Credentialism and Other Modern Traditions
The Japan Times article on Japan’s application to UNESCO to have 和食 [washoku, Japanese cuisine] declared an internationally recognized “intangible c...
Category: Nationalism
Academia/Cultural/Current/Recent Events/English/Foreign Views/Historiography/Japan/Memory/Nationalism/US-Japan/平成
Old Myths, New Myths: Problems of Informed Punditry
The Asia/Pacific Journal, aka Japan Focus, has a fascinating interview with Heinrich Reinfried, Senior Lecturer in East Asian Studies at the University St. Gall...
Academia/Books and Articles/Current/Recent Events/General/globalization/Historiography/Japan/Nationalism/昭和
Feeling Like an Empire: Colonial Radicalization
What makes Louise Young’s Japan’s Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism such a fascinating, troubling work is that she deta...
Teachers and National Ideologies
I have been collecting and reading various materials that could potentially reveal how people lived in rural villages between the 1910s and 1940s. Village teach...
PRC National Anthem
In honor of the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic on October 1st, my friend Carsey Yee has sent another video: The Two Chinese...
Hirohito’s last birthday
I’m almost done, I suppose, with the first phase of my image digitization and pedagogy project, namely scanning a significant chunk of my Japan slides and...
Academia/bibliography/Current/Recent Events/Economic/General/globalization/Historiography/Japan/Nationalism/Pedagogy/Teaching
Adjusting to the new narrative
My China-side colleague, Alan Baumler, noted that China seems to have supplanted Japan as the go-to model for economic development. This has, he says, required ...
Imperial Visits and Attitudes
I just learned of the Japanese Emperor and Empress’ visit to Hawai’i [via]. It’s not the first time that a member of the Japanese Imperial fam...
Imperial Visits and Attitudes
I just learned of the Japanese Emperor and Empress’ visit to Hawai’i [via]. It’s not the first time that a member of the Japanese Imperial fam...
Academia/China-Japan/Current/Recent Events/General/globalization/International Affairs/Japan/Korea-Japan/Nationalism/Political/Politics/平成/昭和
ASPAC Blogging: Japan’s Political Present and Future
My copanelists on Saturday were political scientists, and it was a good update for me on what what’s going on with Japan in the last ten years or so. R...
North Korean Propoganda Posters
Thanks to Adam at Mutantfrog for pointing me to these North Korean Propoganda posters. I think this is my favorite but the whole group is worth a look.
Tomb Near Artifacts that Date to Himiko’s Purported Reign Dates Identified
Am I the only person who had a bad reaction to the Tomb of legendary Japanese Queen Himiko found headlines I’ve been seeing? The article says Archaeologis...
“Prosthetic Memories”
Seungsook Moon at Japan Focus has an interesting historiographical essay about the contested life and legacy of Park Chung Hee, who led Korea through the 60s an...
Sumo and tradition
The NYTimes Lede blog [thanks, Mom!] linked Michael Phelps’ marijuana scandal to a scandal in Japanese sumo1 which has resulted in four retirements. They ...
North Korea’s engagement with the world
I remember the shocked look on my students’ faces fifteen years ago when I told them that we actually had no idea how decisions were made or leaders picke...