Showed a family friend the Imashirozuka Kofun, a 6th Century keyhole-shaped tumulus in our city that is 350 meters long, and its museum. Because of the Imperial Household Agency's error that they will not admit, this is the only royal tomb in Japan that people can freely enter and walk on top of. In midday it wasn't so spooky. A volunteer gave me some new insights into the history in Japanese.
Haniwa figures were offerings or companions to the departing Emperor, giving glimpses of the prehistoric royal lifestyle. Treasures found in the kofun tumulus included bronze mirrors, an iron sword, and magatama beads. Some of the mirrors found in our city were given by the Chinese Kingdom of Wei to Japan's Queen Himiko in the 3rd Century, then distributed even here in our city. Pots with no bottom were used ritually, with boats etched into them, perhaps for the Emperor's journey.
Hiroshima: The Last Witnesses by M. G. Sheftall, 2024
The first volume in a two-book series about each of the atomic bomb drops that ended the Pacific War based on years of irreplicable personal interviews with survivors to tell a story of devastation and resilience.
The #MysteryCoin last week was of course the #Japan 5 Yen - the particular coin I had was from 1995, although the coin has been issued since 1949 and you'd only notice a difference in the first ten years when the script changed. A beautiful coin, a good chance to learn about Japanese Era names, and congratulations to all those who guessed!
I just finished a lecture on the impacts of Shinto on the annexation and Japanization of Hokkaido in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It's a very interesting discussion, but I'm exhausted. Finally, my weekend is starting.
Today is the day to discuss the ceremonies focused on the agrarian calendar in the Ryukyuan Archipelago, Japan. It’s day to evoke the classics, today with Hateruma.
I just finished teaching another class on the Anthropology of Food in Japan. Today's discussion focused on B-Kyu cuisine and its interconnections with contemporary Japanese society. I really like this topic!
From 2004-2024 I introduced Japan to visiting foreign officials for the government foreign aid agency (Japan International Cooperation Agency or JICA). From 2020, when JICA could not bring participants to Japan, my recorded presentation by Zoom was shown at their branches overseas. Now, JICA has released the 98-minute recording from exclusive government ownership. It goes broadly and deeply from the origins of Japan 30,000+ years ago to contemporary ways of thinking and social behavior.
You know, it is quite possible to work for 20 years on something and end up with nothing to show for it. Therefore, it means so much, as my legacy, to be able to share this video publicly from now on:
The Shortest History of Japan: From Mythical Origins to Pop Culture Powerhouse - the Global Drama of an Ancient Island Nation by Lesley Downer, 2024
Discover the aesthetic traditions, political resilience, and modern economic might of this singular island nation. The Shortest History books deliver thousands of years of history in one riveting, fast-paced read.
In #JapaneseFolklore there is a supernatural #yokai phenomenon known as mayoibune. During the Obon holiday (which starts today) spirits are believed to return from the dead to visit the living. Mayoibune are the haunting ghosts of sailors that have drowned at sea and return on the northwesterly winds. Seeing mayoibune can result in terrible visions and even death once sailors return to shore. More info and art here: https://www.curiousordinary.com/2024/08/mayoibune.html #folklore#Obon#JapaneseArt#ukiyoe#Japan@folklore
🔴 🏴 🇯🇵 📖 The real-life English sailor of the TV series “Shogun”
“Frederik Cryns bases his book, In the Service of the Shogun, on primary historical sources—and it’s as exciting as the fictional retelling. It’s the true story of Shogun.”
🔴 🏴 🇯🇵 📖 The real-life English sailor of the TV series “Shogun”
Frederik Cryns bases his book, In the Service of the Shogun, on primary historical sources—and it’s as exciting as the fictional retelling. It’s the true story of Shogun.
@jeffjarvis Thank you for calling attention to linguistic issues. As a longtime bilingualism researcher, I was surprised to see code-switching mentioned in a political context, as it means switching languages syntactically in a conversation, which I often do between English and Japanese strategically.
The video you shared clarifies that people switching ethnic dialects, registers, or accents should not be called code-switching but rather some alternative like style switching. As she emphasizes, everyone does it. Here in Japan where identity forefronts a person's role more than what they identify with, someone like my wife can have a different voice with each individual or type of interlocutor, like a bicycle with 50+ gears.
I have been invited to join the Indo-Pacific European Hub for Digital Partnerships, the INPACE Project, funded by the EU and partners India, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore, as an Expert Member of the Working Group on Digital Education and Skills through June 2027.
Do you have any comments, questions, or suggestions about this project?
In Japanese: EUとパートナーのインド、日本、韓国とシンガポールによって2027年6月まで資金を供給されたデジタル協力のためにインド太平洋ヨーロッパのハブ（INPACEプロジェクト）のデジタル教育と技術に関する専門調査委員会の専門家委員として、私は加わろうと誘われました。
“…In both 1870 and 1910 most of the technical knowledge of the world is in French, English, Italian and German but look at what happens in Japan–basically no technical books in 1870 to on par with English in 1910. Moreover, no other country did this.”
We traveled to the town of Nagahama on the northeast shore of the huge Lake Biwa (琵琶湖) in Shiga Prefecture. From the resort hotel we could walk along the lake to the castle (長浜城).
On the way to Nagahama, we continued our recent pilgrimages to shrines associated with Japan's creation myth. Taga Grand Shrine (多賀大社), which is noted in the early 8th Century Kojiki and Nihon Shoki chronicles, is dedicated to the founding gods, the male and female couple Izanagi and Izanami.
I made friends with a Japanese couple, which is something unusual in Japan that my wife's friendly parents used to do. Finally we went to an outlet mall and I renewed my tattered summer T-shirts.
Thank you, Fredrik. I've been concerned for decades that academics not lose the nerve of our vision. Here in Japan we have been through similar pressures for vocationalization, but fortunately in this case, education is a conservative sector of Japanese society that changes only incrementally. Incidentally, Japan had a university mainly for Confucian civil service preparation in the 8th Century Nara Period.
Your case for higher education being not primarily for vocational training but for a broader view to the good of society would be strengthened by adding the examples of Plato's Academy and Nālandā, which I discuss in "What is the Academic Life? 2. The Idea of the University." See https://www.academia.edu/35916771 if you like, or download the whole series from Knowledge Commons: https://hcommons.org/deposits/download/hc:26460/CONTENT/academic_life_series.pdf
Comics about anthropomorphic #Sega consoles you say❗
For those that recognize this crazy family from Japanese Gaming Mags of yesteryear, did you know that there were some #manga collections and even a #Dreamcast guide released as well❓
Edo — the ancient Japanese city now known as Tokyo — may have been one of the world's first large-scale ecological civilizations. From 1603 to 1868, as a result of the government's policy of not trading with outside nations, there was a scarcity of cotton and timber, which meant that everything was reused, repaired, repurposed or recycled. Traditional kimonos would become pyjamas, diapers, floor cloths and eventually fuel; candle wax drippings were remoulded, modular house design meant that floorboards could be reused; leftover straw from growing rice became sandals and rope. Here's Roman Krznaric's story for the BBC on what we should learn from this era.
I've just finished teaching a class on Anthropology of Food in Japan. How I like this topic, wow... it's really, really cool, being able to think about culture through the meals we eat, food production and consumption systems. As the anthropological motto says, food is good not only for eating, but also for thinking. @anthropology#anthropology#japan
@anthropology After more than 230 days I revisited my class on Food Anthropology in Japan. This time I had the opportunity to comment on Anne Allison’s exceptional paper “Japanese Mothers and Obentōs: The Lunch-Box as Ideological State Apparatus”. This paper is such a delight to those who studies Japan. I totally recommend. @anthropology#japan#anthropology