Interesting article here by a graduate student who, for some reason, is in the military and training to be shipped to Iraq as part of the American occupation. I think we should all read material like this (which you can find all over the place if you look for it) to be reminded that US [...]
Sayaka posted about the recent statements made on gender in education made by Minister of Education Nakayama Nariaki. He is the same minister who last November was pleased to report that in this year’s history textbooks, “it is good that such terms as sex slaves of the Japanese Imperial Army and forced Asian labor were [...]
According to a survey reported in the Asahi today including some 808 responses, some 71% respondents “can’t understand” China’s demand that Japan face the question of its historical conciousness of the war. On the other hand, 48% reported that they believed Japanese prime ministers should stop visiting the controversial Yasukuni shrine (36% say he should [...]
Giving a name to the water between Korea and Japan is always a bit of a sensitive affair. I was suddenly reminded of this today when I opened up the Korean newspaper site Chosun.com and was suddenly presented with a pop-up window with the following text: The staff of the English-language edition of Chosun.com wish [...]
Sayaka has some good commentary about some of the editorials in Yomiuri. Here are a few lines from recent editorials from Yomiuri and Asahi to give you a sense of their flavor. I have just skimmed them all so if I missed any important statements in them, feel free to email me. I am not [...]
A number of people have noticed (see for example the translation in an article over at EastSouthWestNorth) that the new edition of the controversial textbook is not the biggest concern. Other textbooks approved this year may be dropping some of their coverage of wartime atrocities. As countless commentators have pointed out (but few news articles [...]
It has been hard to keep up with all the renewed excitement generated by the anti-Japan protests in China. It has reopened discussion on all the classic issues in Sino-Japanese relations since the early 1980s. In a series of blog entries (one on apologies to Korea, one on apologies to China, and one on revisionist [...]
While the completion of his PhD thesis continues to elude him, my friend Jai has found some time to write about the current crisis at Columbia University’s MEALAC department (Middle East and South Asia) in the Columbia Spectator. Here is an article at The Nation to get you caught up on the crisis if you [...]
There is an editorial in Hankyoreh about some former Seoul National University professor Kim Minsu who was apparently let go because he didn’t have enough research publications. He apparently won a lawsuit against the university. However, the editorial also says, “As a result of the court’s findings, Kim’s assertion that the real reason SNU did [...]
As I’m sure you all know, the South Korean Kim Ki Ho has defected to North Korea on December 29th because of his, “yearning for the man-centered Korean-style socialism” He was born in North Kyongsang province, in the year Juche 34 (1945). Thankfully, “Kim Ki Ho is now spending happy days amid the hospitality of [...]