Today during my Korean class, our instructor was introducing everyone to Korea’s use of Chinese characters, or 한자. It was a welcome respite since I usually don’t understand about half of what the instructor is saying. Chinese characters, on the other hand, I feel much more comfortable with. At one point in the discussion our [...]
Today I want to officially “launch” a new Japan History Group Weblog at Froginawell.net. The title is 井の中の蛙, the Japanese version of an old Chinese proverb. You can read a detailed introduction to this new project at the site, including an explanation for the site’s title, but essentially the site is a multi-lingual (Japanese and [...]
The accusations of the national betrayal and collaboration of relatives in South Korea’s politics continue with “confirmation” that the father of Uri party Kim Hee-sun’s father was a special operative working for the police in Japanese controlled Manchukuo (see older stories on this via Google News). The Uri party has been most aggressive in favoring [...]
My 2nd year Korean textbook has this flattering view of Korea in its “culture” segment: Koreans, especially women, are very sensitive to fashion. With seasonal changes, Koreans change their clothes (and shoes, in the case of women), conforming to the most fashionable trends. In the workplace too, men and women like to dress in a [...]
I have been watching the development of South Korea’s fascinating “Truth and Reconciliation Law” very closely. The leading Uri party is digging up old skeletons by looking at the pro-Japan collaborators during the colonial period. This is especially interesting to me given my interest in the uses of treason in East Asia. In addition to [...]
Matt had a good question: How do we type some of those obsolete kana like ゐ and ゑ? I found the answer in the Apple ことえり help file which, unlike most Apple help files, was surprisingly helpful. For the above characters you type WYI and WYE, respectively. Japanese is not the only language with this [...]
Derrida, the renowned philosopher and one of the rogues who is partly responsible for screwing up my nice little analytical philosophical world, just died today. The BBC article on his death begins the third paragraph with, “Fellow academics have charged that Derrida’s writings are ‘absurd’ but his mark on modern thinking is undisputed…” The NYT [...]
I made a little How-to website for people wanting to input Korean on a Macintosh (OS X). I was motivated to create this after our Korean teacher gave us a handout on how to add support for Korean input on Windows XP and I noticed a few mac users in my class feeling left out. [...]
Google has a “search-in-book” feature now which it appears to be testing. The feature is similar to Amazon.com, its A9.com search engine, and the commercial online library Questia. It seems to have a limited number of books but I found Louise Young’s Japan’s Total Empire. Just search for the book by title in the normal [...]
Someone commented on my debate posting with a quote from the Polish president which was critical of Kerry leaving Poland’s sacrifice out. I think it is obvious that Kerry knows that Poland (2,460 troops at time of invasion?) and other countries have made a sacrifice. That is so not the point. During the debate he [...]