{"id":766,"date":"2009-09-19T20:14:09","date_gmt":"2009-09-20T01:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.froginawell.net\/japan\/?p=766"},"modified":"2014-08-30T13:59:13","modified_gmt":"2014-08-30T13:59:13","slug":"hirohitos-last-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/2009\/09\/hirohitos-last-birthday\/","title":{"rendered":"Hirohito’s last birthday"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Tenno<\/a>I’m almost done, I suppose, with the first phase of my image digitization and pedagogy project<\/a>, namely scanning a significant chunk of my Japan slides and prints. I’ve completely gone through the slides I had pulled for classroom use when I started teaching, supplemented with some from my complete collection; I still have dozens of boxes of slides to go through from my first year in Japan (1984-85), and I’m sure there are some surprises.1<\/a><\/sup> I’ve gone through most of my prints as well — pictures from my junior year at Keio International Center (1987-88) and my graduate research year in Yamaguchi (1994-1995) — and extracted most of the interesting stuff, and I’m mostly done scanning them. I’m taking a bit of a break from my collection once that’s done, and focusing on scanning the book images which I’ve been using in class — I had a huge collection of slides made by the photography department in my first year or two of teaching — but I probably can’t upload those en masse<\/i>, for copyright reasons.2<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Most of my pictures, to be honest, are pretty typical tourist pictures — with the caveat that we very, very rarely posed for “we are here” shots — but my father taught me that it’s a lot cheaper to take lots of pictures than to go back, so I did get quite a few decent architectural shots, and some good cultural ones. Fairly static stuff, but much of it will be useful in my Japanese history courses; I’ve set a fairly broad Creative Commons license<\/a> on the pictures, so that they can be used by other teachers.3<\/a><\/sup> There are a few times, though, when I captured something which legitimately might be considered a unique historical moment. <\/p>\n

During Golden Week of my year at Keio, a few friends and I decided to go to the Emperor’s Birthday Audience<\/a>, when crowds can enter the Imperial Palace grounds and get to see an appearance of the monarch, plus family:
\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\"Tenno<\/a><\/td>\nThe first thing we saw, actually, was the speaker trucks and transports of the unreconstructed right-wing. (More here<\/a> and here<\/a>) They dominated the streets for blocks around the palace, and I suppose a significant portion of the crowd must have come with them. I particularly like this one, for the celebratory birthday message.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"Tenno<\/a><\/td>\nThe crowd was quite dense, which was enhanced by the fact that it was raining when we arrived: the umbrellas were so close together that you were likely to get dripped on from your neighbor’s umbrella, even if you were under your own. I was kind of concerned, actually, about visibility. However, in one of the most genuinely odd moments in my life, the rain stopped just before the Emperor came out.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"Tenno<\/a><\/td>\nThe police were, of course, in full dress, and there were a bunch of them. The crowd was very well-behaved, though, and there really wasn’t much for them to do but stand there looking dramatic.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"Tenno<\/a><\/td>\nWhen the Showa Emperor appeared, with his family, there was a general roar of “Tenno Heika Banzai” from the crowd, cheering and that stiff-armed banzai bow\/wave. I tried applauding, just as a sign of respect, but there wasn’t anyone else doing it, so I stopped and just listened. And took pictures.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"Tenno<\/a><\/td>\nAfter waving to the crowd (see above), he spoke a few words. I don’t remember anything about the message, except that it was short and formal. This was his last birthday audience, one of his last public appearances: within eight months, he’d be dead from stomach cancer. I don’t remember thinking, at the time, that he seemed ill, just old.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"Tenno<\/a><\/td>\nAs an added bonus, though I didn’t really think much of it at the time, I got a good look at the line of succession. (At least, I think I did. If I’ve misidentified anyone, or you have something to add, feel free to add comments on the photos.)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

  1. For example, when I looked through my Atsuta Matsuri pictures, I discovered that I’d taken a bunch of pictures of the Aichi Prefecture Police Band and Bugle Corps<\/a>. I’m not surprised that the police have a band — many military and paramilitary organizations need marching music — but the cheerleader-like<\/a> Bugle Corps women seem, well, cheerleader-like.  ↩<\/a><\/p><\/li>

  2. Unless someone wants to argue that the enhancements I’m doing in Photoshop — contrast, lightness, etc — transform the image sufficiently that it’s a new creation to which I am the rightful copyright holder….. No? I didn’t think so. That said, once I’ve amassed a solid collection, I’d be happy to share them via CD-ROM with anyone who’s got a legitimate teaching need. That’s legal.  ↩<\/a><\/p><\/li>

  3. I’ve already shared my Atsuta Shrine pictures<\/a>, and some cultural illustrations<\/a>. And my Early Japan class is about to hit Kamakura<\/a>.  ↩<\/a><\/p><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    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 prints. I’ve completely gone through the slides I had pulled for classroom use when I started teaching, supplemented with some from my complete collection; I still have dozens of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[119,63,187,61,192,206],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-japan","category-memory","category-nationalism","category-photography","category-206"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9yoH3-cm","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=766"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5519,"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766\/revisions\/5519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}