18:08:00.002-05:00

I just saw a leaked copy of a draft of the Prime Minister's speech for Thursday, and it was incredible. While I'm not at liberty to say more right now, I can say that no one wants to miss this speech!

Midterm FAQs

2009-02-16T12:05:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow, I'll give you a rundown of how the midterm activity will proceed along with some final instructions. I'll share answers to some of the many questions you've sent, and I'll take questions in class too. Here's a little advice for Thursday: please don't come to class inebriated like Nakagawa Shoichi at the G7 press conference. :)

Another Special Report by Camil Leon!

2009-02-15T12:53:00.003-05:00

Click on the image above to view a larger version. The full text follows.

EXCLUSIVE REPORT: Prime Minister Speaks With Asahi About Yasukuni
By Camil Leon
2009/2/12

I was going about Tokyo trying to get a sense of the atmosphere pre-August 15th, when I was struck by a bolt of good luck - I stumbled across the Prime Minister! She was kind enough to answer a few of my questions.

Naturally, I asked whether she was planning to visit the Yasukuni shrine next week. “Yes, I will. I have a discourse planned. I hope my statement will open a new era in Japan’s relation to its war memory,” she said.

Though she would not reveal information about the recent mysterious police activity, she expressed an apparent excitement and the desire for a peaceful protest: “I am excited for the reaction of the people and I hope as usual, that the Japanese population will look favorably on my representation of them.”

I wondered how it would be possible for the Prime Minister to do such a thing. Many different kinds of people are planning to gather at the shrine on Thursday. Some are excited about the activities while others are remain unsure about what to expect. Yet others are angry and clearly don’t have peace in mind.

I noticed a happy tourist wandering about the city. I asked him whether he was planning on taking part in the anniversary activities. “I’m looking forward to asking people what they think about it all. I’ve heard there’s a lot of security there. But it’s about the experience, talking to the people there.”

Some young people are sharing his excitement, though they are clearly looking to cause some trouble. One teenager explains: “I’m going there out of curiosity. I have more right-wing ideals. I’m hoping for some action because I’ve heard that it’s a big deal. That’s one of the reasons I’m going. But I don’t really know what to expect. It’s the first time I’m going.”

One dubious and wise elderly woman plans to go to the shrine to visit her late husband. “I’m looking very forward to it actually. I know that the people who are going to be surrounding me will probably have no idea why they’re protesting.”

A teenager I spoke with seemed to agree with this statement: “The media are really only inclined towards money. And so teenagers are really easy to be controlled by the media.”

The logistics of the event will challenge the city’s officials. One wonders what the hordes of people will do for business. I spoke with one person who plans to sell her goods in front of the shrine. “Hopefully it will be good for business. I think everyone will come out and they’ll be there to say what they need to say. I’ll have a big colorful sign that maybe they can see their little Prime Minister’s face on the goods and stuff.”

Many others plan to attend in order to voice their political ideals. I spoke with a social worker from Korea who works with former comfort women in her country. She explained that she was seeking a formal apology from the government: “I will be going to represent them and to get the world to recognize them. I’m here to get an apology from the Japanese government on their war crimes and what they did to the comfort women.”

Another Korean woman planning to attend has more sweeping goals: “I’m going to protest for all the rights of the Koreans. I’m anti the whole Yasukuni thing because I think it’s disrespectful for all the people who suffered during the war, especially the colonized countries, such as Korea, and a good part of Southeast Asia. Because Korea has been wanting a direct apology from Japan for such a long time and even though they claim they did, in Korea they’re still kind of waiting for it. If they accepted to close that shrine then that would be a way to make amends with all the
people that suffered.”

Despite the Prime Minister’s lofty intentions of national unity, it seems that the atmosphere in Tokyo is very tense. It is difficult to know whether to laugh or scream. When asked about whether she expected the Prime Minister to make an appearance at Yasukuni, this last woman from Korea joked, “well I’m planning to shoot her. Just kidding.”

A note on the next two classes

2009-02-11T14:47:00.002-05:00

Great discussion in your blog comments! Keep it up!

I've been delighted to hear from so many of you that you appreciated Heather's lecture yesterday. I did too! You'll get another great TA lecture tomorrow when Jodie is back at the head of the class. The material for tomorrow is also quite difficult and potentially emotionally disruptive. Please remember to let me know if you have concerns about studying material related to sexual violence. As a reminder, your required reading for tomorrow is here. If heavy traffic to that site slows things down, you can also view the same article here.

A few of you asked, and, yes, the movie last night began with footage from the Yasukuni Shrine.

Next Tuesday's class will be devoted to reviewing the first half of the semester through the short story "Iron Fish" and going over how the midterm activity will proceed. The last ten minutes of the class will involve a final "training" session for the police. Everyone but the police, the Prime Minister, and her two bodyguards will be asked to leave the classroom ten minutes early.

Tonight's film

2009-02-10T20:56:00.002-05:00

Heather's lecture provided you with the perfect themes and ideas to prepare for tonight's film. Of course, it can still be incredibly difficult to bear. In case you want a space to post questions you didn't ask after the film or share thoughts, observations, and (above all) feelings related to the content and/or the experience of watching it, please leave some comments here. I've given you some points of comparison and reference already (and hope you explore them). In John Dower's book War Without Mercy. Race and Power in the Pacific War, you can find quite a bit of information on U.S. soldiers' mutilations of Japanese war dead, and Leslie Marmon Silko's amazing novel Ceremony also draws on incidents of some U.S. soldiers taking home "souvenirs" of war, such as the teeth of Japanese men they killed. I highly recommend both of those books.

Militarism and nuclear issues

2009-02-09T21:08:00.002-05:00

Someone brought an interesting question to my office hours on Friday: How does the Japanese right wing feel about nuclear weapons? For those who are in favor of the re-militarization of Japan? We also chatted with Kazuya, the TA for Japanese language, and his opinion was that "more people in Japan support nuclear weapons than you think". I dont know of any kind of "public opinion polls" or anything like that, so I just kind of started browsing online for more information.

What do you guys think about that? It might also be an interesting question to consider for the mid-term as well...

Upcoming events

2009-02-09T16:40:00.003-05:00

I'm sure you noticed two optional events on your course calendars. The first is coming up next week (after your midterm), and I'm hoping you will consider attending.

Friday February 20, 2009
EAS Lecture Series
Hyun Ok Park, York University
Title: Everyday Life of North Koreans as Problematic: History, Capital, and Becoming Human
4:30 - 6:00
Arts Building (Room 260)

The other event features two speakers and will be extremely relevant to our course (especially some of the material that comes later in the semester):

Monday March 23, 2009
EAS Lecture Series with Chizuko Naito, Otsuma University in Tokyo and Youngran Ko, University of Tokyo
Titles: Exit the Heroine and The Pitfall Called the Face of the Nation
6:00-7:30
Desautel Faculty of Management (Room 451)

Both of these events are listed, along with other great events, here (the Department of East Asian Studies listing of speakers and events), where you can also access detailed descriptions of the talks and speakers (as PDF files). Please note that for the talks by Professors Naitô and Kô, you have the chance to submit questions for them in advance! Make sure to read the description of the format for this event on the PDF file too.

I also want to draw your attention to two other events that were recently added to the schedule:

Wednesday March 18, 2009
38th Japan Seminar of Montreal
Vincent Mirza, East Asian Studies, McGill University
Title: Young Women in Tokyo and the Changing Definition of Work: Morality, Marriage and Flexible Capitalism
5:00 - 7:00 Stephen Leacock bldg (Room 738)
Wednesday April 1, 2009
Mini-Beatty Lecture on North Korea with Bruce Cumings
Time and Location: TBA

A Special Report (we're already making "news")!

2009-02-09T15:27:00.003-05:00

Click on the image above to view a larger version of the beginning of the article by Asahi Shimbun (class) reporter Camil Leon! The full text of the article is below!

Increased Police Activity Facing Approaching Yasukuni Anniversary
By Camil Leon
2009/2/9

Last week the police could be seen gathering in an apparent attempt to prepare for the annual protests at the Yasukuni Shrine. Over a dozen policemen and women were seen undergoing some sort of special training.

Sources have confirmed that this was in preparation for the anniversary of the end of World War II, a day when many different interest groups gather at the Yasukuni Shrine to promote their causes.

Government officials have been mysteriously quiet about the training, and people are becoming suspicious. The question on everyone’s mind is what are the intentions behind the police’s mysterious behavior?

Possible answers are that officials are expecting particularly large and crowds, or that they are expecting important officials to partake in the in the gathering.

It is unclear whether the Prime Minister will make a visit to the Shrine, and what the Emperor’s stance will be. It is understood that they are withholding comments in order not to stir up any further controversy over the issue.

The Prime Minister’s predecessor, Mr. Taro Aso, often made vague and ambiguous comments regarding his visits to the Shrine, claiming that they would “depend on individual circumstances,” according to Yonhap News Agency.

Another important question is whether Japan’s new leader will make this a national or a personal issue.

In either case, it is certainly an important site of contention for both Japanese nationals and foreign powers. How the Prime Minister deals with this issue will determine the kind the domestic and international support she will be able to garner during her term.

If she visits the temple she may see her approval ratings rise, in contrast to those of her predecessor Mr. Aso. On the other hand, she may anger Beijing and Seoul.

Suffice it to say that the Prime Minister will be carefully observed during the next few weeks and that her following actions will be a determining part of her political legacy.

Different Voices and Perspectives (includes Thursday's reading assignment)

2009-02-07T12:54:00.003-05:00

First, your required reading assignment for Thursday can be accessed by clicking here or here!

Now, for some important announcements, links to optional material, and some suggestions:

The film you will watch on Tuesday night is very difficult to watch given the graphic and disturbing nature of the testimony. You will, for example, hear Japanese WWII veterans talk very candidly about torture, rape, and other horrifying actions in which they were involved. Because the issues described are, for many people, at the heart of the Yasukuni Shrine controversy, it's important that we engage this material even though it can be very difficult to bear. I highly encourage you to plan to talk with a friend after the film. I also strongly encourage you to read this essay by Linda Hoaglund so that you can prepare a bit for what you will watch and hear.

Also, as a way to link some of the material Heather will share with the film, you may want to explore both the original and more recent "Winter Soldier" hearings as optional supplemental material. This could be useful to you for the midterm, for example, if you are a right wing demonstrator who might feel frustated with anti-Japanese sentiments or if you are a left wing demonstrator who is more generally opposed to war. I'd suggest starting with Andrew Duffy's testimony for the recent Winter Soldier hearings. I tried to find scenes from the original online because some of the testimony is uncannily similar to what you'll hear in Tuesday's film, and this was the best source I could find (the whole film in 5 sections). It's quite long, but if you are able to watch the whole thing, you will be struck by a number of similarities Tuesday night.

One of the men in Tuesday's film will describe waterboarding, something which was in the news not long ago. This essay provides some information on the Japanese military's use of waterboarding along with one perspective on historical memory and torture. It may be helpful for some of you as you prepare for the midterm.

Finally, I want to remind you of something I've said before: if you have concerns about dealing with graphic testimony of torture, rape, and other wartime atrocities, please come by office hours on Tuesday or contact me via email as soon as possible. I know this sort of material can be disruptive and upsetting, and I will be receptive and responsive to any concerns you have.

Jodie's Office Hours Location Changed

2009-02-06T14:36:00.003-05:00

Hi all, please note that starting next Friday, February 13th, my office hours location will change. From then on I will be in Leacock 112A. The day and time will be the same, Fridays from 2:30-3:30 pm.

Poetry by C. Martlet and Norma Field

2009-02-04T15:29:00.003-05:00

One of your classmates wrote two poems in response to recent class material, and she very generously gave me permission to share them with you on the blog. Please join me in thanking her! And let her know what you think in the comments section below!

The lights were switched on and she buried her face further into her arms. People around her murmured quietly to each other as they got up out of their seats, readying to emerge into the sunlight. The promise of a clear, beautiful day was enticing.

No one paid her any mind as they left the small screening room. They thought she had fallen asleep during the film. How disrespectful, they thought to themselves and said to each other.

She held her breath, she wanted to hold it in for as long as she could possibly manage. She wanted to hold her breath until her face turned blue, until her heart pounded against her ribs in anguished protest, until her extremities trembled with the effort. Maybe that would help her stay in control of everything threatening to erupt.

Squeezing her eyes shut as tightly as possible within the darkness the shelter of her arms provided her, stars and bright flashes of light exploded behind her vision. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't block the images from flooding her mind. It made her sick--it made her sad.

Their cries and screams echoed in her ears even though she had no idea what their voices sounded like. It didn't matter. Clenching her jaw, she prayed that the noises would go away, that they would leave her in peace. She didn't care that it was an ignorant peace, she just wanted it to all go away.

A hand gently placed itself on her back and began to rub soothingly. Slowly lifting her head, she turned to look at the person who had stayed behind.

In the eyes of that stranger, she didn't see pity, nor did she see ridicule, fury, or exasperation. All she saw was sadness and understanding.

Opening her mouth, her voice was strangled. "W-why? I-I...it hurts so much-"

"I know." The stranger said quietly.

Unable to hold it back any longer, the girl broke out into loud sobs that bounced off of the room's walls. Covering her face with her hands to hide her tears, unwilling to embarrass herself more than she already had, she only cried harder when the stranger gathered her into their arms and held her gently.

"I know." Came the soothing voice above her.

There were so many things hidden behind those two words, but the girl knew as well. She knew that she'd never be the same. "It hurts." She whispered. The person pulling her even closer, holding her even tighter was her only response.

And she cried.

-FIN-

Author’s Note: I had written this after reading the account of Hiroshima entitled ‘Pursued by Cries’. I’m not an overtly emotional person, but this woman’s story affected me in a very intense manner. This short piece is a result of that feeling.
Written February 2nd, 2009 by C. Martlet

Here is the second poem, which she wrote last night after viewing Radiation: Hibakusha at the End of the World.

Through the Looking Glass

They dropped the bomb.
We are saving lives!
Things went up in flames.
Communism has been dealt a heavy blow!
People were killed.
Those people were taught a lesson!
Families were torn apart, destroyed.
Everything we did, we did out of necessity!
Women and children were burned alive.
What a glorious legacy we leave behind!
Their skin melting off of their bones.
They were strategically sound decisions!
Generations suffer from radiation.
There is no evidence behind these ridiculous allegations!
People are dying, here and now.
Impossible!
The truth, hidden behind curtains of bureaucracy.
We brought peace to the world!
The suffering continues,
No links can be drawn--!
All because they dropped the bomb.
We were saving lives!

Neverending

When will it end?
When we all die?
Our pain and suffering is now,
Not back then, not in the future.

When will it all end?
When we are no longer able to speak?
It has taken much courage to open our mouths,
But no one is listening.

When will it all end?
When it happens to the them?
Then, their attitudes will change,
They will cry out in hypocritical protest.

When will it all end?
Will it ever?

Thanks so much, C. Martlet!!!

Click here to listen to Norma Field read her poem "Before Then" (also inspired by issues raised in the film you watched) and accompanied by the music of Oto. Here is the text:

BEFORE THEN
by Norma Field

Once upon a time
I read about how
If you strip it down enough,
every story in the world
would be a Cinderella story.

But you and I know
that's only half the story,
the happy-ending half.
Most stories
I'm willing to bet
end up sadder than happy.

You know how it works
the Hollywood way:
it's ok, he's gonna get the girl,
the girl's gonna get the prince,
the kid's gonna find his dad.

Or
don't open that door
______ go down the stairs
______ walk into that forest.
Don't turn that corner, come back!
It doesn't matter, none of it matters
because we know it's a horror story,
the one we paid to enjoy.

Knowing the ending lets you sit
through one hair-raising scene after another.
Knowing this toothache
______ this test
______ this strained conversation
will come to an end
helps you do, or harder, just be
until the promised end--and then
normalcy again.

Some endings are so horrible
we can't touch them even with our mind's eye.
Better pretend it didn't happen:
the past is already past anyway.

The atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and then Nagasaki,
is like that for me. Too immense—the consequences
are too immense, spreading far, far beyond the mushroom cloud
quietly, steadily, into the present.

But there're two lines
by poet Ishigaki Rin
that take me straight to the unbearable precipice
of before, just before.

She starts with the photo of a face of festering burns
one of the two hundred and fifty-thousand instant dead,
imagines it back into a classroom or an office or
maybe a factory of fresh
morning faces.

Eight-fifteen a.m. comes 'round each day:
weren't those faces
like yours and mine now
calm, beautiful
caught--
off-guard?

Rokkashomura: Village of Six Places
land of plains and wetlands,
stopping-off point for migratory birds
crossing the majestic northern sea,
once the bearer of prosperity
______ squid sea urchin seaweed;
there's dairy farming and fine produce too
now even—often--organic.

All of it, well, all that's survived
decades of a poor northern economy
in a nation hurtling way past development
is still beautiful.

Soon, very soon
______ this soil
______ this air
______ this water
will be bathed in radiation.

There won't be faces burned beyond recognition,
or much of anything for our eyes to see.
It's not as if a bomb were being dropped, after all.
But six decades into the atomic age
we can't pretend to be innocent just because
radiation's invisible.
After all.

The plutonium reprocessing plant
is supposed to save the region.
People will have jobs again
feed their kids
help their old moms and dads for a change
get new flat-screen tv's down the road.

Just think of it:
spent nuclear fuel
trucked by convoy
from all over the archipelago
converging on the Village of Six Places.

Gotta keep them running, you know—
the fifty-four plants around the country
never sleeping, feeding our hunger
yours and mine
for heat, cool
speed, beauty
and the magic
of making all that waste born of our appetites
disappear.

We know
we know
enough of what will come
from the solution
of Rokkashomura.
We know this poisoning of
______ earth
______ ocean
______ sky
and all who live within
is irreversible
at least as far as our imaginations can reach
and then some.

It looks like it's a go right now, a go for plutonium
prince of toxics.

Here we stand, at the edge of the precipice
knowing not everything, but enough
about what's on the other side.

Here we stand, knowing
the possible ending.

Here we stand, before then.

The Big Mishima Post (with special thanks to Ruoshan!)

2009-02-04T14:18:00.004-05:00

You can watch this video (from 1969) with Mishima (speaking in English for an interview with Canadian TV). If he was still alive, what do you think Mishima would say about the Yasukuni Shrine controversy?

Mishima apparently liked Patriotism more than any of his other works, and he wrote a lot– 35 novels, 25 plays, 200 short stories, and volumes and volumes of essays. He liked it so much, in fact, that he made it into a film, directed by and starring himself. You can see him posing here alongside a poster for the film (above).

Here's a special question for those of you who know Japanese. Both yûkoku (憂国) and "patriotism" refer to a kind of "love" of a country, but the words carry some interesting layers of meaning. Check out the etymological entries in the OED and the 広辞苑.

Your classmate Ruoshan found an excerpt of the film on YouTube, and she sent it to me to share with the class. It is very graphic and intense. Please be advised that this is NOT required viewing. I remember being able to watch it when I was your age, but I actually can't handle it now. (It's the seppuku scene.)

Mishima appeared in other films, such as Fukasaku Kinji's cult classic Black Lizard. (Fukasaku directed the Battle Royale movie some of you have seen.) Here's the classic scene with Mishima from that movie:

Mishima also really loved this image of St. Sebastian by Guido Reni. He writes about it in Confessions of a Mask.

The following is a report that appeared in the New York Times shortly after Mishima's death. I've added in the photos. They were not included in the original article.

"Forces in Japan See Mishima as Yesterday's Dreamer"
New York Times, December 12, 1970
By TAKASHI OKA

Gotemba, Japan, Dec. 5--"To try to revive an Emperor-centered Japan--in this day and age people simply aren't going to go along with a scheme like that," said Lance Cpl. Nobuyuki Fujimoto.

He was speaking of Yukio Mishima, the renowned Japanese writer, who killed himself Nov. 25. He added that he thought Mr. Mishima had been born 30 years too late.

Five of Corporal Fujimoto's companions, all volunteers serving their second two-year enlistments in the ground Self-Defense Forces nodded agreement.

"Mr. Mishima was a writer," said another lance corporal, Kengo Ueno. "If he wanted to appeal to the people, he should have used his pen, not his sword."

Stronger Force Was Goal

Had Mr. Mishima heard the conversation, he might have gnashed his teeth in despair. The purpose of his dramatic hara-kiri was to arouse the 260,000-man Self-Defense Forces into demanding a revision of the Constitution that would restore to them what he considered their rightful place as a proper army, navy and air force, dedicated to reviving an Emperor-centered nation.

The very men to whom he directed his impassioned appeal rejected it almost unanimously. They booed and heckled him at Camp Ichigaya in Tokyo when he harangued them from the central balcony of Eastern Command Headquarters.

Here at Camp Fuji, where Mr. Mishima and his Shield Society, a private army, learned the martial arts of bayonet and target practice or went tenting on the broad slopes of the majestic snow-capped mountain, the men with whom he had trained shook their heads and said that his suicide, in the office of a Self-Defense Force commander, was incomprehensible.

Emphasis on Skills

To an outsider there is a kind of Boy Scout atmosphere about the Self-Defense Forces. The emphasis is on teaching skills and building character. The effort is to give the enlistees--all volunteers ranging from their late teens to their early twenties; there is no conscription--a variety of tasks to keep them interested and occupied.

Col. Masatada Yagi, commander of the Fuji Regiment, said: "Our modern Self-Defense Forces requires so many different skills that two years is barely enough to learn them all. We try to get our men to stay in two terms--four years--so that they are of some use to us, not leaving just as they become able to stand on their own two feet."

A lot of time is spent practicing the three martial arts--shooting, long-distance running and jukendo, a sports version of bayonet drill using wooden rifles and padded clothing.

The commander of Company 3 of the 1,700-man regiment, Maj. Masahiro Horimura, who was a staff officer when Mr. Mishima came here to train said:

"He never showed the least sign of wanting to propagandize us, into getting us to agree that an Emperor-centered Japan should be restored. I was bowled over Nov. 25 when I heard he had invaded Camp Ichigaya with four followers. I couldn't believe it--I thought that radical leftist students were to blame and that Mr. Mishima had gone to persuade them to give up."

Still another corporal, Katsuyuki Yamashita, alluding to the fact that the Self-Defense Forces are not equipped with offensive weapons and that the Constitution forbids "war potential," said:

"In his appeal, Mr. Mishima wanted to revise the Constitution so as to turn the Self-Defense Forces into a proper army. I wish we enjoyed a more clear-cut legal position, but I'm against revising the Constitution. I wish that instead of doing what he did, Mr. Mishima had tried to help us in a more long-term sense, to get public opinion to favor a better position for us.

Said S. Sgt. Takaji Amma, an 18-year veteran of the Self-Defense Forces:

"I met Mr. Mishima four times--the last time just a couple of weeks before his suicide--when he came up here to Camp Fuji with his Shield Society students. The first time, he was here almost a month. He loves Japanese fencing, and so do I. We often fenced together. I was most impressed by him.

"He never put on airs, never acted as if he were a famous novelist. When we put on our masks and measured sword against sword, we were just two devotees of kendo, opening our hearts to each other in the unspoken language of Budo, the way of the samurai."

"Why did he have to do what he did?" the sergeant asked. "Was there no other way? We are a democratic nation. If you want to change the system, you should do so peacefully, through elections."

Sergeant Amma is from a village in Shizuoka, some hundred miles south of Tokyo. He joined the Self-Defense Forces as an 18-year-old, he said, because "I came from a rather poor family and my brother had been killed during the war."

He said he had found happiness and fulfillment in the force. He deeply respects Emperor Hirohito, and his family still cuts pictures of the Emperor from newspapers and magazines to paste up in a special album.

But, the sergeant added, he feels that the Constitution, which calls the Emperor a symbol of state rather than a living god, as before, is right.

Asked if he would join a coup d'état, Sergeant Amma thought a moment.

"That would depend," he said. "If one commander, say my colonel, asked me, I would refuse. If it were the whole Self-Defense Forces moving as one, I would go along. But that kind of a situation is not going to arise suddenly. We would all see it coming--for instance, if it looked as if some Communist regime were about to take over."

Questioning of Orders

Younger members were more categorical.

"I see no need to obey an order I think is wrong," said 22-year-old Lance Cpl. Ryuichi Sasaki. "We'd make our officers stop such a thing right away."

Corporal Sasaki, who is from Niigata on the Japan Sea coast, enlisted at the age of 18, after finishing high school. Of 350 boys in his graduating class, he said 25 entered the Self-Defense Forces. He will quit next year when his second enlistment will be over.

"I've learned a lot from the experience," he said. "I've learned discipline, and how to get along with others. Now I want to go into some kind of job in the service field--a department store, or a travel agency, or something similar. The Self-Defense Force is helping me find a job."

Combat Experience Lacking

"We think we're as good as any other army in this region," said a staff officer, "but of course the one thing we lack is actual combat experience. I know the Koreans think they are stronger than we are. I don't agree, but there's no way we can prove this.

"All I can say is that I think we have a force capable of performing the mission assigned to it-- which is to defend the homeland but not to go on expeditions to other countries."

"We don't want to be anything other than what we are," he added, "and until Nov. 25 we never dreamed that Mr. Mishima wanted us to be anything else either."

What did you think of tonight's film?

2009-02-03T20:35:00.003-05:00

This is Kamanaka Hitomi, the director of Radiation: Hibakusha at the End of the World.

She's made a more recent documentary Rokkasho Rhapsody, which addresses an area briefly shown in the film you saw tonight

You can find Japanese and English info on the film you watched by going to the Radiation: Hibakusha at the End of the World Website.

Click here to read about Morizumi Takashi, who did the filming (camera work) for Kamanaka's documentary. I have the book of his photographs, Children of the Gulf War, in my office, and you can come by to look at it. You can see some of the photographs on his website.

Additional Midterm Workshop with Heather Mills on Feb. 18th

2009-02-03T16:51:00.002-05:00

The people spoke, and Heather listened. You now have a session at a different time. Up to 18 people may sign up for a session on Wednesday, February 18 from 12:35-1:25 pm in Room 302, 3434 McTavish. Please do not sign up for this session if you have already signed up for another.

For tomorrow's class

2009-02-02T08:02:00.005-05:00

I'll mention this song as an example in class tomorrow. I looked for a recording online to share with you and found this video.
The lyrics begin:
"I've been to Nagasaki, Hiroshima too.
The things I did to them, baby, I can do to you."

Kurihara Sadako and student artwork

2009-01-31T18:14:00.003-05:00

Over the years, I've had some students make art inspired by course material. That's always really neat for me. Two former students were moved to make artwork after reading some of the poems by Kurihara Sadako that you are reading for Tuesday. If you click here, you can see scanned pages of a picture book of "When We Say 'Hiroshima'" by Jason O'Leary. And click here to see a piece by Stephanie Schoeller inspired by Kurihara's "flag" poem.

Kurihara died in 2005. You can read an obituary here and also here.

Tuesday's material might seem like a strange link between Ôe and Mishima (whom we might think of as "rivals," as I'll explain in class), but I have a feeling some of you are already figuring out why we are reading a very intense testimony by a survivor of the bombing of Hiroshima, the poems of another survivor, and a folk tale that doesn't end so well for at least one character. What do you think? Why are you reading this stuff together? And why now?

To the left is a painting of a dancing monkey by Mori Sosen (1800).

If you'd like to read the folk tale with a little music, here are some additional links:

Clever Monkey and the Boar (English)

賢いさるといのしし (Same story in Japanese)

I've posted the sign-ups for the midterm workshops with Heather Mills. Please note you can only sign up for one at this point. The workshops are not required, but they are a great opportunity for you to think about and prepare for the performance aspect of the midterm.

Midterm Workshop with Heather Mills, Thurs. Feb. 12

2009-01-31T17:56:00.000-05:00

3434 McTavish, room #302
1:35-2:35 PM
Thurs. Feb 12

Up to 18 students may sign up for this workshop below (in the "comments" section). Each student may only sign up for one workshop unless we announce otherwise at a later date.

Midterm Workshop with Heather Mills, Wed. Feb. 11

2009-01-31T17:55:00.001-05:00

3434 McTavish, room #302
1:35-2:35 PM
Wed. Feb 11

Up to 18 students may sign up for this workshop below (in the "comments" section). Each student may only sign up for one workshop unless we announce otherwise at a later date.

Midterm Workshop with Heather Mills, Thurs. Feb. 5

2009-01-31T17:54:00.001-05:00

3434 McTavish, room #302
1:35-2:35 PM
Thurs. Feb. 5

Up to 18 students may sign up for this workshop below (in the "comments" section). Each student may only sign up for one workshop unless we announce otherwise at a later date.

Midterm Workshop with Heather Mills, Wed. Feb. 4

2009-01-31T17:50:00.002-05:00

3434 McTavish, room #302
1:35-2:35 PM
Wed. Feb. 4

Up to 18 students may sign up for this workshop below (in the "comments" section). Each student may only sign up for one workshop unless we announce otherwise at a later date.

More news from Japan and some announcements

2009-01-28T10:08:00.003-05:00

Click here to read a BBC article about the plan for Japan to deploy military ships off the coast of Somalia. You can find significant details in other reports on this development here, here and here. I think some of you may find this story useful as you prepare your midterm profiles.

I've just updated the list of midterm role assignments. There's only one available group remaining at this point, so if you haven't signed up yet, you have to be a right wing demonstrator.

If you signed up to be a police officer and were not present for yesterday's training, please come to my office hours tomorrow or you may be reassigned to another role.

The author of this week's reading

2009-01-24T14:27:00.002-05:00

My guess is that if you have read any modern Japanese fiction before this class, one of the authors you may have encountered could have been Nobel laureate Ôe Kenzaburô, the author of Seventeen. You might want to check out the Nobel Page for Ôe, and if you're encountering him for the first time, you might also want to skim this intro. I'll tell you a little about him in class this week, but we'll talk more about Ôe more when we study Mishima and Hoshino Tomoyuki. For now, I want us to focus on where Seventeen fits in our Yasukuni Shrine journey.

Many of the issues related to the Constitution and Article 9 that we've studied have been important to Ôe too. The following excerpt comes from an interview with Ôe published in the 6/30/05 issue of the Virginia Review:

I was only twelve years old [when the new constitution was adopted], but I was influenced by the movement for teaching the people the spirit of the new constitution. Even at such a young age, I found it truly wonderful, especially in two points. First there was the preface, where it was written that we must create a new country and wanted to make clear to Asia and to all the other nations on this planet that we were determined to compensate for our wartime activities and that we must transform ourselves and must create a new attitude in Japan. This attitude would entail abolishing all arms. We would not have weapons and we would not use war as a method for solving difficult international problems. Very simply, no war and no arms. That was the concept of the ninth article of our constitution, and the spirit behind that article was expressed in the style of the preface, which was particularly moving to me. I was also moved by what was written about the fundamental role of education.

About 10 years ago, Ôe was interviewed in English by UC Berkeley's Harry Kreisler, and you can watch it thanks to YouTube. I think you'll really enjoy this.

Another Special Treat from Lisa T & an announcement about Police Training

2009-01-22T23:39:00.004-05:00

Another one of your classmates, Lisa T., sent us these two scanned images from children's books she received from a friend.

The first document is the last page from her version of "The Tongue-Cut Sparrow." The second comes from the second to last page of her version of "Momotarô." Enjoy! And thank her!!! (Thanks, Lisa!) If you click on the images, you can view larger versions!

I will end class 10 minutes early on Tuesday in order to discuss top-secret training plans with those of you who will be police for our midterm! The rest of you will need to vacate the room upon my instructions as this information related to police training is a matter of class security. (Yes, I am being silly.) Those of you who will be police are not to discuss any of your training with other members of the class. :)

Thank Greg, everyone!

2009-01-22T20:24:00.003-05:00

One of your classmates, Greg, scanned the last page of a children's book version of "The Quarrel of the Monkey and the Crab" he owns! Here it is. As you see, in this version, the young crab and his companions make the monkey apologize in the end. No death. Thanks, Greg! (Click on the image to view a larger version!)

One of the things I asked you to do at the end of the class was think about this story on your own. I gave you my thoughts, which I said tell you more about me and how I think or what I believe than they tell you about the story. We can all speculate like two of your classmates did, imagining additional information or maybe even alternate scenes. I'd like you to try this too (whether in the comments section for all to see or on your own). Better yet, try to imagine how your character for the midterm might understand this story in relation to the Yasukuni Shrine controversy.

I'd also like you to follow up on a few issues that will mean more to us all if you engage them too. They are tough and important questions, and I provided only a sampling of possible approaches to an answer.

1. Why did Du Bois see Japan the way he did? What informed his point of view?
2. What didn't Du Bois know and/or take into account?
3. Was he "wrong"?
3. Finally, what do your answers to the first three questions mean to YOU?

Here are three video clips that might be fun for you to watch after today's class. The first very short one is Professor Manning Marable of Columbia University speaking about the anecdote I shared at the beginning of class.

Here is the trailer for a new documentary about Richard Aoki, whom I also mentioned in class. The first person interviewed is Yuri Kochiyama, a Japanese American woman who was with Malcolm X when he was shot and who held his head as he died.

Finally, here is an interview with Yuri Kochiyama about the assassination of Malcolm X.

If that last clip piques your interest, I recommend that you get the book Passing It On, which I've taught before and which my students often describe as having a "big impact" on them. One of my only regrets in reorganizing our course to focus so much on the Yasukuni Shrine controversy has been leaving out this book. If you do get it and read it, she will turn 88 this May, and I always like to send her birthday greetings from my students. So, please let me know if you'd like to do so. Even though she is still very busy and active, she often writes back! A few years ago, I even had some students make her a scrapbook filled with her quotes and messages (and art) from classmates.

No Office Hours on 27 January (Tuesday) & Film Reserves

2009-01-21T17:00:00.003-05:00

I wanted to let you all know I will be unable to hold office hours as usual on Tuesday, January 27th due to a mandatory meeting. You may, of course, come by for my office hours on the 29th, and you also have the opportunity to visit Jodie Beck during her office hours on the 30th too. Please plan accordingly if you would like to come to office hours next week, and my apologies for any inconvenience.

I have just learned that some of our films are in the McGill library and have requested for them to be placed on reserve as they arrive, but this request may take some time to process. As I explained on the first day of class and again yesterday, it is your responsibility to find a way to see the films if you do not attend the scheduled screenings. As a reminder, Heather Mills has offered to assist those of you who encounter difficulties, but you shouldn't expect her to respond to emails immediately or meet you on short notice. Again, please plan accordingly.

Sooooo..... what did you think of the first movie? Did anything surprise you?

2009-01-20T21:05:00.003-05:00

I'm really looking forward to learning what you all thought of the movie! Feel free to post any thoughts or questions below, but here are 10 questions in case you want or need some ways to organize and direct your thoughts. Some of these questions may help you prepare for the midterm and the final exam!

1. Why does Tsugumo Hanshiro (Nakadai Tatsuya) go to the Iyi Clan? What does he say he wants? What does he really want?

2. How would you describe Tsugumo Hanshiro's values? What seems to be important to him?

3. How would you describe life for the officials and authorities? For common folk?

4. Is this a pro-warrior film? Why or why not?

5. What does the suit of armour mean?

6. Is this a tragic film? Why or why not?

7. Is there (or are there) an execution (executions) in the film? If so, how do you understand it/them as such?

8. What themes in the film can be applied to what I told you in class about the early 1960s and/or the Yasukuni controversy?

9. What message about "official history" does the very end of the film convey?

10. (Just for fun) Is Nakadai Tatsuya an amazing actor or what???

Here's the big scene with Tanba Tetsurô and Nakadai in case you want to see it again:

You can read an obituary for Tanba Tetsurô from Variety by clicking here. He had a really interesting career – acting in films that ran the gamut from kitschy-weird to period dramas. Here is another obituary. And by clicking here, you can see that he was interested in unusual things. (Even if you can't read Japanese, you'll get the "vibe.") Those of you who know Japanese can get a better sense with this.

UPDATES on midterm sign-ups (see EARLIER POST BELOW to sign up)

2009-01-18T10:42:00.026-05:00

Please don't sign up for roles under this post!
Continue signing up in the comments section under the previous post!

Below are the role assignments as of 6:00 pm, 31 January.

Please note only 1 option is still available: right wing/pro-Yasukuni demonstrator.

These numbers have been adjusted to reflect the current course enrollment and the distribution of roles thus far.

Completely full groups are noted in blue.

MEDIA GROUP (closed)
1. Vanessa N.
2. Julie B
3. Young C Kim
4. Wonjun M
5. Camilleon
6. Demosthenes
7. Jasmine B
8. Suyeon Kim

RIGHT-WING, NATIONALIST, PRO-YASUKUNI, AND/OR PRO-PM DEMONSTRATORS (up to 16 people)
1. Shayna G
2. Kevin H
3. Elba B
4. Alanna I
5. Ruoshan Gu
6. Jenny Feng
7. Chris
8. Jamie B
9. Andras
10. David E.
11. Chrys V

LEFTIST, ANTI-YASUKUNI, AND/OR ANTI-PM DEMONSTRATORS (closed)
1. Dragan (who, by the way, was the first to sign up and, along with Kintarô, is our most earnest and steady blog commenter!)
2. Celine P.
3. Irene K
4. Mariana
5. Chia Hui
6. Aravis (anarchist)
7. Bronwyn J
8. TJ
9. Liping Xie
10. R. Reiss
11. Keumerz
12. Aki-chan
13. Jun
14. Wang NN
15. Wai In Yip
16. Alexander C
17. Terri S (Religious Pacifist)
18. Akira M.

PRIME MINISTER AND ENTOURAGE (closed)
Prime Minister
1. e. T. (Japan's 1st woman prime minister!!! And she is not Koike Yuriko ... or is she???)
Bodyguards
1. Sophie
2. Lauren S.

TOURISTS (closed)
1. Tamara A
2. Dhani C
3. Matt C
4. Nadia Pronych
5. Bighead
6. Chia Hui
7. Caitlin M
8. Gabo T.

HOMELESS FOLKS (closed)
1. Biebs
2. David Ewing
3. Tanya Ali
4. Jayda F

TEENAGE SPECTATORS (closed)
1. Tilly
2. Naria
3. Ting!
4. nenaiko dareda
5. Haberd
6. Shizuyuu
7. Jiwon Park

"EXPERTS" ON MISSIONS (closed)
1. Robin K.
2. Kintarô
3. Andrea
4. Greg (Taikoist)
5. Elliott L.
6. Karen K.
7. Issei M. (Asian League of Nations Expert/ Sakamoto Ryouma follower)
8. Brent F

VENDORS (closed)
1. Sara B
2. Monika F
3. Lisa T
4. Martha H.
5. Rui Li
6. Charles-Olivier B.
7. zbrews
8. Sheila M

ELDERLY VISITORS (closed)
1. Jon D.
2. Moose
3. Kira B
4. Gabrielle
5. Yuki
6. Megumi Wada
7. Joanna Lai
8. gcab
9. Juliette
10. Elizabeth D.
11. Alissa
12. Kawasaki
13. Momoko
14. Charles D.
15. Elizabeth T.

PUNK/PERFORMANCE ARTIST (closed)
1. Brent

POLICE (closed)
1. Larissa
2. Dan Mingrone
3. Sasha W
4. Zavulon
5. Hana
6. Cathy T
7. Adrienne J
8. dWhitaker
9. Sasha K
10. Natalie H
11. Lisa B.
12. Tessa U.
13. Wendy J.
14. Eli S.
15. Mackenzie C.
16. Laura Petryshen
17. Diane Kim

Midterm Role Sign-Up Post!

2009-01-18T09:00:00.004-05:00

Click on "comments" below and provide the following information:

1. Name or Handle/Alias
(Remember, the blog is public!)

2. Role
(With very brief description only if you feel it's necessary)

That's all you need to provide now.

BUT .... look at the roles that have already been claimed to make sure yours is still available.

Click here if you want to review the role descriptions and numbers of available roles -- or if you aren't yet familiar with how to navigate the blog quickly.

I see there are many new blog comments to read! Keep up the great discussions, and we will sort through more together on Tuesday. And Jodie made a blog post too!

More on Buraku and the Emperor System

2009-01-16T19:24:00.004-05:00

For anyone who is interested in reading a little more on the Buraku discrimination and the emperor system, check out the Buraku Liberation and Human Rights Institute

This page is entitled "How We Perceive the Present-Day's Buraku Discrimination" and includes a section that specifically identifies the Emperor System (among other factors such as modernization and globalization) as one of the root causes of present-day discrimination, quoted below:

"Existence of the Emperor system:

This theory proposes that existence of the Emperor system requires a group to exist in the extreme opposite position, which is a role fulfilled by Buraku. To be specific, the Emperor system is based on the principle that the Emperor has a more "noble existence" than anybody else by nature. This principle necessarily required the existence of a group of people in a more "lowly existence" compared with all other people. Buraku people indeed fit this definition. (e.g., theory established by Sue SUMII and Jiichiro MATSUMOTO)"

Breaking news from Japan that relates to our topic!

2009-01-16T09:56:00.002-05:00

In class yesterday, I briefly introduced the anarchist critique of the emperor system that we will study more. I also mentioned anarchists are not the only people for whom the emperor system is a problem. We haven't yet talked about buraku or burakumin in class, but recent news from Japan warrants our immediate attention. Some of you might want to think about this news as you plan for the midterm activity.

Norimitsu Onishi has written this essay for the NY Times. In a few days, this story may be available to subscribers only, so I encourage you to read it quickly. The title is "Japan’s Outcasts Still Wait for Society’s Embrace."

As you read this essay, please think about what we've covered in class thus far and how this story might be related to a critique of the emperor system.

"The Adventures of Kintarô, the Golden Boy” and "The Farmer and the Badger”

2009-01-15T16:46:00.000-05:00

Come up with a way to use one or both of our folk tales for today to make a statement about the Yasukuni Shrine controversy.

Using one (or both) of the tales along with ideas covered in lecture, the readings, and/or the blog, write a short statement of no more than 4 sentences that could be used on a poster at a demonstration or for a flyer for a meeting to discuss the controversy.

Post your statement under the "comments" section below.

Feel free to comment on your classmates' work!

And don't forget: I'll be waking up on Sunday in time to make your midterm sign-up post at 9:00 AM. If there's something you want to do, make sure you're up and ready to refresh the page until the post is there so you can sign up first!

Tanuki Soup

2009-01-13T19:50:00.003-05:00

I hope you all enjoyed Jodie's lecture today! I was impressed with the clever and relevant responses many of you had to her questions about "The Birth of Japan." One of the things Jodie pointed out is that the version you read differs from the original in some significant ways. Do you remember the differences she pointed out in class?

It might seem like we are stepping away from the Yasukuni Shrine controversy with our next two readings, but remember that one of our goals is to use the first half of this class to approach the topic from a wide variety of angles. Most people don't develop their attitudes and feelings about controversial issues by reading scholarly essays by professors, so we will need to explore other ways of thinking and feeling too.

One of the last things Jodie said today was that myths and stories affect our lives and our relationships. We'll be focusing on some fairly heavy examples of this in class, but there are also lots of small ways in which stories show up in our daily lives, including in what we call the things we eat.

A few years ago, a librarian friend at the University of Iowa (Chiaki Sakai) showed me a book called 旅行者の朝食 (Ryokôsha no chôshoku) “Breakfasts of Travelers” (2004) by Yonehara Mari, a writer and translator (Russian and Japanese) who passed away in 2006 at the age of 56. This is a photo of Yonehara. I've translated a little excerpt from that book for you all:

In some recent children’s picture books, the greedy and stubborn old woman in “The Tongue-cut Sparrow,” the selfish and conniving monkey in “The Quarrel of the Monkey and the Crab,” and even the dull-witted raccoon-dog in “Kachi kachi yama” ["The Farmer and the Badger" in the text you all are reading] mend their terrible ways, apologize, and are forgiven by their victims. There are now versions where everything works out in the end without any divine retribution. […] They say Edo Period Japanese people generally didn’t eat four-legged animals, but “tanuki jiru” (raccoon-dog soup) appears in fairy tales and classical storytelling often enough that you’d think it was quite a popular dish.

Here's a photo of a tanuki ("raccoon-dog"), which is somewhat erroneously referred to as a "badger" in your assigned reading for Thursday.

If you look up “raccoon-dog soup,” you may find it described as a soup made with raccoon-dog meat, daikon radish, burdock root, and other ingredients or as a soup made with yam paste, vegetables, and sesame oil. The first recipe is surprising because, as Yonehara writes, “Raccoon meat isn’t sold in Japan today, and I have never heard of a restaurant that serves raccoon-dog. I myself have never eaten it.”

You can find “raccoon-dog soup” on menus at some restaurants in Japan. You’ll find konyaku (a brick of yam paste) instead of meat (as shown in this photo). In other words, the "raccoon-dog soup" you order may have only a bonito fish base or be vegetarian or even vegan.

Yonehara found out that it was likely the soup may not even have been made with raccoon-dog in the first place, and it’s definitely not made with raccoon-dog now. So what's up with calling it that?

Because of the story "Kachi kachi yama" or "The Farmer and the Badger," it might very well be the idea of "raccoon-dog soup" without any raccoon-dog in it that matters. Here again, I want you to think about the ways in which stories can turn up in all sorts of often unexamined ways in everyday life.

Maybe you can think of other examples of food-related names that invoke stories?

"Our Predicament," an Article 9-inspired song by a Japanese singing legend

2009-01-11T20:08:00.003-05:00

I was quite surprised to learn just now that Sawada Kenji, a very famous singer and actor whom some of you may recognize, has a new song about Article 9 of the Constitution, which I told you about in my last lecture. The song also invokes the Yasukuni Shrine controversy.

Sawada Kenji was in a Beatles-style boy band in the 1960s called The Tigers. By the 1970s and 1980s, he was performing solo as Julie. He's been in a number of films, and I think it's safe to call him a superstar. He's played around with nationalism and kitsch in his work, but he's not someone I ever thought of as a "political artist" in the activist sense.

The song title is "Waga Kyûjô." "Waga" means "my" or "our." "Kyûjô" is a play on two words that sound the same: 窮状, which means "predicament," "difficulties," or even "quagmire" and (憲法第)9条, which means "Article Nine" (of the Constitution). The fact that such a high profile celebrity has released a song like this only underscores my point about how prominent this issue is in contemporary Japan.

The lyrics, which Sawada Kenji wrote himself, begin with the following two lines:

麗しの国　日本に生まれ　誇りも感じているが
Born in the beautiful country of Japan, I feel pride too, but
忌まわしい時代に　溯るのは　賢明じゃない
Harking back to the loathsome era isn't wise.

He even includes lines like the following:

わが窮状守れないなら　真の平和ありえない
If we don't protect our "Kyûjô," true peace is impossible.

How would you characterize Sawada Kenji's approach to this issue in relation to your first reading and the material covered in last Thursday's class?

Here's a video, so you can get a sense of the feeling of the song and see Sawada Kenji in action at 60!

‘2009 Japanese Studies Student’ Scholarship

2009-01-09T09:48:00.002-05:00

If you click here, you can access information about a scholarship that might interest you if you are Canadian and already studying Japanese. The deadline for applying is Feb. 27th. When I receive information on opportunities like this, I'll try to share it on the blog in case anyone is interested. If you learn of any opportunities that might benefit your classmates, let me know, and I'll post them as well. Remember the saying I taught you on the 1st day about how three people together can be as smart as Monju!

Some visual references

2009-01-08T18:21:00.010-05:00

In class today, I began by talking about some of the feelings that might get associated with the month of August and Obon season. Of course, there are lots and lots of feelings that we might attach to the Yasukuni Shrine any time of year depending on how we understand its significance. Here is a little visual tour for you all – some photos that capture quite a bit of feeling. These do NOT represent all the possible responses. We'll encounter many more before we get to the midterm.

Protests such as those shown in the two photos below were not uncommon when Koizumi visited the shrine. In the first photo, one of the men is holding up a sign that says (in Japanese), "Prime Minister Koizumi, Listen to the Voices of Asia!" The sign on the right is in Korean.

You can find an awful lot of protest photos from various actions for various causes in Japan at the compendious archives at the Also Sprach Mkimpo Kid website if you feel like exploring on your own (though the site is in Japanese). All the photos below come from that site's collections. If you click here, you can view photos from last summer's demonstrations at the shrine. Earlier last year, a much smaller demonstration of pacifists opposed to the nationalization of the shrine was held, and you can see those photos here and here. (And similar ones in 2007 here.) The August demo in 2007 was quite large, as you can see here (notice the photos of vendors and police too) and here. Perhaps some of the most dramatic were taken in 2006, as you'll see here and here.

In the photo below, folks with raised fists are holding a sign that warrants a little explanation and may provide you with a neat Japanese language lesson too. It basically says, "Dismantle the Yasukuni Shrine." But there's something missing inside the 2nd character for Yasukuni, the "kuni" part. "Kuni" can mean "country" or "nation." It normally looks like this: 国 (You'll need to make sure your web browser settings or preferences are set for Unicode or that you adjust the character settings for your browser if you can't see the Japanese I just typed.) What's missing inside is the component of the character that means "ruler" or "king" if read alone: 王. There's a little more going on with it than that, but I think that gives you the general idea.
Here are some folks holding a sign with the same message without the creative variation from the previous year's protest for comparison.

The following photo shows people holding candles at night to spell out "Yasukuni No."

Finally, here are some photos of demonstrators in support of the shrine. The sign on the left below calls for the Yasukuni Shrine and State to be Defended (or Upheld and Maintained).
Here, you see nationalist demonstrators in formation along one side of the street and police along the other.

If you feel inclined to do a little more searching on your own, type the word "Yasukuni" into a YouTube search, and you'll find plenty of videos like the following and many more.

Taking our class out into the snow?

2009-01-07T12:30:00.003-05:00

I'm sure you've noticed it's snowing. One of my colleagues, who has worked at McGill 20+ years said he can only recall one time when McGill decided to cancel classes, but last year, the University of Iowa canceled classes during a snow and ice storm. I made an announcement on the blog, which you can see here. Two students made a snow sculpture based on one of the folk tales we read together (one that you will read later this semester). You can see what they made here. I think it's worth making a similar offer to this class. If you'd like to make a snow sculpture inspired by class material on campus or somewhere nearby where we all could go see it, take pictures, tell me where your work is located, and I'll post your photos on the blog. I'll even give you some extra credit points. If you are motivated enough to document your work on film, post it to YouTube or somewhere like that, and I can also put that on the blog. Your public snow art might even teach others a bit about what we are learning together, and it would surely be fun for all of us to see. So, if you feel inspired, why not give it a try? Maybe Monju on his lion? Maybe the Yasukuni Shrine? This offer lasts as long as the snow does this semester.

Fables et légendes du Japon by Claudius Ferrand (1903)

2009-01-07T11:21:00.005-05:00

You can find French renderings of some of the folk tales we'll read this semester for free online at this website. You can thank your classmate who goes by "Kintarô" on the blog for sharing this information with the class. This is especially nice in that these renderings are roughly as old as the assigned English versions. Kintarô wanted me to mention that the spelling of Japanese words is not quite what we think of as standard today. (This goes for the English versions by Yei Theodora Ozaki as well.)

At least one other of the assigned readings this semester is available in French. Kintarô said you can find Patriotism by Mishima in Dojoji et autres nouvelles - P. 69-106 (around 4$ only).

Your First Assignment!

2009-01-03T14:18:00.002-05:00

Your assignment is to write an advertising pitch using the “Tongue-cut Sparrow.” Your pitch should be no more than 5 sentences, and it should be posted under the "comments" section accessible below. I suggest composing your response in a word processing document first, saving it, and then pasting it into the "comments" window. To access the "comments" window, simply click on the word "comments" below this post. Your pitch may be as short as 1 sentence as long as your point and use of the folk tale is clear.

In addition to the version I told you in class, you might want to check out a kid-friendly version by clicking here. All of the folk tales we will study in this class are also available online for free here, as is indicated in your course description.

Feel free to twist the basic details of the story or highlight details that help you make your point.

For example, you might find making the old woman into the sympathetic figure helps you or that changing a detail, like the rice starch, to something else better suits the purpose you choose.
Use one of the following suggestions or come up with your own scenario:

*a nursing home advertisement
*an advertisement for a private investigation firm
*a community health clinic advertisement
*an advertisement for a plastic surgery office
*an animal rights group campaign advertisement
*an advertisement for a marriage counselor

Post your pitch under the comments section for this blog post before our next class session on Thursday.

Feel free to respond to other students' pitches if you like.

Remember: NO MORE THAN 5 SENTENCES!

Your Class Calendar for Winter 2009

2008-12-07T13:37:00.009-05:00

WEEK ONE: Introduction

Tuesday, January 6
The folk tale discussed in class, “The Tongue-Cut Sparrow,” is accessible online at http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/jpnft10.txt.

Thursday, January 8
Read “Legacies of Empire: the Yasukuni Shrine Controversy” by TAKAHASHI Tetsuya (coursepack) before coming to class. You may also want to click here to check out the official website of the shrine. Look for the link that says "English" on the left (unless you can read Japanese).

WEEK TWO: The Yasukuni Shrine and National or Cultural Exceptionalism

Tuesday, January 13
Class Lecture by Jodie Beck
Read “Historicizing Modern Shintô: a New Tradition of Yasukuni Shrine” by Michiaki OKUYAMA (coursepack) and “The Birth of Japan” (coursepack) before coming to class.

Thursday, January 15
Read “The Adventures of Kintarô, the Golden Boy” and The Farmer and the Badger” (both available online at: http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/jpnft10.txt) before coming to class.

WEEK THREE: Aggression, Revenge, and Self-Defense

Tuesday, January 20
Read the excerpt from the chapter entitled “The Demonic Other” from John DOWER’s War Without Mercy (coursepack) and “Momotarô, or the Story of the Son of a Peach” (available online at: http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/jpnft10.txt) before coming to class.

FILM SCREENING: Tuesday, January 20th: Hara Kiri (Seppuku) in LEA 26 at 6:00 pm!

Thursday, January 22
Read the excerpt from the chapter entitled “What Japan has Done” from W.E.B. du Bois on Asia: Crossing the World Color Line (coursepack) and “The Quarrel of the Monkey and the Crab” (available online at: http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/jpnft10.txt) before coming to class.

WEEK FOUR: Nationalism and Affect

Tuesday, January 27
Read roughly half of Seventeen by ÔE Kenzaburô before coming to class.
In class, we will watch excerpts from the Film The New God (directed by TSUCHIYA Yutaka and featuring AMAMIYA Karin).

Thursday, January 29
Finish reading Seventeen by ÔE Kenzaburô before coming to class.

WEEK FIVE: Disaster and Storytelling

Tuesday, February 3
Read “Pursued by Cries,” the selected poems by KURIHARA Sadako (coursepack), and “The Sagacious Monkey and the Boar” (available online at: http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/jpnft10.txt) before coming to class.

Film Screening: Tuesday, February 3rd: Radiation: Hibakusha at the End of the World in LEA 26 at 6:00 pm! Click here for an interview with the director for more information.

Thursday, February 5
Read Patriotism by MISHIMA Yukio before coming to class.

WEEK SIX: Differential Power and Suffering

Tuesday, February 10
Class Lecture by Heather Mills
Read the excerpt from the chapter “Shattered Lives” from John DOWER’s Embracing Defeat (coursepack) before coming to class.

Film Screening: Tuesday, February 10th: Japanese Devils in LEA 26 at 6:00 pm!

Thursday, February 12
Class Lecture by Jodie Beck
Your assigned material related to “Comfort Women” will be posted on the blog. Read and view this material before coming to class.

WEEK SEVEN: Conclusion of Part I of the Course

Tuesday, February 17
Read “Iron Fish” by KÔNO Taeko (coursepack) before coming to class.
In class, we will watch excerpts from Byun Young-Joo’s Habitual Sadness documentary trilogy on Korean “Comfort Women.”

Thursday, February 19
Interactive Midterm Activity: August 15th at the Yasukuni Shrine
Detailed instructions for this midterm activity will be provided in class. Because of the interactive and group nature of this midterm, make-up options will not be available. General information available by clicking here.

Have a great break!

WEEK EIGHT: Capitalism and Neoliberalism

Tuesday, March 3
Read “In the Wasteland After the Bubble Burst” by AMAMIYA Karin (coursepack) before coming to class. In class, we will watch most of the documentary film Kansai Kouen: Public Blue.

Film Screening: Tuesday, March 3rd: AKIRA in LEA 26 at 6:00 pm!

Thursday, March 5
Read “Born of Trauma: Akira and Capitalist Modes of Destruction” by Thomas LAMARRE (coursepack) before coming to class.

WEEK NINE: Community and Home

Tuesday, March 10
Read “Ema Shû’s ‘The Mountain Folk’: Fictionalized Ethnography and Veiled Dissent” by Scott SCHNELL (coursepack) before coming to class.

Thursday, March 12
Read An Account of my Hermitage by KAMO no chômei (coursepack) and “The Story of Urashima Tarô” (available online at: http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/jpnft10.txt) before coming to class.

WEEK TEN: Home and Identity

Tuesday, March 17
Read “The Home Away From Home” by Marilyn IVY (coursepack) before coming to class.

Film Screening: Tuesday, March 17th: Good Morning in LEA 26 at 6:00 pm!

Thursday, March 19
Read “Japan, the Ambiguous, and Myself” by ÔE Kenzaburô (available online at: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1994/oe-lecture.html) and “I of the Ambiguous Identity” by HOSHINO Tomoyuki (coursepack) before coming to class.

WEEK ELEVEN: Identity and Social Justice

Tuesday, March 24
Read the Introduction to Okinawa and the U.S. Military by Masamichi INOUE and “Future ‘Assets,’ but at What Price?” by Julie YONETANI (coursepack) before coming to class.

Thursday, March 26
Read the excerpt from the chapter entitled “The Outcaste in Japan” by Mikiso HANE (coursepack) and “The Jellyfish and the Monkey” (available online at: http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/jpnft10.txt) before coming to class.

WEEK TWELVE: Social Justice and Love

Tuesday, March 31
Read Comrade Taguchi’s Sorrow by KOBAYASHI Takiji (coursepack) before coming to class.

Thursday, April 2
Read “Reflections of the Way to the Gallows: Kanno Sugako” (coursepack) and “The Bamboo Cutter and the Moon Child” (available online at: http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/jpnft10.txt) before coming to class.

WEEK THIRTEEN: Love, Loss, Fantasy, and Expectations

Tuesday, April 7
Class Lecture by Heather Mills
Read the excerpt from The Pillow Book by SEI Shônagon and “Itô Noe (1895-1923)” (coursepack) before coming to class.

Film Screening: Tuesday, April 7th: Kamikaze Girls in LEA 26 at 6:00 pm! Jodie Beck will make a presentation on "Lolicon" after the film and answer questions.

Thursday, April 9
Read “Three Women Who Loved the Left: Radical Woman Leaders in the Japanese Red Army Movement”(coursepack) and “The Goblin of Adachigahara” (available online at: http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/jpnft10.txt) before coming to class.

Basic Midterm Role-Play Profile Options and General Information

2008-12-07T10:26:00.000-05:00

The midterm for this class will be interactive and will require preparation and in-class participation in addition to written work. It will count for 40% of your course grade and will be evaluated as follows:

Written Component(s) and/or Video/Audio Reports: 75%
In-Class Participation: 25%

Scenario: Outside the Yasukuni Shrine on August 15th

It is very early on the morning of August 15, 2009. The Prime Minister has said s/he will visit the Yasukuni Shrine today, and rumor has it that s/he will do so in the morning before the shrine opens officially and before the really big crowds arrive. Various groups have gathered outside the shrine at the crack of dawn to express their opposition to or support for the Prime Minister’s visit and/or the shrine itself. Others have arrived to worship or just to check out the scene. There is a heavy police and media presence. Our staged “role play” will begin before the shrine officially opens and last up until the arrival of the Prime Minister. The end of the activity will be the Prime Minister's short press conference.

Assignment:

1. Prepare Your Profile
Everyone (except members of the media group) must prepare a 4-5 page personal profile to prepare for the activity. Your profile should be double-spaced and typed. You must include at least 4 references from at least 4 of the assigned course readings (or films or lectures) covered through February 17th, and your profile must be submitted by February 19th at the latest. Please note that while you have considerable freedom in how you develop your profile and what kind of information you choose to include, you must make use of assigned material to support key details or ideas. You are welcome to use outside references (from blog links or material you find on your own) in addition to the required references from assigned material. You may choose to write it in either 3rd or 1st person. Make sure to include citations.

2. Prepare Your Props
Some of you may require props for the activity. You are responsible for making any signs, leaflets, maps, or other items you will need to perform your role.

3. Prepare Written Statements (if applicable)
Some of you will be required to make specific statements. These should be prepared in advance and submitted to Professor Hurley after the activity.

4. Coordinate/Choreograph with your group
If you are part of a group that will work together in the role-play (such as the police), you should plan your actions together in advance.

5. Arrive at class on time!
This activity is your midterm exam. We will need all the time available to us.

The following are all of the basic role assignments. Special instructions for the police group will not be posted to the blog or made available to the rest of the class until after the activity is complete.

You will have the opportunity to work on your profiles and other preparations with Heather Mills, who will hold "midterm workshop" hours, which will be announced in class and on the blog.

MEDIA GROUP (10-15 people)
You’ll first need to decide what kind of media outlet you work for: is it a conservative paper? One that focuses on economics? A mainstream paper? An independent news outlet? An internet journal? A foreign news outlet? A university newspaper? Your job will be to interview the various people who are present. Write down quotes and notes for your report. You should think about how you want to spin the story. You should also prepare a question to ask the Prime Minister at the press conference.
IMPORTANT NOTE: This group does NOT need to write a profile for the midterm. Instead, you will write a “news report” on what transpires in class (or, if you’d like, prepare a news video and post it to YouTube), which you should submit to Professor Hurley, who will post it on the class blog. You may take photos of classmates for blog reports only with their permission. Your report may be submitted electronically (as a word file or link) to Prof. Hurley any time before March 3rd.

RIGHT-WING, NATIONALIST, PRO-YASUKUNI, AND/OR PRO-PM DEMONSTRATORS (15-20 people)
You may be a member of a neo-nationalist or right-wing group. Your job will be to make your position known through your signs (posters), through your actions, and/or through your statements to the media. You may make leaflets to distribute too. You will assemble in front of the shrine to demonstrate your support for the shrine and/or the Prime Minister’s visit (or to confront leftist demonstrators).

LEFTIST, ANTI-YASUKUNI, AND/OR ANTI-PM DEMONSTRATORS (15-20 people)
You may be a religious pacifist (such as a Buddhist or Christian) opposed to war in general and/or the shrine’s stance on the war. You might be an anarchist opposed to everything for which Yasukuni stands and the nation state of Japan itself. You might be a Korean or Chinese person or "resident" of Japan offended by the visits and the shrine’s position on history (or a Japanese person sympathetic to that perspective). Make protest signs that communicate your position. Your job is to make your position known through your signs and through statements to the media, as well as through your actions. You assemble in front of the shrine at the crack of dawn to demonstrate your opposition to the shrine and/or the PM’s visit.

PRIME MINISTER AND ENTOURAGE (3 people)
Prime Minister (1 person) and Two Bodyguards
You arrive at a secure location near the Yasukuni Shrine at the crack of dawn. You are scheduled to enter the shrine shortly before it opens. Protest groups are already present. The Prime Minister should prepare the remarks s/he will give at a press conference after s/he pays his respects to those who sacrificed themselves for the nation during the war.
The Prime Minister and bodyguards will watch televised footage of what is transpiring in front of the shrine in the secure location. When the situation seems sufficiently under control, they will prepare to enter the shrine for the visit.
One of the bodyguards should inform the police when the Prime Minister is ready to enter the shrine. The police are to hold back all the protesters and clear ample space for the prime minister. You will then escort him through the cleared area to the gate.
After the visit, the press conference will be held in another secure location. The Prime Minister should be prepared to answer questions from the media.

TOURISTS (5-8 people)
You are a tourist. This may or may not be your first visit to Japan. You may or may not understand what is happening at the shrine, but you are there on the morning of the 15th.

HOMELESS FOLKS (3-5 people)
You are a homeless person in Tokyo. Among your daily concerns are fears for your safety. Tokyo teenagers killed another homeless man recently. The kids called him “human garbage” and said it didn’t matter if people like you lived or died. You have been taunted and harassed by people yourself. As you see it, the government of Japan has never done anything good for you. If you try to take a nap in a shady spot on the sidewalk, cops make you move so that you don’t bother shoppers. Think about why you might want to go to the Yasukuni Shrine on the 15th and what you will do there.

TEENAGE SPECTATORS (5-8 people)
You are a teen who has come to the shrine to check out what is sure to be a big scene. You may or may not have political motivations or interests.

"EXPERTS" ON MISSIONS (5-8 people)
You may be a professor, a politician, or a spokesperson for an advocacy group. Maybe you have written a book about the Yasukuni Shrine. Maybe you are a scholar of classical Japanese literature and culture at a well-known private university in Tokyo or a professor of East Asian Studies at a foreign university. Maybe you are a member of an opposition political party. Maybe you are a psychologist. You have a specific reason to be at the shrine that morning -- whether it's a specific message to communicate or something you wish to document. Note: members of this group have the option to write a report after the event in lieu of a profile, but must explain their reasons and obtain permission from Professor Hurley in order to do so. If you receive permission to write a report after the event, follow the instructions outlined above for the media group.

VENDORS (5-8 people)
You are making and selling bean cakes or some other item near the gate of the Yasukuni Shrine. The 15th is a big opportunity for you to sell a lot, because many people will be coming by the Yasukuni Shrine. Some will be there to protest, and some will be there as visitors. You may or may not have strong opinions about the political controversy related to the Prime Minister's visit.

ELDERLY VISITORS (10-15 people)
You are an elderly Japanese person visiting the shrine to remember or pay respects to a loved one. Your job is to create a profile for yourself and your lost loved one enshrined at Yasukuni. You arrive at the shrine at the crack of dawn so that you can be among the first allowed in to pay your annual respects. You may also chose to develop a profile for an elderly person who lost a loved one and who is opposed to the shrine.

PUNK/PERFORMANCE ARTIST (1 person)
You are a punk rock singer or radical performance artist. You decided to go to the Yasukuni Shrine today to make a point. Your job is to come up with a personal profile and a creative way to communicate your message at the shrine. You might, for example, perform a song or try to make a speech.

POLICE (15-20 people)
You are assigned to patrol the entrance to Yasukuni Shrine on the morning of August 15th. Your job is to contain and monitor the protesters, to prevent any outbreak of violence, and above all, to protect the property of the shrine and ensure the safety of the Prime Minister and those coming to worship at the shrine. One of the Prime Minister’s bodyguards will notify you when the Prime Minister is about to arrive, and at that point, you must mobilize to ensure her/his safe passage through the gate.
You will receive special instructions you are not to share with other members of the class prior to the midterm.

Your Final Exam Multiple Choice Questions (Correct Answers in Bold)

2008-05-13T19:03:00.001-04:00

1. Kayano Shigeru describes an Ainu practice called ukocaranke ("mutuallly let words fall"). What was it?
a.) Exchanging marriage vows.
b.) Praying together on top of a hill or mountain.
c.) Refusing to use Japanese names or speak Japanese and only speaking together in Ainu.
d.) Settling differences by arguing exhaustively.

2. Sei Shônagon expresses many opinions in The Pillow Book. Which of the following is NOT one of them?
a.) The driver of an ox-carriage should be a big man.
b.) Farmers make the best husbands.
c.) A preacher ought to be good-looking.
d.) I like page-boys to be small.

3. Which one of the following was NOT one of Matsuo Bashô’s reasons for taking journeys across Japan?
a.) He was shunned in the capital.
b.) He wanted to publicize his work and recruit disciples.
c.) He wanted to visit famous poetic locales.
d.) He wanted to overcome desire and attachments for Buddhist reasons.

4. Which of the following was a way in which the folktale Momotarô (“The Peach Boy”) was used to raise support  for Japan's aggressive expansionism in the first half of the 20th  century?
a.) Through wartime magazines, comic books, and animated films.
b.) Through plays performed in Japanese occupied Indonesia and elsewhere.
c.) Through political cartoons and copies of the tale distributed to soldiers
d.) All of the above.

5. Sei Shônagon's The Pillow Book is considered to have been intended as handbook to future ladies-in-waiting.
a.) True
b.) False

6. Which of the following best describes the poetic practice of honkadori?
a.) Using the correct number of syllables in a poem.
b.) The demonstration of skill by “borrowing” images or phrases from earlier poems.
c.) Referring to the kami (or “gods”) correctly in a poem.
d.) None of the above.

7. Which of the following statements about Kayano Shigeru is NOT true? He was:
a.) the first Ainu person to serve in the Japanese Diet or Parliament.
b.) an activist who fought the building of a dam that would flood sacred lands.
c.) assassinated by a member of an anti-Ainu militia last year.
d.) a tireless advocate for the preservation of Ainu culture and language.

8. Which of the following happened to Taguchi according to the narrator of "Comrade Taguchi's Sorrow"?
a.) He spent four months in prison.
b.) He beat a city boy from behind with a herring.
c.) Both a and b.
d.) None of the above.

9. Which of the following best describes the concept of mono no aware?
a.) A “feminine” style of courtly writing.
b.) A sad sensitivity to things.
c.) Mastery of a poetic subject.
d.) Divine justice.

10. According to lecture, what was the most likely “grave fault” for which Kaguyahime (Princess Moonlight or the Moon-Child) was sent to earth as punishment (in "The Bamboo Cutter and the Moon Child")?
a.) A sexual transgression
b.) Insurrection or rebellion
c.) Both a and b
d.) None of the above

11. Hoshino Tomoyuki, the author of “I of the Ambiguous Identity,” was born in Los Angeles.
a.) True
b.) False

12. Which of the following is true of the yamamba?
a. She is a folkloric figure depicted as an old mountain “witch” or “hag” who preys on the young.
b. She is "as big as a mountain and as strong as a horse."
c. The young women today whose style involves bleached hair, salon tans, and white eye shadow.
d. Both a and c.

13. What did the dog find under the tree for the neighbor in “The Man Who Made Withered Trees to Flower”?
a.) A pile of gold.
b.) The daimyo (or daimio as written in our story).
c.) A pile of garbage.
d.) Urashima Tarô’s box.

14. Which of the following tales does NOT involve someone disobeying someone’s request NOT to do something?
a.) “The Goblin of Adachigahara.”
b.) The Japanese Creation Story (of Izanagi and Izanami).
c.) “The Adventures of Kintarô, the Golden Boy.”
d.) “The Story of Urashima Tarô, the Fisher Lad.”

15. In the film SpiritedAway (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi), why is Chihiro's family in the car?
a.) The mother heard about a wonderful restaurant in a remote theme park.
b.) They are driving around Japan to visit famous locations for summer vacation.
c.) They are moving to a new house.
d.) It’s their family tradition to take weekend drives to places they’ve never been on weekends.

16. Which of the following statements could NOT be said of Kôno Taeko’s short story “Iron Fish”?
a.) It tells the story of how the Yasukuni Shrine and its museum evoke strong emotions in an old woman who, for the first time, goes to pay respects to her first husband and “feel his loss personally.”
b.) It reminds the reader of how any life lost in war is not simply a number, but an individual connected to other people even if the death was “caused by something from a distant location” and “difficult to understand.”
c.) It offers yet another example of how women were affected by the Pacific War.
d.) It romanticizes the noble deaths of Japanese soldiers and glorifies Japan’s efforts to unify all of Asia under the Co-Prosperity Sphere.

17. Sei Shônagon discusses priests (or monks) on several occasions in The Pillow Book. Which of the following is NOT something she writes?
a.) “That parents should bring up some beloved son of theirs to be a priest is really distressing.”
b.) “A preacher ought to be good-looking.”
c.) “An ugly preacher may well be the source of sin.”
d.) “If you must bring up your beloved son to be a priest, make sure it is the third or fourth son because at least they are not so important.”

18. In “I of the Ambiguous Identity,” Hoshino Tomoyuki writes that he was troubled over his identity in three ways as a child. Which of the following is NOT one of those ways?
a.) He hated replying “America” when people asked where he was born. His family moved back to Japan when he was two and a half years old, and he felt no connection to the US.
b.) His family moved around a lot, and his parents were both originally from Tokyo, so he didn’t have a stable “hometown” or even relatives with an old family home in the “country” like his classmates.
c.) His mother was American, and he felt like he wasn’t truly Japanese or “Japanese enough” to belong after his family moved back to Japan.
d.) His father died from illness when Hoshino was eleven, and he started to wonder whether having lost one parent meant he “didn’t have enough.”

19. How does Kayano Shigeru explain why so many Ainu living in particular regions have the same last names even when they are not “blood relations”?
a.) It is traditional in Ainu society for communities (and not families) to share a common surname.
b.) The Meiji government sent an official to distribute Japanese surnames for Japanese family registers. That man was drunk and assigned names quickly by thinking of Japanese surnames that sounded like the name of a village or area.
c.) The Meiji government wanted to simplify its dealings with the Ainu community, and assigning a smaller number of surnames made it easier to keep records.
d.) None of the above.

20. During the Edo Period many Ainu were taken from their homes by Japanese for forced labor.
a.) True
b.) False

21. Which of the following concepts are relevant to the film Mishima: a Life in Four Chapters?
a.) Nationalism.
b.) Mono no aware.
c.) Kuni and kami.
d.) All of the above.

22. In the folk tale “The Farmer and the Badger” (Kachikachiyama), the farmer is angry at the badger (raccoon-dog) for eating his vegetables and rice, and so he captures the badger to make soup out of him. What happens next?
a.) The badger escapes and throws the farmer’s wife into the pot.
b.) The farmer and his wife die when they eat the soup (because badger meat is poisonous).
c.) The rabbit saves the badger, and they feast on the farmer and his wife.
d.) The badger tricks the rabbit into taking his place, and the poor rabbit is eaten instead.

23. Matsuo Bashô’s penname (Bashô) comes from a banana tree one of his disciples gave him.
a.) True
b.) False

24. In the film Kamikaze Girls (Shimotsuma Monogatari), what curious habit or talent does Momoko’s grandmother exhibit?
a.) She can embroider delicate patterns even though she lost one eye.
b.) She can catch bugs such as flies with her hand.
c.) She can sell anything online.
d.) None of the above.

25. Which of the following is true?
a.) Monju’s name is used in the common Japanese saying “three people together can be as smart as Monju” (like “two heads are better than one” in English).
b.) Monju’s name is used in the common Japanese saying “unless you are as bright as Monju, you may as well not bother trying.”
c.) Monju’s name must never be spoken out loud because he is too holy for words.
d.) Monju is the guardian bodhisattva of the Yasukuni Shrine.

26. In the story “Comrade Taguchi’s Sorrow” by Kobayashi Takiji, Taguchi’s sister kills herself after:
a.) her friends at school find out where she lives and that she is poor.
b.) her brother is sent to prison for being a communist.
c.) she is raped by a tourist from the city.
d.) a love affair with a big land-owner ends badly.

27. In “Momotarô, or the Story of the Son of a Peach,” how does the old woman retrieve the giant peach from the river?
a.) She uses a stick.
b.) She wades into the water and grabs it.
c.) She claps her hands and sings it to shore.
d.) She uses her trusty fishing net.

28. What did the poor jellyfish do before having his bones beaten out of him in “The Jellyfish and the Monkey”?
a.) He followed orders.
b.) He told the truth.
c.) He begged for forgiveness.
d.) All of the above.

29. In “The Bamboo-Cutter and the Moon-Child,” the emperor tells Kaguyahime (Princess Moonlight) that he loves her and wants her to come to the court and enjoy a “position of honor.” What is her response?
a.) She tells him that is very nice, but that she’s really not interested.
b.) She said that if she went to the palace she would turn into a shadow (and even starts to lose form as she speaks to him).
c.) She tells him that she is from the moon, where marriage with humans is prohibited.
d.) She says she loves him too, but just then the Moon people come to take her back home.

30. Which of the following was said in lecture about “The Jellyfish and the Monkey”?
a.) “This is a fairy tale about differential power, about how hierarchy can make life very precarious for those at the bottom of the social pecking order.”
b.) “This is a fairy tale about knowing your limits and knowing when to say ‘no.’”
c.) “It’s never a good idea to take on a difficult mission when a monkey is involved.”
d.) “The jellyfish is thought to have deserved the punishment because he didn’t truly know himself.”

31. Buraku activists oppose the emperor system in Japan because it structures the caste or hierarchical social system that renders some lives less (or more) important than others.
a.) True.
b.) False.

32. In Byun Young-Joo’s documentary series on the former “comfort women,” Granny Kang who is dying from lung cancer wanted to be “filmed until the end” because she wanted to be remembered, for her story to be known.
a.) True.
b.) False.

33. Among the terrible stories shared by “comfort women” in the documentary series was the memory of a woman who had remained in China after the war. She described which of the following horrific experiences:
a.) Being raped by the doctor who “examined” her after she was abducted.
b.) Having been surgically mutilated.
c.) Having hemorrhaged as a result of the trauma.
d.) All of the above.

34. According to the film shown in class, Mishima’s “Shield Society”:
a.) Was a privately funded militia.
b.) Was allowed to train on the official Self-Defense Force grounds.
c.) Included founding members who took a blood oath with Mishima.
d.) All of the above.

35. In the film Kamikaze Girls (Shimotsuma Monogatari), who does Momoko claim to be in the final big fight scene?
a.) The daughter of Himiko, the legendary leader of the Kanazawa all-girl biker gang.
b.) Himiko, the legendary leader of the Kanazawa all-girl biker gang.
c.) “Baby Shine Bright,” the biker who defeated Himiko’s gang in the Kanazawa girl biker turf war.
d.) Princess Moonlight.

36. In the film The Happiness of the Katakuris, what tension between the son (Masayuki) and his father (Masao) is finally resolved once and for all when Richard Sagawa dies?
a.) Masayuki says he wants to stay and help protect the family from con artists.
b.) They discover the wallet that Masao thought Masayuki had stolen from the first guest who died at the inn.
c.) Masao realizes life is fleeting and forgives his son for having been in trouble.
d.) They discover the poisoned handkerchief that Sagawa had used to kill the other guests, so Masayuki is no longer a suspect in his father’s eyes.

37. In Spirited Away, the animated film we watched in class, Yubaba (who runs the bath house and inn for the gods) resembles which of the following figures we studied this semester most closely?
a.) A bodhisattva.
b.) A yamamba.
c.) A raccoon-dog (or badger).
d.) A ninja.

38. What does No-Face need to do before eating someone in the film Spirited Away?
a.) Get that person alone.
b.) Get that person to say his name out loud.
c.) Get that person to accept gold or a “gift” from him.
d.) Get that person to reveal Haku’s whereabouts.

39. According to lecture, Eddy Zheng, one of the imprisoned activists Yuri Kochiyama describes, is now facing deportation to China.
a.) True.
b.) False

40. Several questions on the Loyalty Oath administered to interned Japanese Americans were difficult to answer, especially question #28. Why?
a.) It seemed like a trick question, because if you disavowed allegiance to the emperor, it could sound like you once held an allegiance to him.
b.) Issei who could not be U.S. citizens feared they would end up stateless if they said "yes."
c.) None of the above.
d.) Both a and b.

41. There is no question #41.

42. Bill Kochiyama was a "No-No Boy."
a.) True.
b.) False.

43. Lord Raiko orders Kintarô to slay the cannibal monster in "The Adventures of Kintarô, the Golden Boy." What happens next?
a.) Kintarô cuts off the monster's head, which he parades through the streets of the Capital city.
b.) Kintarô cuts off the monster's head, which he carries back to his master.
c.) Kintarô cuts off the monster's head, and it turns into gold. Kintarô becomes the wealthiest and most powerful hero in his country.
d.) Kintarô cuts off the monster's head. The end.

44. What percentage of U.S. military bases are located in Okinawa?
a.) 20%
b.) 50%
c.) 75%
d.) 90%

45. According to lecture, the symbol of Okinawa as sacrificed daughter portrays Okinawa as part of a Japanese "national family," which isn't how many Okinawans feel.
a.) True.
b.) False.

46. How was the anarchist Kanno Sugako like Princess Moonlight or the Moon Child from "The Bamboo Cutter and the Moon Child"?
a.) The emperor fell in love with her.
b.) The media focused on her "sexual transgressions."
c.) She was adopted a raised by a kindly old couple, whose hardships and poverty motivated Kanno's political beliefs.
d.) She wrote a letter to the emperor, which was burned.

47. Who does Yuri Kochiyama compare to Urashima Tarô, the Fisher Lad?
a.) Her husband, Bill.
b.) Her father-in-law, Yutaka.
c.) Malcolm X.
d.) Her father, Seiichi.

48. When the doctor is unable to cure the Sea King's wife in "The Jelly Fish and the Monkey," how does he try to avoid the Sea King's wrath?
a.) He lies and says the monkey poisoned her.
b.) He disguises himself as a jellyfish, a plan that backfires when he is sent on an impossible errand.
c.) He claims he could cure her, but that the ingredients for the proper medicine can't be found anywhere in the sea.
d.) None of the above.

49. How did Kayano Shigeru's grandfather (Totkaram) lose his finger?
a.) He cut off his own finger in the hope that would get him out of forced labor.
b.) The master cut off his finger as punishment for working too slowly.
c.) Most Ainu of his granfather's generation cut off a finger as a rite of passage.
d.) The Japanese government cut off the fingers of all Ainu at that time so that they could be more easily identified.

50. According to the narrator of the story "Iron Fish," the inside of the museum was "filled with cheerful brightness."
a.) True.
b.) False

Folk Tale Review Suggestion

2008-05-09T16:38:00.004-04:00

Great discussion about Spirited Away, everyone!

Don't worry about expressing your personal opinions and interpretations. The appreciation or interpretation of fiction (text, film, etc.) is very subjective, and sometimes we can look the same evidence in a text or film and take it in different directions. You won't really have a chance to make interpretive claims on a multiple choice exam, so have fun sharing your ideas with one another.

To prepare for the final, you will want to review all the folk tales.

One way to do that could be to come up with a list of lessons one might draw (good, bad, neutral, contradictory, funny, etc.) from each of the stories you read this semester. You'll need to remind yourselves what the stories are about to do this. Give it a try below. (More study tips to come!)

Here are the folk tales you are expected to have read.

Tongue-Cut Sparrow

The Story of Urashima Tarô, the Fisher Lad

The Adventures of Kintarô

The Sagacious Monkey and the Boar

The Quarrel of the Monkey and the Crab

The Bamboo Cutter and the Moon Child

The Mirror of Matsuyama

The Farmer and the Badger

The Jellyfish and the Monkey

Momotarô, the Son of a Peach

The Story of the Old Man Who Made Withered Trees to Flower

We might as well also include the creation story ("The Birth of Japan") in this review activity too.

Remember that you were NOT required to read The Story of Princess Hase.

Ue o muite covers (for Nick)

2008-05-08T11:54:00.002-04:00

A Taste of Honey (disco version)

4PM version

Selena's version in Spanish

Pizzicato Five version