Category: Japan

2005 Year of Korea-Japan Friendship

Chosun Ilbo Image This year is the 100th anniversary of Korea becoming a Japanese protectorate (it was fully annexed/colonized in 1910). Apparently the two governments are declaring this a year of friendship between them, which is probably a good first preemptive strike in the war of date symbolism. I found interesting the image that a Chosun Ilbo article used to symbolize friendship between the two. In the background, you can see the popular (if somewhat dated) Japanese cartoon character “totoro” and the Korean actor “Yon-sama” (Bae Yong-joon) who has become a demigod in Japan.

The Character 的

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 instructor introduced us to the character for 적(的) which we first found use for in a vocabulary word for this week 인상(印象). When you put the two together you can say that something was impressive, or left an impression (as you can in Japanese and Chinese with this same word).

Our instructor then made the most remarkable claim, “This character was invented by the Koreans, and doesn’t exist in any other language.” That is an interesting thing to say about a character which is the most frequently used character in the Chinese language. In Japanese, it is also very often used, especially in the creation of adjectives.
Continue reading The Character 的

Frog in a Well – Japan History Group Weblog

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 English) weblog with a focus on the history of or related to Japan. Its target audience is primarily those studying Japanese history, either as undergraduate or graduate students, or scholars in the field. Some of the postings include Japanese or are written entirely in Japanese, and some background in Japanese history is assumed, but I think there is something to offer anyone with a love for history or Japan.

So far this group blog is made up of a small group consisting of two professors of Japanese history and a collection of graduate students. I hope over time to slowly increase the number of participants, until we have a fairly consistent flow of postings on a variety of topics. I especially hope to increase participation from Japanese students and scholars, or at least those studying the field outside of the United States. A primary goal I have for this project, also mentioned in the site’s initial posting, is to increase interaction and discussion between students and scholars in places like Japan and the United States. While we have only one participant studying in Japan to start, I’m going to be aggressively looking for more members for our team amongst my contacts in the Japanese academic world.

I think I will be keeping a heavy academic focus for this site that may unfortunately limit our readership. My reason for this is that I want to appeal to an audience of students and scholars who have little patience or appreciation for the world of blogs. There are no other group blogs related to the history of Japan, that I know of, and I hope this will help some people working in this field gain an appreciation for this medium of communication and writing.

The Japan history group blog is only the first of the “Frog In A Well” projects. I’m in the process of building a team of scholars and students for a China history blog (井底之蛙), a Korea history blog (우물 안 개구리), and one closest to my own heart: a fourth blog dedicated to transnational historical study of East Asia and/or its place in a broader global context. This last blog will also include duplicate postings from the other three which didn’t fit neatly within national boundaries.

Testing Theories of Japanese Security Policy

Over on the EAIA blog I mentioned and summarized an article in International Security on the US-Japan alliance. I brought it up as a kind of controversial Realist article. Sayaka took the bait and bit a chunk out of the essay in a response she wrote in the next posting. She makes several excellent points about the article, which completely dismisses Constructivist approaches to Japanese security policy in favor of a clean “Passing the Buck” Realist interpretation. Sayaka accuses the author of oversimplifying the opposition with a straw man argument.

It is wrong to assume that Constructivists only look at notions and ideas even if Realists only look at power and the structure of international society.

Third, related to the previous point, the attempt to answer the question “Is [Japan’s policy really about] Pacifism?” by looking at the size of the military is off the point. The questions should be, “Why do[es Japan] not exercise normal military power even though it has acquired a huge military capability?”

Kodomo no Kuni Website

I found a link on Blogdex I thought I’d pass on. It is a site dedicated to Artists and Children’s Books in 1920s Japan, and in particular, the journal コドモノクニ (“The Land of Children”). The materials are prepared by the International Library of Children’s Literature which is a beautiful library connected to the National Diet Library found just behind Ueno Park in Tokyo.

I think the Kodomo no Kuni website is a good example of the kind of history project I hope to become very popular in the future: pick something manageable in scope, put a lot of materials not available online into a format easily viewable online with a pleasant and accessible design. Provide some introductory narrative and some primary materials. While this site doesn’t provide it, I think it would also be good to provide: a more extensive index and database of materials not included for display in the main presentation of the site but can be viewed by those who are interested in seeing more (like the Columbia University Ling Lung women’s magazine project which in contrast, lacks the presentation of the Kodomo no Kuni site), links to more information, the ability to easily download materials for offline viewing, a place for users to post comments and new info, and some kind of updates or an RSS feed for newly added material. I have a few of these kind of small projects in mind and will post more when I get something going on them.