the story of 'gunkan shima' (Nagasaki-ken)

Hashima Island (also known as 'battleship island' for it's size, shape and cement sea walls): From 1905 until the coal mining ended in 1974 it was a unique community; quoting http://www.jamaipanese.com/hashima-island-documentary/

Except for the former resident who guides the movie crew, most of the 15 minute documentary is narrated in perhaps Swedish (subtitles in English).


In 1916 the largest concrete structures in all of Japan were built on Hashima Island to help protect it's inhabitants from typhoons and at it's peak in 1959 the population was over 5000 or 1,391 people per 10,000 square metres the highest population density ever recorded in the world. Please take the time to have a look at an awesome documentary video I have embedded below that tells the history of Gunkanjima from someone who grew up there as a child.

[vimeo URL, http://vimeo.com/2044441]

A trip to this island would make an amazing out of the box location to visit if/when I eventually make it to Japan, I wonder if I'd survive the trip by boast to get there though. Would you want to visit Battleship Island?
Official Website (Japanese); Hashima Island on Wikipedia

Japanese Garden Dictionary online

Japanese Garden Dictionary, http://www.nabunken.go.jp/database/jgd/
 -- A Glossary for Japanese Gardens and Their History
 
...This online dictionary is based on the Bilingual [Japanese &
English] Dictionary of Japanese Garden Terms, published in 2001 ...
This online compilation, maintained by the Department of
Cultural Heritage of the Nara National Research Institute for
Cultural Properties, is intended to make the English language content
of the original dictionary more widely accessible.

Site contents, A to Z:
* English index (Over 600 entries organised alphabetically,
from abbot's quarters, aggregate lantern, aka well, Akisato Rito,
Amanohashidate, Amida hall, angler fish basin, arbor, arched bridge,
arched stone bridge, arching stone, armor pattern screen fence, and
artificial hill, [...]
through [...], milepost lantern, millstone, miniature landscape, mirror
stone, mist-shaped island, monkey pine, moon shadow stone, moss, moss
garden, mountain base stone, mountain island, mountain path stone,
mountain slope stone, and mountain-and-water landscape, [...] to
[...], waterfowl stone, waterside lantern, wave-receiving stone,
wayside stone, weathered beauty western style garden, who goes there?
lantern, wild wave stone, wing stone, wisteria yard, wooden bridge,
wooden conduit, wooden gate, wooden steps, worshiping stone, Yang
stone, yarai fence, yarimizu stream, Yin stone, Yin-Yang stones, yoko
ochi (cascade), Yosuien garden, Zen'ami, and zigzag bridge);

* Japanese index.

copyright guidance

Details, as well as sample situations, for the legal use of images and other potentially copyrighted material is outlined at
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~ncc/imageuse/rightsholder.html

follow-up response on the H-Japan list, www.h-net.org for 13 July 2010
From my own experience as an author: I believe with the 1930 case, one would determine that permission is not needed since the organization is gone. (But if an artist is credited or the likeness of an individual appears in the illustration that would be a different matter.) For example, magazines I have worked with have said that it would be OK to republish advertisements from companies that are now out of business, and that their own (the magazine's) permission is not needed since it is over 50 years since publication, though I try to get it anyway if they can be contacted. I would guess that legally you need permission for the 1990s item, but perhaps there are fair use practices for such government documents? Of course, I am not a lawyer, but these are just my personal experiences with these sorts of materials.
[S. Frederick]

summer lion dance, shishimai

Friends in Fukui-ken created a YouTube channel recently. They've started with two movies,
about 10 minutes each (YouTube limit on ordinary accounts):
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTIFjCIAllc [troupe based in Mie, but traveling their annual circuit of blessing]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GikgN-nSus [lots of commentary in the ?Mie-ken dialect; juggling at 6'45"]

new book, Women and Family in Contemporary Japan

author Susan Holloway, s_hollo@berkeley dotedu

Women and Family in Contemporary Japan, by Cambridge University Press.

Japanese women have often been singled out for their strong commitment to the role of housewife and mother. But they are now postponing marriage and bearing fewer children, and Japan has become one of the least fertile and fastest aging countries in the world. Why are so many Japanese women opting out of family life?
 
To answer this question, the author draws on in-depth interviews and extensive survey data to examine Japanese mothers'
perspectives and experiences of marriage, parenting, and family life. The goal is to understand how, as introspective, self-aware individuals, these women interpret and respond to the barriers and opportunities afforded within the structural and ideological contexts of contemporary Japan.
 
The findings suggest a need for changes in the structure of the workplace and the education system to provide women with the opportunity to find a fulfilling balance of work and family life.

http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521180375

online Japanese language learning

via Senseionline 18 June 2010:
 
...for people who would like to learn Japanese and aren't conveniently located by an institution or
a friend that will teach it to them, this might be just the information they were looking for:

*UAB NihongoCast,* http://www.uab.edu/foreignlang/nihongocast/, the online version of Japanese
101 at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, a joint production of the UAB Departments of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Communication Studies, and Theatre, taught by Tim Cook of Georgia Public Broadcasting's *Irasshai.*

images from colonial Taiwan and occupied Japan

Digital Collections at Lafayette College has developed a new digital repository titled "The East Asia Image Collection." In its current state, the collection consists primarily of images, many unpublished, of colonial Taiwan. It also contains 567 color slides from occupied Japan. We shall be adding unpublished images from 1930s Japan, North and NE China, and Indonesia in the coming months.

http://digital.lafayette.edu/collections/eastasia

performing arts database/multimedia

www.glopad.org/jparc
 
JPARC is an online resource center for research on and the study of the performing arts of Japan. The site includes sections for the analysis of certain topics, multimedia articles, and reference materials such as glossaries, bibliographies, browsing indexes, and timelines. Modules are collections of Web pages devoted to a specific topic such as important theatrical figures or readings and productions of a single piece.For a tour see the video Welcome to JPARC! 

online magazine, The Netherlands-Japan Review

The Netherlands-Japan Review, http://magazine.sieboldhuis.org/

online --Ainu Komonjo

=-=-= posted to EASIANTH email list Friday 26 Feb 2010:

 

The University of Wisconsin Digital Collection ...The UWDC has scanned [Pr. Emiko] Ohunki-Tierney's  collection of books on the Ainu by the Japanese. The books focus on the Sakhalin Ainu... The books are extremely rare and are either hand-written, with illustrations hand-drawn, or are wood block prints. Many of these early documents were authored by explorers and scholars at the order of the Bakufu or the Matsumae clan. Since these authors were sent by the Japanese government which for the first time began to be concerned with territorial expansions and boundaries, these documents often include a number of detailed maps, including the topography and Ainu place names.

The Ainu Komonjo (18th & 19th century records) -- Ohnuki Collection can be freely viewed at:
http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/EastAsian.JapanRice

Valentine's Day in Japan 2010

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123635365
Chocolate-giving is a ritual among everyone in Japan from schoolchildren to senior citizens. But the country has developed its own way of celebrating the erstwhile day of romance, and the custom is still evolving.
[www.npr.org on Friday, Feb. 12, 2010]

online sources - Japan images

as seen at the Image Use Protocol project "links" section,
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~ncc/imageuse/usefullinks.html
 
 
Find Images
The following organizations provide digital images of Japan with clear instructions for the use:

• Image Archives
• National Diet Library
• Union catalog of the collections of the national art museums, Japan
• Artize.net Provides digital images of collections from Kyoto National Museum, Nara National Museum, and cultural heritage institutions.
• Historical Agro-Environment Browsing System Includes nearly 900 map sheets of rapid survey maps, covering the Kanto Region surrounding Tokyo. Provides detailed land use information in the areas during 1880s.
• P&P online catalog - fine prints: Japanese, pre-1915 (Library of Congress)
• The art of Asia (Minneapolis Institute of Arts)
• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• British Museum . Objects from Japan can be located through "Collection database search".
• Victoria and Albert Museum

  Ukiyo-e Images

  • Takahashi Seiichiro Ukiyo-e Collection, Digital Gallery of Rare Books & Special Collections (Digital Gallery of Keio University Library)
  • The Floating World of Ukiyo-e, Shadows, dreams, and substance (Library of Congress)

  Historical Maps

  • Historical Agro-Environment Browsing System (National Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences) Covers most of the Kanto region. Provides detailed information on the land use of Japan in the 1880s.
  • Japanese Historical Maps (East Asian Library, University of California , Berkley)

RESOURCE e-Asia Digital Library

"e-Asia [est. 2001 - ed.] is a library of downloadable full text
(currently over 4000 items -- primarily books -- are available.) Focus
is on China, Japan, Taiwan, and Korea (South and North). While most
items are in Western languages, there are many items in Chinese,
Japanese, and Korean. e-Asia also offers audio, video, and special
collections.

The e-Asia project is funded by the University of Oregon Library
through the generosity of Nissho Iwai.

While the e-Asia project is based largely on resources held at the University of Oregon Library, its purpose is neither to duplicate nor displace printed traditonal materials. Rather, by providing searchable full text, the digitalization efforts
of e-Asia represent a new tool aimed at facilitating the information-gathering process.

Ainu lore & readings

Chiri Yukie and Kyoko Selden, The Song the Owl God Himself Sang. An Ainu Tale
Anne-Elise Lewallen, Indigenous at last! Ainu Grassroots Organizing and the Indigenous Peoples Summit in Ainu Mosir
Chisato ("Kitty") O. Dubreuil, The Ainu and Their Culture: A Critical Twenty-First Century Assessment

http://japanfocus.org/_Katsuya_Hirano-The_Politics_of_Colonial_Translation__On_the_Narrative_of_the_Ainu_as_a_

Ainu conference 2008

A. Lewallen [www.japanfocus.org Dec 4, 2008]
 
Indigenous at last! Ainu Grassroots Organizing and the
Indigenous Peoples Summit in Ainu Mosir

"postcards from..." JAPAN (Time Magazine)

Tokyo - Pepsi Ice Cucumber, Anyone?
In Japan's snack and beverage market, the new, new thing is already so "last week"

Inbox
Jan. 3, 2008 ...often thought that my homeland, Japan, needs many more people from other countries to come here...475 words view cover

Japan's Booming Sex Niche: Elder Porn
Jul. 7, 2008 By Michiko Toyama...condom maker Durex, among others, Japan is repeatedly found to be...should respect them and learn from them." Tokuda, meanwhile, stresses the...706 words view cover

Postcard: Tokyo
Feb. 21, 2008 By Coco MastersSometimes a town moves only as fast as its escalators. From the subway station at Sugamo, a neighborhood in northwestern Tokyo's Toshima ward...718 words view cover

Postcard: Taiji
Oct. 15, 2007 By Hannah Beech...world opposes hunting dolphins and pilot whales. And in this part of Japan, the mercury content is off the charts. So why is deep-fried dolphin...

Japan Loves Nagoya
Mar. 28, 2005 By Jim Frederick...Nagoya in central Japan, on ground that...buses zip guests from one end of...rocket-ride pavilions on postcards as reminders of...991 words view cover

Postcards on the Edge
Nov. 10, 2003 By Liam Fitzpatrick...columns are entitled "Postcard from ... " Because unless...sent, while in Japan, there are plans...545 words view cover

Japan Thugs Beware
Mar. 14, 1988 By Howard G. Chua-Eoan...on forearms. In Japan, this is the...1,500 protest postcards to Tetsuya Aono...by 300 officers from other communities. Hamamatsu...517 words view cover

The Birdman Of Osaka
Sep. 16, 1974 ...a whisky distiller. But then, Keizo Saji, 54, chairman and president of Japan's Suntory Ltd., and coiner of the slogan, is a rather...218 words view cover

Build Small
Nov. 16, 1962 ...smaller than a postcard (4½ in..... Made by Japan's Sony...on the juice from an auto cigarette...494 words view cover

OUT OF THE FLOATING WORLD
Mar. 14, 1955 ...course. (The censure may stem from the fact that he spent...to hike up and down Japan sketching. He turned his sketches...507 words view cover

visual approach to understanding life in Japan

http://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/

video - Obon in Kyoto (1 minute 28 seconds)

via the LonelyPlanet travel guide (newsletter, "Comet")
http://enewsletters.lonelyplanet.com.au/ch/14dwhq0/532146/ce6d81755m.html

flickr@ "social documentary" X "japan"

http://www.flickr.com/search/groups/?q=japan&w=35468135891%40N01&m=pool

Ainu recognition by central gov't

Japan Recognizes Indigenous Group
by Anthony Kuhn

All Things Considered, August 12, 2008 · The Ainu are an indigenous people who have recently been recognized by the Japanese government. The group has come a long way since the Japanese government tried to assimilate it by force. The Ainu are now seen as a model of man living in harmony with nature.

Japanland - collected short video segments + studyguide online

Lots of ethnographic, everyday life segments, as well as the Traditional Arts segments, shot mainly in 2004-5, but vividly relevant well into the future. Here is the blurb at the newly added set of studyguides:
 
"JAPANLAND is an action-packed and entertaining journey into a side of Japan that few outsiders get to see. It explores many unique facets of Japanese society, such a sumo wrestlers, swordmakers, ancient festivals, mountain mystics, samurai mounted archers, geishas, Buddhist monks, and even its homeless population and urban youth.
JAPANLAND is a 4-hour American Public television series, available on DVD."
 
  The study guide is at www.japanlandstudyguide.com

images & articles (cabinet, JP)

http://www.gov-online.go.jp/eng/publicity/book/hlj/

annual youth robot competition

spotted in recent TJF newsletter:

Since the beginning of the last century, Robots
have fascinated people all over the world.
In Takarabako No. 12, Japanese Culture Now shows
that the development of robots is having a very
positive effect on everyone's daily lives. From
robots built to aid manufacturing, to ones developed
for rescue work, and finally to ones built for
helping around the house; Robots seem to be
constantly improving the lives of people both in
Japan and the rest of the world.

http://www.tjf.or.jp/takarabako/PDF/TB12_JCN.pdf

In Meeting People, we'll meet a young team of robot
builders that enter their creations into Japan's
national robotics competition, Robocon. Toshihide,
Ryosuke, Hiroshi, and Yusuke attend the same technical
college, and they are all part of the same robot
building team. By working each year towards their goal
of winning the competition, they have forged strong
bonds with one another, and have learned to work well
as a team. Thus, as we listen to their story, we learn
not only just about Robocon, but also the people who
compete and the technology that they love.

http://www.tjf.or.jp/takarabako/PDF/TB12_MP.pdf

Buddhist &related Art

Other World History Teaching and Learning Resources: "Huntington Archive of Buddhist and Related Art contains nearly 300,000 slides and photos of Asian art and architecture. Materials are predominantly Buddhist but include Hindu, Jain, Islamic, and other works (dating back to 2500... (Ohio State University, supported by National Endowment for the Humanities)"

online encyclopedia of Shinto launched

http://eos.kokugakuin.ac.jp/
Questions should be directed to Inoue Nobutaka, Kokugakuin University
Telephone: +81 (0)3-5466-0205, n-inoue@kt.rim.or[dot jp]

sources of images

A couple of sources of pictures that come to mind are www.flickr.com (the ones in the public section are tagged with keywords like
temple, japan, chio-in, and so forth); many of these are labelled with the Creative Commons limited copyright conditions, such as
freely use with photographer attribution.

Association for Asian Studies, www.aasianst.org, is providing a place for sharing photos, too, although it is not fully functioning
yet.

Other places I've found rich viewing is the photogalleries at www.japansociety.org and www.tjf.or.jp/deai (as well as their photo essay
area, "photo cafe" I think they call it)

I have some very basic comparisions of Japan/Korea at www.umich.edu/~wittevee/korea/andjapan which can be used for educational
purposes, as well.

chapters on foodways

FOOD AND FOODWAYS IN ASIA: RESOURCE, TRADITION AND COOKING. Edited by Sidney C.H. CHEUNG
and TAN Chee-Beng, published by Routledge in 2007.
[Japan chapters]
2. Namako and Iriko: Historical overview on holothurian (sea cucumber) exploitation, utilization and trade in Japan. Akamine Jun
9. Indigenous Food and Foodways: Mapping the production of Ainu food in Tokyo. Mark K. Watson
14. Asia' s Contributions to World Cuisine: a beginning inquiry. Sidney W. Mintz

Japan schools to teach patriotism

Japan's lower house of parliament approves a new law requiring schools to
teach children to be patriotic.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/6669061.stm

assessing Japan's shifting population pyramid

from www.japanfocus.org [using searchbox or topics list]
Vaclav Smil, The Unprecedented Shift in Japan's Population: Numbers, Age,
and Prospects

The National Institute of Population and Social Security Research latest
long-range forecast of the country's population showed, once again, a
faster decline than previously anticipated: the medium variant projects
the total population of only about 90 million (89.93) people by 2055, the
igure that both Asahi Shimbun and Mainichi Shimbun found "shocking". This
was followed by a population projection to 2050 by the United Nations
Population Division and Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and
Communications latest nationwide estimate of Japan's population. Japan's
population (including foreign residents) peaked in December 2004 at
127,838,000 people and only a tunning, not just surprising, turn of
demographic fortunes can prevent the combination of relatively rapid
population decline and of unprecedented aging of the country's population.
This article assesses the projections.

archive of 80 Japan photos 1945-1952 (occupation)

cross-posting from H-Japan (www.h-net.msu.edu)
The Center for Japanese Studies, the University of Hawaii at Mnoa, is
pleased to announce the Walter Pennino Photo Collection is available on
the Internet. The collection presents eighty photos during the occupation
of Japan. Many of them show every-day life of people in Japan at that time.

http://www.hawaii.edu/cjs/pennino_entrance.html

Boys Day 5/5, also a music page

Boys Day (5/5), www.nihongomemo.com/nenchugyoji/tangonosekku.htm

BEAUTIFUL melodies (incl. Japanese melodies), http://mocascafe.la.coocan.jp/musicpage.htm

yakitori in San Jose, audio slideshow

http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2007/04/sumiya/soundslider.swf

taiko at San Jose

http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2007/04/sjtaiko/soundslider.swf
[one minute audio slideshow, with captions available]

70329 remaining

edt ms44@cornell >iff permission to distribute snippets?
EXCERPT-1 (all about the fire-bombing) =track103, 3' to track107, 1'
EXCERPT-2 (US policy change & today's mil) = track108,4' to tr109,1'

wkplan by 4/11; miwla done (cf. recommended Guidelines)
em pers-filtered; unread viewed; duds gone (incl. deleted; sent>pend v done)
if Hartland HS album/picasaweb v. Export.html
booklist all ordered & requested display copies

cosplay [costume play in Japan]

http://visuaalinen.blogspot.com/ [K. N.]

Japanese Movie Database

cf entries found on http://imdb.com

Japan Movie Database Description: Set your browser's encoding to Shift-JIS as the website has not set the encoding for the page

poorly translatable English to Japanese sensibilities

I'd love to see a collection of observations like these in order to
discern a pattern:

<for a colleague leaving her job> ...we'll miss you
-- in Japanese it is the one leaving that says, "...wasurenai de kudasai"
[please don't forget me]

<for yourself or others> ...he's happy
-- in Japanese one's happiness is instead, "...omoshiroi" or "ureshii"
but very seldom "shiawase"

<posing for camera> ... smile
-- in Japanese there is a word/phrase, but seldom is it used

<referring laughter> ...we laughed a lot
-- in Japanese there is a word, but seldom did I hear it used

<by way of greeting or as a show of interest/concern> ..ogenki desu ka
-- in English, "are you all right" implies a serious condition, not casual
remark; also "genki" is more than physical comfort and includes mental
condition

article, homeless in Japan

Metropolis, 3/9/2007 No. 676
"The Big Issue Japan"
http://metropolis.co.jp/tokyo/recent/globalvillage.asp

movie, Letters from Iwo Jima

H-JAPAN [archived at www.h-net.msu.edu]
March 12, 2007

From: Janet R. Goodwin <jan@pollux.csustan Dot Ed>

I see no reason why Letters from Iwo Jima should be considered a whitewash
of Japanese military behavior. Eastwood, in the humanist mode
of, well, Akira Kurosawa, examined the diverse reactions of people in a
horrendous, and helpless, situation. He saw these people not as
"Japanese soldiers" but as soldiers who happened to be Japanese. That's
why it was a good film. To demand that all Japanese soldiers be
portrayed as brutal because there were those in the Japanese army who
committed brutal acts makes me, as an American in the days of Abu
Ghraib and Guantanamo, feel very uncomfortable indeed.

--Janet Goodwin, H-Japan co-editor

mergers of towns - Shiga

Shiga map of the newly merged municipalities, http://photoguide.jp/txt/Shiga_Prefecture

video on Japan online

Web Japan videos is http://web-japan.org/jvt/index.html

summer mtg JP anthro - June

JASCA Annual Meeting (at Nagoya U), June 2-3: http://www.jasca.org/meeting/41st/