Monthly Archives: August 2021

Emory EAC: Yasukuni

Reposting this from Emory’s student-run East Asia Collective Newsletter:

China and South Korea Blast Japan’s Defense Minister

China and South Korea on Friday blasted Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi’s visit to the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. Kishi paid his respects at the shrine for war dead that is seen by neighboring countries as a symbol of Japan’s past militarism, two days before the anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War Two. Nearly eight decades after the end of the war, Yasukuni remains a potent symbol of the wartime legacy in East Asia and a flashpoint for tension with China and both Koreas. Among those honored at the shrine are 14 World War Two leaders convicted as “Class A” war criminals by an Allied tribunal in 1948.

Given Kishi’s visit, China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition, saying that Kishi’s act reflects “Japan’s wrong attitude toward its history of aggression and its sinister intention to challenge the postwar international order.” Lee Sang-ryol, South Korean Foreign Ministry’s director-general for Asian and Pacific affairs, also criticizes Kishi’s act as it damages the trust between the two countries. Lee summoned Naoki Kumagai, deputy chief of mission at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, to lodge a protest, urging Japanese leaders to reflect on past wrongdoings and demonstrate their sincerity by their action.

Read more:

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/08/14/national/south-korea-china-kishi-yasukuni/

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/japan-defence-minister-visits-yasukuni-shrine-ahead-wwii-anniversary-2021-08-13/

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/yasukuni-shrine-japan-explained-7453565/

Teaching and remembering

A graph comparing the level of memory falloff right after class, then 24 hours, one week, and one month afterwards

Forgetting Curve. From the article in ICE Blog linked to below: https://icenetblog.royalcollege.ca/2018/04/24/education-theory-made-practical-2-spaced-repetition-theory/

I have been doing a little bit of reading recently about how people learn and remember what they’ve learned. I’m going to try to implement some of these this semester in class. The links below list some resources that explain and support various theories about learning, particularly spaced repetition. Spaced repetition is not that radical an idea so it should be possible to put into practice. 

Ordinarily it’s difficult for both students and myself as an instructor because there is no spontaneous inclination to use it.That is, often it seems that students want to learn the new thing, and then move onto the next new thing because it gives them a sense of accomplishment. To implement this I will have to build it into my class plans. I will need to identify, say, three keywords or concepts that are the essence of a particular lesson, and start and end with them; then go back to the next week for a minute or two. After a while I could maybe ask one student in the class to be the responsible person for that session — ask them to identify the keywords that day, and share them with the rest of the class.

Another thing I often hear is that it’s really important to create some kind of immersive experience. It’s very common for teaching experts to emphasize that students learn by doing, not by being lectured to. It’s hard to dispute that. However that takes a bit of just-in-time planning on the part of the instructor, and certainly a lot of effort on the part of the student that maybe they’d rather not make, but I think that is going to be my goal this time.

Amid the horrors of the global health crisis, there has been a small benefit: the need/opportunity to learn about different teaching tools and methods. I hope that I can use some of what I’ve learned this semester, as we (I hope) go back to F2F learning.

ICE Repetition Theory

Andy Matuschak

AnkiWeb

Universe of Memory: Common Language Learning Mistakes

Letters 1: Buson 1751

The first in an occasional series of translations of letters. Let’s start with some practice. This is review, but I read it such a long time ago it’s like looking at it for the first time.

To: OOya Yohachi, OO Sawaragichô, Kyoto.

Kindly use the above address. Paste this letter on your wall. Do not forget.

Please get some works of calligraphy by Hirabayashi [Seisai] 平林静斎: either as single phrases, or as two or three couplets. I would like to hang them in the studio here. Other than that,  I have had an urgent request from a person of taste. I hope that, thanks to you, one way or another I may get two or three of these. It is a once-in-a-lifetime request. Please permit me to send as a token of gratitude a painting of Daikoku. I have gone for sightseeing to various places all around Kyoto, and spent a pretty interesting time. Some time ago I visited Fushimi and stayed there for a while.

When I think of you going out for night dancing I laugh to myself. I write haikai occasionally. I am still pretty busy, and there hasn’t been any time to pause.  For the next a couple of years as I become more familiar with the place, if there is anything interesting I will let you know, so please look forward to it. More than anything, without fail, I ask your help with Hirabayashi’s work. I really, really can’t wait to receive it.

Watching mandarin ducks

all the glamor has been used up
by the mandarin ducks —
winter trees

oshidori ni bi wo tsukushite ya fuyukodachi
をし鳥に美をつくしてや冬木立

     There is a lot more to say, but I omit it here. How is Denkô 田洪 in Yûki? I miss the place.

Second day of the eleventh month (1751? to 桃彦?)

Tricky epistolary forms:

御登可被下候 おのぼせくださるべくそうろう Please send [to the capital]
被差置  さしおかれ [Please] affix it
御もらひ可被下候 Please get/receive
申度候 I want [to do something]
拝裁奉願候 はいたいねがいたてまつりそうろう I humbly ask to benefit from you doing [this]
相下可申候 あいくだしもうすべくそうろう Please allow me to [do something]
仕候 つかまつり I do/make [whatever]
罷有候 まかりありそうろう [just plain old] ある
奉頼候 たのみたてまつり I humbly ask
相待申候 あいまちもうし I am awaiting/looking forward to

The source is Buson no tegami 蕪村の手紙, Tomotsugu Muramatsu 村松友次, Taishūkan Shoten, 1997, ISBN-13 9784469220780

I also used this nice webpage from ブログ俳諧鑑賞, http://yahantei.blogspot.com.

Freer/Sackler Galleries Series on Early Modern Books (日本語で+English)

From the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art

 

Dear all,

Please join us for our three-part miniseries, Illustrated Woodblock-Printed Books of the Edo Period, on August 10, 17, and 24, 7–8:30 pm EDT.

The richly illustrated woodblock-printed books of the Edo period (1603–1868) offer a fascinating window into how texts and images were circulated in a highly literate society. However, the circumstances of their production and reception have not been as well described in scholarly literature as other facets of Edo print culture, such as multicolor prints. In this three-part webinar miniseries on Japanese illustrated woodblock-printed books (e’iri hanpon 絵入り版本) from the Pulverer Collection at the Freer Gallery of Art and from the Freer and Sackler Library, Professor Takahiro Sasaki will present on the history of illustrated printed books; authenticating illustrated books; and the relationship between illustrated books, the government, and society. The lectures will be given in Japanese with the option for simultaneous English transcription and audio.

Professor Takahiro Sasaki is the director of the Institute of Oriental Classics (Shidō Bunko, Keio University) and is a professor at Keio University specializing in Japanese literature of the medieval period, with a particular focus on waka poetry. Professor Sasaki has also been the lead educator for the courses Japanese Culture Through Rare Books and The Art of Washi Paper in Japanese Rare Books, offered by Keio University on the open online course platform FutureLearn, and has led numerous workshops on Japanese classical books in the United States and Europe.

Register here: https://smithsonian.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_DboQL-c3QXKJHlAI_ekN2w

Find more information here: https://asia.si.edu/events-overview/?trumbaEmbed=view%3Dseries%26seriesid%3D1595019

Tuesday, August 10, 2021 

7 – 8:30pm (EDT)
The History of Illustrated Printed Books and Bindings 

In the first lecture of our three-part series Illustrated Woodblock-Printed Books of the Edo Period, Professor Takahiro Sasaki will locate the genre of illustrated woodblock-printed books within Japanese book history and explain the binding methods used in their production. 

Professor Takahiro Sasaki is the director of the Institute of Oriental Classics (Shidō Bunko, Keio University) and is a professor at Keio University specializing in Japanese literature of the medieval period, with a particular focus on waka poetry. Professor Sasaki has also been the lead educator for the courses Japanese Culture Through Rare Books and The Art of Washi Paper in Japanese Rare Books, offered by Keio University on the open online course platform FutureLearn, and has led numerous workshops on Japanese classical books in the United States and Europe. 

 

Tuesday, August 17, 2021 

7 – 8:30pm (EDT)
Authenticating Illustrated Printed Books 

In the second lecture of our three-part series Illustrated Woodblock-Printed Books of the Edo Period, Professor Takahiro Sasaki will use concrete examples to offer instruction on issues to be aware of when examining illustrated printed books. 

Professor Takahiro Sasaki is the director of the Institute of Oriental Classics (Shidō Bunko, Keio University) and is a professor at Keio University specializing in Japanese literature of the medieval period, with a particular focus on waka poetry. Professor Sasaki has also been the lead educator for the courses Japanese Culture Through Rare Books and The Art of Washi Paper in Japanese Rare Books, offered by Keio University on the open online course platform FutureLearn, and has led numerous workshops on Japanese classical books in the United States and Europe. 

 

Tuesday, August 24, 2021 

7 – 8:30pm (EDT)
Illustrated Books, the Government, and Society 

In the third and final lecture of our three-part series Illustrated Woodblock-Printed Books of the Edo Period, Professor Takahiro Sasaki will provide specific examples of illustrated printed books as a means of elucidating the relationship between these works and the circumstances of the government and society of the Edo period. 

Looks interesting

What Is a Family? Answers from Early Modern Japan
ed. by Mary Elizabeth Berry and Marcia Yonemoto

Peter Kornicki

The Journal of Japanese Studies
Society for Japanese Studies
Volume 47, Number 2, Summer 2021
pp. 514-518
10.1353/jjs.2021.0066