Japanese Culture

The author attempts to analyze several categories of the Japanese political culture of the Nara period of the 7th–8th centuries AD, such as harmony (wa 和), and righteousness (gi 義). The author supposes that the existential disposition of trust forms the basis for such categories. In Confucian tradition, this disposition is expressed through trustworthiness (sin 信). The article begins with an overview of the Japanese political culture of the Nara period in order to clarify the place of wa, gi, and sin in Japanese political thought. The author pays close attention to the roles of language and myth in Japanese culture as well. It is argued that political culture is a sort of superstructure for language, which is a substructure. Since language is the logos of culture as a whole, it is possible to identify the existential meanings of categories of political culture that are ontologically rooted in language. The author claims that the patterns of political thinking in Japanese tradition are reflected in myth. In order to prove this, the authors offers an analysis of the use of such characters as wa 和 and gi 義 in the Japanese chronicles Kojiki and Nihongi, highlighting the variety of their meanings and the close connection with trustworthiness as their basis.

Автор предлагает проанализировать категории политической культуры Японии периода Нара (VII–VIII века) — согласие ва 和 и должное ги 義, предполагая, что в их основании кроется экзистенциальный принцип доверия, выраженный конфуцианской категорией доверительности син 信. Начиная с краткого обзора политической культуры исследуемого периода, автор артикулирует значение всех исследуемых категорий в топике японского политического мышления. Отдельное внимание уделено роли языка и мифа в японской культуре, т. к. автор исходит из убеждения, что политическая культура является своего рода надстройкой над основанием, коим является язык, будучи логосом культуры в целом, благодаря чему становится возможным выявить онтологически укорененные в языке экзистенциальные смыслы категорий политической мысли. Приходя к выводу, что в японской традиции миф в наибольшей степени отражает закономерности политического мышления, в заключительной части работы автор анализирует употребление иероглифов ва 和 и ги 義 в текстах японских мифолетописных хроник «Кодзики», «Нихонги» и «Сёку нихонги», поочередно проясняя оттенки их значений и обнаруживая в них доверительную основу.

Interview and article by Madison Jones of NBC 29 News and editor of the Orange County Review, Jeff Pool, respectively. Guest Curator Mary A. Knighton discusses the new exhibit on American Silk Mills, Inc., open now at James Madison Museum of Orange County Heritage. The exhibit explores the history of raw silk passing through traders in Yokohama and New York, from mills in Japan to the small southern mill town of Orange, VA. The exhibit traces the origin of the mill from the late 19th century through the post-WWII period for some sixty years, the fascinating people behind its rise, and the intriguing commercial, economic, and cultural exchanges that came about as a result.

The academic discipline of translation studies is only half a century old and even younger in the field of bilateral translation between Japanese and Turkish. These books will be the first steps to discuss and develop various aspects of the field. The books contain papers on this topic from a variety of perspectives such as translation studies, linguistics, literature, history, philosophy, language education, cognitive science, law, along with others. Such compilation brings together experienced and young Turkology and Japanology scholars as well as academics linked to translation studies and translation; and also translators. Both volumes contain twenty-four essays written by twenty-two authors from Japan, Turkey, USA and China.

The purpose of these books is three-fold. First, they seek to deal with the theoretical and applied aspects of translation in the specific contexts of Japan and Turkey, to bring together the past and present achievements of the field and to build a base for future studies. Second, they aim to contribute to field of translation worldwide. Thirdly, this contribution also attempts to represent a resource for translators in such context.

In Japan, English-language usage in the public sphere, from advertising through popular music, general media, and signage runs a gamut of uses and accuracies from the intentional and unintentional misuse, to the irreverent and the occasional sublime. This paper sets out to explore and record the use of English in the naming of Japanese pop and rock groups. The central thesis of this essay being that Japanese pop and rock group names falls into five distinct categories or phenomena: meaningless names using language other than Japanese, arbitrary names from second languages, bastardised 'other' language derivatives, Romanised Japanese, and mixed Japanese and other language. This grouping ignores those names rendered in kan-ji, which although acknowledged, are not specifically within the scope of this research. By deconstructing and analysing this use, it is hoped to contribute to discourse in the fields of both culture (cultural appropriation), and language (language use and accuracy).

Japan in Australia is a work of cultural history that focuses on context and connection between two nations. It examines how Japan has been imagined, represented and experienced in the Australian context through a variety of settings, historical periods and circumstances.

Beginning with the first recorded contacts between Australians and Japanese in the nineteenth century, the chapters focus on ‘people to people’ narratives and the myriad multi-dimensional ways the two countries are interconnected: from sporting diplomacy to woodblock printing, from artistic metaphors to iconic pop imagery, from the tragedy of war to engagement in peace movements, from technology transfer to community arts. Tracing the trajectory of this 150-year relationship provides an example of how history can turn from fear, enmity and misunderstanding through war, foreign encroachment and the legacy of conflict, to close and intimate connections that result in cultural enrichment and diversification.

This book explores notions of Australia and ‘Australianness’ and Japan and ‘Japanessness’, to better reflect on the cultural fusion that is contemporary Australia and build the narrative of the Japan-Australia relationship. It will be of interest to academics in the field of Asian, Japanese and Japanese-Pacific studies.

This published Japanese-English guidebook to the island of Shikoku, emphasizing its culture and history, has been available by permission on the Web in French, Spanish, and Dutch at European Websites, as well as this English-Japanese version since 1997. Most of the chapters are bilingual, with English and Japanese alternating for those studying either language. In this way, non-Japanese people can learn Japanese language and culture at the same time, while local Japanese people studying English can also learn how to express their cultural heritage in English.

De acuerdo con la encuesta de ecología de los enseres realizada el año pasado [1],4203 artículos se clasificaron como bienes domésticos.520 de ellos estaban relacionados con la vestimenta. La tasa de posesión de artículos japoneses resultó ser baja en las grandes ciudades, pero bastante alta en las áreas rurales. No creo que la gente común viviera con tantos tipos y cantidades de ropa en el comienzo de los tiempos...

[seguir leyendo en: http://www.redfundamentos.com/blog/es/noticias/detalle-708/]

A lo largo de 19 años, he investigado la ecología de los enseres y he podido observar condiciones domésticas diferentes. Aunque la vivienda sea relativamente grande, creo que hay hogares desbordados por sus objetos. También hay viviendas pequeñas que tienen enseres como las otras, y sin embargo las familias viven de manera limpia y ordenada.

En el fondo parece que existe una diferencia en lo que llamamos sentido de la belleza entre “el gusto por la decoración” y el “gusto por la simplicidad”...

[seguir leyendo en: http://www.redfundamentos.com/blog/es/noticias/detalle-684/]

Review of Japanese Catholic Intellectuals and Newman Studies by Kei Uno, Newman Studies Review 15:2 (Winter 2018): 67-69.  This volume, which looks at both the history of Newman Studies in Japan and the rise of Catholic intellectuals in 19th- and 20th-century Japan, focuses on education and Japanese nationalism as points of contact with the Catholic tradition and Newman Studies, among others.

The author argues that despite factors which should render the situation otherwise, Japanese tertiary education currently suffers from a state of cognitive poverty. That is, students have a fundamental lack of higher-order skills which it is arguable any global citizen, enrolled in higher education should possess irrespective of nationality. In this research paper, the reasons for this current state of cognitive malaise are examined against an andragogical, cultural, and social backdrop, with the intent that dialogue can be instigated to begin the process of alleviation the current situation.

This essay examines how photography and news footage of the Hiroshima bomb have been used as a backdrop for the action genre in Japanese film and videogames. The case studies are Fukasaku Kinji’s film Battles without Honor or Humanity (1973), and Kojima Hideo’s videogame Metal Gear Solid (1998). Fukasaku’s opening sequence employs photographic stills of the mushroom cloud, burnt-out ruins, and the black market to set the violence of yakuza gangs against the political-military violence of the United States. A generation later, Kojima's game used photographic stills of the atomic bombing in a strikingly similar way, including footage of nuclear waste facilities and weapons manufacturing. Both texts position Japan as a victim, with Hiroshima symbolizing America’s abuse of technology and power. Although both texts belong to the action genre, there is a major difference in the subjectivity of the main characters, stemming from the different narrative trajectories of each text and the media specificity of cinema and games. Agency in Kojima's text allows the player to negotiate and reshape the historical memory of Hiroshima in their own experience, performing the anti-nuclear critique through in-game actions. Combining meaningful play with digital history, videogames are highly effective vehicles for political and social critique.

In the course of getting familiar with Kitsune lore, we have noticed that they possess several qualities which the hybrids in postcolonial literature possess as well. Subsequent research on the topic has unearthed that no correlation has so far been established between the two areas, so we are hoping our work will create a new tangent of analysis of these characters, as well as the stories themselves.

Anyone who has visited Japan in recent years will have undoubtedly witnessed the cultural phenomenon of vast swathes of citizens wearing white surgical masks. A pervasive and deeply polarising presence and cultural artefact du jour they are loved and hated in seemingly equal measure. In postwar Japan mask wearing has increased significantly and wearers have risen dramatically in recent decades to become both a billion yen business, and subsequently a ubiquitous presence on Japanese streets. From the author"s longitudinal interactions in the field, wearing surgical masks in Japan can be distinguished according to two distinct categories; masks for health, and masks for other, and it is the wearing for other which is the primary focus of this research. Drawing from both cultural and social observations in the field and primary research data collected from mask wearers in Japan, this paper sets out to both position and deconstruct the phenomenon of surgical mask wearing so as to better understand its importance as part of a wider social movement towards anonymity, and also as an artefact of empowerment and assertion. After first exploring the cultural significance of (non-surgical) masks in Japan, this paper will very briefly touch upon surgical mask wearing for health, before focusing specifically on mask wearing for other purposes mostly related to the acts of concealment, performance, and power.