The following piece of art by Kaori Wakamatsu is an example of a piece of art that is not tied to a specific historical individual person or event. It does, however, make of use elements from Japan’s history and it is an interpretation of the past. To what extent does Read more…
Text: “Japan’s population plummeted by 640,000 in 2021 for biggest drop on record.” Japan Times https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2022/04/15/national/population-drop-japan-record/ Extract: “Japan’s population totaled 125,502,000 as of Oct. 1, down 644,000 from a year earlier to mark the biggest decline on record in the rapidly graying nation, government data showed Friday. The population dipped for Read more…
Text: “Publishers revise textbook phrases about ‘forced’ Korean laborers.” Asashi Shimbun. https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14585864 There have been a number of ongoing issues between Japan and Korea over Japan’s colonial occupation of Korea and how those issues are addressed in textbooks. In Japan textbooks for school use must be approved by the central Read more…
Text: “Japan: From vaccine hesitancy to vaccine success.” BBC.com Extract: “With just seven weeks to go until the Olympics, only 3.5% of Japan’s population had been fully vaccinated. While friends in the UK were merrily posting vaccine selfies on social media, here in the capital Tokyo, we were joking we Read more…
Text: “How Japan’s new PM is promising a ‘new capitalism.’” BBC.com Extract: “Japan’s new prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has sold his plan to redistribute wealth in the country as the “new capitalism”. But some critics on social media suggest the plan sounds more like socialism to them – even dubbing Read more…
The outcome of a professional wrestling match is decided ahead of time and many of the individual moves in a match are rehearsed and practiced in advance. The “facts” clearly indicate that there is no real competition where each participant has a chance to win. To what extent though, can Read more…
Text: “These Century-Old Stone “Tsunami Stones” Dot Japan’s Coastline.” Extract: “At the edge of Aneyoshi, a small village on Japan’s northeastern coast, a 10-foot-tall stone tablet stands, carved with a dire warning to locals. “High dwellings are the peace and harmony of our descendants,” the rock slab says. “Remember the Read more…
Text: As revised laws squeeze yakuza, gang rosters slowly shrink.” Asahi Shinbun. Extract: “Tougher laws and prefectural rules have made life increasingly difficult for yakuza gangs in Japan, leading to a gradual exodus of members over the past decade, sources said.” https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14456883 The news article (and the broader topic of Read more…
Text “Iroha” (The author unknown but the poem has links to Kukai AKA Kobo Daishi) Iroha is an well-known Japanese poem that can be interpreted in many ways and some of those ways depend on whether it is read in the ancient Japanese text, in modern Japanese, or in English. Read more…
Text: “NASA’s New Shape-Shifting Radiator Inspired by Origami.” Extract: “Vivek Dwivedi, a technologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, has teamed with a couple of researchers at Brigham Young University in Utah to advance an unconventional radiator that would fold and unfold, much like the V-groove paper Read more…