Halloween - "super ordinary" dress-up

via Twitter: "Halloween dress-up to look like 'super ordinary' situations"

https://x.com/nick_kapur/status/1850535311694057598
-see screenshot examples.

illustrated postcards of Japan & Empire mid-1945 into 1946

Excerpt from full announcement, https://networks.h-net.org/group/discussions/20045539/pacific-war-postcards-east-asia-image-collection-resource-scholars

... Originally, Digital Scholarship Services at Lafayette College scanned, annotated, and posted only the illustrated cards, or less than ten percent of the collection. Thereafter, a digital copy of the whole collection was sent to the National Showa Memorial Museum in Tokyo. Their staff researched the conditions of their production and circulation, transcribed them, and also translated all of them into English. The "Pacific War Postcards" were subsequently the subject of an NHK feature, which aired in December, 2023 (https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20231220/k10014293911000.html). 

They are now available in an open-access format, as the latest subcollection of the East Asia Image Collection (https://ldr.lafayette.edu/collections/dz010q56p).

Ruins of Ichijodani from 1500s frozen in time

Book review: Medieval Ruins is an important contribution to the English-language field of medieval history and archaeology. It is very readable—I have already used excerpts in my undergraduate classes-and provides a much-needed spotlight on some of the lesser known perspectives of common people during the Warring States period.

Citation: Michelle Damian. Review of Pitelka, Morgan. Reading Medieval Ruins: Urban Life and Destruction in Sixteenth-Century Japan. H-Japan, H-Net Reviews. October, 2024.

URL for complete book review: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=60292

Smartphones and Ageing in Japan (pdf, Open Access book) - free download

Ageing with Smartphones in Japan | UCL Press

[kudos from reader-reviewers]

Praise for Ageing with Smartphones in Japan
'An excellent and thoughtful book on ageing in Japan, focusing on the use of smartphones, but not limited to it. The truly innovative use of graphic and multimodal ethnography is not only effective but also showcases such methods for others.'

Iza Kavedžija, University of Cambridge

'Highly original, extensively researched and thought-provoking, Haapio-Kirk rewards the reader with lively story-telling and beautifully crafted images that invite another level of sensory and emotional engagement – an impressive achievement.'

Jason Danely, Oxford Brookes University

fatherhood in 2024 Japan (radio segment June 5)

https://theworld.org/stories/2024/06/05/japanese-dads-struggle-to-reform-fatherhood

Compact story on the daily radio show, The World, that introduces the changing meaning and shape of fatherhood in Japan.

Watching "Walks Japan" on YouTube

Looking around the streetscapes while reading/hearing the commentary (in large font size), this channel on YouTube is good for adjusting visual experience and hearing experience to daily life in Tokyo.

https://www.youtube.com/@WALKSJAPAN

WALKS JAPAN Welcome to "Walks Japan" Welcome to our YouTube channel dedicated to helping you learn Japanese effectively and confidently! Whether you're a beginner or aiming for JLPT proficiency, our content is tailored to enhance your Japanese language journey. Dive into our easy Japanese lessons, where you'll master kanji, improve your speaking skills, and explore the nuances of Nihongo. Join us as we guide you through how to learn Japanese efficiently, making your language learning experience enjoyable and rewarding! www.youtube.com

Sanja Matsuri 2024 in 2-minutes

via Twitter today, Tokyo expat with camera(s) and an eye for visual interest shares this short video; suitable for students of Japanese society and language at all levels: both for visual exposure and for reflection, too.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= https://x.com/i/status/1792129216588460098

Kyoto since the 1850s

crossposting from H-Japan humanities network (listserv, h-net.org)

Modern Kyoto Research, a new digital resource for researchers, students, visitors, and general readers interested in debating, analyzing, and learning about change and continuity in Kyoto from the 1850s to the present day.

Building on up-to-date scholarship, and making full use of visual and other primary sources, various thematic units investigate not only how Kyoto's image was constructed in the modern period but open a window on people and places often excluded from popular histories and public promotions. Users will hopefully find the site accessible and visually appealing, as well as critical and diverse in its perspectives on the city/region over the last 170 years. 

At present, there are uploaded units on inbound tourism in Kyoto, 1872-1941 (Andrew Elliott), Kyoto and the Asia-Pacific War (Oliver Moxham), Kyoto tourism during the Allied Occupation (Riichi Endo), and war-related sites in contemporary Kyoto (Daniel Milne).

Other units in the pipeline include punk in Kyoto, interwar Geisha in Kyoto, and Kyoto vegetables and food-related regional branding.

Please follow this link to find the site: www.modernkyotoresearch.org

grants for Japan research (online database)

The External Grants database provides a filterable list of non-JPP affiliated funding opportunities related to Japan Studies.

URL, https://japanpastandpresent.org/en/funding/external-grants

documentary film, 100 years after Kanto (earthquake and Korean) massacre

crossposting from Association for Asian Studies - Korean Studies googlegroup

======================

...If you happen to be in Korea or Japan this month, I would like to invite you to a new historical documentary film screening event at the legislature in Seoul or Tokyo (free admission with ID for entrance). 1923 Kanto Massacre is the very first Korea-produced documentary film on the historical event of the massacre of Koreans following the Great Kanto Earthquake in Japan in 1923 which was produced on the occasion of its centenary last year. 

The event at the Korean National Assembly building in Seoul starts at 6:30 pm on Tues May 7 (TODAY in KST), followed by that at the Japanese Diet building in Tokyo at 4 pm on Mon May 13 (this coming Monday). Director KIM Taeyong (renown long-time documentary filmmaker) will be present along with the members of the respective Congress. 1923 Kanto Massacre will be released to the public later this summer both in Korea and Japan as well as selected areas in Europe, Australia, and the U.S. (starting in Paris in Nov). Free of charge, but due to limited seating, please RSVP at jlee@eiu.edu.

Event: 1923 Kanto Massacre Documentary Film Screening

(Directed by Kim Taeyeong, Korea,118 minutes)

Date and Location: 

6:30 PM May 7 (Tues)

The National Assembly of the Republic of Korea (Members' Office Building), Seoul

4:00 PM May 13 (Mon)

The National Diet of Japan (House of Councillors), Tokyo

The experience of violence has powerful consequences in the transformation of culture. The Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 marked a moment of unprecedented material destruction and cultural rupture in the Japanese empire. The disaster soon became subject to human interpretation and political manipulation, for the trauma of earth tremors and subsequent fire produced not only physical chaos but also rumors and violence against the colonized in the metropole. Such violence manifested itself in the massacre of Koreans immediately following the earthquake--triggered by rumors of arson, murder, rape, and rebellious riots by Koreans in the Tokyo-Yokohama area. Despite the shock of the rumors and the violence, the lack of critical evidence and the contradictions in the testimonies has rendered the incident a historical enigma, panic-driven aberration, or conspiracy in modern Korea and Japan. After a century, film 1923 Kanto Massacre traces the ways in which the historical narratives and memories of the colonial violence have been constructed haunting those whose lives were never the same after encountering the manmade mayhem.   

See the detailed schedule and the film excerpt here (click).

Sincerely,

Jinhee Josephine Lee, Creative Producer of "1923 Kanto Massacre"

History Professor and Asian Studies Chair

Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, IL

Long ago photos in Japan

MeijiShowa pictures, https://meijishowa.com 

and Old Photos of Japan, https://oldphotosjapan.com

are two places to browse lives and livelihoods from lifetimes ago in and around Japan, together with some interpretive commentary.

visual "look" in Japanese Webpages

Essay from Medium.com 

Why Japanese Websites Look So Different by Mirijam Missbichler

8 min read from May 1, 2023

https://medium.com/@mirijam.missbichler/why-japanese-websites-look-so-different-2c7273e8be1e 

Why Japanese Websites Look So Different & how to analyze design choices without jumping to conclusions medium.com

Over the years, I have had many encounters with Japanese websites — be it researching visa requirements, planning trips, or simply ordering something online. And it took me a loooong while to get used to the walls of text, lavish use of bright colors & 10+ different fonts...

collection of old Japan photos at MOPA - San Diego, Calif.

Browsing and thinking of long-ago camera work and people in the frame compared to today, see these albums at the Museum of Photographic Arts:

Japan album (50 pictures), https://www.flickr.com/photos/mopa1/albums/72157631883582807/with/6950790428 

KUSAKABE Kimbei (d.1934) album (39 pictures), https://www.flickr.com/photos/mopa1/albums/72157629862241333/ 

Felice Beato (d1907) & Antonio Beato (d1906) album (12 pictures), https://www.flickr.com/photos/mopa1/albums/72157631883934006/

disaster photo-archive 1923 Kanto Earthquake (September 1)

Of interest to those learning Japanese language and life: Announcement on the humanities H-Japan listserv today about a photo-archive. What if each disaster also could have a photo archive like this? Studying the photos can give you new ideas from the scenes and people you re-view (in this case 100 years ago). So much change in Emergency Management can be seen from 1923 to 2023. But maybe some things have not changed very much.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 

I'm pleased to announce the launch of the Earthquake Children Image Archive. This archive, containing over 500 images, serves as a companion to my book Earthquake Children: Building Resilience from the Ruins of Tokyo (Harvard University Asia Center, 2020).

Please visit www.earthquakechildren.com

The images contained in this website visually document children's experiences of the 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake and daily life in 1920s Tokyo. Sources range from postcards, children's drawings and photographs, to maps, architectural drawings and memorabilia. In addition to images of and by children, the collection depicts teachers, imperial family members, government officials, policemen, doctors, nurses, foreign tourists, and other adults involved in providing relief, education and care of children in the aftermath of the Great Kantō Earthquake. 

Today, as Japan marks the 100th anniversary of the Great Kantō Earthquake on 1 September 2023, I hope your visit to this website also encourages you to review your own knowledge of what to do in the event of a future earthquake, wherever you are in the world.

Janet Borland

International Christian University

www.janetborland.com

URL http://www.earthquakechildren.com

Pictures and Words from Ise Jingu & the study program based on it

The 13 international Japan researchers of diverse fields just wrapped up the 2023 cycle of the "Ise and Japan Study Program." The range of subjects included linguistics, humanities and social science: language, culture, society past & present. Much of this connects to Shinto now and at earlier points in history, too. That is a lot of history and a lot of new things to know in three weeks. The capstone to the seminar was the Kumano SanZan: 正式参拝 (seishiki sampai) to the 3 Taisha - first to Hayatama in Shingu, then Nachi (and waterfall), and finally to Hongu.

Some parts of the experience were lucky: like the chance arrival just as the annual gathering of Izumo association members was beginning (Osaka branch) at the Hana-no-Iwaya mountain face at the city of Kumano. Another time was happening to meet the Shinto priest in charge of turning the seawater into salt for use at the Ise Jingu ceremonies. This lucky meeting resonates with the "ichigo ichie" insight.

Kogakkan University hosts and administers the lectures and field trips, while Ise city sponsors its cost. It has been going more than 10 years, but owing to Covid there were breaks until resuming in person this time.

Participants were asked to create comments and pictures online to attract wider awareness, interest, and knowledge of Ise Jingu, the city, and the connection to Japan overall. Some of those pictures and words (Creative Commons, freely usable to one and all) are collected at https://tinyurl.com/ise2023gw

Watch for next year's cycle this fall or browse the 1-page summaries from previous participants at http://ise-japan.kogakkan-u.ac.jp/report/

Powerful views - the edges of economy in Japan these days

The long-form essays of photo + video from Brian Storm's workshop, MediaStorm.com, will cause you to think.

Subtitles for the 日本語 audio.

Here are 3 episodes that play together as chapters (in total 25 minutes all together).

Japan's Disposable Workers by Shiho Fukada

 - Death by overwork

 - Depression (not to be discussed)

 - Internet cafe refugees

 - Homeless living

https://www.mediastorm.com/clients/japans-disposable-workers 

Early letters from U.S. Ambassador to Japan, 1862>

Cross posted from H-Japan, Oct 28, 2022.

The transcribed and annotated personal letters of Robert H. Pruyn, second U.S. minister to Japan (1862-1865), are now available as an open-source .pdf document on the University at Albany's Scholars Archive at https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/eas_fac_scholar/19/.

Pruyn was a prolific correspondent to his wife, Jane Ann Lansing Pruyn. The letters--600 pages in all--cover the three years that Pruyn spent in Japan while his wife and youngest son remained in Albany. The content covers Pruyn's activites in Japan, the expatriate community in Yokohama and Kanagawa, diplomatic issues, life in Albany, New York state politics, and Pruyn family history. I hope that they will be of interest to a broad community of scholars, both of Japanese and American history.

Questions about the resource may be sent to sfessler@albany.edu.

Susanna Fessler, Professor, State University of New York at Albany

recent articles from Asian Anthropology (regarding Japan)

(click the OPEN ACCESS tab)

https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/raan20 

Asian Anthropology /21(1)

Special Issue: Rural Japan as heterotopia, guest edited by Paul Hansen and Susanne Klien

--Introduction: Introduction: Exploring rural Japan as heterotopia, by Paul Hansen & Susanne Klien

--'The young, the stupid, and the outsiders': urban migrants as heterotopic selves in post-growth Japan, by Susanne Klien

--Agriculture corporations in rural Japan: fractured mirrors of past, present and future, by Nancy Rosenberger & Ayumi Sugimoto

--Success and succession: agritourism, heterotopia and two generations of rural Japanese female entrepreneurs, by Ayumi Sugimoto

--Japanese rural resettlers: communities with newcomers as heterotopic spaces, by Ksenia Kurochkina

--Rural emplacements: linking heterotopia, one health and /ikigai /in central Hokkaido, by Paul Hansen

Asian Anthropology/ 20(4)

--From tragedy to triumph: tsunami mitigation and Bōsai (disaster prevention) tourism in Tarō, Japan, by Christopher Thompson

--Book review of Skateboarding and urban landscapes in Asia: endless spots, Cosmopolitan rurality, depopulation, and entrepreneurial ecosystems in 21st-Century

Japan

short videos, "Japan Video Topics" channel

In the newsletter from the Consulate General for Michigan & Ohio this link to the "Japan Video Topics" was given, https://www.youtube.com/c/JVTen/videos

The Youtube channel has a few dozen short videos (less than 5 minutes).

radio segment, Gold leaf makers of Japan are thinning out

Nice radio segment this morning, July 26, on National Public Radio (link to audio and transcript, below) from Kanazawa, home of feudal giant and lord of the Kaga clan.

One of the aging craftsmen says only about 20 of the former 300 small makers continue to produce the thin sheets of gold. The report goes on to say 97% of the nation's economic activity is from small and medium-sized companies. With a country-wide loss of children who take over the family business, the whole economy is heading for trouble.

=-=-=-=-= Excerpt

In Japan, decades of declining birthrates have put tens of thousands of family-owned businesses in crisis. Many have to shut down because there's no one to take over from the aging owners. Now the government there is trying to reverse the trend. NPR's international affairs correspondent Jackie Northam reports from Kanazawa, Japan.

LINK, https://www.npr.org/2022/07/26/1113615316/how-japans-low-birth-rate-threatens-centuries-old-traditions-and-skills

Japanese modern language and society - the example of Metal & Hard-core Rock music

This video on Youtube documents modern life in Japan - and interesting discussion about Metal and Hard-core Rock music there & the emotional meaning for performers and audiences, https://youtu.be/q49kG0pV0Bg (about 11 minutes).

recorded lecture 4/2022 , "Robo-Sexism: Gendering AI and Robots in Japan and ..."

"Robo-Sexism:  Gendering AI and Robots in Japan and the United States (and Elsewhere)" HYBRID event from April 22, 2022. recorded at https://vimeo.com/703001303 

DESCRIPTION

In humans, gender constitutes an array of learned behaviors that are cosmetically enabled and enhanced. Gender(ed) behaviors are both socially and historically shaped and are also contingent upon many situational influences, including individual choices. How is gender assigned in actual (as opposed to fictional) robots? Robertson will explore the sex/gender stereotypes and operational functions informing the design and embodiment of artificial intelligence (AI) and robots, especially humanoids and androids.

Robots have been imagined, designed, and deployed in rhetorical and tangible forms alike to reinforce conservative models of sex/gender roles, ethnic nationalism, and "traditional" family structures. Robertson considers the ramifications of "retro-tech" and also nascent efforts to redress robo-sexism.

SEE ALSO

Robo sapiens japanicus: Robots, Gender, Family, and the Japanese Nation [2017 U. California Press]

https://www.amazon.com/Robo-sapiens-japanicus-Robots-Japanese/dp/0520283201 

Jennifer Robertson, Professor Emerita, Anthropology and History of Art, University of Michigan

https://professorjenniferrobertson.com/interviews-podcasts-and-blogs-selection/

article, Fictitious Images of the Ainu

Fictitious Images of the Ainu : Ishū Retsuzō and Its Back Story

by SHIRAISHI Eri

in Japan Review : Journal of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies 36: 89-109 (2/2022)

permalink, http://doi.org/10.15055/00007772

Crossposting from H-Japan listserv that may interest those with humanities or social science interests; a good opportunity to tickle your ears with scholarly discussion in Japanese.

https://networks.h-net.org/node/20904/discussions/9890109/japanese-language-podcast-book-lounge-academia

   excerpt from announcement:

BLA is a podcast channel where authors of scholarly books in the humanities and social sciences talk about their books through interviews in Japanese. BLA is operated by an independent, non-profit group that is not affiliated with any organization or institution.
It is available 2-4 Wednesdays a month via Youtube, spotify, google podcast, apple podcast, and stand fm.

This is the best audio media for those who want to know what's going on in Japanese humanities and social sciences. It may also be used for training in academic spoken Japanese. 

You are very welcome to talk about your own book written in English, but interview must be conducted in Japanese.

Short docu by 2 teens in Tokyo fitting into 2 cultures

"Ark & Maya: All Mixed Up" is almost 15 minutes and describes the growing up experiences of these two young women, dividing their time and their lives between USA and Japan, sometimes speaking more comfortably in English; other times in Japanese. The documentary appeared at the December screening for the Tokyo Documentary Film Festival, https://youtu.be/NWeg34noE0Y

"Salaryman" retrospective on workspace in Japan

Video (2 minutes) to show changes in middle-class work across ten decades.

The clips (from anime) portray some of the features that appeared and then disappeared.

Blurb for https://youtu.be/kNQMX--3E5Q

_________

It's been almost 100 years since the "salaryman" type of office worker first appeared in Japan back in the 1920s. As our society faces a major turning point, SmartHR decided to create a brand film to reflect upon how work styles have changed with time over the past century. We hope that by looking back on history, we inspire people to think about how they want to work going forward.

To learn more about each scene, visit our special brand film website Hataraku no hyakunenshi [A Century of Work] (Japanese language webpage) https://100years-movie.smarthr.jp

short videos - temple introduction, part by part

These 1 to 2 minute videos from a Pure Land (Jodo-shu) Buddhist temple in Echizen-city, Fukui-ken give a good overview of the buildings, gardens, and special features of the place. All content is recorded in Japanese.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnFE-oiX-bWyAHX5JraeE8A/videos

親縁山大寳寺 (Daihou-ji is the ordinary name; its Sanmon name is Shinen-zan) was begun in 1603 when the local daimyo, Honda Tomimasa, was installed by the regional Matsudaira clan. In the 1700s and again in the 1800s the main hall burned down. The current hondo is from the 1850s.

Lessons from Okinawa's Shuri Castle tunnels of WWII

Article about a local citizen's movement to reopen the sealed tunnels as world (negative) heritage site.

EXCERPT

More than 75 years have passed since the Battle of Okinawa, but that has made this reckoning more urgent, not less. As Hojun Kakinohana put it, "The human lessons we can learn from this headquarters are vastly more important than what Shuri Castle has to teach us. It's about the value of life and the uselessness of war. I'm in a hurry to see it reopened and hope it will be designated a world negative heritage site. There are not many of us who experienced that war left to tell our stories. We'll be gone soon. So I'm in a hurry."

Full story with photos, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/wwii-bunker-shuri-castle-okinawa

virtual exhibition, Traveling in Tokugawa Japan

launch of the online exhibition "Travels in Tokugawa Japan (1603-1868): a Virtual Journey": https://t.co/2bGgqJKAjn?amp=1

I curated the exhibition in collaboration with the John Rylands Research Institute and Library of the University of Manchester. The exhibition is based on items from the Japanese Maps collection (you can browse the now complete collection on Manchester Digital Collections: https://www.digitalcollections.manchester.ac.uk/collections/japanesemaps/1).

Best regards, Sonia Favi

Still worth listening to, "Tohoku kara no Koe"

Students at Jochi Dai were instrumental is doing interviews with 3.11 survivors across many months. The conversations are valuable documents for future researchers, therapeutic for those who put their experiences into words, but also there is merit for learners of Japanese. After all, the highest levels of fluency in language, proficiency in society, and literacy in culture come from 5 main domains of human life. These are hardest to express, but also they are hardest to understand and appreciate fully.

<>humor

<>emotion [Voices from Tohoku, above]

<>persuasiveness (politics)

<>literary arts (poetry, sermons, lectures)

<>religion

Consider visiting "東北からの声," https://tohokukaranokoe.org/

new films of Japan, 2021 "Japan Cuts" online

crossposting from H-Japan (humanities network)

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

The programming team behind JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film is proud to share the full lineup for the hybrid 15th edition of the festival, slated for August 20 - September 2, 2021: https://www.japansociety.org/arts-and-culture/films/japan-cuts-festival-of-new-japanese-film 

Films will again be available to rent via video streaming (across the U.S., with some titles accessible worldwide), in addition to select in-person screenings at Japan Society in NYC following health and safety policies. Expanding the festival's reach beyond New York, the lineup includes 27 features and 12 short films. The exclusive selection will be supplemented with recorded introductions from filmmakers and live video discussions via social media channels to maintain the festival's sense of community and dedication to intercultural communication.

The Centerpiece Presentation is WIFE OF A SPY (dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa), awarding the 2021 CUT ABOVE Award for Outstanding Achievement in Film to Yu Aoi. Along with the Feature Slate, Classics, Documentary Focus, Experimental Spotlight, and Shorts Showcase, the second edition of the Next Generation section highlighting independently produced narrative feature films by emerging directors will be juried by film scholar Kyoko Hirano; Brian Hu, Artistic Director of Pacific Arts Movement; and Japanese film subtitler and translator Don Brown, awarding the Obayashi Prize.

 

Please browse the entire dynamic lineup on the website, listed below by program section:

FEATURE SLATE
- Aristocrats (dir. Yukiko Sode)

- Come and Go (dir. Lim Kah Wai)

- Company Retreat (dir. Atsushi Funahashi)

- The Goldfish: Dreaming of the Sea (dir. Sara Ogawa)

- The Great Yokai War: Guardians (dir. Takashi Miike)

- It's a Summer Film! (dir. Soushi Matsumoto)

- Ito (dir. Satoko Yokohama)

- Kiba: The Fangs of Fiction (dir. Daihachi Yoshida)

- Labyrinth of Cinema (dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi)

- The Pass: Last Days of the Samurai (dir. Takashi Koizumi)

- Talking the Pictures (dir. Masayuki Suo)

- Wife of a Spy (dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa)

- Wonderful Paradise (dir. Masashi Yamamoto)

NEXT GENERATION
- B/B (dir. Kosuke Nakahama)

- Mari and Mari (dir. Tatsuya Yamanishi)
- My Sorry Life (dir. Kozue Nomoto)

- Sasaki in My Mind (dir. Takuya Uchiyama)

- Spaghetti Code Love (dir. Takeshi Maruyama)
- Town Without Sea (dir. Elaiza Ikeda)

 

CLASSICS

- Hiruko the Goblin (dir. Shinya Tsukamoto, New 2K Restoration)

- Robinson's Garden (dir. Masashi Yamamoto, Newly Remastered)

- To Sleep So as to Dream (dir. Kaizo Hayashi, New 2K Restoration)

 

DOCUMENTARY FOCUS

- No Smoking (dir. Taketoshi Sado)

- Ushiku (dir. Thomas Ash)
- Why You Can't Be Prime Minister (dir. Arata Oshima)

EXPERIMENTAL SPOTLIGHT

- The Blue Danube (dir. Akira Ikeda)

- Double Layered Town / Making a Song to Replace Our Positions (dir. Haruka Komori & Natsumi Seo)

 

SHORTS SHOWCASE (EXPERIMENTAL)

- HONEYMOON (dir. Yu Araki)

- In a Mere Metamorphosis (dir. Onohana)
- June 4, 2020 (dir. Yoko Yuki)

- Night Snorkeling (dir. Nao Yoshigai & Hirofumi Nakamoto)

- RED TABLE (dir. Hakhyun Kim)
- Reflective Notes (Reconfiguration) (dir. Koki Tanaka)

- School Radio to Major Tom (dir. Takuya Chisaka)

- ZONA (dir. Masami Kawai)

 

SHORTS SHOWCASE (NARRATIVE)

- Among Four of Us (dir. Mayu Nakamura)

- Born Pisces (dir. Yoko Yamanaka)
- Go Seppuku Yourselves (dir. Toshiaki Toyoda)

- Leo's Return (dir. Anshul Chauhan)

We hope many H-Japan subscribers are able to enjoy—please do share with your networks. 
-Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/japansocietyfilm
-Twitter: http://twitter.com/JS_FILM_NYC/ (#JAPANCUTS)

-The JAPAN CUTS Team
K. F. Watanabe, Alexander Fee, Joel Neville Anderson

legal culture in East Asia

[cross-posting from East Asia Anthropology listserv]

...publication of a special issue of positions (29:3): "Productive Encounters: Kinship, Gender, and Family Laws in East Asia," edited by Seung-kyung Kim and Sara L. Friedman. You will find the table of contents, the freely available introduction, and Amy Brainer's article, made free through October 2021, at read.dukeupress.edu/positions/issue/29/3.

 

Contributors to this special issue examine the intersections and tensions between the everyday lives of diverse families and the family laws and institutional mechanisms that create the scaffolding for recognized kinship relationships. Using the rubric of "productive encounters" to understand the ongoing engagements of law and family, the authors trace the unfolding of these engagements over a period of colonial and postcolonial reforms and the transitions from authoritarian to a democratic governance in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

 

Table of Contents:

Seung-kyung Kim and Sara L. Friedman, Guest Editors' Introduction

Kathryn E. Goldfarb, Parental Rights and the Temporality of Attachment: Law, Kinship, and Child Welfare in Japan

Sungyun Lim, Adopting in the Shadows: False Registration as a Method of Adoption in Postcolonial South Korea

Allison Alexy, Children and Law in the Shadows: Legal Ideologies and Personal Strategies in Response to Parental Abductions in Japan

Sara L. Friedman and Yi-Chien Chen, Will Marriage Rights Bring Family Equality? Law, Lesbian Co-Mothers, and Strategies of Recognition in Taiwan

Linda White, Not Entirely Married: Resisting the Hegemonic Patrilineal Family in Japan's Household Registry

Timothy Gitzen, The Limits of Family: Military Law and Sex Panics in Contemporary South Korea

Amy Brainer, Lesbian and Gay Parents, Heterosexual Kinship, and Queer Dreams: Making Families in Twenty-First Century Taiwan

Before you land in Japan - sources to know language and life there

 

Links useful to those getting ready to spend weeks or months living in Japan

https://tinyurl.com/landinjapan gives practical advice to a recent USA college graduate headed to Hokkaido, but relevant to most parts of the country equally well.

https://fromsenseionline.blogspot.com is aimed at teachers and learners of Japanese language and life. It takes selected listserv items from the "Sensei Online" (yahoogroup, later googlegroup) 

https://japanoutreach.blogspot.com is less about language learning, and more about social life and the cultural landscape in Japan. 

AtlasObscura.com has a great collection of brief articles of offbeat facets of life on the islands.

Movies and visual experiences

Feature films and documentaries allow pausing, study, replay, and presented social situations that otherwise might never present themselves to you as an outsider. So it is worth exploring this medium. Photographs, also, provide a powerful way to familiarize yourself with the look and feel of the city and the countryside, the fashions and the ocean of visual information to learn, or at least recognize. Without a visual inoculation to the unknown universe of people, places, and things, your first exposure can feel overwhelming. So the more you browse ahead of time, the better.

Movies by ITAMI Juzo & by KOREEDA Hirokazu provide social scrutiny; criticism. For some historical texture and flavor, consider any of the 40+ Tora-san (protagonist) movies by YAMADA Yoji under the series title "Otoko wa Tsurai, Yo!" ('It is hard being a guy'). And classics from OZU Yasujiro re highly cherished inside and outside of Japan (Tokyo Story, or Ikiru, for instance)

Documentaries to consider include The Japanese Version (1995; 7-8 vignettes of topics imported but now rooted into Japanese life-some public libraries have this title in their steaming service providers), Understanding Japanese Culture (2020, life-long British anthropologist revisits original fieldwork town,40 years after the first months of residence). Trailers from Toko Shiiki's work relating to Fukushima 2011 aftermath: about 300+ years as Sake brewers, about evacuated Jr. high school music teacher who gets her band to the finals competition, and about the voices of survivors.

Photo sharing at Flickr has at least three ways to plunge into visual exposure. One is the searchbox. Another is the world map (drag and zoom to place of interest, then refresh by pressing the map's own green circular arrows at bottom center to repopulate images tagged to each spot). Then there are user groups like Japan Street Photography, or Osanpo Kamera, or Japan Deluxe, or perhaps the albums and photostream of an individual camera person like "TokyoShooter." 

My own 2016 and 2017 pictures and commentaries are listed under the albums section, or converting them into ebook form, there is Life and Times Today in Rural Japan - volume 1: countryside. The other is Life and Times Today in Rural Japan, Volume 2: City Views.

Multimedia like the interview project by (Tokyo) Sophia University students talking to Fukushima survivors allows you to get to know part of people's lives up-close, Voices from Tohoku.

Books and articles

Understanding Japanese Society has been revised recently by anthropologist Joy Hendry and gives close-up, as well as big-picture discussion of life in the language and society of Japan.

Neighborhood Tokyo goes back to the late 1980s but still sheds light on the close-knit dimension of streets even in big cities.

Yokohama Street Life: The Precarious Career of a Japanese Day Laborer (2015) by Tom Gill follows his Day Laborers of Sanya (2001) book. Real lives far from the glossy surfaces of Japan.

2:46: Aftershocks: Stories from the Japan Earthquake is composed of real-time tweets flying around Japan and abroad beginning on the March 11, 2011 afternoon initial seismic shock of the Great East Japan Disaster. [ebook sold at No-Cost]

The Roads to Sata by Alan Booth (1985) chronicles his adventure from north to south in the days when the value of the Yen was rising and before the real estate bubble burst in 1993.

Walking the Kiso Road by William Scott Wilson retraces one of the main routes to and from the Tokugawa capital of Edo (today's Tokyo). He combines keen observation and lots of context drawn from traveler advice of that period.

Fiction is a way to glimpse some of the psychological dynamics of people interacting.

The Makioka Sisters by TANIZAKI Jun'ichiro is set in 1930s Kyoto

Okubo Diary by Brian Moeran (1985) about his fieldwork in rural Oita prefecture

The River Ki by ARIYOSHI Sawako (1980)

Convenience Store Woman: A Novel by Sayaka MURATA 

Native English Speakers

Since the 1970s the Government of Japan and in the recent generation also local governments and school have employed English speakers to prompt freer conversation and thinking inside and outside the foreign language classrooms. Since this sort of contract work is well developed and supported, it provides a solid foundation for learning the life and society of Japan, giving as well as taking lessons for one's career. Recruiting, applications, and interviewing vary by sending country: Japan English Teacher, Assistant Language Teacher, or Assistant English Teacher - check with the nearest Japanese consulate or embassy for details (USA example: applications in fall, interviews follow, arrival for orientation the following June). Languages other than English: some cities and prefectures employed CIR (Coordinator for International Relations) to communicate with select countries/languages (e.g. Russian, French, Spanish, German, Chinese, Korean, among others). The Japanese consulate can point the way there.

STEAM - science, technology, engineering, art, mathematics

KIT-IJST stands for Kanazawa Institute of Technology - Intensive Japanese for Science and Technology. It has been doing 6 week summer sessions on the west coast of Honshu for 20 years or more, emphasizing the communication and miscommunication connected to S.T.E.A.M. education, along with cultural fieldtrips and experiences to break up the book and lab work.