tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/japan-285/articles
Japan – The Conversation
2024-03-22T12:30:59Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/224478
2024-03-22T12:30:59Z
2024-03-22T12:30:59Z
Breakaway parties threaten to disrupt South Korea’s two-party system – can they also end parliamentary gridlock?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582322/original/file-20240316-30-z280lu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3994%2C2646&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Is South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol waving goodbye to his popularity?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/south-koreas-president-yoon-suk-yeol-and-his-wife-kim-keon-news-photo/1793664795?adppopup=true">Henry Nicholls/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Contemporary South Korean politics has traditionally been dominated by just two main parties – in <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/1962968">common with many other countries</a> with strong presidential systems. But that could soon change.</p>
<p>Recent <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2024/02/south-korea-in-political-disarray-ahead-of-the-april-parliamentary-elections/#:%7E:text=The%20Yoon%20administration%20and%20the,defeat%20in%20Seoul%20last%20October.">voter discontent</a> is creating opportunities for smaller political parties in the upcoming parliamentary election on April 10, 2024. </p>
<p>Heading into that vote, the two main parties – President Yoon Suk Yeol’s People Power Party and the opposition Democratic Party – between them hold 270 seats in the 300-member parliament. But both parties are grappling with internal struggles and political controversies that are fueling the prospect of new, breakaway parties making gains. </p>
<p>The result could be a multi-party legislature. As a <a href="https://www.ngu.edu/faculty/jong-eun-lee">political scientist</a> with a focus on East Asia and international affairs, I believe that outcome has the potential of transforming the country’s domestic and international agenda. </p>
<h2>Parliamentary gridlock</h2>
<p>Polling suggests that South Koreans haven’t been happy with the performance of their politicians for years, with one 2022 survey putting <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1455207/south-korea-trust-in-the-national-parliament/">trust in the national assembly at just 24%</a>. Events since then are unlikely to have improved confidence in either main party.</p>
<p>Since Yoon being elected president in 2022, his legislative agenda has been met with <a href="https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20230509000725">resistance</a> by the opposition-controlled National Assembly. His <a href="https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=345281">plans for reforming</a> the country’s education, pension and labor systems have stalled as a result. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Yoon has <a href="https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20240130000616">vetoed multiple bills</a> passed by the National Assembly, such as the <a href="https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20231201001653315">“yellow envelope” law</a>, which limits companies’ lawsuits for damage claims over labor union disputes, and legislation calling for special probes into the <a href="https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20240130003053315">crowd crush</a> inside Seoul’s Itaewon district during Halloween weekend in 2022 that resulted in hundreds of deaths and injuries.</p>
<p>On foreign policy, the opposition Democratic Party has faulted the <a href="https://theconversation.com/president-yoon-is-lauded-in-west-for-embracing-japan-in-south-korea-it-fits-a-conservative-agenda-that-is-proving-less-popular-220898">Yoon government’s pursuit of increased security ties</a> with Japan in the face of continued bilateral tensions over Japan’s past colonial history in Korea. </p>
<p>Specifically, the opposition criticized a <a href="https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2023/03/02/national/politics/lee-jaemyung-yoon-suk-yeol-wartime-labor/20230302094834562.html">bilateral deal</a> on compensation for the victims of forced wartime labor in Korea, and the Yoon government’s acceptance of Japan’s release of wastewater from the <a href="https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/politics/politics-government/20230819-130723/">Fukushima nuclear plant</a> into the Pacific Ocean.</p>
<p>Last fall, partly as protest against the president’s foreign policy and in a bid to overhaul the government’s cabinet, the National Assembly passed a nonbinding <a href="https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2023-09-21/national/politics/First-noconfidence-motion-against-prime-minister-passes/1875180#:%7E:text=The%20National%20Assembly%20passed%20a,of%20an%20incumbent%20prime%20minister">no-confidence motion</a> against Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, though Yoon refused to dismiss his premier.</p>
<p>The net result of the political gridlock is that both the Yoon government and the Democratic Party face high levels of <a href="https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2024/02/113_366062.html">public disapproval</a>. Yoon’s approval rating <a href="https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20240212050041">has stagnated</a> below 40%, and the majority of voters have expressed an intention to <a href="https://www.straightnews.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=246087">hold his government accountable in the upcoming election</a> by supporting opposition parties.</p>
<p>However, the Democratic Party has failed to capitalize on Yoon’s unpopularity, due to similar public <a href="https://www.kukinews.com/newsView/kuk202312120252">disapproval toward the party’s leader, Lee Jae-myung</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="South Korean opposition party members hold signs at a rally." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582323/original/file-20240316-28-m3dlfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582323/original/file-20240316-28-m3dlfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582323/original/file-20240316-28-m3dlfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582323/original/file-20240316-28-m3dlfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582323/original/file-20240316-28-m3dlfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582323/original/file-20240316-28-m3dlfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582323/original/file-20240316-28-m3dlfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lee Jae-myung, center, leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, holds a banner during a rally opposing Japan’s discharge of treated radioactive water into the ocean on Aug. 25, 2023, in Seoul, South Korea.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/lee-jae-myung-leader-of-the-main-opposition-democratic-news-photo/1622143449?adppopup=true">Chris Jung/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Intraparty factions</h2>
<p>South Korea’s two main parties have frequently experienced internal feuds among factions supportive and opposed to party leadership. In recent months, such factions opposed to both Yoon and Lee’s leadership have bolted from their respective parties.</p>
<p>In January 2024, Lee Jun-Seok, former People Power Party chairman, started the <a href="https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2024/01/113_365883.html">New Reform Party</a> with party members <a href="https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20230228000730">who protested</a> the pro-Yoon faction’s seemingly cliquish party leadership. This “non-Yoon” faction has also <a href="https://m.hankookilbo.com/News/Read/A2023122807400000123">criticized</a> the <a href="https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2024-01-05/national/politics/Yoon-vetoes-special-counsel-bill-to-investigate-first-lady/1951960">president’s veto</a> of the special counsel bill to investigate allegations surrounding first lady Kim Geon-hee, which includes claims of violating <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/09/asia/south-korea-dior-bag-scandal-intl-hnk-dst/index.html">anti-graft laws</a> and involvement in <a href="https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20240105000202">stock price manipulation</a>.</p>
<p>The Democratic Party is facing a similar challenge. Also in January 2024, Lee Nak-yon, former prime minister under the previous Democratic government of President Moon Jae-in, started the New Future Party, criticizing his former party as having turned into a “<a href="https://www.donga.com/en/article/all/20240112/4678600/1">bulletproof shield</a>” for the unpopular leader Lee Jae-myung. Specifically, the “non Jae-myung” faction have criticized him for <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2023/10/amid-legal-troubles-lee-jae-myung-tightens-grip-on-south-koreas-opposition-party/">refusing to step down</a> despite being under criminal investigation on corruption charges.</p>
<h2>Opportunities for breakaway parties</h2>
<p>These new breakaway parties’ strategy is to take advantage of South Korea’s <a href="https://keia.org/the-peninsula/how-does-south-koreas-new-election-system-work/">mixed-member</a> proportional election system, which provides opportunities for smaller parties to win seats. To do so, they have been focusing efforts on building concentrated support among core groups of voters. </p>
<p>The New Reform Party <a href="https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2024/01/113_367977.html">has gained support</a> among younger conservative male voters critical of the older generation of conservative politicians close to Yoon. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the New Future Party <a href="https://www.m-i.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=1084200">retains some support</a> among traditional Democratic Party members, who feel disappointed with the direction of the party. Several Democratic legislators who claimed to <a href="https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20240307006351315">have been purged</a> by the party leadership have joined Lee Nak-yon, widening the schism within the main opposition party.</p>
<h2>Potential impact</h2>
<p>The latest polls <a href="https://www.straightnews.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=246459">indicate a tight race</a> between the People Power Party and the Democratic Party, with a 37.7% and 36.9% share of the vote, respectively. If the breakaway parties <a href="https://www.m-i.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=1102927">win even a small number of seats</a>, the result could be a “hung parliament,” in which neither main party can form a single-party majority.</p>
<p>That would leave smaller parties with huge legislative leverage.</p>
<p>The New Reform Party is more likely to <a href="https://world.kbs.co.kr/service/news_view.htm?lang=e&id=Po&Seq_Code=183112">partner</a> with the Yoon government on policy agendas – despite <a href="https://www.hani.co.kr/arti/politics/politics_general/1114142.html">personal antipathy</a> between Yoon and Lee Jun-Seok. On foreign policy, New Reform Party members have <a href="https://cbiz.chosun.com/svc/bulletin/bulletin_art.html?contid=2023031801098">expressed support</a> for pragmatic relations with Japan and have warned against excessive anti-Japan nationalist rhetoric in domestic politics. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Woman at political rally shakes her fist in the air." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582324/original/file-20240316-18-tcp90i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582324/original/file-20240316-18-tcp90i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582324/original/file-20240316-18-tcp90i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582324/original/file-20240316-18-tcp90i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582324/original/file-20240316-18-tcp90i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582324/original/file-20240316-18-tcp90i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582324/original/file-20240316-18-tcp90i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A move to abolish a gender equality ministry has reemerged as a key issue ahead of parliamentary elections.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SouthKoreaInternationalWomensDay/bba9a2ccfd554c87b031a013fbb08189/photo?Query=south%20korea%20gender&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=91&currentItemNo=33">AP Photo/Lee Jin-man</a></span>
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<p>On social and economic policies, the New Reform Party’s platform likewise aligns with the Yoon government in supporting the expansion of South Korea’s <a href="https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20240205059800001">semiconductor industry</a> and abolishing the <a href="https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2024/02/113_369380.html">Ministry of Gender Equality</a>. </p>
<p>Particularly on gender issues, the New Reform Party could push the Yoon government further toward positions that appeal to <a href="https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www2/common/viewpage.asp?newsIdx=367977&categoryCode=113">younger male conservative voters</a>, such as by introducing female military service. At present, only men are subject to South Korea’s mandatory military conscription, a policy that many younger South Korean men perceive as discrimination. </p>
<p>Lee Nak-yon’s New Future Party is <a href="https://www.businesspost.co.kr/BP?command=article_view&num=315985">more critical</a> of the Yoon government’s domestic and foreign policies. However, with its <a href="https://www.inews24.com/view/1695770">platform to end</a> two-party gridlock, the New Future Party could also seek a role as <a href="https://www.donga.com/news/Politics/article/all/20240226/123693471/1">an arbitrator</a> over contentious policy issues.</p>
<p>The new parties could also support the opposition Democratic Party in pressuring the Yoon government to be more accountable. Specifically, Yoon could face increased demands to approve investigations on the allegations surrounding the first lady and to solicit opposition parties’ consent for future cabinet nominations.</p>
<p>It is still uncertain how well the breakaway parties will perform in the upcoming election. And they face competition from <a href="https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20240312050698">another new party</a>, the National Innovation Party, that is politically aligned with the Democratic Party. </p>
<p>One recent election in East Asia will give <a href="https://n.news.naver.com/mnews/article/018/0005687178">these new parties encouragement</a>: Taiwan’s <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2024/02/kmts-han-kuo-yu-is-taiwans-new-legislative-speaker/">legislative election</a> in January saw a new third party become kingmaker in the legislative assembly.</p>
<p>If any of the new South Korean parties are able to emerge from the election as a parliamentary kingmaker, it would represent a crack in the country’s two-party system and could free up the gridlock that has dogged parliamentary politics in recent years.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224478/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jong Eun Lee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Heading into a parliamentary vote, there is very little gap between the ruling People Power Party and opposition Democratic Party – raising the prospect of a smaller party emerging as kingmaker.
Jong Eun Lee, Assistant Professor, North Greenville University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/225427
2024-03-21T12:24:46Z
2024-03-21T12:24:46Z
James Clavell’s ‘Shōgun’ is reimagined for a new generation of TV viewers
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582911/original/file-20240319-30-7y6fii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C0%2C3754%2C2510&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Actress Anna Sawai, who plays Mariko in FX's 'Shōgun,' attends the Los Angeles premiere of the series on Feb. 13, 2024.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/anna-sawai-attends-the-los-angeles-premiere-of-fxs-shogun-news-photo/2009310007?adppopup=true">Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1980, when James Clavell’s blockbuster historical novel “<a href="https://www.blackstonepublishing.com/sho-gun-bhdr.html#541=2907599">Shōgun</a>” was turned into <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080274/">a TV miniseries</a>, some 33% of American households with a television <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2024/03/09/tv-streaming/shogun-hiroyuki-sanada-last-samurai/">tuned in</a>. It quickly became one of the most viewed miniseries to date, second only to “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075572/">Roots</a>.”</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=M4O349MAAAAJ&hl=en">I’m a historian of Japan</a> who specializes in the history of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Tokugawa-period">the Tokugawa</a>, or early modern era – a period from 1603 to 1868, during which the bulk of the action in “Shōgun” takes place. As a first-year graduate student, I sat glued to the television for five nights in September 1980, enthralled that someone cared enough to create a series about the period in Japan’s past that had captured my imagination. </p>
<p>I wasn’t alone. In 1982, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1982/04/25/education/adapting-shogun-for-the-classroom.html">historian Henry D. Smith estimated</a> that one-fifth to one-half of students enrolled in university courses about Japan at that time had read the novel and became interested in Japan because of it. </p>
<p>“‘Shōgun,’” he added, “probably conveyed more information about the daily life of Japan to more people than all the combined writings of scholars, journalists, and novelists since the Pacific War.” </p>
<p>Some even credit the series <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20240305-shogun-tv-hit-fx-violent-japanese-history">for making sushi trendy in the U.S</a>.</p>
<p>That 1980 miniseries has now been remade as FX’s “Shōgun,” a 10-episode production that is garnering rave reviews – including a <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/shogun_2024/s01">near-100% rating from review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes</a>.</p>
<p>Both miniseries closely hew to Clavell’s 1975 novel, which is a fictionalized retelling of the story of the first Englishman, <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374706234/samuraiwilliam">Will Adams</a> – the character John Blackthorne in the novel – to set foot in Japan.</p>
<p>And yet there are subtle differences in each series that reveal the zeitgeist of each era, along with America’s shifting attitudes toward Japan.</p>
<h2>The ‘Japanese miracle’</h2>
<p>The original 1980 series reflects both the confidence of postwar America and its fascination with its resurgent former enemy.</p>
<p>World War II had left Japan devastated economically and psychologically. But by the 1970s and 1980s, the country had come to dominate global markets for consumer electronic, semiconductors and the auto industry. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-12815-0_7">Its gross national product per capita rose spectacularly</a>: from less than US$200 in 1952 to $8,900 in 1980 – the year “Shōgun” appeared on television – to almost $20,000 in 1988, surpassing the United States, West Germany and France. </p>
<p>Many Americans wanted to know the secret to Japan’s head-spinning economic success – the so-called “<a href="https://hbr.org/1998/01/reinterpreting-the-japanese-economic-miracle">Japanese miracle</a>.” Could Japan’s history and culture offer clues?</p>
<p>During the 1970s and 1980s, scholars sought to understand the miracle by analyzing not just the Japanese economy but also the country’s various institutions: schools, social policy, corporate culture and policing. </p>
<p>In his 1979 book, “<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/771294">Japan as Number One: Lessons for America</a>,” sociologist Ezra Vogel argued that the U.S. could learn a lot from Japan, whether it was through the country’s long-term economic planning, collaboration between government and industry, investments in education, and quality control of goods and services.</p>
<h2>A window into Japan</h2>
<p>Clavell’s expansive 1,100-page novel was released in the middle of the Japanese miracle. It sold more than <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/shogun-novel-japan">7 million copies in five years</a>; then the series aired, which prompted the sale of another 2.5 million copies.</p>
<p>In it, Clavell tells the story of Blackthorne, who, shipwrecked off the coast of Japan in 1600, finds the country in a peaceful interlude after an era of civil war. But that peace is about to be shattered by competition among the five regents who have been appointed to ensure the succession of a young heir to their former lord’s position as top military leader.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Black and white photo of middle-aged man sitting at a typewriter by the ocean." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582898/original/file-20240319-26-80u5ik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582898/original/file-20240319-26-80u5ik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582898/original/file-20240319-26-80u5ik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582898/original/file-20240319-26-80u5ik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582898/original/file-20240319-26-80u5ik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582898/original/file-20240319-26-80u5ik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582898/original/file-20240319-26-80u5ik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">‘Shogun,’ which James Clavell published in 1975, has sold millions of copies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/james-clavell-on-typewriter-by-the-ocean-1977-news-photo/135869841?adppopup=true">Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>In the meantime, local leaders don’t know whether to treat Blackthorne and his crew as dangerous pirates or harmless traders. His men end up being imprisoned, but Blackthorne’s knowledge of the world outside of Japan – not to mention his boatload of cannons, muskets and ammunition – save him.</p>
<p>He ends up offering advice and munitions to one of the regents, Lord Yoshi Toranaga, the fictional version of the real-life Tokugawa Ieyasu. With this edge, <a href="https://www.japan-experience.com/plan-your-trip/to-know/japanese-history/tokugawa-ieyasu">Toranaga rises to become shogun</a>, the country’s top military leader.</p>
<p>Viewers of the 1980 television series witness Blackthorne slowly learning Japanese and coming to appreciate the value of Japanese culture. For example, at first, he’s resistant to bathing. <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-long-history-of-japans-tidying-up">Since cleanliness is deeply rooted in Japanese culture</a>, his Japanese hosts find his refusal irrational. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Bearded man with shoulder length brown hair wearing a kimono and holding a samurai sword." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582905/original/file-20240319-18-q4d2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582905/original/file-20240319-18-q4d2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582905/original/file-20240319-18-q4d2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582905/original/file-20240319-18-q4d2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582905/original/file-20240319-18-q4d2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582905/original/file-20240319-18-q4d2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582905/original/file-20240319-18-q4d2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Actor Richard Chamberlain as John Blackthorne in the 1980 NBC miniseries ‘Shōgun.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/richard-chamberlain-us-actor-wearing-a-kimono-and-holding-a-news-photo/120543334?adppopup=true">Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Blackthorne’s, and the viewers’, gradual acclimatization to Japanese culture is complete when, late in the series, he is reunited with the crew of his Dutch ship who have been held in captivity. Blackthorne is thoroughly repulsed by their filth and demands a bath to cleanse himself from their contagion. </p>
<p>Blackthorne comes to see Japan as far more civilized than the West. Just like his real-life counterpart, Will Adams, he decides to remain in Japan even after being granted his freedom. He marries a Japanese woman, with whom he has two children, and ends his days on foreign soil.</p>
<h2>From fascination to fear</h2>
<p>However, the positive views of Japan that its economic miracle generated, and that “Shogun” reinforced, eroded <a href="https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5880.html#1989">as the U.S. trade deficit with Japan ballooned</a>: from $10 billion in 1981 to $50 billion in 1985. </p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1982/10/29/opinion/bashing-japan-isn-t-the-answer.html">Japan bashing</a>” spread in the U.S., and visceral anger exploded when <a href="https://sourcesforcourses.com/post/136624898100/american-auto-workers-smash-toyota-gm-in-protest">American autoworkers smashed Toyota cars in March 1983</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1987/07/13/boycott-toshiba-computers-but-dont-let-congress-force-you/a6130b8a-7be4-4737-8150-adc74e53443b/">congressmen shattered a Toshiba boombox</a> with sledgehammers on the Capitol lawn in 1987. That same year, the magazine Foreign Affairs warned of “<a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/asia/1987-12-01/coming-us-japan-crisis">The Coming U.S.-Japan Crisis</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582909/original/file-20240319-20-kiek7w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Newsweek magazine cover that reads 'Japan Invades Hollywood' and features a graphic of a woman in a kimono posing like the woman in the Columbia Pictures logo." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582909/original/file-20240319-20-kiek7w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582909/original/file-20240319-20-kiek7w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582909/original/file-20240319-20-kiek7w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582909/original/file-20240319-20-kiek7w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582909/original/file-20240319-20-kiek7w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1011&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582909/original/file-20240319-20-kiek7w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1011&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582909/original/file-20240319-20-kiek7w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1011&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Newsweek’s Oct. 9, 1989, cover describes Sony’s purchase of Columbia Pictures as an invasion.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.wolfgangsvault.com/m/xlarge/OMS793331-MZ/newsweek-vintage-magazine-oct-9-1989.webp">Newsweek</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This backlash against Japan in the U.S. was also fueled by almost a decade of acquisitions of iconic American companies, such as Firestone, Columbia Pictures and Universal Studios, along with high-profile real estate, such as the iconic <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2017/07/18/ma-flashback-the-takeover-of-rockefeller-center-capped-a-1980s-frenzy-now-a-new-mania-is-afoot/?sh=8f095">Rockefeller Center</a>.</p>
<p>But the notion of Japan as a threat reached a peak in 1989, after which its economy stalled. The 1990s and early 2000s were dubbed Japan’s “<a href="https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,984426,00.html">lost decade</a>.”</p>
<p>Yet a curiosity and love for Japanese culture persists, thanks, in part, to manga and anime. More Japanese feature films and television series are also <a href="http://interacnetwork.com/best-japanese-dramas-to-watch">making their way to popular streaming services</a>, including the series “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7256504/">Tokyo Girl</a>,” “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1882928/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_q_midnight%2520diner">Midnight Diner</a>” and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt16970638/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_6_tt_8_nm_0_q_sanctuary">Sanctuary</a>.” In December 2023, The Hollywood Reporter announced that Japan was “<a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/japan-content-boom-1235753598/">on the precipice of a content boom</a>.” </p>
<h2>Widening the lens</h2>
<p>As FX’s remake of “Shōgun” demonstrates, American viewers today apparently don’t need to be slowly introduced to Japanese culture by a European guide. </p>
<p>In the new series, Blackthorne is not even the sole protagonist.</p>
<p>Instead, he shares the spotlight with several Japanese characters, such as Lord Yoshi Toranaga, who no longer serves as a one-dimensional sidekick to Blackthorne, as he did in the original miniseries. </p>
<p>This change is facilitated by the fact that Japanese characters now communicate directly with the audience in Japanese, with English subtitles. In the 1980 miniseries, the Japanese dialogue went untranslated. There were English-speaking Japanese characters in the original, such as Blackthorne’s female translator, Mariko. But they spoke in a highly formalized, unrealistic English.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Japanese man wearing glasses and a suit." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583251/original/file-20240320-20-fql0t2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583251/original/file-20240320-20-fql0t2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583251/original/file-20240320-20-fql0t2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583251/original/file-20240320-20-fql0t2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583251/original/file-20240320-20-fql0t2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583251/original/file-20240320-20-fql0t2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583251/original/file-20240320-20-fql0t2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Actor Hiroyuki Sanada plays Lord Yoshi Toranaga in FX’s ‘Shōgun.’ Though Sanada’s character speaks in Japanese, there are English subtitles for viewers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/LAPremiereofShogun/b73143a975a7403bb99e91e837324d5d/photo?Query=Hiroyuki%20Sanada&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=127&currentItemNo=6">AP Photo/Chris Pizzello</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Along with depicting authentic costumes, combat and gestures, the show’s Japanese characters speak using the native language of the early modern era instead of using the contemporary Japanese that made the 1980 series so unpopular among Japanese viewers. (Imagine a film on the American Revolution featuring George Washington speaking like Jimmy Kimmel.) </p>
<p>Of course, authenticity has its limits. The producers of both television series decided to adhere closely to the original novel. In doing so, they’re perhaps unwittingly reproducing certain stereotypes about Japan. </p>
<p>Most strikingly, there’s the fetishization of death, as several characters have a penchant for violence and sadism, while many others commit ritual suicide, <a href="https://theconversation.com/japans-most-famous-writer-committed-suicide-after-a-failed-coup-attempt-now-new-photos-add-more-layers-to-the-haunting-act-151903">or <em>seppuku</em></a>.</p>
<p>Part of this may have been simply a function of author Clavell being a self-professed “<a href="https://www.columbia.edu/%7Ehds2/learning/index.html">storyteller, not an historian</a>.” But this may have also reflected his experiences in World War II, when he spent three years in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. Still, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1981/09/13/magazine/making-of-a-literary-shogun.html">as Clavell noted</a>, he came to deeply admire the Japanese. </p>
<p>His novel, as a whole, beautifully conveys this admiration. The two miniseries have, in my view, successfully followed suit, enthralling audiences in each of their times.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225427/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Constantine Nomikos Vaporis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Compared to its 1980 predecessor, the new FX series presents a more authentic portrayal of early modern Japan.
Constantine Nomikos Vaporis, Professor of History, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/225098
2024-03-19T18:17:40Z
2024-03-19T18:17:40Z
Japan has abandoned decades of pacifism in response to Ukraine invasion and increased Chinese pressure on Taiwan
<p>Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the conflict in Gaza, have left tens of thousands dead and sent shockwaves across Europe and the Middle East. But – brutal and tragic as they are – the wars in Ukraine and Gaza are regionally bounded, meaning that most of the rest of the world rolls along, largely unaffected. This will not be the case if armed conflict breaks out in east Asia.</p>
<p>Thanks to rising tensions in the Taiwan Straits, Kim Jong Un’s sabre-rattling on the Korean Peninsula, Sino-US rivalry and China’s developing alliance with Russia the risks of armed conflict shattering this region are growing, with far-reaching ramifications. </p>
<p>East Asia <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2023/05/01/asia-poised-to-drive-global-economic-growth-boosted-by-chinas-reopening">drives the global economy</a>. Taiwan is pivotal to the global semiconductor industry – essential to modern life. Taiwanese semiconductors power everything from TVs to cars, guided missiles to AI-bots. After Taiwan, neighbouring South Korea has the second-highest market share. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, despite the US and EU’s efforts to reduce their dependency on China, it remains by far the world’s biggest manufacturer. Global supply chains bring commodities, components, and finished goods in and out of the region through major sea-trade routes south to the straits of Malacca and east across the Pacific to the Americas. </p>
<p>Against this tense backdrop, later this year the US will elect a new president. As the incumbent, Joe Biden, struggles in the polls, his rival Donald Trump’s prospects are improving. This is leading to grave and growing concerns in Europe that Trump will abandon Ukraine – and perhaps even Nato itself, overturning decades of security stability in Europe. But what of east Asia? </p>
<h2>Cornerstone for Asian security</h2>
<p>The security of east Asia – and thus the stability of the global economy – is predicated on a country we have yet to mention: Japan. The US-Japanese alliance has defined Asian security since the early days of the cold war and US troops have had a continuous presence on Japanese soil since 1945. </p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-japan-security-alliance">1960 treaty</a> on which it is based, if Japan is attacked, the US must come to its defence. The obligation is not mutual, however, thanks to the pacifist clause US officials inserted into <a href="https://japan.kantei.go.jp/constitution_and_government_of_japan/constitution_e.html">Japan’s postwar constitution</a>. </p>
<p>The intention was to prevent Japan becoming a future threat, and the result is that Japan became an “unsinkable aircraft carrier”, with US military bases scattered across the archipelago. </p>
<p>This “Pax Americana” enabled decades of regional peace and economic growth – albeit on terms dictated by the US. For decades, Japan was a sleeping partner in all this: enjoying the peace and prosperity without spending much on its own military or getting involved in US adventurism.</p>
<p>But after years of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/11/japan-prime-minister-rearmament-china-north-korea/">US pressure to remilitarise</a>, today Japan is <a href="https://news.usni.org/2023/12/22/japanese-cabinet-approves-largest-ever-defense-budget">increasing military spending</a> and taking a regional leadership role. This is Japan’s response to a rising China, relative US decline, and increasingly isolationist American public opinion – not to mention Trump’s “America first” rhetoric. </p>
<h2>‘Proactive Pacifism’</h2>
<p>Today’s changes are the culmination of decades of drift from pacifism to “normality”. Following Shinzo Abe’s return to power in 2012, Japan rolled out a new security doctrine in the form of its <a href="https://www.japanesestudies.org.uk/ejcjs/vol18/iss3/envall.html">“proactive pacifism”</a>. </p>
<p>As part of this shift, in December 2022 Japan introduced a revised <a href="https://www.mod.go.jp/j/policy/agenda/guideline/pdf/security_strategy_en.pdf">national security strategy</a> and new security institutions such as a <a href="https://www.mofa.go.jp/fp/nsp/page1we_000080.html">National Security Council</a>. It has lifted a long-standing <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/22/japan-eases-curbs-on-weapons-exports-raises-defence-budget-to-record-56bn">ban on arms exports</a>, initiated new <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/japans-role-advancing-networked-regional-security-architecture">regional security partnerships</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/13/japans-pm-vows-to-modernise-military-for-new-era-of-threats">modernised</a> its military, and reinterpreted the postwar pacifist constitution to allow for Japan’s participation in <a href="https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/japans-evolving-position-use-force-collective-self-defense">collective self-defence</a> operations alongside allies. </p>
<p>Most importantly, Abe’s government crafted its <a href="https://www.asean.emb-japan.go.jp/files/000352880.pdf">“Free and Open Indo-Pacific”</a> vision, thus engineering a new geopolitical space that has defined the parameters for rebalancing China’s rise.</p>
<p>These changes were designed to increase Japan’s influence within the context of the US alliance. Then came Trump’s 2016 presidential election. The rhetoric of “America first” increased fears of abandonment in Tokyo. Given the alternative scenario – facing China alone – the Abe government worked hard to keep Trump onside, making trade and diplomatic concessions, and pledging to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14799855.2020.1838486">“make the alliance even greater”</a>. </p>
<h2>After Ukraine</h2>
<p>Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was the final nail in the coffin of Japan’s postwar pacifism. On the first anniversary of the invasion, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/02/25/japan/politics/japan-ukraine-anniversary-g7/">warned,</a> “Ukraine today could be east Asia tomorrow,” implying that Taiwan could be next. </p>
<p>Continuing where Abe left off, he pledged to increase military spending as well as lifting the remaining restrictions on arms exports, while <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01442872.2024.2309218">strengthening Japan’s relations with Nato</a>.</p>
<p>Increasing global instability has prompted Japan to abandon its low-profile, economy-first approach, seeking instead to shape regional and even global geopolitics. By expanding its security role, it has made itself even more indispensable to the US, which sees China as the primary long-term threat. </p>
<p>So, while Japan may fear a second Trump presidency, the risk of abandonment is lower than that faced by America’s allies in Europe. Still, the long-term trend would appear to be that the US is pulling back and expecting its allies to do more. Meanwhile the instability of US politics in an election year means that nothing can be taken for granted.</p>
<p>As the US recedes, can Japan fill the gap? Or will its ambitions exceed its capabilities? Already, plans to further develop its military are hampered by a shrinking economy and a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/26/japan-population-how-many-people-drops-first-time-births-deaths">shrinking population</a>. While China faces similar issues, its economy is over four times bigger than that of Japan’s, and its population is ten times the size. </p>
<p>Thus, the only realistic way for Japan to balance China, manage North Korea, and maintain its regional position, is for the US to stay engaged. And even that might not be enough to prevent China from invading Taiwan. The future of the region, and of the global economy, hangs in the balance.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225098/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The invasion of Ukraine and increased Chinese pressure on Taiwan have prompted Japan to abandon decades of pacifism.
Paul O'Shea, Senior Lecturer, Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University
Sebastian Maslow, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, Sendai Shirayuri Women’s College
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/220026
2024-03-12T12:29:06Z
2024-03-12T12:29:06Z
What is the Japanese ‘wabi-sabi’ aesthetic actually about? ‘Miserable tea’ and loneliness, for starters
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580795/original/file-20240309-24-70pplt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C3%2C2046%2C1454&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A perfectly imperfect tea bowl.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/earthenware-bowl-with-glazing-against-black-royalty-free-image/1689830483?phrase=wabi+sabi&adppopup=true">Zen Rial/Moment via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On a recent visit to New York I stopped at a Japanese bookstore in Manhattan. Among the English-language books about Japan, I encountered a section of a shelf marked “WABI-SABI” and stocked with titles such as “Wabi Sabi Love,” “The Wabi-Sabi Way,” “Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers,” and, in all lowercase, “simply imperfect: revisiting the wabi-sabi house.” </p>
<p>What is wabi-sabi, and why does it rate its own section alongside such topics as sushi and karate?</p>
<p>Wabi-sabi is typically described as a traditional Japanese aesthetic: the beauty of something perfectly imperfect, in the sense of “flawed” or “unfinished.” Actually, however, wabi and sabi are similar but distinct concepts, yoked together far more often outside Japan than in it. Even people who have been brought up in Japan may struggle to define wabi and sabi precisely, though each is certainly authentically Japanese and neither is especially obscure.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580796/original/file-20240309-30-4z3p0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two rows of books displayed spine-out in a store." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580796/original/file-20240309-30-4z3p0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580796/original/file-20240309-30-4z3p0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=680&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580796/original/file-20240309-30-4z3p0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=680&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580796/original/file-20240309-30-4z3p0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=680&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580796/original/file-20240309-30-4z3p0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580796/original/file-20240309-30-4z3p0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580796/original/file-20240309-30-4z3p0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A wabi-sabi sighting in New York.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paul S. Atkins</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As <a href="https://asian.washington.edu/people/paul-s-atkins">a scholar of classical Japanese language, literature and culture</a>, I too have a professional interest in wabi and sabi and how they have come to be understood outside Japan. A cursory search of Google Books shows that the term began to appear in print in English around 1980. Perhaps this was a delayed reaction to a book by <a href="https://trc-leiden.nl/trc-needles/people-and-functions/authors-scholars-and-activists/yanagi-soetsu-1889-1961">Japanese art critic Yanagi Soetsu</a>, “<a href="https://kodansha.us/product/the-unknown-craftsman/">The Unknown Craftsman</a>,” which was translated into English and published in 1972.</p>
<p>In it, in an essay titled, “The Beauty of Irregularity,” Yanagi wrote about the art of the tea ceremony and its simple grace. More broadly, as the title suggests, he was captivated by a sense of beauty apart from traditional ideals of perfection, refinement and symmetry. </p>
<p>Behind “roughness,” Yanagi wrote, “lurks a hidden beauty, to which we refer in our peculiar adjectives ‘shibui,’ ‘wabi,’ and ‘sabi.’” </p>
<p>Shibui means austere or restrained, yet it was wabi and sabi that caught on abroad – perhaps because they rhyme.</p>
<p>After taking off in America and other countries, the phrase wabi-sabi was imported back to Japan as a compound term; the mentions I found in online Japanese sources typically addressed such topics as how to explain wabi-sabi to foreigners. Wabi-sabi does not appear in standard dictionaries of the Japanese language.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580798/original/file-20240309-20-kp1zde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The interior of a simple room with faded walls, wooden beams, and a simple scroll hanging in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580798/original/file-20240309-20-kp1zde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580798/original/file-20240309-20-kp1zde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580798/original/file-20240309-20-kp1zde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580798/original/file-20240309-20-kp1zde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580798/original/file-20240309-20-kp1zde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580798/original/file-20240309-20-kp1zde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580798/original/file-20240309-20-kp1zde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A tearoom in Kyoto, Japan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/tea-room-low-angle-view-royalty-free-image/200552152-001?phrase=japan+tea+room&adppopup=true">Karin Slade/Corbis Documentary via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Miserable poetry</h2>
<p>Wabi is a noun derived from the classical Japanese verb “wabu,” related to the modern verb “wabiru” and adjective “wabishii.” Wabu means to languish or be miserable. </p>
<p>Here is a celebrated example from a ninth-century waka poem, <a href="http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/japan_600ce_waka.htm">the brief verse of 31 syllables</a> that forms the backbone of classical Japanese poetry. The poet, a courtier named Yukihira, was a provincial governor who, by some accounts, <a href="https://asia453.wordpress.com/literary-locations/locations2016/lack-and-loneliness-on-the-shores-of-suma/">was exiled to Suma Bay</a>, a famous stretch of coastline in western Japan.</p>
<blockquote>Should by chance<br>
Someone ask for me,<br>
Answer that I languish<br>
At Suma Bay, shedding<br>
brine upon the seaweed.</blockquote>
<p>Suma Bay wasn’t all misery for Yukihira; according to legend, <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/78554">he loved and was loved</a> by two sisters there. But his poem well captures the pain of wabi – the misery of having been exiled from the courtly world he knew.</p>
<h2>Miserable tea</h2>
<p>Eventually, the misery of wabi made its way into one of Japan’s most iconic traditions: tea.</p>
<p>The custom of drinking powdered green tea, called matcha, entered Japan around 1200. Zen monks returning from China brought the powder home, using it as a medicine and a stimulant. Over time, tea spread to the rest of the population; by the middle of the 16th century, it was a mundane part of everyday life.</p>
<p>It was precisely then that the preparation and serving of tea was sublimated to high art, now known as “chadō” or “sadō,” <a href="https://www.urasenke.or.jp/texte/about/chado/">the so-called Way of Tea</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577821/original/file-20240226-20-q7p9f5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two people kneeling in a small, roofed room open to the outdoors, set in a garden, look at the photographer." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577821/original/file-20240226-20-q7p9f5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577821/original/file-20240226-20-q7p9f5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577821/original/file-20240226-20-q7p9f5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577821/original/file-20240226-20-q7p9f5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577821/original/file-20240226-20-q7p9f5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577821/original/file-20240226-20-q7p9f5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577821/original/file-20240226-20-q7p9f5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Japanese couple in a 19th-century tearoom.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/japanese-couple-in-teahouse-news-photo/534244298?adppopup=true">Historical Picture Archive/Corbis Historical via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As the tea ceremony gained in popularity, powerful warlords competed in acquiring the most coveted utensils, including braziers, kettles, scoops, whisks and the bowllike cups in which the tea was whipped and sipped. The tearoom itself might be decorated with rare works of art, such as paintings or calligraphy mounted on hanging scrolls, elaborate flower vases and incense burners.</p>
<p>Then there emerged a group of connoisseurs and teachers of tea who championed a more severe and austere style of presentation: “wabi-cha,” which literally means miserable tea. Whereas newly ascendant warriors and merchants used the tea gathering to flaunt their wealth, <a href="https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/76335">wabi-style tea</a> emphasized subtlety, frugality and restraint.</p>
<p>It is not hard to see traces of wabi in old tearooms, with their patina of age and elegant but unobtrusive furnishings, and in the utensils themselves – in particular, the misshapen, cracked or somber-hued teabowls. </p>
<p>Wabi-style tea perhaps reached its pinnacle in the 16th century, when the celebrated tea master <a href="https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1028&context=arch_facultyschol">Sen no Rikyū</a> introduced innovations still used today. These include bamboo tea scoops, black raku-style ceramic teabowls and the “crawling entrance”: the 2-by-2-foot door through which attendees wriggle in order to enter the cozy, womblike tearoom.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580799/original/file-20240309-30-b210tf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A plain black bowl with a faint golden pattern, resting against a white backdrop." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580799/original/file-20240309-30-b210tf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580799/original/file-20240309-30-b210tf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580799/original/file-20240309-30-b210tf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580799/original/file-20240309-30-b210tf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580799/original/file-20240309-30-b210tf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580799/original/file-20240309-30-b210tf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580799/original/file-20240309-30-b210tf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A raku-ware teabowl with a design of geese, made in the 18th or 19th century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/raku-ware-tea-bowl-with-design-of-descending-geese-18th-news-photo/1365697034?adppopup=true">Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A lovely loneliness</h2>
<p>Like wabi, sabi is a noun: in this case, derived from the classical verb “sabu.” Today, the verb “sabiru” means to rust, with its connotations of age and decay. The modern adjective “sabishii” means lonely.</p>
<p>Classical poems yield many examples of sabi but it really took off as an aesthetic ideal in the 17th century. Poets often tried to capture its particular kind of loneliness in the 17-syllable poetic form of haiku.</p>
<p>As the scholar <a href="https://news.stanford.edu/2020/10/02/makoto-ueda-stanford-japanese-literature-professor-emeritus-dies-89/">Makoto Ueda</a> remarked, sabi is “not the loneliness of a man who has lost his dear one, but <a href="https://press.umich.edu/Books/L/Literary-and-Art-Theories-in-Japan">the loneliness of the rain</a> falling on large taro leaves at night, or the loneliness emerging out of a cicada’s cry amid the white, dry rocks, or the Milky Way extending over the rough sea, or a huge river torrentially rushing in the rainy season.” </p>
<p><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/basho">Matsuo Bashō</a>, a 17th-century master of haiku, saw sabi <a href="https://www2.yamanashi-ken.ac.jp/%7Eitoyo/basho/shitibusyu/sumidawara1.htm">in this verse</a> by his disciple Mukai Kyorai, translated by Ueda: </p>
<blockquote>Under the blossoms<br>
Two aged watchmen,<br>
With their white heads together—.</blockquote>
<p>The juxtaposition of wabi-sabi as a single term is of recent, not ancient, vintage, and it does not seem to have occurred in Japan. Nonetheless, the terms originated in Japanese aesthetics: sabi out of poetry and wabi out of tea. </p>
<p>Combined, they appear to fill a gap in the Western vocabulary for talking about art and life – a leaning away from perfection, completion and excess, and a yearning toward leaving something undone, broken or unsaid.</p>
<p><em>This story has been updated to correct the description of a tearoom door’s dimensions.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220026/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>I was a student of Professor Makoto Ueda.</span></em></p>
‘Wabi’ and ‘sabi’ are Japanese words with long histories, but they are rarely used together in the way Western designers have come to use the term.
Paul S. Atkins, Professor of Japanese, University of Washington
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/222591
2024-03-08T13:35:55Z
2024-03-08T13:35:55Z
Despite its big night at the Oscars, ‘Oppenheimer’ is a disappointment and a lost opportunity
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580022/original/file-20240305-24-oirj08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=24%2C6%2C4085%2C2150&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The U.S. detonates an atomic bomb at Bikini Atoll in Micronesia in the first underwater test of the device.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/united-states-detonating-an-atomic-bomb-at-bikini-atoll-in-news-photo/113493339?adppopup=true">Universal History Archive/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With 13 Oscars nominations <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/oscars-2024-live-winners-list-academy-awards-oppenheimer-jimmy-kimmel-210004276.html">and seven wins</a> – including best picture – “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15398776/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk">Oppenheimer</a>” was the star of the 96th Academy Awards.</p>
<p>Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster, which told the story of the making of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, added to its awards season haul that includes <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/07/movies/golden-globes-takeaways.html">five Golden Globes</a> and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/britain-bafta-film-awards-oppenheimer-220af1ec73e47e6222abe2b0934cddc8">seven BAFTA awards</a>.</p>
<p>But as a historian <a href="https://academic.oup.com/whq/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/whq/whae016/7610040?redirectedFrom=fulltext">whose research has revolved around the survivors of the bombings</a>, I cannot help but be disappointed that, yet again, the dominant narrative of the bombs chugs along. </p>
<p>This narrative has long informed how Hollywood and the U.S. media have addressed nuclear weapons. It paints the bombs’ creation as a morally fraught but necessary project – an extraordinary invention by exceptional minds, a national project that was a matter of life or death for a country mired in a global conflict. To use the bombs was a difficult decision at a challenging time. Yet it’s important to remember that, above all, the bombs saved democracy.</p>
<p>There is something that strikes me as so inward-looking to this narrative – it is so focused on the stress over losing an arms race, on fears of making a mistake, on anxiety over what would happen if bombs were to one day be dropped on the U.S. – that it drowns out what actually did happen after the bombs were detonated. </p>
<h2>A barren cultural landscape</h2>
<p>When Nolan was pressed over why he chose not to show any images of Hiroshima, Nagasaki or the victims, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/11/movies/robert-downey-jr-christopher-nolan-oppenheimer.html?searchResultPosition=2">he said</a>, “less can be more” – that the subtext of what’s not shown is even more powerful, since it forces audiences to use their imaginations.</p>
<p>But what images from popular culture do audiences even have to pull from?</p>
<p>From the 1950s to the 1980s, many Hollywood films explored the fear of a nuclear apocalypse. Only a few depicted mass deaths on the ground – “<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-it-time-for-a-21st-century-version-of-the-day-after-90270">The Day After</a>” comes to mind – but virtually none showed survivors who looked or sounded like real survivors.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Middle-aged man in a tuxedo and an awards ceremony." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580026/original/file-20240305-26-v8bt61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580026/original/file-20240305-26-v8bt61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580026/original/file-20240305-26-v8bt61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580026/original/file-20240305-26-v8bt61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580026/original/file-20240305-26-v8bt61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580026/original/file-20240305-26-v8bt61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580026/original/file-20240305-26-v8bt61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Oppenheimer’ director Christopher Nolan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/british-film-producer-and-director-christopher-nolan-poses-news-photo/2013546999?adppopup=true">Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Instead, films such as “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057012/">Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb</a>” simply showed mushroom clouds and bird’s-eye views of the bombs from above. When cameras did zoom in on the ground in films such as “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056331/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_q_panic%2520in%2520year">Panic in Year Zero!</a>” and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086429/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_q_testament">Testament</a>,” they revealed Americans bracing for or panicking about the bomb being dropped on them. </p>
<p>Watching these films, it’s easy to believe that if a nuclear attack had ever occurred, it must have been in a U.S. city. </p>
<p>This genealogy of films also includes collective biopics of a sort, in which a nuclear drama unfolds among scientists, military officials and politicians.</p>
<p>In the 2024 book “<a href="https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295752341/resisting-the-nuclear/">Resisting the Nuclear: Art and Activism across the Pacific</a>,” one chapter describes how Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein reenacted the Trinity test in “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038312/">Atomic Power</a>,” a 1946 film that celebrates the role of science in U.S. military might. They note that in the film’s outtakes, Einstein seemed unfocused while Oppenheimer appeared stilted. </p>
<p>Clearly, the two scientists were uncomfortable with their newly assigned role as promoters of a mesmerizing, dangerous technology. If “Oppenheimer” expands on this personal discomfort, the film keeps firmly in place the disconnect between the bombs’ creators and the destruction they wrought.</p>
<h2>The bombs didn’t discriminate</h2>
<p>In the end, films like “Oppenheimer” offer few, if any, new insights about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and their repercussions. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2023-08-04/oppenheimer-movie-christopher-nolan-atomic-bomb-hiroshima-nagasaki-critics">More than 200,000 people perished</a>, and the lives lost included not only Japanese civilians but also Koreans who had been in Japan as forced laborers or military conscripts. </p>
<p>In fact, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/27017727#:%7E:text=It%20has%20been%20estimated%20that,stayed%20in%20Japan%20%5B2%5D.">1 in every 10 people who survived the bomb were Koreans</a>, but the U.S. government has never recognized them as survivors of U.S. military attacks. To this day they struggle to get access to medical treatment for their long-term radiation illness. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Elderly Korean women cry, shout and hold photos of lost loved ones during a protest march." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580241/original/file-20240306-18-2jgn2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580241/original/file-20240306-18-2jgn2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580241/original/file-20240306-18-2jgn2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580241/original/file-20240306-18-2jgn2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580241/original/file-20240306-18-2jgn2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580241/original/file-20240306-18-2jgn2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580241/original/file-20240306-18-2jgn2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Relatives of conscripted Koreans killed in the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki protest at the Japanese embassy in Seoul in 2005.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/korean-conscripted-victims-family-hold-victim-portrait-with-news-photo/1229624814?adppopup=true">Seung-il Ryu/NurPhoto via Getty Image</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Moreover, about 3,000 to 4,000 of those affected by the bombs were Americans of Japanese ancestry, as I have shown in my <a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/american-survivors-trans-pacific-memories-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-naoko-wake/15472870?ean=9781108835275">book about Asian American survivors of the bombings</a>. Most of them were children who were staying with their families, or students who had enrolled in schools in Japan prior to the war because U.S. schools had become increasingly discriminatory to Asian American students.</p>
<p>These non-Japanese survivors – including many U.S.-born citizens – have been known to scholars and activists since at least the 1990s. So it feels surreal to watch a film that depicts the bombs’ effects purely in the context of the U.S. at war against its enemy, Japan. As my work shows, the bombs didn’t discriminate between friend and foe. </p>
<p>It is not that Christopher Nolan ignores the bombs’ power to destroy.</p>
<p>He gestures toward it when he depicts J. Robert Oppenheimer, the nuclear physicist played by Cillian Murphy, <a href="https://collider.com/oppenheimer-cillian-murphy-gymnasium-scene/">imagining a nuclear holocaust</a> when giving a celebratory speech to his colleagues after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.</p>
<p>But what Oppenheimer sees in this hallucination is the face of a young white woman peeling off – played by <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6898446/">Nolan’s daughter, Flora</a> – not those of the Japanese, Korean and Asian American people who actually experienced the bombs. Later in the film, Oppenheimer looks away from the images of Hiroshima’s ground zero when they’re shown to him and his Manhattan Project colleagues. </p>
<p>I wondered, as I watched this scene, whether this decision encourages the audience to look away, too.</p>
<h2>Global reverberations</h2>
<p>Even if this film is seen purely through the lens of entertainment, Nolan could have chosen to recognize why the bombs are such a galvanizing subject to begin with: They have done much, much more than make white, middle-class Americans feel anxious or guilty.</p>
<p>Their blasts reverberated across the globe, tearing apart not only America’s wartime enemies but also colonized peoples and racial minorities. </p>
<p>Cold War nuclear production disproportionately hurt Native and Indigenous Americans who worked at uranium mines and the residents of <a href="https://www.arcjournals.org/international-journal-of-research-in-sociology-and-anthropology/volume-3-issue-4/4">the Pacific Islands chosen as the sites of several dozens of U.S. nuclear tests</a>.</p>
<p>For those on the receiving end, the effects of the nuclear explosions are not a thing of the past. <a href="https://theconversation.com/bikini-islanders-still-deal-with-fallout-of-us-nuclear-tests-more-than-70-years-later-58567">They are a daily reality</a>. </p>
<p>And the effects of radiation continue to plague not just humans but the environment. Scientists still don’t know what to do with <a href="https://upittpress.org/books/9780822966128/">highly radioactive nuclear waste</a>, whether it’s from nuclear power plants or former nuclear test sites that remain off-limits <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4165831/">because they are too contaminated to inhabit</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/">As global conflicts increase the possibility of nuclear war</a>, it’s certainly important to talk about the ongoing legacies of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. </p>
<p>But to create a more balanced understanding of nuclear weapons, it would be helpful if talented filmmakers like Nolan made more of an effort to look beyond the narrow immediacy of a mushroom cloud.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222591/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Naoko Wake does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
For all its praise, the film furthers the dominant narrative of the bombs as a morally fraught but necessary project, with American anxieties playing a starring role.
Naoko Wake, Professor of History, Michigan State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/224610
2024-03-07T13:28:44Z
2024-03-07T13:28:44Z
Cherry blossoms – celebrated in Japan for centuries and gifted to Americans – are an appreciation of impermanence and spring
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579995/original/file-20240305-22-u58mno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=30%2C9%2C1916%2C1352&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Families relax under lush cherry trees in the Shinjuku Gyoen in Tokyo.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/shankaronline/48624796381">shankar s./Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Cherry blossoms mark the beginning of spring. Various festivals are regularly organized in <a href="https://sfcherryblossom.org/">California</a>, <a href="https://cherryblossomdenver.org/">Colorado</a>, <a href="https://cherryblossom.com/">Georgia</a>, <a href="http://www.nashvillecherryblossomfestival.org/">Tennessee</a> and <a href="https://nationalcherryblossomfestival.org/">Washington, D.C.</a>, to celebrate the bloom of cherry trees. </p>
<p>The blossoms, however, are short-lived and usually fall within a week. Indeed, “sakura,” as the cherry tree is known in Japanese, is a recognized <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Mizue_Sawano_The_Art_of_the_Cherry_Tree/nHf8lxLOYsUC?hl=en">symbol of impermanence</a> in Japan and beyond. </p>
<p>Every year, many people all around Japan gather under the cherry trees in parks and gardens for a spring picnic to watch the blossoms fall while they chat with their companions over seasonal drinks and snacks. Such gatherings are called “hanami,” literally meaning “viewing the flowers.” </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://wlc.utk.edu/?people=malgorzata-k-citko-duplantis">scholar of premodern Japanese literature and culture</a>, I was introduced to the custom of viewing cherry blossoms early on in my education. It is an ancient ritual that has been celebrated and written about in Japan for centuries and continues to be an indispensable element of welcoming spring. In the U.S., the tradition of hanami started with the first cherry trees being planted in Washington D.C. in 1912 as a <a href="https://www.nps.gov/subjects/cherryblossom/history-of-the-cherry-trees.htm">gift of friendship from Japan</a>. </p>
<h2>Poetry about nature</h2>
<p>The custom of viewing blooming trees in spring arrived in Japan from the Asian continent. Watching blooming plum trees, often by moonlight, as a symbol of <a href="https://www.archwaypublishing.com/en/bookstore/bookdetails/799255-The-Plum-Blossom-of-Luojia-Mountain">strength, vitality and end of winter</a> was practiced in China since antiquity. It was adopted in Japan sometime in the eighth century.</p>
<p>Poetic examples of blooming plums, or “ume” in Japanese, are found in “<a href="https://www.kokugakuin.ac.jp/assets/uploads/2021/03/KJS2-2Oishi.pdf">Man’yōshū,” or a “Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves</a>,” the oldest collection of Japanese poetry, which dates to the eighth century. </p>
<p>Scholar of East Asian Literatures <a href="https://lit.mit.edu/denecke/">Wiebke Denecke</a> explains that classical Japanese poets <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25066837">wrote poetry about plum blossoms when they were in season</a>. Their compositions shaped Japanese court poetry, or “waka” in Japanese, which is rooted in nature and its constant seasonal cycle. </p>
<p>However, it is the sakura, not plum trees, that occupies a special place in Japanese culture. Imperial waka anthologies compiled in Japan between 905 and 1439 C.E. usually contain more spring poems composed about cherry blossoms than plum blossoms. </p>
<h2>Central to waka composition</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/558474/the-sakura-obsession-by-naoko-abe/">The first cherry blossom viewing</a> was held by Emperor Saga in 812 C.E. and soon became a regular event at the imperial court, often accompanied by music, food and writing poetry. </p>
<p>Cherry blossoms became one of the regular topics of waka composition. In fact, I started studying Japanese poetry thanks to a sakura-themed poem written by a classical female poet, Izumi Shikibu, who is believed to have actively composed waka around 1000 C.E. <a href="http://www.misawa-ac.jp/drama/daihon/genji/bunken/zoku.html">The poem is prefaced with its author’s memory</a> about her ex-lover wishing to see the cherry blossoms again before they fall. </p>
<blockquote>tō o koyo<br>
saku to miru ma ni<br>
chirinu beshi<br>
tsuyu to hana to no<br>
naka zo yo no naka</blockquote>
<blockquote>Come quickly!<br>
As soon as they start to open<br>
they must fall.<br>
Our world dwells<br>
in dew on top of the cherry blossoms.</blockquote>
<p>The poem is not the most famous example of waka about cherry blossoms in premodern Japanese poetry, but it contains layers of traditional imagery symbolizing impermanence. It emphasizes that once cherry blossoms bloom, they are destined to fall. Witnessing the moment of their fall is the very purpose of hanami. </p>
<p>Dew is usually interpreted as a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2385169">symbol of tears</a> in waka, but it can be also read more erotically as a reference to other <a href="https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/mapping-courtship-and-kinship-in-classical-japan-the-tale-of-genji-and-its-predecessors/%22%22">bodily fluids</a>. Such an interpretation reveals the poem to be an allusion to a romantic relationship, which is as fragile as evaporating dew on soon-falling cherry blossoms; it does not last long, so it should be appreciated while it exists. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579998/original/file-20240305-18-vujctw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A blossoming Japanese tree laden with clusters of pink flowers in a garden." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579998/original/file-20240305-18-vujctw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579998/original/file-20240305-18-vujctw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579998/original/file-20240305-18-vujctw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579998/original/file-20240305-18-vujctw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579998/original/file-20240305-18-vujctw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579998/original/file-20240305-18-vujctw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579998/original/file-20240305-18-vujctw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In Japan, cherry blossoms symbolize impermanence.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/25228175@N08/4549363374">Elvin/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The poem can also be interpreted more generally: Dew is a symbol of human life, and the fall of cherry blossoms a metaphor for death.</p>
<h2>Militarized by the Empire of Japan</h2>
<p>The notion of falling cherry blossoms was used by <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/imperial-japan-and-defeat-in-the-second-world-war-9781350246799/">the Empire of Japan</a>, a historic state that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the Constitution of Japan in 1947. The empire is known for the <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/japanese-taiwan-9781472576743/">colonization of Taiwan</a> and <a href="https://www.peterlang.com/document/1049131">annexation of Korea</a> to expand its territories. </p>
<p><a href="https://kokubunken.repo.nii.ac.jp/records/4747">Sasaki Nobutsuna</a>, a scholar of Japanese classics with strong ties to the imperial court, was a supporter of the empire’s nationalistic ideology. In 1894, he composed a lengthy poem, “<a href="https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/873478/1/10">Shina seibatsu no uta</a>,” or “The Song of the Conquest of the Chinese,” to coincide with the First Sino-Japanese war, which lasted from 1894 to 1895. The poem compares falling cherry blossoms to the sacrifice of Japanese soldiers who <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/K/bo3656741.html">fall in battles for their country and emperor</a>. </p>
<h2>Commodification of the season</h2>
<p>In contemporary Japan, the cherry blossoms are celebrated by many members of society, not only the imperial court. Blooming around the <a href="https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/national-international/lunar-new-year-2024-how-to-celebrated/3447961/">Lunar New Year</a> celebrated in premodern Japan for centuries, they are symbolic of new beginnings in all areas of life. </p>
<p>In the contemporary era, vendors have commodified the cherry blossoms, selling sakura-flavored <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/asia/stories/2024/sakura-season-starts-at-starbucks-japan-on-thursday-february-15/">tea, coffee</a>, <a href="https://japantoday.com/category/features/food/haagen-dazs-releases-two-new-seasonal-flavors">ice cream</a>, <a href="https://www.oenon.jp/news/2020/0205-1.html">drinks</a> or <a href="https://www.fujingaho.jp/gourmet/sweets/g43015580/fujingahonootoriyose-sakura-sweets20240215/">cookies</a>, turning the image of blooming sakura into a seasonal brand. <a href="https://sakura.weathermap.jp/en.php">Weather forecasts</a> track the cherry trees’ bloom to ensure that everyone has a chance to participate in the ancient ritual of viewing sakura. </p>
<p>The obsession with cherry blossoms may seem trivial, but hanami gathers people during an era when much communication is conducted virtually and remotely, uniting family members, friends, coworkers and sometimes even strangers, as happened to me when I lived in Japan. </p>
<p>Viewing sakura is also evidence of modern Japan’s unique relationship with its own history. At the same time, it is a reminder that impermanence is possibly the only constant in life. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580005/original/file-20240305-23810-vdbysn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two rows of tall trees with clusters of pink flowers on either side of a pathway." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580005/original/file-20240305-23810-vdbysn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580005/original/file-20240305-23810-vdbysn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580005/original/file-20240305-23810-vdbysn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580005/original/file-20240305-23810-vdbysn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580005/original/file-20240305-23810-vdbysn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580005/original/file-20240305-23810-vdbysn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580005/original/file-20240305-23810-vdbysn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cherry trees, with their lovely blossoms, arrived in Washington D.C. as a gift from Japan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dannyfowler/4469426717">Danny Navarro/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Today, cherry blossoms are celebrated in spring <a href="https://localadventurer.com/places-to-see-cherry-blossoms-in-the-world/">all around the world</a>, encouraging the appreciation of impermanence through observation of nature.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224610/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Małgorzata (Gosia) K. Citko-DuPlantis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The first cherry blossom viewing was organized in Japan by Emperor Saga in 812 C.E. In the ensuing years, poetry on cherry blossoms came to have a special place in Japanese culture.
Małgorzata (Gosia) K. Citko-DuPlantis, Assistant Professor in Japanese Literature and Culture, University of Tennessee
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/220898
2024-03-06T13:35:55Z
2024-03-06T13:35:55Z
President Yoon is lauded in West for embracing Japan − in South Korea it fits a conservative agenda that is proving less popular
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576051/original/file-20240215-17705-dcmnsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C0%2C4486%2C2991&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Korea's Yoon Suk Yeol, left, and Fumio Kishida of Japan.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/yoon-suk-yeol-south-koreas-president-left-and-fumio-kishida-news-photo/1248372073?adppopup=true">Kiyoshi Otal/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When South Korea President Yoon Suk Yeol broke out into an impromptu performance of <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/south-korea-president-yoon-sings-american-pie-white-house-dinner-biden-rcna81712">the song “American Pie”</a> at a gala White House dinner in 2023, it was more than just a musical interlude. It was symbolic of how on the big Indo-Pacific issues of the day, Washington and Seoul are singing from the same songbook.</p>
<p>But so, too, is Japan. And for South Korea’s <a href="https://twitter.com/richardaeden/status/1709999502373867817">karaoke-loving leader</a>, that means humming a different tune to predecessors on the international stage – and risking hitting a sour note back at home.</p>
<p>Yoon, who <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/10/world/asia/south-korea-yoon-president.html">took office in May 2022</a>, has embraced closer ties with Japan, South Korea’s former colonizer, as part of an alignment with <a href="https://eastasiaforum.org/2024/01/15/south-koreas-global-geopolitical-pivot/">U.S.-led security cooperation</a> in the Indo-Pacific region. It entails a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/02/05/south-korea-mood-north-korea-weapons/1d4d0884-c495-11ee-bbc9-9b5ca9b20779_story.html">more demanding stance toward North Korea’s</a> denuclearization and a watchful eye on China and its <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-chinese-warships-near-miss-in-taiwan-strait-hints-at-ongoing-troubled-diplomatic-waters-despite-chatter-about-talks-207099">increasing assertiveness in the South China Sea</a>. </p>
<p>The approach culminated in a historic Camp David summit in 2023 aimed at solidifying relations between <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us-south-korea-japan-agree-crisis-consultations-camp-david-summit-2023-08-18/">South Korea and Japan</a>.</p>
<p>Such rapprochement with Japan has <a href="https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20230712000396">won Yoon plaudits in the U.S</a>.</p>
<p>But it has done nothing to improve his popularity back home. In South Korea there is growing disapproval of Yoon’s leadership. Critics point to an illiberal streak in his <a href="https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3233552/south-korea-us-japan-ties-deepen-yoon-uses-anti-communist-rhetoric-decide-whos-friend-or-foe">rhetoric and policies</a>, which has included attacks on his critics and the media. It has, they contend, contributed to a <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-worrying-democratic-erosions-in-south-korea">worrying trend of democratic erosion</a> in Korea. Yoon’s <a href="https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/south-korean-president-sees-support-slide-after-dior-bag-uproar-1.2029826">poll ratings are sinking</a> at a time when his conservative party seeks control of parliament in elections slated for April 10, 2024.</p>
<p>As scholars who study <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=eKMLsOoAAAAJ&hl=en">democratization and authoritarian politics</a> and <a href="https://search.asu.edu/profile/4857318">modern Korea</a>,
we are watching as these concerns grow in the run-up to the <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/South-Korea-opposition-wins-by-election-in-blow-to-Yoon">parliamentary elections</a>. That vote will prove a test of the popular support for Yoon, his domestic agenda and his vision for South Korea’s more outward-looking international role. </p>
<h2>Japan is ‘now our partner’</h2>
<p>Yoon struck a raw nerve in an Aug. 15, 2023, speech celebrating National Liberation Day in Korea, in which he <a href="https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20230815002000315">affirmed the country’s partnership with neighboring Japan</a>. He said the country’s former colonial occupier is “now our partner, sharing universal values and pursuing common interests,” and emphasized that “as security and economic partners, Korea and Japan will cooperate with a forward-looking approach, contributing to global peace and prosperity.”</p>
<p>His remarks were <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Japan-South-Korea-ties/Yoon-riles-foes-by-extending-olive-branch-to-Japan-in-speech">met with public outrage</a>, especially given their timing: National Liberation Day commemorates Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule, which lasted from 1910 to 1945. </p>
<p>The Japanese occupation was brutal, simultaneously exploiting Korean women – as evident in the use of so-called “<a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2022/09/guide-understanding-history-comfort-women-issue">comfort women</a>,” or military sexual slaves – and treating Koreans generally as second-class citizens, all the while pushing obligatory assimilation into Japanese civilization on the occupied population.</p>
<p>Attempts by the Japanese colonial regime at erasing a separate Korean identity and culture – this included banning the teaching of the Korean language and coercing Koreans to adopt Japanese names, along with the violent suppression of independence movements – left deep scars on the collective Korean psyche.</p>
<p>For many Koreans, watching their country join Japan in <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/08/18/the-spirit-of-camp-david-joint-statement-of-japan-the-republic-of-korea-and-the-united-states/">a trilateral partnership</a> with the U.S. is too much to accept. </p>
<h2>Emergence of pro-Japan voices</h2>
<p>Yoon and his conservative administration’s foreign policy goals are based not on nationalism but on what has been described as “<a href="https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2022/07/05/yoon-vows-to-build-a-value-based-alliance-with-washington/">a value-based alliance” with Washington</a>. This stance is at odds with the nationalist focus often seen in the right-wing politics of other countries.</p>
<p>Indeed, in South Korea it is the political left that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2023.103039">increasingly identifies with a form of nationalism</a>. Meanwhile, the “New Right” in South Korea has correspondingly embraced an anti-nationalist stance, specifically <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/journal-of-asian-studies/article-abstract/80/4/889/320818/An-Old-Right-in-New-Bottles-State-without-Nation">attacking anti-Japanese sentiment</a>.</p>
<p>Since the early 2000s, Korean conservatives have increasingly distanced themselves from nationalism, particularly of the anti-Japanese variety. If, as theorists such as <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Nations_and_Nationalism.html?id=jl7t2yMfxwIC">Ernest Gellner</a> have argued, modern nationalism is based on the presumed unity of state and nation, political developments in Korea since 1980 have destabilized this relationship.</p>
<p>After the <a href="https://fsi.stanford.edu/news/gi-wook-shin-gwangju-and-south-korea%E2%80%99s-democracy">bloodshed of the Gwangju Massacre in 1980</a>, during which the state killed hundreds of its own citizens, leftist nationalists argued that the South Korean state was neither the representative or defender of the Korean nation.</p>
<p>Rather, they saw the South Korean state’s inheritance of institutions and personnel from the Japanese colonial government, alongside the hegemonic presence of the United States in Korea – <a href="https://www.hamptonthink.org/read/from-stolen-land-to-riches-us-neo-colonialism-in-south-korea">characterized as “neocolonial</a>” by some – as diluting the state’s nationalist credentials.</p>
<p>In contrast, conservatives defended the South Korean authoritarian state’s <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-asian-studies/article/abs/an-old-right-in-new-bottles-state-without-nation-in-south-korean-new-right-historiography/E9951071B74D329266F850B11874FC62">legitimacy and its legacies</a>. They argued that authoritarian rule was responsible for the rapid economic growth that allowed South Koreans to live in prosperity.</p>
<p>As part of their defense of Korea’s legacy and attack on a political left increasingly identified with nationalism, conservatives embraced an anti-nationalist stance, specifically <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Japan-South-Korea-rift/South-Korean-bestseller-attacking-anti-Japan-tribalism-stirs-debate">attacking anti-Japanese rhetoric</a>. This has involved downplaying the negative effects of Japan’s colonial rule in Korea between 1910 and 1945 and even rejecting the validity of Korean comfort women testimonies. One additional motivation for conservatives has been to justify the achievements of right-wing heroes such as former dictator Park Chung Hee. Park, who has been credited with jump-starting Korea’s economic growth, has been <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20190307-enemy-within-shadow-japanese-past-hangs-over-korea">castigated by nationalists as a pro-Japanese collaborator</a> due to his having been <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674659865">trained in the Manchurian and Japanese military academies during the 1940s</a>.</p>
<p>Starting around the turn of the century, there has been a gradual increase in the frequency and intensity of pro-Japan voices. Far-right organizations, such as the <a href="https://www.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/english_editorials/647783.html">Republic of Korea Mom’s Brigade</a>, have since the 2010s organized rallies in defense of Japanese colonialism. More recently, far-right groups have <a href="https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/1026135.html">systematically disrupted</a> so-called <a href="https://thesoulofseoul.net/korean-comfort-women-wednesday-protests/">Wednesday Demonstrations</a> – a protest that has been continually held for over 30 years in front of the Japanese embassy in Korea to demand that Japan address the comfort women issue.</p>
<p>In a 2019 bestselling book, conservatives even attacked anti-Japanese nationalism as <a href="https://www.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/911772.html">a form of “tribalism” on the left</a>. It is in this context of the growing prominence of pro-Japan voices that Yoon, in a 2023 <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/04/24/south-korea-president-yoon-biden-summit/">interview with The Washington Post</a>, expressed that he “could not accept the notion that Japan must kneel because of what happened 100 years ago.”</p>
<h2>Attacks on critics and fake news</h2>
<p>Yoon embodies this reorientation of Korean conservative ideology and foreign policy that rejects nationalism in favor of closer relations with Japan, especially in the context of alignment with the U.S. against the threat of North Korea and China. The approach has seen Yoon <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/U.S.-Congress-to-invite-South-Korea-s-Yoon-for-address-with-eye-on-China">embraced by American policymakers</a>.</p>
<p>Yet his popularity at home has fallen from an approval rating of above 50% in mid-2022 to <a href="https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2024-02-02/national/politics/President-Yoons-approval-rating-hits-ninemonth-low/1973331">29% at the beginning of February 2024</a>, although it has since picked up a little. </p>
<p>At first glance, his foreign policy seems to support liberal and democratic values. However, in domestic matters there has been growing concern that his rhetoric and policies reflect an <a href="https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/1104533.html">illiberal character</a>.</p>
<p>Examples include <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/09/22/asia-pacific/politics/yoon-rally-conservative-base/">labeling his opponents as “communists</a>” and <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/under-yoon-south-korea-defamation-cases-against-media-rise-/7388864.html">attacks on the media and “fake news</a>.”</p>
<p>This is perhaps unsurprising; the nature of Korean conservatism is <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13510347.2023.2301330?src=">deeply rooted in authoritarianism</a>. </p>
<p>The Biden administration is keen to present Yoon differently – as an ally, along with Japan, in the protection of Asia’s democracies. But this says more about a U.S. foreign policy that centers China as a threat than it does Yoon’s actual commitment to democratic freedoms.</p>
<p>To a South Korea audience, however, Yoon’s position on Japan only adds to general concern over his <a href="https://www.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/1104533.html">illiberal tendencies</a> ahead of April’s vote – the first general parliamentary elections during Yoon’s tenure.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: The article was updated on March 7, 2024 to clarify Park Chung Hee’s World War II record.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220898/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Critics of the South Korean leader accuse him of eroding democracy at home while embracing a historic enemy on the international stage.
Myunghee Lee, Assistant Professor, Michigan State University
Sungik Yang, Assistant Professor of History, Arizona State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/218992
2024-03-01T13:33:52Z
2024-03-01T13:33:52Z
The tools in a medieval Japanese healer’s toolkit: from fortunetelling and exorcism to herbal medicines
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578362/original/file-20240227-20-ng0qz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C979%2C466&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An 'onmyoji,' an expert on yin and yang, performs divination with counting rods in an Edo-period illustration.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tamamonomae_Onmyoji.jpg">Kyoto University Library/Wikimedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“The Tale of Genji,” often called <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/530271/the-tale-of-genji-by-murasaki-shikibu/">Japan’s first novel</a>, was written 1,000 years ago. Yet it still occupies a powerful place in the Japanese imagination. A popular TV drama, “Dear Radiance” – “<a href="https://www.nhk.jp/p/hikarukimie/ts/1YM111N6KW/">Hikaru kimi e</a>” – is based on the life of its author, Murasaki Shikibu: the lady-in-waiting whose experiences at court inspired the refined world of “Genji.”</p>
<p>Romantic relationships, poetry and political intrigue provide most of the novel’s action. Yet illness plays an important role in several crucial moments, most famously when one of the main character’s lovers, Yūgao, <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/66057/pg66057-images.html#page_92">falls ill and passes away</a>, killed by what appears to be a powerful spirit – as later happens <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/66057/pg66057-images.html#page_250">to his wife, Aoi</a>, as well.</p>
<p>Someone reading “The Tale of Genji” at the time it was written would have found this realistic – as would some people in different cultures around the world today. Records from early medieval Japan document numerous descriptions <a href="https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/d8-46cs-wq63">of spirit possession</a>, usually blamed on spirits of the dead. As has been true in many times and places, physical and spiritual health were seen as intertwined.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://ealc.wustl.edu/people/alessandro-poletto">a historian of premodern Japan</a>, I’ve studied the processes its healing experts used to deal with possessions, and illness generally. Both literature and historical records demonstrate that the boundaries between what are often called “religion” and “medicine” were indistinct, if they existed at all.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578356/original/file-20240227-28-gqyl6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An intricate illustration of a ceremony attended by people in robes, with the background covered in a golden color." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578356/original/file-20240227-28-gqyl6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578356/original/file-20240227-28-gqyl6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578356/original/file-20240227-28-gqyl6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578356/original/file-20240227-28-gqyl6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578356/original/file-20240227-28-gqyl6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578356/original/file-20240227-28-gqyl6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578356/original/file-20240227-28-gqyl6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 17th-century scroll, ‘Maboroshi no Genji monogatari emaki,’ showing the funeral of Genji’s wife, Aoi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/leaves-of-wild-ginger-from-the-phantom-genji-scrolls-mid-news-photo/1206222207?adppopup=true">Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Vanquishing spirits</h2>
<p>The government department in charge of divination, the Bureau of Yin and Yang, established in the late seventh century, played a crucial role. Its technicians, known as <a href="https://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/journal/6/issue/186">onmyōji</a> – yin and yang masters – were in charge of divination and fortunetelling. They were also responsible for observing the skies, interpreting omens, calendrical calculations, timekeeping and eventually a variety of rituals.</p>
<p>Today, onmyōji appear as wizardlike figures in <a href="https://books.bunshun.jp/sp/onmyoji">novels</a>, <a href="https://www.viz.com/twin-star-exorcists">manga</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEiZuDTEq6A">anime</a> and <a href="https://en.onmyojigame.com/">video games</a>. Though heavily fictionalized, there is a historical kernel of truth in these fantastical depictions.</p>
<p>Starting from around the 10th century, Onmyōji were charged with carrying out iatromancy: divining the cause of a disease. Generally, they distinguished between disease caused by external or internal factors, though boundaries between the categories were often blurred. External factors could include local deities known as “kami,” other kami-like entities the patient had upset, minor Buddhist deities or malicious spirits – often revengeful ghosts. </p>
<p>In the case of spirit-induced illness, Buddhist monks would work to winnow out the culprit. Monks who specialized in exorcistic practices were known as “genja” and were believed to know how to <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/300922/the-pillow-book-by-sei-shonagon">expel the spirit from a patient’s body</a> through powerful incantations. Genja would then transfer it onto another person and force the spirit to reveal its identity before vanquishing it.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578368/original/file-20240227-26-dx583p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A faded picture of a broom, branch with a few leaves, and a fan, as well as Japanese script on top of it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578368/original/file-20240227-26-dx583p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578368/original/file-20240227-26-dx583p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=665&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578368/original/file-20240227-26-dx583p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=665&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578368/original/file-20240227-26-dx583p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=665&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578368/original/file-20240227-26-dx583p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=836&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578368/original/file-20240227-26-dx583p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=836&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578368/original/file-20240227-26-dx583p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=836&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 19th century print by Kubo Shunman shows objects representing the New Year’s ceremony of exorcising demons.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/objects-representing-the-ceremony-of-exorcising-demons-one-news-photo/1338629689?adppopup=true">Heritage Images/Hulton Archive via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Court physicians</h2>
<p>While less common than spirit possessions, the idea that physical factors could also cause illness appears in sources from this period. </p>
<p>Since the late seventh century, the government of the Japanese archipelago had established a bureau in charge of the well-being of aristocratic families and high-ranking members of the state bureaucracy. This <a href="https://rekihaku.repo.nii.ac.jp/records/2657">Bureau of Medications</a>, the Ten’yakuryō, was based on similar systems in China’s Tang dynasty, <a href="https://search.worldcat.org/title/3414658">which Japanese officials</a> adapted for their own culture.</p>
<p>The bureau’s members, whom scholars today often call “court physicians” in English, created medicinal concoctions. But the bureau also included technicians tasked with using spells, perhaps to protect high-ranking people from maladies.</p>
<h2>Not either/or</h2>
<p>Some scholars, both Japanese and non-Japanese, compare the practices of members of the Bureau of Medications with what is now called “traditional Chinese medicine,” or just “medicine.” They typically consider the onmyōji and Buddhist monks, meanwhile, to fall under the label of “religion” – or perhaps, <a href="https://search.worldcat.org/title/7306973">in the case of onmyōji, “magic</a>.”</p>
<p>But I have found numerous signs that these categories do not help people today make sense of early medieval Japan.</p>
<p>Starting in the seventh century, as a centralized Japanese state began to take shape, Buddhist monks from the Korean Peninsula and present-day China brought healing practices to Japan. These techniques, such as herbalism – treatments made of plants – later became associated with court physicians. At the same time, though, monks also employed <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.980">healing practices rooted in Buddhist rituals</a>. Clearly, <a href="https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/d8-46cs-wq63">the distinction between ritual and physical healing</a> was not part of their mindset.</p>
<p>Similarly, with court physicians, it is true that sources from this period mostly show them <a href="https://rekihaku.repo.nii.ac.jp/records/2657">practicing herbalism</a>. Later on, they incorporated simple needle surgeries and moxibustion, which involves burning a substance derived from dried leaves from the mugwort plant near the patient’s skin.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578349/original/file-20240227-28-9evlnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A drawing showing the outline of the human body from behind and in front, with one arm outstretched, and Chinese characters written on it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578349/original/file-20240227-28-9evlnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578349/original/file-20240227-28-9evlnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578349/original/file-20240227-28-9evlnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578349/original/file-20240227-28-9evlnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578349/original/file-20240227-28-9evlnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578349/original/file-20240227-28-9evlnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578349/original/file-20240227-28-9evlnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An 18th-century engraving identifying parts of the body treated by moxibustion.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/engraving-of-the-meridian-points-on-the-human-body-which-news-photo/90731089?adppopup=true">Science & Society Picture Library via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, they also incorporated ritual elements from various Chinese traditions: spells, divination, fortunetelling and hemerology, the practice of identifying auspicious and inauspicious days for specific events. For example, moxibustion was supposed to be avoided on certain days because of the position of a deity, <a href="https://cir.nii.ac.jp/crid/1520853832664346880">known as “jinshin</a>,” believed to reside and move inside the human body. Practicing moxibustion on the body part where “jinshin” resided in a specific moment could kill it, therefore potentially harming the patient. </p>
<p>Court physicians were also expected to ritually “rent” a place for a pregnant woman to deliver, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12110907">producing talismans</a> written in red ink that were meant to function as “leases” for the birthing area. This was done in order to keep away deities who might otherwise enter that space, possibly because childbirth was believed to be a source of defilement. They also used hemerology to determine where the birthing bed should be placed.</p>
<p>In short, these healing experts straddled the boundaries between what are often called “religion” and “medicine.” We take for granted the categories that shape our understanding of the world around us, but they are the result of complex historical processes – and look different in every time and place.</p>
<p>Reading works like “The Tale of Genji” is not only a way to immerse ourselves in the world of a medieval court, one where spirits roam freely, but a chance to see other ways of sorting human experience at work.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218992/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alessandro Poletto does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
In medieval Japan, healing might mean taking medicine, undergoing an exorcism or sidestepping harm in the first place by avoiding inauspicious days.
Alessandro Poletto, Lecturer in East Asian Religions, Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/223513
2024-02-21T17:28:02Z
2024-02-21T17:28:02Z
The 100-hour war between El Salvador and Honduras is famous for starting with a football match – the truth is more complicated
<p>A recent football match in Hong Kong has flared geopolitical tensions. A sell-out crowd was left disappointed when Inter Miami’s Argentinian superstar, Lionel Messi, did not come onto the field. Their disappointment soon turned to anger as, just days later, Messi played in another game in Japan.</p>
<p>Chinese state media, Hong Kong politicians and frustrated fans interpreted the act as a sign of disrespect, suggesting that there were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/feb/08/lionel-messi-injury-return-japan-anger-china-benching-unfit">political reasons</a> for Messi’s absence. Two Argentina friendlies that were scheduled to take place in China in March <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/09/sport/china-cancels-argentina-match-messi-backlash-intl-hnk/index.html">have been cancelled</a>. Some Hong Kong officials have demanded an “explanation and apology” from the player, while fans <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/08/china/lionel-messi-china-backlash-hong-kong-japan-miami-intl-hnk/index.html">claimed</a> that Messi should no longer be welcome in China.</p>
<p>Football has flared up tensions before, with lasting political consequences. In 1990, a game between Zagreb’s Dinamo team and Belgrade’s Red Star <a href="https://www.croatiaweek.com/33-years-ago-today-the-most-famous-derby-never-played/">erupted into violence</a> between fans and the police. The violence is believed by some to have sparked the ensuing Croatian war of independence (1991–95). </p>
<p>But one case in particular holds the reputation for a war that was started over a series of football matches. </p>
<p>In 1969, El Salvador and neighbouring Honduras played each other three times in the qualifying stages of the 1970 Fifa World Cup. The two matches that took place in Tegucigalpa (June 8) and San Salvador (June 15) were marred by violence between fans. </p>
<p>On the same day as the third match, in Mexico City on June 29, the Salvadoran government cut diplomatic ties with Honduras. Military action began two weeks later with aerial bombardment and a ground invasion, before coming to an end after a ceasefire was negotiated four days later. For its brevity, the conflict is known as the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/27868774">100-hour war</a>.</p>
<p>Of course, it would be silly to look for the causes of war in an ugly tackle, or in questionable decisions by referees. More than silly, to reduce the causes of war to a football match is disrespectful to the memories of the thousands of civilians displaced and killed in the conflict. </p>
<p>For that reason, as pivotal as these matches might have been for that war, it is essential to understand the broader context in which such an escalation of conflict becomes possible.</p>
<h2>The war of the dispossessed</h2>
<p>El Salvador is a fraction of the size of Honduras. But, despite the difference in area, El Salvador has a much larger population. At the start of the 20th century, Salvadoran farmers began migrating to Honduras in large numbers, primarily because of the greater availability of land across the border.</p>
<p>By the 1960s, the issue of land ownership had fuelled social tension in Honduras against the large population of Salvadoran migrants. The National Federation of Farmers and Livestock Farmers of Honduras was created to promote a land reform aimed at <a href="https://html.rincondelvago.com/la-guerra-no-fue-de-futbol_eddy-jimenez-perez.html">expelling Salvadoran peasants</a> from Honduran land. </p>
<p>This allowed large property owners, including foreign companies like the US-based United Fruit Company, to increase their ownership share of arable land. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577015/original/file-20240221-20-1haedq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A map of Central America." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577015/original/file-20240221-20-1haedq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577015/original/file-20240221-20-1haedq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577015/original/file-20240221-20-1haedq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577015/original/file-20240221-20-1haedq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577015/original/file-20240221-20-1haedq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577015/original/file-20240221-20-1haedq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577015/original/file-20240221-20-1haedq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Honduras is roughly five times as large as El Salvador.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/central-america-map-150994196">Rainer Lesniewski/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After a coup in 1963, the then Honduran president, General Oswaldo López Arellano, pursued the interests of these agrarian elites through the suppression of political opposition and systematic institutionalised violence. </p>
<p>Arellano’s brutal repression of peasant movements, with a specific nationalist sentiment mobilised against Salvadorans, <a href="https://catalogosiidca.csuca.org/Record/UCR.000022943/Description">caused the displacement</a> of thousands of rural workers in the years before those football matches. This is why <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/87/3/889/95948?redirectedFrom=fulltext">research</a> on the topic usually refers to the conflict as the “war of the dispossessed”. </p>
<h2>Escalating conflict</h2>
<p>The level of violence against Salvadorans led the government in San Salvador to formally accuse Honduras of genocide. The <a href="https://www.diariocolatino.com/una-guerra-breve-y-amarga/">communication</a> sent by the Salvadoran chancellor to inform Tegucigalpa of the severed diplomatic ties in 1969 clearly frames the conflict in these broader terms.</p>
<p>“In this republic [Honduras] there is still … homicide, humiliation and violation of women, dispossession, persecution, and mass expulsion that have targeted thousands of Salvadorans due simply to their nationality, in events that have no precedents in Central America, nor in America as a whole.”</p>
<p>The football matches simply added a mobilising element that contributed to escalating an already existing conflict. The number of displaced Salvadoran peasants after the conflict reached hundreds of thousands. After the ceasefire, El Salvador had to deal with this large population of refugees. </p>
<p>The conflict also increased the Salvadoran nationalistic sentiment and the political role of the armed forces, setting the stage for the political disputes in the 1970s that would culminate in the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/El-Salvador/Civil-war">Salvadoran civil war</a> in 1979.</p>
<p>Many of the Salvadoran refugees already had experience of political organisation from the land disputes in Honduras and ended up joining the <a href="https://prism.librarymanagementcloud.co.uk/port/items/686599?query=el+salvador+civil+war&resultsUri=items%3Fquery%3Del%2Bsalvador%2Bcivil%2Bwar">Farabundo Martí Popular Forces of Liberation</a>. This was a faction of the Salvadoran Communist Party that later became a left-wing military organisation with support from Cuba and the Soviet Union.</p>
<h2>Messi will not start a war in China</h2>
<p>The idea that football started a war is misguided. The violence in those matches in 1969 would not have escalated without the broader sociopolitical context of violent dispossession. Lacking a similar context, the declarations of frustrated fans who expected to see Messi in Hong Kong will not escalate. </p>
<p>This is not to say that football lacks political relevance. The inflamed reaction by fans and Chinese authorities shows the effect that a political statement (or one perceived as such) by a celebrity can have on global politics. Messi himself recently published a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/sports/soccer/messi-sets-record-straight-over-hong-kong-absence-2024-02-19/">statement</a> on Weibo (China’s most popular microblogging site) denying any political motivation for not playing in Hong Kong. </p>
<p>Messi has avoided getting involved with politics, especially during Argentina’s heated general election in 2023. But others have done the opposite. Perhaps former Chelsea striker Didier Drogba <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/52072592">calling</a> for a ceasefire in Ivory Coast in 2007 can serve as an inspiring example of how footballers can use their popularity to influence global politics and even stop wars.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223513/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pedro Dutra Salgado does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Messi will not start a war in China, but this is not to say that football lacks political relevance.
Pedro Dutra Salgado, Lecturer in International Relations, University of Portsmouth
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/222475
2024-02-20T14:31:08Z
2024-02-20T14:31:08Z
Defying expectations, disabled Japanese macaques survive by adjusting their behaviours and receiving support
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576169/original/file-20240216-30-6btxw6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5184%2C3453&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A disabled young female macaque named Monmo at the Awajishima Monkey Center in Japan.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Sarah E. Turner)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nina is a Japanese macaque, one of the red-faced monkeys famous for sitting in hot springs in Japan. Nina lives wild in the forest, but most days, along with her group, she visits the <a href="https://monkey-center.jp/english.php">Awajishima Monkey Center</a> to eat the food people provide for the monkeys. </p>
<p>Nina was born without hands, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10329-008-0083-4">an unusually common occurrence in this group of macaques</a>. While no one knows for sure why these malformations of the limbs and digits occur, many researchers have suggested a potential link to pesticides or <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/%20s10329-014-0405-7">other environmental contaminants</a>. </p>
<p>Nina survived because of a combination of factors: her ability to modify her behaviours to compensate for her physical impairments; the extra care provided by her mother when she was little; and living in a group of monkeys who treat her much <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2014.01.002">the same way they do non-disabled group members</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576171/original/file-20240216-18-i4irp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="an infant and older macaque in the middle of the road" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576171/original/file-20240216-18-i4irp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576171/original/file-20240216-18-i4irp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=657&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576171/original/file-20240216-18-i4irp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=657&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576171/original/file-20240216-18-i4irp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=657&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576171/original/file-20240216-18-i4irp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=826&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576171/original/file-20240216-18-i4irp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=826&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576171/original/file-20240216-18-i4irp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=826&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nina, a juvenile disabled female Japanese macaque at the Awajishima Monkey Center, sitting with an older Juvenile.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Brogan M. Stewart)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Over the years, we have spent many hours observing Nina and other disabled and non-disabled monkeys, as they live their lives — moving through the forest, socializing with others in their group and finding novel ways of adjusting their behaviours to compensate for physical impairments. </p>
<p>Disability is a <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/resources/factsheet-on-persons-with-disabilities.html">normal part of human experience</a>, with at least <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/disability-and-health">16 per cent of people experiencing some form of disability</a>. However, while conducting research at Awajishima, we have noticed that many people expect that disabled animals would be unlikely to survive. However, Nina and other disabled macaques in her group can survive and reproduce, and are far from being alone among primates of the world. </p>
<h2>Primates and disability</h2>
<p>In a recently published review of the literature on non-human primates and disability in the <em>American Journal of Primatology</em>, we found that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.23579">physical impairment is more common among wild and free-ranging primates than most people might think</a>. </p>
<p>We found 114 published papers on primates with disability, not including all the casual observations and field notes that were not published in the scientific literature. These papers included 37 species of non-human primates — monkeys, apes and lemurs — from 70 different study sites (38 of those with wild and free-ranging primates).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576172/original/file-20240216-16-wcme8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a group of monkeys in the middle of a path, three of them are grooming each other" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576172/original/file-20240216-16-wcme8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576172/original/file-20240216-16-wcme8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576172/original/file-20240216-16-wcme8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576172/original/file-20240216-16-wcme8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576172/original/file-20240216-16-wcme8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576172/original/file-20240216-16-wcme8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576172/original/file-20240216-16-wcme8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Disabled and non-disabled monkeys hanging out and socially grooming at the Awajshima Monkey Center in Japan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Sarah E. Turner)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>About 45 per cent of these disabilities, like Nina’s, were present from birth, while approximately 24 per cent came from injury, with similar frequency caused by a condition or illness. </p>
<p>Behavioural flexibility or plasticity (the ability to modify activities and actions in response to specific circumstances), the innovation of novel behaviours and extra maternal care stood out in the published research papers.</p>
<p>Seventy papers reported on ways that primates used behavioural flexibility and innovations to compensate for physical impairments, or provided examples of mothers who were able to support the needs of their physically impaired offspring. There were also some instances of other relatives and group members also providing support. </p>
<p>Overall, there was little evidence of social selection against disabled primates. There were also many examples of undifferentiated treatment for disabled individuals, and a few examples of disability-associated care behaviours.</p>
<h2>Human causes of primate disability</h2>
<p>Having studied disabled monkeys, we were not surprised to learn about the behavioural plasticity we found in this review. What was more surprising to us was just how many of these disabilities were linked to anthropogenic activities. </p>
<p>There are many ways that human activities can lead directly and indirectly to long-term disability in our closest animal relatives. Sixty per cent of the published examples of primate disability we surveyed were linked to human causes. </p>
<p>These included: injuries from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2028.2002.00356.x">hunting snares among chimpanzees and gorillas</a>; injuries sustained on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10764-014-9779-z">roads or from electrical wires in South African baboons</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1896/044.014.0206">South American howler monkeys</a>; and the effects of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.1985.0020">diseases transmitted between human and non-human primates</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576599/original/file-20240219-21-gxzmo5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a monkey with a malformed hand in the foreground, other monkeys in the background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576599/original/file-20240219-21-gxzmo5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576599/original/file-20240219-21-gxzmo5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=713&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576599/original/file-20240219-21-gxzmo5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=713&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576599/original/file-20240219-21-gxzmo5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=713&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576599/original/file-20240219-21-gxzmo5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576599/original/file-20240219-21-gxzmo5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576599/original/file-20240219-21-gxzmo5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A disabled infant macaque with her mother in the background at the Awajishima Monkey Center in Japan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Sarah E. Turner)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Human pressure, increasing threats</h2>
<p>At a time when the majority of non-human primates are experiencing declining populations and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abn2927">are threatened with extinction</a>, this link between human activities and physical impairments in primates is a poignant reminder of how humans are impacting other life on Earth. </p>
<p>Wherever non-human primates are found in the world — throughout the tropics and as far north as Japan — they face compounding threats from human pressures. As humans increasingly convert forests and wild lands to agricultural and urban spaces, habitat loss is pushing many <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1600946">primate species towards extinction</a>. </p>
<p>These pressures are exacerbated by resource extraction (often to meet market demand from the Global North), hunting, the exotic pet trade and disease. The threat of major impacts from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-020-02776-5">climate change is also looming on the horizon</a>. Even the most behaviourally flexible, smart, care-giving and innovative of individuals and species may not be able to navigate the scope and variety of these changes and pressures.</p>
<p>Physically impaired and disabled primates often find ways to behaviourally compensate for their impairments, survive and reproduce. </p>
<p>Nina and her friends show us an important side of non-human primate behaviour, giving us a model to examine the capacity for behavioural flexibility in nonhuman primates. Our research also underscores the critical role that humans have in shaping the futures of our closest animal relatives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222475/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah E. Turner receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada - Leadership in Environmental and Digital innovation for Sustainability (LEADS-CREATE), Fonds de recherche du Québec ‐ Nature et technologies, MITACS Globalink Research Awards, the Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science, and Concordia University.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brogan M. Stewart receives funding from NSERC - Alexander Graham Bell and CREATE in the Leadership in Environmental and Digital innovation for Sustainability (LEADS), FRQNT, Concordia University, Kyoto University, Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science, and MITACS Globalink.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jack Creeggan receives funding from MITACS Globalink, Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science, Concordia University, and NSERC-CREATE in Leadership in Environmental and Digital innovation for Sustainability (LEADS).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Megan M. Joyce receives funding from MITACS Globalink, Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science, Concordia University, and NSERC-CREATE in Leadership in Environmental and Digital innovation for Sustainability (LEADS).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mikaela Gerwing receives funding from Miriam Aaron Roland Graduate Fellowship, Concordia University, and NSERC - CGS M and CREATE in Leadership in Environmental and Digital innovation for Sustainability (LEADS).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephanie Eccles receives funding from FRQSC and NSERC‐CREATE in Leadership in Environmental and Digital innovation for Sustainability (LEADS).</span></em></p>
A community of macaques in Japan has a high rate of disabled individuals who survive with behavioural flexibility and maternal care. Globally, primate disabilities are often related to human causes.
Sarah E. Turner, Associate Professor, Geography, Planning and Environment, Concordia University
Brogan M. Stewart, PhD Student in Environmental Science, Concordia University
Jack Creeggan, Master's Student in Geography, Planning, and Environment, Concordia University
Megan M. Joyce, PhD Student in the Department of Geography, Planning and Environment, Concordia University
Mikaela Gerwing, Wildlife Conservation Biologist and PhD Student, Concordia University
Stephanie Eccles, PhD Candidate, Department of Geography, Planning, and Environment, Concordia University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/221596
2024-02-01T01:30:31Z
2024-02-01T01:30:31Z
Godzilla Minus One offers an insight into the complexity of Japan’s war memories
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571815/original/file-20240129-15-jdeo34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1920%2C1276&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Toho Studios </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The new hit Japanese film Godzilla Minus One – an homage to Honda Ishirō’s <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/05/why-you-should-watch-the-actual-original-godzilla/371389/">original 1954 film Gojira</a> (more commonly known to English speakers as Godzilla) – centres on the human costs of war.</p>
<p>Released in Japan in November and internationally in December, Takashi Yamazaki’s film is still breaking records, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/markhughes/2024/01/25/godzilla-minus-one-hits-100-million-watch-exclusive-black-and-white-clip/?sh=754bfc0e4db6">surpassing US$100 million</a> at the global box office. </p>
<p>Much like the iconic Gojira transformed the war into an allegorical nuclear monster bent on destroying Tokyo, Godzilla Minus One offers insights into early post-war Japan and the complexity of the nation’s war memories.</p>
<p>Japan has never forgotten its wartime past, and its population has had to deal with its own trauma. For those interested in Japanese history, Godzilla Minus One provides a new way to read the complexity of Japan’s war memories.</p>
<h2>Living despite despair</h2>
<p>During the second world war, Navy Tokko (Kamikaze) pilot Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) fails to follow through on a suicide mission and lands on Odo Island. </p>
<p>Godzilla appears, and Shikishima freezes in fear instead of shooting. All but he and the head mechanic are killed. Upon his return to Japan, Shikishima experiences post-traumatic stress disorder, torturous guilt and the contempt of his neighbours. </p>
<p>Shikishima’s return references a <a href="https://research.monash.edu/en/publications/the-endless-search-for-dead-men-funasaka-hiroshi-and-fallen-soldi">common experience</a> of veterans of Pacific battlefields in Japan. Guilt and an ambivalent reception at home prevented many veterans from being able to make a life in post-war Japan.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/r7DqccP1Q_4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>In Godzilla Minus One, it is only when the monster of war – Godzilla – is defeated that the central hero can overcome his trauma and get the girl. </p>
<p>The film critiques the inhumanity visited upon soldiers who served within a wartime imperial army and navy paradigm in which honour was predicated on <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/147/monograph/book/72858">their willingness to die</a> in service to the emperor, and thus the nation. </p>
<p>In Godzilla Minus One, survival, life and love become the basis of post-war nation-building. The film emphasises this when Shikishima visits the <a href="https://history.army.mil/books/wwii/macarthur%20reports/macarthur%20v1%20sup/ch5.htm">Ministry of Demobilisation</a> to find another Odo Island survivor, only to learn it is nigh impossible to trace anyone’s whereabouts when so many have been sent to their deaths.</p>
<p>If Godzilla (or war) is to be defeated, the movie says, the government can be of no hope. This can be read as a commentary on the ongoing debates in Japan on how the second world war should be taught and interpreted. </p>
<p>Textbooks often acknowledge the country’s role in the war, but <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/teaching-war-not-easy-controversies-japan-germany-and-the-united-states">avoid</a> “uncomfortable evaluation”. The role of the government in these debates is also a key area of contention. Article 9 of the Japanese constitution <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/japan-s-article-9-pacifism-protests-defence-budget-doubles">promotes pacifism</a> even while the country increases its defence budget, and the removal of the article <a href="https://apjjf.org/2017/21/Tawara.html">is debated</a> in current Japanese politics.</p>
<p>In the film, those who collaborate to fight Godzilla must do so through their own ingenuity and volition – unlike the wartime sailors and Tokko pilots who had no choice in their deployment. </p>
<p>While the heroes of both Gojira and Godzilla Minus One exercise choice, their choices take them in drastically different directions: death in the former and life in the latter. This perhaps illustrates a shift in values among today’s younger Japanese generations that privileges surviving the war rather than dying in it. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/discrimination-internment-camps-then-deportation-the-end-of-the-second-world-war-did-not-mean-peace-for-japanese-australians-208582">Discrimination, internment camps, then deportation: the end of the second world war did not mean peace for Japanese-Australians</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Post-war transformation</h2>
<p>Godzilla Minus One idealises the disappearance of a troublesome rift in post-war Japan, which, since 1945, has pitted the wartime generation’s view of the war against those of younger Japanese. This rift became <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00223344.2018.1491300?needAccess=true">especially stark</a> around the death of Emperor Showa (Hirohito), who ruled from 1926 until his death in 1989.</p>
<p>The film also references an important shift in post-war Japan: the war destroyed previously unbreachable class divides. The country’s defeat flattened social differences, impoverishing everyone equally. Here, Godzilla is defeated by an exalted scientist and his best friend, a sea captain of humble origins. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/g4nR1BI_33Y?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>In the film, the endeavour to fight Godzilla is a masculine one. The film depicts women as the monster’s victims, not participants in its destruction. The men in the movie are motivated by the protection of those at home, symbolised by the central character’s adopted female child: a reflection of the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1ppfc8">gendering of pacifism</a> as female in post-war Japan, which renders the creation of – and the fight against – war as masculine. </p>
<p>Godzilla Minus One demonstrates how Japan’s relationship to its wartime past is constantly being reframed. The film iterates that this allegorical monster of war and destruction is one created by humans – not just the result of some natural disaster divorced from the politics and active decision-making of war.</p>
<p>The only way to kill the monster, or subdue it temporarily, is by a coalition of people who pursue pacifism, ever vigilant against systems and ideologies that seek old glories in new wars, reawakening monsters that should have remained at the bottom of the sea.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/godzilla-minus-one-finding-paradise-of-shared-co-operation-through-environmental-disaster-219555">'Godzilla Minus One': Finding paradise of shared co-operation through environmental disaster</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221596/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
An homage to Honda Ishiro’s original 1954 film, the new hit Japanese film Godzilla Minus One centres on the human costs of war.
Jason Jones, Lecturer in Japanese Studies, Monash University
Beatrice Trefalt, Associate Professor of Japanese Studies, Monash University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/221547
2024-01-31T12:02:05Z
2024-01-31T12:02:05Z
Why monkeys attack people – a primate expert explains
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570907/original/file-20240123-15-jwdv0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5159%2C3429&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/monkeys-open-mouth-see-horrible-teeth-1156580965">Witsawat.S/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Wildlife tourism thrives on our fascination with animals and primates are particularly attractive animals to tourists. With their human-like faces, complex family dynamics and acrobatic antics, they are a joy to behold.</p>
<p>But recent stories have emerged that portray monkeys in a more sinister light. Reports of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/25/monkey-attacks-injure-people-japanese-city-yamaguchi-tranquilliser-gun">“monkey attacks”</a>, <a href="https://metro.co.uk/video/devil-monkeys-push-driver-160ft-hillside-attack-thailand-2994905/">“devil monkeys”</a>, or even <a href="https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/what-face-ripping-bone-biting-31631055">“face-ripping, bone-biting monkeys”</a> have become common in the media. Have our primate cousins turned on us?</p>
<p>The recent monkey attacks involve a variety of species in different countries. They include the <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2024/01/16/thailand-monkeys-turn-tourists-start-attacking-beach-20120135/">long-tailed macaque</a> and the <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2023/08/09/thailand-devil-monkeys-pushed-driver-down-hill-and-attacked-him-19307282/">pig-tailed macaque</a> in Thailand, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/25/monkey-attacks-injure-people-japanese-city-yamaguchi-tranquilliser-gun">Japanese macaques</a> in Japan, and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/boy-killed-monkey-attack-india-intestines-ripped-2023-11?r=US&IR=T">Hanuman langurs</a> in India.</p>
<p>Most of these species are macaques, which are a diverse group of monkeys. But all macaques are sociable, intelligent, relatively large (between 4kg and 9kg), and comfortable travelling on the ground. They have a flexible diet, but prefer fruit. They also have cheek pouches that allow them to gather food quickly and carry it to a safe place to eat.</p>
<h2>Over-habituation</h2>
<p>Regardless of species or location, a major factor in monkey bites and attacks is “over-habituation”. Habituation is a process used by animal researchers to gain animals’ trust so they can follow and record their behaviour, with limited impact of the researchers’ presence. </p>
<p>But animals can become unintentionally habituated. Squirrels in a city park who have grown accustomed to handouts are one example, but others include urban foxes in the UK, bears in North America, and, in many parts of the tropics, monkeys.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/three-surprising-reasons-human-actions-threaten-endangered-primates-197850">Three surprising reasons human actions threaten endangered primates</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>When animals lose their fear of humans and become a nuisance, they are over-habituated. In nearly all cases of over-habituation, the main factor is human food. What people eat is irresistible to wildlife. It is nutrient-dense, easy to digest and is available in rubbish bins, unattended backpacks, or even directly from people. </p>
<p>From an ecological point of view, animals have every incentive to take advantage of this high-quality resource. So, it’s no surprise that animals will adjust their fear and natural behaviour accordingly.</p>
<p>While over-habituation due to associating tourists with food is certainly the main driver for the reported monkey attacks, that does not mean that every person bitten or threatened by a monkey is guilty of feeding or teasing them. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A long-tailed macaque sits on a red footbridge while a cyclist rides past." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572224/original/file-20240130-23-bkbzlc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572224/original/file-20240130-23-bkbzlc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572224/original/file-20240130-23-bkbzlc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572224/original/file-20240130-23-bkbzlc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572224/original/file-20240130-23-bkbzlc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572224/original/file-20240130-23-bkbzlc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572224/original/file-20240130-23-bkbzlc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A contemplative long-tailed macaque in Singapore.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/long-tailed-macaques-crossing-bridge-singapore-2364831037">Tan Yong Lin/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Monkeys are very smart, have a long memory and learn from each other. Many groups have grown so accustomed to human foods that they have learned to harass tourists to get it. Some monkeys have become so adept at this that they know which items are valuable to tourists, which they will <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2019.0677">“trade” for food</a>. In other words, they’ll steal your mobile phone but then drop it when you throw them some food. </p>
<p>Another important factor in monkey attacks at tourist sites is an unawareness of the animals’ body language, facial expressions and vocalisation. Even highly habituated monkeys will normally give a warning before attacking someone. But people inexperienced with monkey behaviour will often <a href="https://peerj.com/blog/post/115284879374/experience-based-human-perception-of-facial-expressions-in-barbary-macaques/">misinterpret</a> a threatening facial expression for a friendly one. This can lead to dangerous encounters.</p>
<h2>Advice</h2>
<p>Wildlife tourists cannot be expected to understand every species’ typical expressions and body postures. But some things can help tourists be more safe and responsible, regardless of the primate species they are viewing.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Give them space. According to the <a href="https://human-primate-interactions.org/responsible-primate-watching-for-tourists/">International Union for Conservation of Nature</a>, a network of environmental organisations, keeping a distance of seven metres (23 feet) from the animals is recommended. This helps the animals not feel threatened and also reduces the risk of disease transmission.</p></li>
<li><p>Do not stand between the animals and their route to safety, or between adults and young.</p></li>
<li><p>Avoid direct eye contact or showing your teeth because monkeys may perceive this as aggressive.</p></li>
<li><p>For many primate species, common threats include bared teeth (including some yawns), direct stares with a lowered head, and short lunges or slapping the ground with the hands. If an animal does any of these things, quietly back away.</p></li>
<li><p>Do not feed the monkeys.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Wildlife tourism contributes <a href="https://wttc.org/Portals/0/Documents/Reports/2019/Sustainable%20Growth-Economic%20Impact%20of%20Global%20Wildlife%20Tourism-Aug%202019.pdf">more than US$100 billion</a> (£786 billion) per year to the global economy. It is also immensely rewarding and can offer many benefits to wildlife and the communities of people who live near them. But we should all be <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-ways-to-be-a-responsible-wildlife-tourist-118869">responsible tourists</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221547/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tracie McKinney is affiliated with the IUCN SSC Primate Specialist Group's Section for Human-Primate Interactions (SHPI).</span></em></p>
Tourists can do a number of things to avoid dangerous encounters with monkeys.
Tracie McKinney, Senior Lecturer in Biological Anthropology, University of South Wales
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/221570
2024-01-21T14:03:29Z
2024-01-21T14:03:29Z
Japan is now the 5th country to land on the Moon – the technology used will lend itself to future lunar missions
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570427/original/file-20240119-27-p6esw0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=249%2C0%2C4597%2C3248&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Data from the SLIM mission projected at JAXA's Sagamihara Campus during the craft's landing. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/JapanMoonLanding/03b3de9eaaba4dda9bfbe0236b3b28db/photo?Query=slim&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=3883&currentItemNo=1">AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Japan landed its <a href="https://global.jaxa.jp/projects/sas/slim/">Smart Lander for Investigating the Moon</a>, or SLIM, craft on the surface of the Moon on Jan. 20, 2024. Despite a power issue with the lander, the event holds both political and technical importance. It’s Japan’s first lunar landing – making it only the fifth country in the world to successfully land on the Moon. This is a significant achievement and solidifies Japan’s position as a leader in space technology. </p>
<p>While the craft <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvXLt3ET9mE">landed successfully on the lunar surface</a> and deployed its rovers, SLIM’s solar cells were not functioning properly – meaning that the craft could likely <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/12/science/japan-slim-moon-landing.html">only operate for a few hours</a>. </p>
<p>I’m a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=aESo-coAAAAJ&hl=en">scholar of international affairs</a> who studies space. Like NASA and other space agencies, the <a href="https://global.jaxa.jp/">Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA</a>, wants to advance research and technology by demonstrating new techniques and collecting scientific data. The landing is also a part of something bigger – a <a href="https://theconversation.com/returning-to-the-moon-can-benefit-commercial-military-and-political-sectors-a-space-policy-expert-explains-209300">growing global interest in lunar activity</a>. </p>
<h2>Precision technology</h2>
<p>Japan’s achievement isn’t only symbolic – Japan is demonstrating a number of new technologies with the lander. The name, Smart Lander for Investigating the Moon, refers to the spacecraft’s <a href="https://global.jaxa.jp/countdown/slim/SLIM-mediakit-EN_2310.pdf">new precision-landing technology</a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UEZO4jj7v0I?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">SLIM’s landing technology allowed it to detect and avoid potential obstacles.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This technology could assist future landings by allowing spacecraft to land in relatively small areas amid rocky or uneven terrain, rather than having to find large clearings. This ability will be particularly important in the future as countries focus on very specific <a href="https://theconversation.com/scientists-suspect-theres-ice-hiding-on-the-moon-and-a-host-of-missions-from-the-us-and-beyond-are-searching-for-it-216060">areas of interest</a> at <a href="https://theconversation.com/chandrayaan-3s-measurements-of-sulfur-open-the-doors-for-lunar-science-and-exploration-212950">the lunar south pole</a>. </p>
<p>The lander also carried two small rovers, each of which will demonstrate a new technology for moving on the Moon. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.planetary.org/space-missions/slim-japans-precision-lunar-lander">Lunar Excursion Vehicle 1</a> includes a camera, as well as scientific equipment, and uses a hopping mechanism to maneuver on the Moon. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570455/original/file-20240120-25-vl1x3l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Artist's illustration of Japan's SLIM lander, which looks like a metal box with cones and lights on one end, attempting its lunar touchdown" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570455/original/file-20240120-25-vl1x3l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570455/original/file-20240120-25-vl1x3l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570455/original/file-20240120-25-vl1x3l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570455/original/file-20240120-25-vl1x3l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570455/original/file-20240120-25-vl1x3l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570455/original/file-20240120-25-vl1x3l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570455/original/file-20240120-25-vl1x3l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An illustration of the SLIM lander touching down.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">JAXA/ISAS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://global.jaxa.jp/activity/pr/jaxas/no088/03.html">Lunar Excursion Vehicle 2</a>, developed in a partnership among government, industry, and academia, is a sphere small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. Once on the surface, its two halves separate slightly, allowing it to roll around.</p>
<p>SLIM is designed to land <a href="https://global.jaxa.jp/countdown/slim/SLIM-mediakit-EN_2310.pdf">within a 328-foot (100-meter) zone</a>, far smaller than previous lunar landers which have had landing zones spanning multiple kilometers. </p>
<p>SLIM used a <a href="https://global.jaxa.jp/countdown/slim/SLIM-mediakit-EN_2310.pdf">vision-based navigation system</a> that took images of the lunar surface. Its system rapidly compared these images to crater patterns on lunar maps that JAXA developed with data from previous missions. </p>
<p>As countries identify areas that are most likely to hold useful resources, such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/scientists-suspect-theres-ice-hiding-on-the-moon-and-a-host-of-missions-from-the-us-and-beyond-are-searching-for-it-216060">water in the form of ice</a>, precision landing technology will allow agencies to avoid nearby hazards and reach these areas without incident.</p>
<h2>International relations back on Earth</h2>
<p>There is a geopolitical element to these activities. China, India and Japan – the three nations that have successfully landed on the Moon since 2000 – engage in regional competition across a number of areas, including space. In addition to regional considerations, these accomplishments help to establish nations as leaders on a global scale – capable of something that few nations have ever done. </p>
<p>Japan’s launch comes only six months after <a href="https://theconversation.com/indias-chandrayaan-3-landed-on-the-south-pole-of-the-moon-a-space-policy-expert-explains-what-this-means-for-india-and-the-global-race-to-the-moon-212171">India’s Moon landing</a> and just weeks after <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/18/science/moon-lander-peregrine-nasa.html">a failed attempt</a> by a U.S. company, Astrobotic. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/russias-moon-mission-falters-after-problem-entering-pre-landing-orbit-2023-08-20/">Both Russia</a> and <a href="https://ispace-inc.com/news-en/?p=4655">the private company iSpace</a> made unsuccessful landing attempts in 2023. Japan’s success in landing on the Moon – even with solar panel issues shortening the timeline for the mission – demonstrates that JAXA is a major player in this global endeavor. </p>
<p>Despite recent setbacks, such as <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-shares-progress-toward-early-artemis-moon-missions-with-crew/">NASA announcing delays</a> to its next Artemis mission, the U.S. is still a clear leader in space and lunar exploration. NASA has <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/general/does-anything-orbit-the-moon-we-asked-a-nasa-technologist/">multiple spacecraft orbiting the Moon</a> right now, and it’s already successfully launched the <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/space-launch-system/">SLS rocket</a>, which is capable of taking humans back to the Moon. </p>
<p>NASA is developing very large and complex systems internally – like the <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission/gateway/">Gateway space station</a>, planned to orbit near the Moon, and the infrastructure for the <a href="https://theconversation.com/meet-the-next-four-people-headed-to-the-moon-how-the-diverse-crew-of-artemis-ii-shows-nasas-plan-for-the-future-of-space-exploration-203214">Artemis human Moon missions</a>. It’s not uncommon for these large and complex efforts to experience some delays. </p>
<p>NASA has also turned many smaller-scale efforts over to commercial entities lately – like in the <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/commercial-lunar-payload-services/">Commercial Lunar Payload Services program</a> that supported Astrobotic’s attempt. This is a new approach that involves some risk, but provides the opportunity for commercial innovation and growth of the <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/growing-the-lunar-economy/">lunar economy</a> while giving NASA the ability to focus on big, complex aspects of the mission.</p>
<p>With regard to the Moon, JAXA has partnered with the U.S. and taken on a very important component of the Artemis missions – the development of a <a href="https://www.toyota-europe.com/news/2023/lunar-cruiser">pressurized lunar rover</a>. This is a new and complex technology that will be critical to human missions on the Moon in coming years.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221570/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mariel Borowitz receives funding from the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the U.S. Department of Defense. </span></em></p>
Japan is one of several countries that weren’t part of the space race of the 1950s and 1960s looking toward the Moon. They’ve now become the 5th country to have landed on its surface.
Mariel Borowitz, Associate Professor of International Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/220792
2024-01-16T17:47:57Z
2024-01-16T17:47:57Z
‘I never lost a fight against a man’: the story of the only woman to join Japan’s notorious yakuza
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568999/original/file-20240112-29-r9i7lt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C13%2C2991%2C1980&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nichimura Mako, bottom left, is the only woman to ever formally join a yakuza gang as a full member.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nishimura Mako is a petite woman in her late fifties, with flowing hair and a delicate face. But you soon notice that she is no traditional Japanese lady – she is tattooed up to her neck and hands and her little finger is missing. These are signs of affiliation to the <a href="https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/yakuza-past-and-present">yakuza</a> – Japan’s notorious criminal syndicates. </p>
<p>The yakuza is dominated by men and leaves only informal roles to women. Typically a woman involved with the yakuza might be an <em>anesan</em>, a boss’ wife who takes care of young affiliates and mediates between them and her husband. Wives and partners of the members support the group in a peripheral way. Some get involved to the extent that they manage yakuza-owned clubs or deal drugs. </p>
<p>When I interviewed Nishimura recently as part of my research, she told me that when she had become involved with the yakuza at 20, she took up both roles. But she went one step further – Nishimura is the only woman who has ever partaken in the <em>sakazuki</em> ceremony of exchanging sake cups. This is the ritual that confirms formal affiliation with a yakuza group. </p>
<h2>Joining the gang</h2>
<p>Born into a rigorous family of government officials, Nishimura’s childhood was strict. Her memories revolve around her authoritarian father and the bamboo stick he would use to discipline her. During junior high school, she felt the urge to escape from under the yoke of her family, so she befriended unruly peers – and eventually biker gangs (<em>bōsozoku</em>) who taught her how to fight. </p>
<p>This rebellious streak led her to a young yakuza member, who took her under his wing and showed her how to collect protection money, solve disputes, engage in blackmail and scout girls for prostitution. </p>
<p>Her life took a turn when one night she received a call: her friend was in a fight and needed help. She ran to the rescue and using a club she turned the scene into a bloodbath. This caught the attention of the boss of the local yakuza group, who called her to his office. She told me that she remembers his words to this day: “Even if you’re a woman, you must become a yakuza”.</p>
<p>By this time, she had been to juvenile detention centres several times, and her family had ceased their efforts to save her. She accepted the boss’ invitation and started living the rigorous life of a yakuza trainee. She joined alongside a cohort of male recruits, performing daily tasks, and eventually taking part in the group’s criminal activities. </p>
<h2>Master of finger cutting</h2>
<p>She finally underwent the <em>sakazuki</em> ceremony dressed in a male kimono, and swore her life to the path of the yakuza. </p>
<p>As an affiliate, she ran prostitution and drugs businesses, collected debts and mediated disputes between rival groups. When she cut off her own little finger to apologise for a collective mistake in a ritual known as <em><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4009169/">yubitsume</a></em>, she realised she had a knack for it. Members who could not go through with the amputation themselves would ask Nishimura to do it for them, garnering her the nickname of “master of finger cutting”. </p>
<p>But disillusionment set in once Nishimura reached her thirties, as meth became the main trade of her group and her own addiction started taking a heavy toll. She ran away – ironically continuing to run her meth business independently. For this, she was expelled from the group. At this point she started a relationship with a member of a rival group, and a pregnancy prompted her to cut ties with the yakuza world in exchange for a quiet life raising her child. </p>
<p>But, despite her efforts, her yakuza past – marked by her tattoos – prevented her from getting any regular sort of job. She married the father of her child, now a yakuza boss, and returned to prostitution businesses and drug dealing. After a second pregnancy, fights with her husband became more and more violent, to the point police were called any time one erupted. They eventually divorced and he took custody of the two sons.</p>
<p>She rejoined her old group, but meth had changed the boss that she adored, and in two years she left for good. </p>
<h2>Life after crime</h2>
<p>Nishimura lived as a male yakuza and retired as one. She found a job in the demolition business and a modest home where she now lives alone. She lives a quiet life, trying to be accepted by the community and to help others. With the assistance of Mr Fujimoto, a former yakuza himself, she also manages a branch of Gojinkai, a charity dedicated to providing housing and aid to former yakuza members, ex-convicts and addicts.</p>
<p>She says, “My day is not complete if I don’t come here at night”. They gather around a table to talk about the old days, current difficulties, and to check on each other. She is still the only woman at the table.</p>
<p>She insists that what earned her respect in an all-male world is her capacity for violence: “I was great at fighting, I never lost against a man”. But Nishimura does not want to be a feminist icon: it was not her intention to break gender stereotypes or publicise herself as the only female yakuza. </p>
<p>There have been other women – like Taoka Fumiko, widow of a yakuza boss – who, though not formally affiliated, have made a significant impact in the history of the yakuza. But none went the extra step like Nishimura and became a fully pledged member with the cut little finger. </p>
<p>Her story redefines the boundaries of gender roles and allegiance in the brutal world of Japanese organised crime – a unique journey of identity and belonging.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220792/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martina Baradel receives funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement 101029138. </span></em></p>
Nishimura Mako’s life in the yakuza was dangerous and violent.
Martina Baradel, Marie Curie postdoctoral researcher, University of Oxford
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/220685
2024-01-09T17:02:27Z
2024-01-09T17:02:27Z
China: Xi’s new year’s address wasn’t a threat against Taiwan – it was a strategic move for legitimacy
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568260/original/file-20240108-19-vqrmp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3738%2C2678&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/moscow-russia-march-23-chinese-president-132906761">Kaliva/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In his <a href="https://www.mfa.gov.cn/eng/zxxx_662805/202312/t20231231_11215608.html">new year address</a>, Chinese president Xi Jinping claimed that Taiwan would “surely be reunified” with China. Against the backdrop of increased Chinese military posturing in the Taiwan Strait, some western journalists are framing Xi’s remarks as an <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/fc1dfe48-a390-48c3-b27c-7e405978c166">overt and direct threat against Taiwan</a>. They argue that Xi’s rhetoric validates concerns about a potential invasion.</p>
<p>This framing misses the point and overlooks the domestic political context of Xi’s speech. Xi also celebrated the successes of the Chinese nation and economy, while acknowledging the economic struggles of the Chinese people. Rather than threatening Taiwan, this rhetoric is intended to protect Xi’s regime.</p>
<p>Western governments draw their legitimacy from a popular mandate, which is established through elections. The legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to govern China is also premised on a mandate. But instead of through elections, this mandate is established through the party’s record on ensuring continued economic prosperity and national success.</p>
<p>In this context, Xi’s emphasis on economic growth and the nation should be considered performative – an example of political theatre portraying the CCP in a carefully curated way for a Chinese audience.</p>
<p>Following the Cultural Revolution (which had <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/11/the-cultural-revolution-50-years-on-all-you-need-to-know-about-chinas-political-convulsion">disastrous consequences</a> for China’s people and economy) and Mao’s death in 1976, the CCP re-established its legitimacy on <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/china-quarterly/article/abs/chinas-new-remembering-of-the-antijapanese-war-of-resistance-19371945/84F3184AF89EBA79F54561774379EAC6">twin pillars of economic prosperity and nationalism</a>. </p>
<p>Former leader Deng Xiaoping secured the economic pillar in the 1980s through reforms that <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/china/overview">raised 800 million people out of poverty</a>. The nationalist pillar involved retelling Chinese history. The regime emphasised historical achievements, commemorated national struggles and portrayed the CCP as the vanguard of the Chinese nation. </p>
<p>Under Mao, Japan’s invasion of China in the second Sino-Japanese war (the Chinese theatre of the second world war) was presented as an ideological class struggle. According to this narrative, both Chinese and Japanese workers were exploited by militaristic bourgeois elites. Nowadays, China’s nationalist narrative presents Japan as a foreign oppressor that China heroically resisted and overcame under the CCP’s leadership.</p>
<p>Such narratives of Chinese history have resulted in a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/as.2004.44.2.276">contemporary Chinese nationalism</a> sensitive to what it considers renewed victimisation of the Chinese nation. This includes international opposition to reunification with Taiwan, a historic province of China.</p>
<h2>Relying on nationalism</h2>
<p>As China’s economy slows, the CCP has become increasingly reliant on the nationalist pillar to retain its legitimacy. This limits the CCP’s options in nationalistic disputes as it must act in such a way that upholds its nationalist credentials. </p>
<p>In 2005, China saw large anti-Japanese protests triggered by Japan’s downplaying of the atrocities it committed during its invasion of China. Within the context of <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?locations=CN">11.4% economic growth</a>, the CCP shut down public transport to block protesters from arriving in the largest cities and officials condemned the protests.</p>
<p>But, by 2012, China’s <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?locations=CN">economic growth had slowed to 7.9%</a>. And the CCP was notably silent during similarly large anti-Japanese protests over the Senkaku Islands (known as the Diaoyu Islands in China) – a <a href="https://www.e-ir.info/pdf/98119">territorial dispute in the East China Sea</a> associated with the second Sino-Japanese war.</p>
<p>China’s nationalist movement <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-japan-politics-idUSBRE88I0AU20120919/">criticised the CCP</a> for being too soft on Japan, prompting then vice-president Xi to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/sep/19/china-japan-senkaku-diaoyu-islands">publicly renounce</a> Japan’s territorial claim. This constitutes a performative acquiescence to nationalist pressure, with Xi acting to secure the nationalist pillar while the economic pillar faltered.</p>
<h2>Understanding Xi’s performance</h2>
<p>Xi’s mention of national reunification with Taiwan in his new year address is in keeping with the CCP’s increased reliance on nationalism to secure legitimacy as China’s economy slows.</p>
<p>This can also explain China’s posturing in the Taiwan Strait. China experienced <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?locations=CN">3% economic growth in 2022</a>, the lowest growth rate since Deng’s reforms (excluding the height of the COVID pandemic). So to deflect scrutiny, the CCP is intensifying its embrace of brinkmanship in the Taiwan Strait.</p>
<p>Ultimately, this brinkmanship is unlikely to culminate in a war considering how an invasion could backfire on the CCP. In the event of an unsuccessful invasion, the CCP would suffer significant damage to its reputation. Even a successful but <a href="https://theconversation.com/taiwan-how-the-porcupine-doctrine-might-help-deter-armed-conflict-with-china-169488">prolonged conflict with heavy losses</a> would have a similar effect.</p>
<p>Either way, the near-certain economic consequences, such as sanctions and embargoes, would topple the party’s economic pillar.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/taiwan-how-the-porcupine-doctrine-might-help-deter-armed-conflict-with-china-169488">Taiwan: how the 'porcupine doctrine' might help deter armed conflict with China</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Acknowledging economic shortcomings</h2>
<p>More interesting than Xi’s talk of reunification is his admission of the economic struggles of the Chinese people. In his address, Xi explained that “some people had difficulty finding jobs and meeting basic needs”. </p>
<p>There is very little precedent for acknowledging the shortcomings of the CCP’s delivery of economic prosperity. Doing so contradicts the economic pillar. It is particularly odd given that the CCP has recently <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/29/china-cracks-down-on-negativity-over-economy-in-bid-to-boost-confidence">suppressed negative commentaries</a> on China’s economy to avoid damaging public confidence in its economic stewardship.</p>
<p>As brinkmanship in the Taiwan Strait reaches its limits, it seems the CCP is shifting away from an over-dependence on the nationalist pillar. Instead, it may be pursuing a less immediately risky strategy, acknowledging current economic issues while emphasising the potential for economic growth under the CCP. This approach would be a safer way to maintain the party’s legitimacy than escalating tensions in the Taiwan Strait.</p>
<p>Xi’s speech indicates a changing nuance in CCP discourse – one that may become increasingly apparent over the course of the coming year.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220685/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lewis Eves does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Xi’s New Year address wasn’t about threatening Taiwan – there’s more going on than we think.
Lewis Eves, Teaching Associate in Politics and International Relations, University of Sheffield
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/216977
2024-01-03T13:43:29Z
2024-01-03T13:43:29Z
The Lotus Sutra − an ancient Buddhist scripture from the 3rd century − continues to have relevance today
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566359/original/file-20231218-23-ldln3o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C0%2C1189%2C601&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Lotus Sutra scroll praising the manifold mercies of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/44849">Universal Gateway chapter of the Lotus Sutra/Calligrapher: Sugawara Mitsushige/The Metropolitan Museum of Art Collection</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>State legislatures across the United States have introduced <a href="https://www.equalityfederation.org/tracker/cumulative-anti-transgender">over 400 bills to limit transgender Americans’ rights</a>. Many of these bills’ sponsors, such as the Christian nonprofit Alliance Defending Freedom, cite Christian values as well as the values of the other <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/rag/11/1/article-p67_5.xml">Abrahamic faiths</a> – Judaism and Islam – to justify their anti-trans positions. </p>
<p>The Alliance Defending Freedom claims that Christians, Jews and Muslims view gender as binary and defined only by biology, though these religions’ <a href="https://therevealer.org/beloved-transgender-children-and-holy-resistance/">diverse followers</a> actually hold a <a href="https://theconversation.com/muslims-protesting-against-lgbtq-pride-are-ignoring-islams-tradition-of-inclusion-209949">range of views</a> on <a href="https://therevealer.org/turning-to-the-talmud-to-find-gender-diversity-that-speaks-to-today/">LGBTQ+ issues</a>. Historically, these religions were often more accepting of varied gender identities before <a href="https://publicseminar.org/2018/07/gender-as-colonial-object/">colonialism imposed binary gender</a> as a universal concept. </p>
<p>Religious <a href="https://www.ihs.gov/lgbt/health/twospirit/">values from multiple</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/for-indonesias-transgender-community-faith-can-be-a-source-of-discrimination-but-also-tolerance-and-solace-193063">traditions</a> have supported <a href="https://therevealer.org/many-paths-to-freedom-transgender-buddhism-in-the-united-states/">transgender identity</a>. <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/buddhist-masculinities/9780231210478">As a scholar of Buddhism and gender</a>, I know that several Buddhist texts treat gender as fluid. One such text is the Lotus Sutra, one of the most popular Buddhist scriptures in East Asia. Its core message is that everyone, no matter their gender or status, has the potential to become a Buddha. </p>
<p>The Lotus Sutra conveys its <a href="https://tricycle.org/magazine/greater-awakening/">message of universal Buddhahood</a> in several stories that depict transformations between male and female bodies. For example, a dragon girl instantly transforms into the masculine body of a Buddha, proving that female bodies are not barriers to awakening.</p>
<p>Elsewhere, the Lotus Sutra describes how the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.167">bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara</a>, known as Guanyin in Mandarin and Kannon in Japanese, takes on male or female forms depending on the needs of the audience. </p>
<h2>The dragon girl’s gender transformation</h2>
<p>To understand the story of the dragon girl, it is important to understand how Buddhas’ bodies were defined as masculine in early Buddhism. Most people are familiar with the historical figure Siddhartha Gautama as “the Buddha,” but Buddhists believe that <a href="https://tricycle.org/beginners/buddhism/why-do-buddhists-talk-about-many-buddhas/">several “Buddhas,”</a> or enlightened teachers, have been born throughout history. All of these Buddhas are said to possess 32 marks that distinguished their bodies from regular bodies. </p>
<p>One of these marks was a sheathed penis, which meant that Buddha bodies were male by definition. In addition, Buddhist texts identified five roles, including Buddha, that were off-limits to women. </p>
<p>In the <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-lotus-sutra/9780231081610">Lotus Sutra</a>, the Buddha’s disciple, Shariputra, refers to these limitations when he rejects the idea that the dragon girl could quickly attain Buddhahood: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“You suppose that in this short time you have been able to attain the unsurpassed way. But this is difficult to believe. Why? Because the female body is soiled and defiled, not a vessel for the Law. How could you attain the unsurpassed bodhi? … Moreover, a woman is subject to the five obstacles. First, she cannot become a Brahma heavenly king. Second, she cannot become the king Shakra. Third, she cannot become a Mara demon king. Fourth, she cannot become a wheel-turning sage king. Fifth, she cannot become a Buddha. How then could your female body attain Buddhahood so quickly?”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>However, the dragon girl proves Shariputra wrong by instantly attaining Buddhahood, transforming her young, female, nonhuman body into the male body of a Buddha. Women in premodern East Asia <a href="https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/rec3.12270">found inspiration</a> in the dragon girl’s story because it showed that their own female bodies were not barriers to enlightenment. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A scroll with golden etching on a black background depicting a scene from the life of the Buddha." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557848/original/file-20231106-21-qgdfq9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557848/original/file-20231106-21-qgdfq9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557848/original/file-20231106-21-qgdfq9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557848/original/file-20231106-21-qgdfq9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557848/original/file-20231106-21-qgdfq9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557848/original/file-20231106-21-qgdfq9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557848/original/file-20231106-21-qgdfq9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This scroll from the ‘Devadatta’ chapter of the Lotus Sutra depicts the 8-year-old daughter of the Dragon King emerging from her palace beneath the sea to offer a precious, radiant jewel to the Buddha on Eagle Peak.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/44851">The Metropolitan Museum of Art</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The bodhisattva’s gender fluidity</h2>
<p>Another inspiration from the Lotus Sutra can be found in the Chapter of Universal Salvation, which focuses on the <a href="https://south.npm.gov.tw/english/ExhibitionsDetailE003110.aspx?Cond=c176e479-7c87-462c-9b58-9b3900ca851e&appname=Exhibition3112EN">bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteshvara</a>. A bodhisattva is an advanced spiritual being who postpones enlightenment to help people in the world. </p>
<p>According to this chapter, Avalokiteshvara will adopt any form to save people. Avalokiteshvara can become a monk, nun, layman, laywoman, rich man, rich man’s wife, young boy, young girl, human or nonhuman, depending on the audience’s needs. </p>
<p>In China, this passage provided scriptural support for Avalokiteshvara’s perceived <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/kuan-yin/9780231120296">transformation from a male to female figure</a>. Indian Buddhist texts described Avalokiteshvara as male, but in China people came to see Avalokiteshvara as female. </p>
<p>Though scholars have not found one single explanation for this transformation, the Lotus Sutra passage offers justification for Avalokiteshvara’s gender fluidity. Images of Avalokiteshvara from China, Japan and Korea can depict the bodhisattva as masculine, feminine or androgynous.</p>
<h2>The Lotus Sutra and transgender inspiration</h2>
<p>Due to the Lotus Sutra, Avalokiteshvara has become an inspiration and icon for transgender, gender-fluid and nonbinary people in and beyond East Asia. At Japan’s <a href="https://matcha-jp.com/en/9828">Shozenji Temple</a>, head nun Soshuku Shibatani, who underwent gender reassignment surgery, has said, “The Kannon Bodhisattva has no gender identity,” using Avalokiteshvara’s Japanese name. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://blog.stheadline.com/article/detail/1116787/%E9%9D%9E%E7%94%B7%E9%9D%9E%E5%A5%B3">blog post</a> from Taiwan quotes from the Lotus Sutra in describing Avalokiteshvara as a nonbinary figure who transcends any single gender identity. </p>
<p>However, Avalokiteshvara’s role as a transgender icon is not universally accepted. Another <a href="https://n.yam.com/Article/20130509462739">Taiwanese blogger</a> reported that a friend of theirs argued with their description of the bodhisattva as transgender. In April 2022, an Avalokiteshvara statue in The Burrell Collection in Glasgow, Scotland, labeled as a transgender icon, <a href="https://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/news/2022/04/glasgow-life-defends-trans-label-in-burrell-collection-after-politicisation-row/">resulted in protests</a>. The anti-trans group For Women Scotland argued that the label unnecessarily politicized the statue. </p>
<p>Despite these objections, more and more people have found inspiration in Avalokiteshvara as a transgender, nonbinary or gender-fluid figure. Just as the Lotus Sutra’s story of the dragon girl inspired Buddhist women in premodern East Asia, Avalokiteshvara’s gender fluidity offers inspiration to people today. </p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/authwall?trk=bf&trkInfo=AQHFNdxAPOLqfAAAAYyDQhP4XlW43CSxFWDpq9-1rWWyWub3I-5Wq7BJL_wg5vkC0-EEWdyTHjmNbcHqNfYuNJ4krmD_PiPpjOatEpoVecRRhBp70u5VgTWb2HOF7POqNQMpnmg=&original_referer=&sessionRedirect=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.linkedin.com%2Fin%2Fmarissa-posani-8473432a6%2F">MJ Posani</a>, an undergraduate student at the University of Tennessee, contributed to the research for this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216977/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Megan Bryson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
For many Buddhists today, both in East Asia and across the world, the Lotus Sutra offers religious support for various gender identities.
Megan Bryson, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, University of Tennessee
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/219555
2023-12-19T20:38:38Z
2023-12-19T20:38:38Z
‘Godzilla Minus One’: Finding paradise of shared co-operation through environmental disaster
<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/godzilla-minus-one-finding-paradise-of-shared-co-operation-through-environmental-disaster" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p><em>Godzilla Minus One</em>, directed by Takashi Yamazaki, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7DqccP1Q_4">brings viewers back to post-war Japan</a> and to the wholly belligerent monster of the original 1954 <em>Godzilla</em> — a beast bereft of the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/05/godzilla-movies-king-of-the-monsters-history/590545/">friendly connotations</a> accrued in the later <a href="https://www.imdb.com/list/ls027620105/">Toho Studios Japanese installments</a>.</p>
<p>This original Godzilla represented what its director, Ishiro Honda, <a href="https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/6649-reign-of-destruction">described</a> as the “invisible fear” of the nuclear contamination of our planet. </p>
<p>Historian William Tsutsui asserts in <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781403964748/godzillaonmymind">his book dedicated to the series</a> that the film allows us to neutralize our fears of potential annihilation. Cathartic or not, this <a href="https://bigthink.com/thinking/apocalypse-philosophy-science-fiction-teaches-existence/">apocalyptic trend</a> remains a staple of science-fiction movies and series to this day. </p>
<p><em>Minus One</em> returns to that fear, once perhaps invisible but <a href="https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/ipcc-report/117241/">now undeniable</a>, of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-58073295">the disasters incurred by damage</a> to our environment. </p>
<p>At the same time, the film asks how individuals and communities can tackle disaster while embracing an ethos of mutual aid that sidesteps nostalgia for nationalist policies that lead to even more harm.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VvSrHIX5a-0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Godzilla Minus One’ trailer.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Disaster response</h2>
<p>In the two most recent instalments in the Godzilla franchise, 2016’s <em>Shin Godzilla</em> and 2023’s <em>Godzilla Minus One</em>, the monster can be read as a personification of a diminished belief in governmental abilities to prevent or respond adequately to disaster. </p>
<p><em>Shin Godzilla</em>, directed by Hideaki Anno, dealt satirically with the <a href="https://www.indiewire.com/features/general/shin-godzilla-review-hideaki-anno-1201735981/">limp governmental response to the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami</a>. As the threat of the monster escalates to catastrophic levels, the politicians in the film are more concerned with optics and in which board room they should be conducting their meetings. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3qX1ZU3jcfU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Shin Godzilla’ trailer.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In contrast, 2023’s <em>Minus One</em> captures ire for a nationalistic government that guided Japan into imperial campaigns <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Japan/World-War-II-and-defeat">in Asia and finally to a total defeat with a devastating human cost</a>.</p>
<p>When Godzilla arrives <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ph-22HvCNfU">to further compound post-war misery</a>, harried survivors don’t rely on the same government that has led them astray. </p>
<h2>Putting aside ideological differences</h2>
<p>Instead, as some reviews of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/dec/13/godzilla-minus-one-review-rageful-monster-is-one-of-the-best-in-the-series">the film</a> have noted, they turn <a href="https://www.theverge.com/23981319/godzilla-minus-one-review">to a community with the power</a> to act outside of official bodies, making use of technological skills earned through wartime experience. </p>
<p>While the state lends them a few ships, citizens are otherwise left to their own devices, relying on old and decommissioned machinery. They rise to face the monster not by developing a new weapon of destruction but by using what is already at hand. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman's face seen through a window and a giant lizard is reflected." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564718/original/file-20231211-89932-no7p97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C17%2C734%2C431&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564718/original/file-20231211-89932-no7p97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=307&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564718/original/file-20231211-89932-no7p97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=307&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564718/original/file-20231211-89932-no7p97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=307&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564718/original/file-20231211-89932-no7p97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564718/original/file-20231211-89932-no7p97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564718/original/file-20231211-89932-no7p97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Facing the monster requires collaboration in ‘Godzilla Minus One.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(TOHO Co. Ltd.)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The characters in <em>Minus One</em> create a shared purpose in light of their wartime experience. As engineer Noda notes, their lives have been undervalued. This realization leads them to turn away from the government and the nationalist policies that led to the war, and to rely instead on one another.</p>
<p>To do this they must put aside ideological differences to achieve the common goal of stopping Godzilla. This is best illustrated by the co-operation of Koichi Shikishima, a kamikaze pilot who questions the value of his death amid imminent defeat yet is dogged by the shame of his desertion, and an engineer, Sosaku Tachibana, who initially deems Shikishima a coward. </p>
<h2>Revisiting values, alliances</h2>
<p>These plotlines reflect contemporary interest in the local and political communities we should be forging in light of serious environmental threats.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ecological-grief-and-uncontrollable-reality-in-wes-andersons-asteroid-city-211419">Ecological grief and uncontrollable reality in Wes Anderson's 'Asteroid City'</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Writer Rebecca Solnit laments <a href="https://therumpus.net/2009/08/07/a-paradise-built-in-hell-the-rumpus-interview-with-rebecca-solnit/">self-serving governmental responses</a> to disaster. But her <em><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/301070/a-paradise-built-in-hell-by-rebecca-solnit/">A Paradise Built in Hell</a></em> focuses on the positives that can come from disaster at the communal level. </p>
<p>She concludes that in enhancing social cohesion and bringing out the humanitarian in each of us, disaster “reveals what else the world could be like.” In short, a paradise of shared purpose and co-operation. </p>
<p>The key, however, is distinguishing between a benign social cohesion, like the aforementioned networks of mutual care, and a malignant one, as seen in destructive forms of nationalism and war. </p>
<p>In <em>Godzilla Minus One</em>, Shikishima and Tachibana band together to save lives. Their wider group insists on a victory <a href="https://religionnews.com/2023/11/29/godzilla-minus-one-offers-a-profound-critique-of-war-and-american-pop-culture/">without the sacrifice of human life</a>, an ethos made possible by adopting a communal view in which humans are not statistics. </p>
<h2>Dream together or die alone</h2>
<p>At a time of an <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2021/09/are-yasukuni-shrine-visits-a-sign-of-rising-nationalism-in-japan/">increasingly nationalist Japanese government</a> that has been criticized for <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/why-japan-ranks-poorly-in-press-freedom/a-65549778">undermining freedom of the press</a>, the film suggests how a nostalgic dream for a return to a time of stronger social ties and a sense of unified purpose is one easily manipulated by nationalist governments. </p>
<p>This has been seen in a host of recent examples including <a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-has-made-america-nostalgic-again-for-a-past-that-never-existed-149449">Donald Trump</a>, <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/brexit-britain-and-nostalgia-for-fantasy-past/">Brexit</a> and, as mentioned above, the <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2014/02/shinzo-abes-nationalist-strategy/">policies of Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party</a>. </p>
<p>On the global scale, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2019/mar/06/revealed-the-rise-and-rise-of-populist-rhetoric">rise of populism</a>, diplomatic spats and outright conflict sees much of the world drawing away from their neighbours. This is happening when, to counteract the effects of climate change and face the exponential <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2017/11/16/climate-change-will-bring-more-frequent-natural-disasters-weigh-on-economic-growth">increase in disaster</a>, <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/10/04/humanitys-greatest-challenge-coming-together-fight-climate-emergency">we must unite</a>. </p>
<p><em>Godzilla Minus One</em> shows how we must rely on a fondness — even a nostalgia — for times of togetherness that do not mix with a nationalist sentiment that encourages isolationism and aggression towards others. </p>
<p>To do so really would be to go from zero to minus one. From there, there is little guarantee we can recover.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219555/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Corker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The film asks how individuals and communities can tackle disaster while embracing an ethos of mutual aid that sidesteps yearning for nationalist policies that lead to even more harm.
Chris Corker, PhD Student, Humanities, York University, Canada
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/219117
2023-12-06T19:07:17Z
2023-12-06T19:07:17Z
The Boy and the Heron is an autobiographical reflection by Hayao Miyazaki in the twilight of his life
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563242/original/file-20231204-17-kpwdsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C2%2C1908%2C1031&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">© 2023 Studio Ghibli</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Much about Hayao Miyazaki’s latest film, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS5thwpUzQ8">The Boy and the Heron</a>, remained a mystery until its premiere in Japanese theatres on July 14. </p>
<p>The title <em>Kimi tachi wa do ikiruka</em>, or How do you live?, was revealed in 2017. (The Boy and the Heron is the English title.) No trailer was produced for a Japanese audience and there were no announcements regarding the film’s plot, voice actors or production team. The involvement of <a href="https://www.joehisaishi.com/">Joe Hisaishi</a>, who has been composing music for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jZNKV5ROBM">Miyazaki’s films</a> since Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), was confirmed on July 4, a mere 10 days prior to the film release.</p>
<p>Mystery served as a strategic promotional tool for the film. After the release on July 14, Studio Ghibli discouraged the public from making any comments about the film’s contents on social media. No pamphlet – a popular publication typically available at Japanese movie theatres – was produced for this film. An <a href="https://australia.kinokuniya.com/bw/9784198657482">official guidebook</a> was only made available for sale at the start of November. </p>
<p>Miyazaki wanted the audience to see his film with no preconceived expectations. </p>
<h2>A coming-of-age story</h2>
<p>Genzaburo Yoshino’s novel <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/441639/how-do-you-live-by-yoshino-genzaburo/9781846046452">How do you live?</a> was published in 1937, four years before Japan joined the second world war. The book follows a teenage boy as he navigates the big questions about how to live your life through interactions with his friends, housekeepers and family, particularly an uncle who acts as a guide. It was originally intended to be an ethics book for young adults, rather than a work of literature, and Miyazaki held a deep fondness for the book during his childhood.</p>
<p>While the film is an original story and not a remake of the novel, it shares numerous similarities. Both narratives feature a teenage boy on a coming-of-age journey, seeking the meaning of life, and are set in a similar historical era. </p>
<p>The novel unfolds in the 1930s, a period when Japan was increasingly embracing militarism. The animation film is set during the second world war, likely in 1944 or 1945, following the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Saipan">Fall of Saipan</a> when American military aircraft began civilian-targeted firebombing. The film’s main character, Mahito, experiences the tragic loss of his mother in a fire, presumably caused by firebombing, early in the story.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/t5khm-VjEu4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/suzume-builds-on-a-long-line-of-japanese-art-exploring-the-impacts-of-trauma-on-the-individual-and-the-collective-203920">Suzume builds on a long line of Japanese art exploring the impacts of trauma on the individual and the collective</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>While the historical background of the film is obvious to a domestic audience in Japan, it may not be immediately apparent to many foreign viewers. There is no guiding narrative to explain the historical background in the film. Miyazaki’s use of the title from the novel reflects on Yoshino’s anti-war stance, but this connection is not clear in the English title.</p>
<p>The new title, The Boy and the Heron, is unrelated to the Japanese original. It was possibly crafted to appeal to an international audience unfamiliar with the novel. Here, the boy symbolises Miyazaki himself, a child who, having lost his mother and been compelled to leave Tokyo during <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/23/t-magazine/hayao-miyazaki-studio-ghibli.html">wartime evacuations</a>, continues to yearn for motherly comfort.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563244/original/file-20231204-27-cbsiyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The boy." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563244/original/file-20231204-27-cbsiyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563244/original/file-20231204-27-cbsiyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563244/original/file-20231204-27-cbsiyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563244/original/file-20231204-27-cbsiyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563244/original/file-20231204-27-cbsiyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563244/original/file-20231204-27-cbsiyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563244/original/file-20231204-27-cbsiyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The boy is compelled to leave Tokyo during wartime evacuations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© 2023 Studio Ghibli</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The boy embarks on a journey into an alternate world. A talking heron disrupts his journey, yet is crucial for the journey to reach completion. The encounter with the heron poignantly depicts how we can simultaneously embody friendship and opposition, mirroring the complexities of the real world.</p>
<p>The story serves as both a life lesson and an autobiographical reflection constructed by Miyazaki in the twilight of his life. It is a journey through time, an endeavour where he traverses decades to delve into his memories. For fervent Miyazaki enthusiasts, it offers a treasure trove that unveils the roots of his upbringing.</p>
<p>But the raw portrayal of Miyazaki’s past emotions might evoke discomfort. Some may feel reluctant to witness Miyazaki in such a vulnerable state, exposing aspects of himself they may not have anticipated encountering. </p>
<p>Born in 1941, the year when Japan entered the second world war, Miyazaki might have felt compelled to document his memories. Only a small fraction of today’s generations lived through the war; even fewer retain personal memories of that time. The opportunity to learn firsthand from direct experiences and oral histories is rapidly dwindling.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563245/original/file-20231204-21-tdmlj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A scary bird." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563245/original/file-20231204-21-tdmlj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563245/original/file-20231204-21-tdmlj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563245/original/file-20231204-21-tdmlj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563245/original/file-20231204-21-tdmlj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563245/original/file-20231204-21-tdmlj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563245/original/file-20231204-21-tdmlj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563245/original/file-20231204-21-tdmlj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The boy meets various people and creatures in his quest to answer life’s big questions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© 2023 Studio Ghibli</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Awaiting another film</h2>
<p>After 2013’s The Wind Rises, Miyazaki spent ten years creating The Boy and the Heron. During this time, speculations this might be his final film circulated in Japanese media. </p>
<p>Now 82 years old, Miyazaki has surprised many by already confirming his motivation to embark on his next cinematic endeavour. Despite his age, he has made clear <a href="https://jp.reuters.com/life/entertainment/O62OT3PEEJM6HNDH6HRMEOWVHE-2023-09-10/">his intent</a> to create another film. </p>
<p>But The Boy and the Heron feels like the concluding work of his long journey, packed with messages to younger generations. His unusual request to not share any details of the film on social media suggests he wants his audience to individually consider the important issue of how to live your own life. While it is nice to feel connected, there should also be time to be on your own, and think. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-studio-ghibli-films-can-help-us-rediscover-the-childlike-wonder-of-our-connection-with-nature-176612">How Studio Ghibli films can help us rediscover the childlike wonder of our connection with nature</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219117/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tets Kimura does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
After 2013’s The Wind Rises, Miyazaki spent ten years creating The Boy and the Heron, speculated to be his final film.
Tets Kimura, Adjunct Lecturer, Creative Arts, Flinders University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/218635
2023-12-05T16:56:47Z
2023-12-05T16:56:47Z
Blue Eye Samurai: historian explains what the Netflix series gets right and wrong about real Edo-period Japan
<p><em>Warning: this article includes spoilers for Blue Eye Samurai.</em></p>
<p>Netflix’s <a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/81144203">Blue Eye Samurai</a> is an anime series set during the opening decades of Japan’s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Tokugawa-period">Edo period</a> (1603–1867), also known as the Tokugawa period. Among other subjects, the series addresses the role of samurai, what life was like for women and people of mixed heritage, and violence in Edo-period Japan – with varying degrees of accuracy.</p>
<p>Japanese society was strictly stratified at this time, as the series frequently references. The hierarchy was ranked, in descending order, by: samurai, farmer, artisan and merchant classes. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nJ1yQn17lbE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The trailer for Blue Eye Samurai.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Even in the early stages of the 1600s Edo period, the entire samurai ruling class centred around the role of the warrior. But by the time the series opens, in the 1650s, the country was unified – a political and economically stable society – and this meant that the role of the samurai was in decline.</p>
<p>However, the samurai still defended the ideals of loyalty, courage and honour. It is these ideals that motivate Blue Eye Samurai’s principal characters, Mizu, Ringo and Taigen.</p>
<h2>Real people of mixed heritage in Edo-period Japan</h2>
<p>Mizu (Maya Erskine) is a mixed heritage white and Japanese woman living undercover as a male <a href="https://historyguild.org/the-onna-musha-japans-fearsome-warrior-women/">swordsmaster</a>. She undertakes a quest for vengeance against four British men (one of whom may be her father), who illegally remain hidden in Japan during <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/sakoku">Sakoku</a>.</p>
<p>Under Sakoku, only Dutch traders were permitted entry to Japan, and were confined to a small man-made island off Nagasaki. The Tokugawa shogunate’s (Japan’s military government during the Edo period) isolationist policy effectively <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/sakoku">closed the country’s borders</a> to all outside influences through a number of edicts from 1633 to 1639. </p>
<p>But it might help viewers of Blue Eye Samurai to know that during the preceding so-called <a href="https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781857540352">Christian Century</a> (1540 to 1630), the Japanese authorities had – with varying degrees of enthusiasm – accommodated a large number of foreign traders and pirates who were resident in Japan and active in Japanese waters. We can presume the four renegades are the remnants of these pirates – including Blue Eye Samurai’s main antagonist, the evil Abijah Fowler (voiced by Kenneth Branagh).</p>
<p>In the Edo period, women were expected to be subservient – but not weak. As the series depicts, women presented themselves as characteristically beautiful, with elaborate hair styles, makeup and clothing. They were supposed to be educated and compliant.</p>
<p>Mizu is particularly burdened by many of the stereotypes of Japanese society. Not only is she a woman, but she is of mixed heritage, something which is repeatedly referred to as being “less than human” or “impure”. She has to conceal her difference in a masculine disguise. </p>
<p>This is reminiscent of the fate of the children of <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2020/11/william-adams-in-japan-a-new-digital-resource.html">William Adams</a>, a 17th-century English sailor who became an honorary samurai. They disappeared from historical record after 1635. The series captures the covert presence of any person of mixed European and Japanese heritage <strong>during this time</strong>.</p>
<h2>The real upper classes in the Edo period</h2>
<p>The life of the upper classes, and the choices open to them, is depicted in accurate detail in the portrayal of Akemi (Brenda Song) and her family.</p>
<p>Although called a “princess” (perhaps for clarity to western audiences unfamiliar with Japan’s royal hierarchies) her status is more that of a “lady”, as she is not of royal blood. Her father (Patrick Gallagher) is a self-made lord. Nonetheless, as the Japanese emperor’s role was essentially ceremonial in this period, power did lie with feudal lords such as her father. It is accurate to suggest, as the show does, that he would gain higher social status by marrying off Akemi to a member of the ruling shogun family.</p>
<p>The strong willed “princess” Akemi excels at many of the fine arts and courtly practices as expected of a woman of their class. This includes <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/tea-ceremony#:%7E:text=Ritual%20tea%20drinking%2C%20which%20originated,Bodhidharma%20(Japanese%3A%20Daruma).">tea ceremonies</a>, <a href="https://poetrysociety.org.nz/affiliates/haiku-nz/haiku-poems-articles/archived-articles/introduction-to-renku/">Renku poetry</a>, flower arrangement, painting, dancing and the game of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/go-game">Go</a>.</p>
<p>We follow her as she deploys these skills to achieve independence in a patriarchal society, including resorting to becoming a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/geisha">geisha</a> – who had similar skills to women of the ruling classes. Although initially repulsive to her, in the end she accepts that marriage to the new shogun’s brother, rather than to her childhood sweetheart Taigen (Darren Barnet), will allow her an active role in the shogunate’s court.</p>
<p>Some people in Edo-period Japan lived outside expected gender roles, including geisha. They could run their own business, and the life offered women a level of independence unknown to the other classes, as demonstrated by the character of Madame Kaji (Ming-Na Wen).</p>
<h2>The reality of violence in Edo period Japan</h2>
<p>The vivid violence in Blue Eye Samurai suggests that life in the unified Edo Japan was a lot less peaceful than reality.</p>
<p>Due to the long Edo period’s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Tokugawa-period">economic and political stability</a>, the role of a samurai as a warrior had become reduced to a largely ceremonial one. Sword skills were demonstrated in stylised duels and challenges over honour, rather than on the battlefield.</p>
<p>The hostility between Mizu and Taigen is plausibly founded on the latter’s perceived loss of honour after losing their duel. However, a storyline suggesting that Fowler will succeed in usurping the shogun because he has access to firearms, which would trump the Japanese weapons of swords and spears, is a little disingenuous.</p>
<p>In reality, there were <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Nagashino">gunsmiths in Japan</a> producing guns throughout the Edo period, and for a century before this story is set. As guns required less skill to wield than the sword or the bow, they were seen by some samurai as <a href="https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/samurai-japanese-arms-armour">contrary to their values</a>. The sword was simply the more practical weapon in the average small-scale Edo-period conflicts.</p>
<p>Despite diverging from some of the history, overall The Blue Eye Samurai is an enjoyable, fairly accurate and visually sumptuous tale of Edo-era Japan.</p>
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218635/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ruth Starr does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The series addresses the role of samurai, what life was like for women and people of mixed heritage, and violence in Edo-period Japan, with varying degrees of accuracy.
Ruth Starr, Lecturer in History of Japanese art and architecture, Trinity College Dublin
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/218131
2023-12-03T05:47:39Z
2023-12-03T05:47:39Z
Nine out of 10 South African criminals reoffend, while in Finland it’s 1 in 3. This is why
<p><em>A very large percentage of South Africans who are released from prison end up being rearrested and being convicted for crimes again. The country has one of the highest recidivism rates <a href="https://www.702.co.za/podcasts/269/tonight-with-lester-kiewit/279121/nicro-the-high-rate-ofoffender-recidivism">in the world</a>. Criminologist Casper Lӧtter sets out his findings in <a href="https://unisapressjournals.co.za/index.php/Phronimon/article/view/13232">a recent paper</a> on what can be learnt from Finland’s experience in reducing this trend.</em></p>
<h2>What’s the difference between the two countries’ approaches?</h2>
<p>About 9 out of 10 ex-offenders reoffend in South Africa. Expressed as a percentage of 90% of the prison population of roughly 260,000 at any one point in time, this is one of the highest and most unsustainable in the world. </p>
<p>The US has a rate of recidivism of around <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20439062?origin=crossref">67%</a> while <a href="https://theconversation.com/crime-control-what-south-africa-can-learn-from-china-169269">China</a>, an authoritarian country where mass executions of recidivists are the norm, has a rate between 6% and 8%. </p>
<p>In Finland, a liberal democracy, the rate is a very acceptable 31%.</p>
<p>The primary cause of reoffending in South Africa appears to be the state’s unwillingness or inability to clear up areas of conflict in society which either breed criminality or fuel reoffending. Examples of these are <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-wont-become-less-violent-until-its-more-equal-103116">inequality</a> (a breeding ground for violent crimes), poverty in an otherwise affluent society, chronic unemployment and government <a href="https://us.sagepub.com/hi/sam/the-sage-handbook-of-criminological-theory/book228876">practices</a> that marginalise and stigmatise people. </p>
<p>Not only has the state failed to keep citizens safe from preventable crime and harm, but politicians have also used the issue to campaign on a “tough on crime” ticket.</p>
<p>South Africa also has a harsh <a href="https://theconversation.com/ex-offenders-should-be-made-prison-wardens-in-south-africa-heres-why-162316">stigmatising</a> shaming culture, as opposed to an integrative shaming culture, when it comes to people convicted of crimes. In a <a href="https://theconversation.com/crime-control-what-south-africa-can-learn-from-china-169269">stigmatising</a> shaming culture, ex-offenders often experience discrimination and ostracisation. This drives them away from mainstream culture and its values and towards criminal subcultures. The US has a similar culture. </p>
<p>In an integrative shaming culture, ex-offenders are encouraged to reintegrate into society. They are provided with employment and other opportunities to ease their transition into mainstream society. China and Japan are examples of this. </p>
<p>This approach is also widespread in African cultures, such as those found in Mali, Kenya and even Nigeria. The reason for this? In most African countries with a history of colonialism, <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2637640">a connection</a> has been established between imprisonment and slavery. </p>
<p>Significantly, the leading Australian comparative criminologist John <a href="http://johnbraithwaite.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/1999_Crime-Shame-and-Reintegratio.pdf">Braithwaite</a> has argued that stigma is “counter-productive” and fuels reoffending.</p>
<p>Though recidivism (reoffending) is a significant problem in criminology, there are no easy answers on how to fix it. The problem is both complex and nuanced.</p>
<h2>Alternative approaches</h2>
<p>In a <a href="https://unisapressjournals.co.za/index.php/Phronimon/article/view/13232">recent paper</a>, I looked at alternatives.</p>
<p>For example, Finland has a hybrid culture. It has a stigmatising shaming culture that is heavily influenced by integrative shaming features. A well-known Chinese proverb proclaims that nuance is everything. These characteristics are evident in the Finnish prison setting as well as the post-incarceration environment. </p>
<p>Strenuous efforts are made to provide ex-offenders with employment opportunities or financial assistance after their release from prison. </p>
<p>And offenders’ concerns are attended to during incarceration. <a href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sacq/article/view/239477">Prison protests</a>, such as hunger strikes, are unheard of in Finnish prisons. In South Africa they are common.</p>
<p>But the most glaring characteristic of the Finnish system is an admirable rate of recidivism of about 31% (with deincarceration at 53 individuals imprisoned per 100,000 in the national general population). Deincarceration is the result of efforts to limit recourse to imprisonment as much as possible. In <a href="https://www.702.co.za/podcasts/269/tonight-with-lester-kiewit/279121/nicro-the-high-rate-ofoffender-recidivism">South Africa</a> the rate of recidivism (reoffending) is between 86% and 94%. </p>
<p>So, even though South Africa’s rate of incarceration (the number of convicted criminals who go to prison) is almost five times higher than that of Finland, Finland has only one third of South Africa’s reoffending rate. The question is why, since both these countries exhibit stigmatising shaming cultures.</p>
<p>In my research I identified specific features within the Finnish system that makes it a good model for the South African Department of Correctional Services to follow. These include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Punishment as a mere loss of liberty. Other features of incarceration, such as <a href="https://perjournal.co.za/article/view/12743">torture</a>, forfeiture of privileges (such as family visits), degrading or insulting treatment and solitary confinement are not evident in the Finnish system. All of these are evident in South Africa. </p></li>
<li><p>Reintegration into society. Offenders are provided, as far as possible, with employment opportunities and other measures to help them return to mainstream society. This helps them survive in a harsh stigmatising shaming culture. </p></li>
<li><p>Promotion of normal humane conditions in the prison environment. Prisons in Finland are not surrounded by barbed wire, and prison wardens are dressed in normal civilian clothing. Everything possible is done to normalise the prison environment.</p></li>
<li><p>Just and respectful treatment of prisoners, upholding their human dignity. Research <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781843926030-5/harm-contemporary-prison-john-irwin-barbara-owen">has shown</a> that treating offenders in humiliating ways damages their sense of self and complicates their integration into society.</p></li>
<li><p>Responsiveness to offenders’ concerns. Understanding their problems allows them to feel they are part of the system and breaks down their resistance to cooperation with authorities. </p></li>
</ul>
<h2>What lessons can be learnt</h2>
<p>My research shows that South Africa could benefit from Finland’s approach.</p>
<p>South African academic <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Conflict_Management_for_South_African_St.html?id=aie7YgEACAAJ&redir_esc=y">Gavin Bradshaw</a>, an expert on deep-rooted societal conflict as well as social cohesion, notes that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Most recent research work on negotiation also supports the fact that integrative approaches are usually far more effective {than power bargaining}.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Recognition of the formerly incarcerated’s basic human needs, as Bradshaw indicates, is bound to have a significant impact on South Africa’s
rates of recidivism. </p>
<p>I found that Finland’s great achievement is a result of recognising the basic human needs of offenders and ex-offenders, thereby eliminating this primary source of human conflict. Those needs include employment, where possible, basic accommodation, dignity, and responsiveness to their concerns.</p>
<p>In a country where 9 out of every 10 offenders reoffend, it is perhaps time to reevaluate <a href="https://mg.co.za/thoughtleader/opinion/2023-03-25-is-the-idea-of-rehabilitation-redundant-in-south-africa/">the rehabilitation paradigm</a>. Finland’s experience shows the value of applying sensible conflict transformation perspectives in the management of crime.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218131/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Casper Lӧtter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Finland’s experience shows the value of applying sensible conflict transformation perspectives in the management of crime.
Casper Lӧtter, Research fellow, North-West University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/217277
2023-11-08T06:05:13Z
2023-11-08T06:05:13Z
Politics with Michelle Grattan: Former climate minister Greg Combet on Australia’s mission to reach net-zero
<p>As climate minister in the former Labor government, Greg Combet has endured the rigours of the “climate wars”. He oversaw the highly contentious move to put a price on carbon, which ultimately came to grief under the Abbott government.</p>
<p>Fast forward a decade: now Combet has been appointed by Anthony Albanese to chair the government’s new Net-Zero Economy Agency. This agency, due later to become a statutory authority, is described on its website as: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>responsible for promoting orderly and positive economic transformation across Australia as the world decarbonises, to ensure Australia, its regions and workers realise and share the benefits of the net zero economy. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Combet joins The Conversation to discuss the enormous challenges of Australia’s transition to renewable energy, its complications, and what is necessary to achieve our 2030 and 2050 commitments.</p>
<p>Combet has previously referred to Australia’s transition to renewable energy as “akin to post-war reconstruction”. He says: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s massive. […] So just for example, the total value of coal and liquefied natural gas exports in financial year ‘22 alone was almost $200 billion. And it’s not just a significance to the Australian economy and the many regions that depend upon that extraction and export and utilisation of fossil fuels. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Combet admits the government has “some pretty significant challenges” to achieve its 2030 target of having 82% of electricity generated by renewables: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s being limited by our capacity to deliver on the extensions of the transmission grid. There are social licence considerations, and that is basically taking the community along with this type of change. </p>
<p>We’re really going to have to, I think, collaborate and knuckle down in order to be able to achieve that 82% target and bring in the level of investment that’s necessary both in renewable generation and the poles and wires that are needed.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As Australia pursues its 2030 and 2050 commitments, Combet is very aware government policy is having an impact on job security. </p>
<p>He has advanced the idea of “special measures” for those losing jobs as a resuklt of the energy transition.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think governments and the community more generally have a responsibility to workers impacted in that way, to ensure that their opportunity to find alternative employment or to retire with dignity, if that’s what an individual might prefer, or to gain the skills to do something new and different.</p>
<p>You rightly point out my trade union past, I was 25 years a trade union official, and I’ve dealt with many industry restructurings and I think I can figure what additional measures government might be able to bring to the table, to help people better than we’ve done in the past.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-treasurer-jim-chalmers-pumps-up-his-role-in-energy-transition-216907">Grattan on Friday: Treasurer Jim Chalmers pumps up his role in energy transition</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217277/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
In this podcast, former Labor climate change minister Greg Combet joins The Conversation to discuss net-zero, and Australia's future as a "renewable energy superpower".
Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/214831
2023-10-30T19:24:42Z
2023-10-30T19:24:42Z
The humiliating downfall of Japan’s Johnny & Associates: Fans reckon with sexual assault in entertainment
<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/the-humiliating-downfall-of-japans-johnny-associates-fans-reckon-with-sexual-assault-in-entertainment" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Johnny & Associates, one of J-pop’s most famous entertainment agencies, has <a href="https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2023/10/047ecbeb7bfc-johnnys-changes-name-to-smile-up-in-wake-of-sexual-abuse-scandal.html">retired the company name</a> as part of its compensation to the talents who <a href="https://fortune.com/2023/08/30/damning-probe-confirms-decades-of-sexual-assault-by-boy-band-talent-agency-founder-johnny-kitagawa/">experienced sexual assault</a> at the hands of its late namesake founder, Johnny Kitagawa. </p>
<p>The agency has <a href="https://www.billboard.com/pro/johnny-associates-name-change-smile-up-johnnys/">split into two</a>: one company, named “Smile-Up,” will <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Society/J-pop-agency-Johnny-s-to-split-into-two-entities-with-new-names">be responsible for compensating victims</a>. </p>
<p>Another yet unnamed company will house entertainers. Fans of Johnny & Associates have been tapped to decide what the name of the new agency should be.</p>
<p>The international reckoning of Kitagawa’s abuse has led to the agency’s public downfall. It’s also catalyzed many emotions among victims of abuse and fans of the male talent produced by <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/10/02/japan/society/johnny-and-associates-name-change/">Johnny & Associates (also known as Johnny’s)</a>.</p>
<p>Some victims <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/japan-johnnys-sex-abuse-scandal-renaming-plan-slammed-1235607160/">have slammed</a> Johnny & Associates’ rebranding efforts as a meaningless symbolic gesture, a desperate attempt to stay afloat amidst calls for the company to shut down.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14906245">Some diehard fans</a> have also urged the agency to be accountable to victims. </p>
<p>But how fans’ advocacy and commentary will shape a reckoning about the culture of sexual assault that has been exposed in the agency and the <a href="https://japantoday.com/category/entertainment/Thinking-of-sleeping-your-way-up-Don%E2%80%99t!-Shoko-Nakagawa-has-stern-message-for-showbiz-hopefuls">Japanese entertainment industry at large</a> remains to be seen. </p>
<h2>Fall of a titan: Johnny & Associates</h2>
<p>Allegations and rumours of systemic sexual assault had plagued Johnny & Associates <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/japan-johnnys-sex-abuse-scandal-renaming-plan-slammed-1235607160/">for decades</a>. </p>
<p>Kitagawa, the late founder of the male-only agency, was known as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/07/business/japan-boyband-sexual-abuse.html">the “king of Japanese boy bands</a>,” responsible for producing beloved boy bands and male entertainment personalities. He <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpMASlssECk">was accused</a> multiple times of assaulting young boys signed to his label from the 1950s to the 2010s. </p>
<p>Despite this, Kitagawa escaped culpability and punishment up until his death in 2019. This was aided by his power in the entertainment industry and what Hiroshi Fujita, journalism professor at Sophia University in Tokyo, has characterized as Japanese media’s <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/013000japan-talent.html#correct">“cautious and timid”</a> approach to dealing with “sensitive subjects.” </p>
<h2>‘Predator’ documentary</h2>
<p>At one point in time, it seemed that Johnny & Associates would be forever untouchable.</p>
<p>Then in March 2023, the BBC released a documentary, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001jw7y"><em>Predator: The Secret Scandal of J-Pop</em></a>. The documentary exposed Kitagawa’s abuse allegations as “Japan’s secret sex scandal” as well as the national media cover-up that impeded justice. </p>
<p>After an explosive reaction to the documentary nationally and internationally, along with news of a <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/07/24/national/johnny-kitagawa-un-human-rights-group/">United Nations intervention to interview victims of abuse</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn8-M3HSNI4">Julie Fujishima</a>, niece of Kitagawa who took over as president of Johnny & Associates, admitted <a href="https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14999669#">the allegations were true</a> <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Society/J-pop-agency-Johnny-s-to-split-into-two-entities-with-new-names">and issued an apology</a>.</p>
<p>Now under the leadership of the new CEO and former Johnny’s talent Noriyuki Higashiyama, the company promises reparations for victims. </p>
<p>But with Higashiyama <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-66748236">himself facing sexual abuse allegations</a> and Japanese companies from McDonald’s to Nissan <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2023/09/12/companies/johnnys-commecials-sponsors/">cutting ties</a> with the agency and their talents, fans have been left wondering what the future holds for the once-titan company of Japanese entertainment.</p>
<h2>‘Parasocial’ relations</h2>
<p>As sociologist Karen Sternheimer explains in <em><a href="https://www.routledge.com/Celebrity-Culture-and-the-American-Dream-Stardom-and-Social-Mobility/Sternheimer/p/book/9781138023956">Celebrity Culture and the American Dream</a></em>, what fans often feel for their favourite music star or entertainment company is vicarious and dangerously “parasocial” — based on a relationship they imagine having with another person whom they do not personally know.</p>
<p>This may mean a fan’s love for a certain entertainer may lead them to <a href="https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2020.1853">align themselves emotionally, ideologically and even politically with the entertainer</a>, defending them against criticism and shutting down unflattering discourse about them. </p>
<h2>Company, brand loyalty?</h2>
<p>In some cases, fans’ conception of their favourite celebrity’s stardom can extend to the company that produced these talents. </p>
<p>Fans of Disney stars Hilary Duff, Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez may see themselves more generally as “<a href="https://books.google.ca/books/about/The_Pleasure_in_Paradox.html?id=k9h8zgEACAAJ&redir_esc=y">Disney fans,”</a> while fans of Korean girl groups <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPENYtHg4Xhmm6oX8zaQA7Q">Girls’ Generation</a>, <a href="https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/music/a44901463/red-velvet-members/">Red Velvet</a> and <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/aespa-new-mini-album-drama-release-date-1235439670/">aespa</a>, produced by Korean record label and management company SM Entertainment, may consider themselves “<a href="https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/k-pop-music-fans-terms-meaning">SM fans</a>.” </p>
<p>This is especially true when companies <a href="https://doi.org/10.11594/nstp.2021.1007">strategically encourage fanatical behavior</a> and mobilize affective attachments around the company brand. </p>
<p>Johnny & Associates certainly fits the bill with their creation of fan communities around their male talents, or as they are colloquially known, <a href="https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-3042-9.ch006">Johnny’s Idols (or Janīzu)</a>.</p>
<h2>Fans can be overzealous</h2>
<p>Diehard fans have been known to defend their favourite celebrities against criticism, shutting down viewpoints they perceive may tarnish their idol’s image.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.insider.com/harassment-taylor-swift-fan-base-worse-than-far-right-hate-2023-6">Music critics</a> have expressed fear over criticizing Taylor Swift because of her overzealous fans, who writer Kara Kennedy has called “<a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12397435/KARA-KENNEDY-OK-Im-ready-Swiftie-slap-Taylor-cringe-unoriginal-massively-overhyped-millions-cult-like-collective-trance-shake-off.html">cult-like</a>.” </p>
<p>Journalists like <a href="https://twitter.com/juwonreports/status/1524312890202673152">Juwon Park</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/koryodynasty/status/1524338366019686401">Raphael Rashid</a>, speaking of K-pop fan dedication, have sounded the alarm over the ways fans have attacked those who dare ruin the fun of worshipping their favourite entertainers by looking through critical lenses.</p>
<p>Just as with K-pop fans <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/22/asia/k-pop-fandom-activism-intl-hnk/index.html">disrupting Trump rallies</a> in 2020 and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.osnem.2023.100267">spreading public health awareness</a> online in the early period of the COVID-19 pandemic, celebrity fan culture’s considerable social media power and ability to organize can transform consumer power into <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315637518-31/black-female-fans-strike-back-kristen-warner">sustained activist potential</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nicki-minajs-covid-19-vaccine-tweet-about-swollen-testicles-signals-the-dangers-of-celebrity-misinformation-and-fandom-168242">Nicki Minaj’s COVID-19 vaccine tweet about swollen testicles signals the dangers of celebrity misinformation and fandom</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>However, such fans can also just as easily mobilize to <a href="https://screenrant.com/lightyear-box-office-failure-disney-pixar-lgbtq/">maintain the status quo</a>. </p>
<p>If observations of existing fan culture are any indication, we should anticipate that some fans could remain emotionally invested in the agency, regardless of the dire implications of the scandal. </p>
<h2>Upholding accountability</h2>
<p>More reverberations should be expected following a September announcement about victims <a href="https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14997090">seeking criminal charges</a>. Johnny & Associates fans must not use their power and presence within transnational networks to divert attention away from the talent agency’s abuse.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JV8khm4s9j4">Documentaries</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Klj3rGUuVVg">YouTube series</a> and <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/from-aggressive-overtures-to-sexual-assault-harvey-weinsteins-accusers-tell-their-stories">editorial exposés</a> have been important for furthering movements to hold sexual predators in entertainment industries accountable. </p>
<p>Particularly at a time when victims are speaking out, the public, including fans, will need to decide how their actions, cultural commentary and support for victims can most productively contribute to this reckoning.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214831/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah R. Olutola does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
How will fans’ advocacy and commentary shape a reckoning about sexual assault and exploitation in the entertainment industry in Japan that has been exposed through the Johnny & Associates scandal?
Sarah R. Olutola, Assistant Professor, Department of English, Lakehead University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/215556
2023-10-30T17:04:07Z
2023-10-30T17:04:07Z
Japanese manhole covers are painted with flowers, bridges, mountains and mascots – and now they’re for sale
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556149/original/file-20231026-17-gi6j0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/a-close-up-of-a-street-sign-with-a-mountain-in-the-background-BWm0RH9I9Ak">Kenshi Kingami|nsplash</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Visitors to Japan are usually primed to look up – at the vast skyscrapers, the ornate temple gates, the traditional timber-framed guesthouses. Those who look down at their feet, though, might have noticed something equally intriguing on the ground. Ornate manhole covers in wrought iron, often plain, sometimes brightly painted, dot the country’s pavements, separating street life from the sewers that run below. </p>
<p>These objects have garnered a considerable following of “manholers” (as the hobbyists are known), who will be delighted to learn that city officials in Kyoto and other local authorities are now <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/11/manhole-covers-become-collectors-items-in-japan">putting up retired covers</a> for sale. <a href="https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20231010/p2a/00m/0na/004000c">For ¥5,500 (£31)</a>, fans can purchase their own 90kg piece of Japanese street furniture.</p>
<p>A construction ministry employee came up with the idea of decorative manhole covers in the late 1970s. It was an attempt to get the public on board not just with costly upgrades to the sewer system, but with the existence of the sewer system itself.</p>
<p>Beyond such efforts at corporate social responsibility, though, these urban ornaments connect to a long-standing historical urban planning concept, <a href="https://www-jstor-org.sheffield.idm.oclc.org/stable/27756649?sid=primo">“<em>machizukuri</em>”</a>. They speak to efforts revive local communities and wider regional economies. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9OYPWgzDBxE?wmode=transparent&start=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<h2>A successful marketing ploy</h2>
<p>Today <a href="https://japantoday.com/category/features/drainspotting-japanese-manhole-covers">more than 90%</a> of municipalities have their own distinctive manhole cover designs. The motifs used are often rooted in local history, geography and culture. </p>
<p>They include the usual traditional <a href="https://theconversation.com/social-media-snaps-map-the-sweep-of-japans-cherry-blossom-season-in-unprecedented-detail-206574">cherry blossoms</a>, landscapes, castles, bridges, birds and, as the <a href="https://jgma.gr.jp/manhole-cover/citizen-recognition-role/">Japan Ground Manhole Association</a> website puts it, the wind and the Moon. Others <a href="https://www.nippon.com/en/views/b06304/">reference</a> sports teams, anime and local mascots. </p>
<p>Yokohama, in the summer of 2023, got <a href="https://japantoday.com/category/features/lifestyle/brand-new-pikachu-manhole-covers-coming-to-yokohama-to-celebrate-pokemon-world-championships-2">four new Pikachu lids</a>, when the city became the first in Japan to host the annual Pokemon world championship. These weren’t the first Pokemon-themed covers though. On the <a href="https://local.pokemon.jp/en/manhole/">Pokelids</a> website you can see similar designs mapped out across the country, from Hokkaido in the north to Kyushu in the south. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Pokemon-themed manhole covers." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556125/original/file-20231026-17-u7ye03.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556125/original/file-20231026-17-u7ye03.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556125/original/file-20231026-17-u7ye03.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556125/original/file-20231026-17-u7ye03.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556125/original/file-20231026-17-u7ye03.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556125/original/file-20231026-17-u7ye03.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556125/original/file-20231026-17-u7ye03.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pokelids have flourished across the country.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%95%E3%82%A1%E3%82%A4%E3%83%AB:Ibusuki_Evey-Suki_Manhole.JPG">Totti|Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Manhole designs now adorn keychains, t-shirts and mugs, as well as a trading card game. An annual <a href="https://www.gk-p.jp/activity/manhole-summit/">manhole summit</a> has been organised since 2012. The tenth edition, held in Tokorozawa on December 1 2022, attracted an estimated 14,000 visitors. </p>
<p>This popularity is partially down to the successful publicity of the local agencies that manage the sewerage networks. Replacing worn-out covers is expensive. As the sewers are mainly run by local authorities, it is taxpayers’ money that gets spent on replacements – so getting the public on side is crucial. Capitalising on the covers’ popularity could also now be a good source of revenue for debt-laden public bodies. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A colourful manhole cover in Japan." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556145/original/file-20231026-19-b6yob0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556145/original/file-20231026-19-b6yob0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556145/original/file-20231026-19-b6yob0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556145/original/file-20231026-19-b6yob0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556145/original/file-20231026-19-b6yob0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556145/original/file-20231026-19-b6yob0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556145/original/file-20231026-19-b6yob0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A fireman in action in Okayama prefecture.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Manhole_cover,_Okayama,_Okayama_Prefecture,_Japan.jpg">OKJaguar|Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Community building</h2>
<p>Manhole covers sometimes provide tourist information at sightseeing spots and sports events or outline emergency escape routes in the event of an earthquake or tsunami. Some include QR codes and augmented reality.</p>
<p>This speaks to the urban design trend of <em>machizukuri</em>, a term which combines <em>machi</em> (best translated as “community” or “shared space”, a place both physical and intangible in which community comes together and social activities take place) with <em>zukuri</em> (which means “producing” and “nurturing”). The idea connects urban planning with community building.</p>
<p>By the late 1960s, the environmental damage caused by Japan’s rapid economic growth after 1945 was becoming impossible to ignore. The period was also a time of tumultuous student and anti-war protest. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A colourful manhole cover in Japan." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556121/original/file-20231026-22-i9tz1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556121/original/file-20231026-22-i9tz1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556121/original/file-20231026-22-i9tz1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556121/original/file-20231026-22-i9tz1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556121/original/file-20231026-22-i9tz1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556121/original/file-20231026-22-i9tz1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556121/original/file-20231026-22-i9tz1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Osaka Castle and cherry blossoms in Chuo-ku, Osaka.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jpellgen/378759850">jpellgen|Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
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</figure>
<p><em>Machizukuri</em> emerged as an idealistic philosophy that aimed to improve the everyday environment through a bottom-up transformation, involving citizens, experts and local officials. The idea was to enliven urban areas by energising residents and reveal the spirit of the locality.</p>
<p>The term was more widely used in the mid-1970s and through the 1980s, as national economic policy brought increasing free trade in agriculture, relocated large factories overseas and privatised state-owned businesses. These neo-liberal reforms were a major cause of the now well-known problems of rural depopulation and ageing in Japan. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A cherry-blossom themed manhole cover in Japan." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556115/original/file-20231026-23-1lr7ou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556115/original/file-20231026-23-1lr7ou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556115/original/file-20231026-23-1lr7ou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556115/original/file-20231026-23-1lr7ou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556115/original/file-20231026-23-1lr7ou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556115/original/file-20231026-23-1lr7ou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556115/original/file-20231026-23-1lr7ou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sakura on a manhole cover in Mishima.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/a-manhole-cover-with-a-bunch-of-nuts-on-it-HUp0NOU12hs">Kenshi Kingami|Unsplash</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>Ultimately, the responsibility for rural revitalisation shifted on to municipalities. Local authorities were tasked with finding creative ways to sustain and revive local economies. The idealistic philosophical notion of <em>machizukuri</em> of the late-1960s was coopted by the changing economic imperatives of central government.</p>
<p>In the 1990s, tourism – domestic and inbound foreign – became a primary tool for <em>machizukuri</em>. Local authorities in declining rural areas tapped into a national sense of nostalgia in their campaigns to attract domestic visitors. Small towns and villages became the repository of what the popular mass media came to describe as the “real Japan”, the one left behind and forgotten in the rapid transformation of the postwar years. </p>
<p>The bubble economy of the early 1990s saw amusement parks, golf clubs, holiday resorts and out-of-town shopping centres populate the landscape and create jobs. Transportation to major cities was vastly improved through high-speed rail and highway networks. Local specialities – food, farming products, arts and crafts – were commodified and marketed. As elsewhere, the connection between localism and economic ideologies, such as post-developmentalism and neoliberalism, has become central to the growth of consumer society in Japan. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A colourful manhole cover in Japan." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556155/original/file-20231026-15-4as9yx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556155/original/file-20231026-15-4as9yx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=290&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556155/original/file-20231026-15-4as9yx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=290&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556155/original/file-20231026-15-4as9yx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=290&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556155/original/file-20231026-15-4as9yx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=364&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556155/original/file-20231026-15-4as9yx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=364&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556155/original/file-20231026-15-4as9yx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=364&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The manga character, Chibi Maruko-chan, in Shizuoka.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/a-sign-with-a-picture-of-a-child-on-it-JtpyslWCU6Y">Kenshi Kingam|unsplash</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Fans who decide to invest in a manhole cover are not just buying a pretty, heavy piece of artwork but something with cultural significance, that speaks to a feeling of shared belonging and communal life. The fact that they are even for sale also highlights how fragile – how under threat – this feeling is. <a href="https://theconversation.com/japan-is-not-the-only-country-worrying-about-population-decline-get-used-to-a-two-speed-world-56106">Local communities</a>, after all, <a href="https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.sheffield.idm.oclc.org/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/pafo.12043">have been destroyed</a> by the neoliberal economy of the last four decades.</p>
<p><em>Machizukuri</em> effectively creates a marketplace for nostalgia. These decorative manhole covers are simply one more element in the commodification of the spaces and places in which everyday life takes place. A pragmatic approach to sewerage management has become another opportunity to go shopping.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215556/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martyn Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
These popular street ornaments speak to a 1960s urban planning philosophy as well as to the commodification of nostalgia.
Martyn Smith, Lecturer in Japanese Studies, University of Sheffield
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/212308
2023-10-17T15:29:28Z
2023-10-17T15:29:28Z
How animal traits have shaped the journey of species across the globe
<p>The devastating <a href="https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/hazel/view/hazards/tsunami/event-more-info/5413">tsunami</a> that hit Japan in March 2011 set off a series of events which have long fascinated scientists like me. It was so powerful that it caused 5 million tonnes of debris to <a href="https://marinedebris.noaa.gov/japan-tsunami-marine-debris/monitoring-tsunami-debris-north-american-shorelines">wash</a> into the Pacific – 1.5 million tonnes remained afloat and started drifting with the currents. </p>
<p>One year later, and half a world away, debris began washing ashore on the west coast of North America. More than 280 Japanese coastal species such as mussels, barnacles and even some species of fish, had <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.aao1498?casa_token=YwHfCNElf14AAAAA:zJj4eY3uUm2_m4ZH5YzIO6ecvSWdVa_53yZk0ycnxm1Ga3bPLTl5Z6hCbUhvsmA4d0KSPHFPKz84nQ">hitched a ride</a> on the debris and made an incredible journey across the ocean. These species were still alive and had the potential to establish new populations. </p>
<p>How animals cross major barriers, such as oceans and mountain ranges, to shape Earth’s biodiversity is an intriguing topic. And a new <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-023-02150-5">study</a> by my collaborators and I has shed light on this process, revealing how animal characteristics such as body size and life history can influence their spread across the globe.</p>
<p>We know that such dispersal events occur in terrestrial species as well. For instance, at least 15 green iguanas <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/26886">journeyed</a> more than 200km (124 miles) from Guadeloupe to Anguilla in the Caribbean in 1995. They arrived on a mat of logs and trees (likely uprooted through a hurricane), some of which were more than 9 metres (20 feet) long. </p>
<h2>The role of animal characteristics in dispersal</h2>
<p>When animals move across major barriers it can have a big impact on both the new and old locations. For example, an invasive species can arrive in a new area and compete with native species for resources. However, those consequences can be even greater over longer periods of time.</p>
<p>The movement of monkeys from Africa to South America around 35 million years ago led to the evolution of more than 90 species of <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-anthro-102116-041510?casa_token=CZtEoQ5Z9bMAAAAA%3AX9JrgVyGxxegDXgVTUPNHZboMldBec1egagn5S4pLwx4yudreF4L6Q6zG4jUeB9tMxJEIy4q67iX&journalCode=anthro">New World monkeys</a>, including tamarins, capuchins and spider monkeys. And a few chameleons rafting on vegetation from Africa to Madagascar is why we find half of all living <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2013.0184">chameleon</a> species there today.</p>
<p>These events were long thought to be determined by chance – the coincidence of some chameleons sitting on the right tree at the right time. However, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/24529638.pdf?casa_token=NyxiUsFXod0AAAAA:9aBvrCPO0om98AjWOfs482QWf5eQxRUwKt95p4S3trPy1CQ2CM4K0AJeMBtsNKwKST8ILswcwdjQBRq8ZpdR5-3KL3gOn9uYZHOjzDdPyTm4R3Dom1o">some scientists</a> have suggested there might be more to it. They hypothesised there could be more general patterns in the animals that reach their destination successfully, related to certain characteristics.</p>
<p>Could body size affect how far a species can travel? Animals with more fat reserves may be able to travel longer distances. Or could it be how a species reproduces and survives? For example, animals that lay many eggs or mature early may be more likely to establish a new population in a new place.</p>
<p>But despite a vigorous theoretical debate, the options to test these hypotheses were limited because such dispersal events are rare. Also, the right statistical tools were not available until recently.</p>
<p>Thanks to the recent development of new <a href="https://academic.oup.com/sysbio/article/69/1/61/5490843">biogeographical models</a> and the great availability of data, we can now try to answer questions about how tetrapod species (amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals) have moved around the globe over the past 300 million years and whether successful species share any common characteristics.</p>
<p>These models allow us to estimate the movements of species’ ancestors while also considering their characteristics. We used these models to study 7,009 species belonging to 56 groups of tetrapods.</p>
<h2>What we found</h2>
<p>For 91% of the animal groups we studied, models that included species characteristics were better supported than models that didn’t. This means that body size and life history are closely linked to how successful a species is at moving to and establishing itself in a new location.</p>
<p>Animals with large bodies and fast life histories (breeding early and often, like water voles) generally dispersed more successfully, as expected. However, there were some exceptions to this rule. In some groups, smaller animals or animals with average traits had higher dispersal rates.</p>
<p>For example, small hummingbirds dispersed better than larger ones, and poison dart frogs with intermediate life histories dispersed better than those with very fast or very slow life histories.</p>
<p>We investigated this variation further and found that the relationship between body size and movement depended on the average size and life history of the group. Our results show that the links between characteristics and dispersal success depend on both body size and life history, and that these cannot be considered separately. </p>
<p>Groups in which small size was an advantage were often already made up of small species (making the dispersal-prone species even smaller), and these species also had fast life histories. We found this to be true for the rodent families <a href="https://www.britannica.com/animal/Muridae"><em>Muridae</em></a> and <a href="https://nhpbs.org/wild/cricetidae.asp"><em>Cricetidae</em></a>. </p>
<p>But groups in which dispersers had intermediate body sizes generally had slow life histories (meaning they had low reproductive output but long lifespans). This means the combination of small body size and slow life history is very unlikely to be an advantage for dispersal across major barriers such as oceans.</p>
<h2>It’s not just chance</h2>
<p>It is amazing to think that rare dispersal events, which can lead to the rise of many new species, are not completely random. Instead, the intrinsic characteristics of species can shape the histories of entire groups of animals, even though chance still may play an important role.</p>
<p>At the same time, two of the most important <a href="https://zenodo.org/record/3553579">environmental challenges</a> of our time are related to movement across major barriers: biological invasions and species’ responses to climate change. On a planet facing rapid changes, understanding how animals move across barriers is therefore crucial.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212308/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>While working on this study, Sarah-Sophie Weil was affiliated with Université Grenoble Alpes (France) and Swansea University (Wales, UK) who supported her through Initiative d’excellence (IDEX) International Strategic Partnership and Swansea University Strategic Partner Research (SUSPR) scholarships.</span></em></p>
New research looks at how different species have managed to cross geographic barriers throughout history and whether their individual traits played a crucial role in these journeys.
Sarah-Sophie Weil, PhD candidate, Swansea University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/210679
2023-09-19T12:17:30Z
2023-09-19T12:17:30Z
AI won’t be replacing your priest, minister, rabbi or imam any time soon
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548135/original/file-20230913-23-yeyvza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=311%2C42%2C6850%2C4939&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An android called 'Kannon Mindar,' which preaches Buddhist sermons.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/in-this-march-9-2019-shows-android-called-kannon-mindar-news-photo/1129444044?adppopup=true">Richard Atrero de Guzman/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Early in the summer of 2023, robots projected on a screen <a href="https://www.worldreligionnews.com/religion-news/artificial-intelligence/">delivered sermons to about 300 congregants</a> at St. Paul’s Church in Bavaria, Germany. Created by ChatGPT and Jonas Simmerlein, a theologian and philosopher from the University of Vienna, the experimental church service drew immense interest. </p>
<p>The deadpan sermon delivery prompted many to doubt whether AI can really displace priests and pastoral instruction. At the end of the service, an attendee remarked, “There was no heart and no soul.” </p>
<p>But the growing use of AI may prompt more churches to debut AI-generated worship services. A church in Austin, Texas, for example, has put a banner out <a href="https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/chatgpt-ai-sermon-austin-18360010.php.">advertising a service with an AI-generated sermon</a>. The church worship will also include an AI-generated call to worship and pastoral prayer. Yet this use of AI has prompted concerns, as these technologies are believed to disrupt authentic human presence and leadership in religious life. </p>
<p>My research, alongside others in the <a href="https://oaktrust.library.tamu.edu/handle/1969.1/198190">interdisciplinary fields of digital religion</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.4135/9781529782783">human-machine communication</a>, illuminates what is missing in discussions of AI, which tend to be machine-centric and focused on extreme bright or dark outcomes. </p>
<p>It points to how religious leaders are still the ones influencing the latest technologies within their organizations. AI cannot simply displace humans, since storytelling and programming continue to be critical for its development and deployment. </p>
<p>Here are three ways in which machines will need a priest. </p>
<h2>1. Clergy approve and affirm AI use</h2>
<p>Given rapid changes in emerging technologies, priests have historically served as gatekeepers to <a href="https://www.peterlang.com/document/1109122">endorse and invest in new digital applications</a>. In 2015, in China, the adoption of Xian'er, the robot monk, was promoted as a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0196859920977133">pathway to spiritual engagement</a> by the master priest of the Buddhist Longquan Temple in Beijing. </p>
<p>The priest rejected claims that religious AI was sacrilegious and described innovation in AI as spiritually compatible with religious values. He encouraged the incorporation of AI into religious practices to help believers gain spiritual insight and to elevate the temple’s outreach efforts in spreading Buddhist teachings. </p>
<p>Similarly, in 2019, the head priest of the Kodai-ji Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan, named an adult-size android “<a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3022716/meet-mindar-humanoid-robot-preaches-sermons-buddhist-temple?module=perpetual_scroll_0&pgtype=article&campaign=3022716">Kannon Mindar</a>,” after the revered Goddess of Mercy. </p>
<p>This robotic deity, who can preach the Heart Sutra, a classic and popular Buddhist scripture, was intentionally built in partnership with Osaka University, with a cost of about US$1 million. The idea behind it was to stimulate public interest and connect religious seekers and practitioners with Buddhist teachings. </p>
<p>By naming and affirming AI use in religious life, religious leaders are acting as key influencers in the development and application of robots in spiritual practice. </p>
<h2>2. Priests direct human-machine communication</h2>
<p>Today, much of AI data operations remain invisible or opaque. Many adults do not recognize how much AI is <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2023/02/15/public-awareness-of-artificial-intelligence-in-everyday-activities/">already a part of our daily lives</a>, for example in customer service chatbots and custom product recommendations. </p>
<p>But human decision making and judgment about technical processes, including providing feedback for reinforcement learning and interface design, is vital for the day-to-day operations of AI. </p>
<p>Consider the recent robotic initiatives at the Grand Mosque in Saudi Arabia. At this mosque, <a href="https://gulfnews.com/world/gulf/saudi/recitation-sermon-robots-launched-at-grand-mosque-1.90474824">multilingual robots</a> are being deployed for multiple purposes, including providing answers to questions related to <a href="https://gulfnews.com/world/gulf/saudi/watch-multilingual-robot-interacts-with-pilgrims-at-kaaba-kiswa-facility-in-mecca-1.96458732">ritual performances in 11 languages</a>. </p>
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<span class="caption">A robot at the Grand Mosque in Saudi Arabia’s holy city of Mecca.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/saudi-staff-works-on-a-smart-sterilising-robot-at-the-grand-news-photo/1234087266?adppopup=true">Fayez Nureldine / AFP via Getty images</a></span>
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<p>Notably, while these robots stationed at the Grand Mosque can recite the Holy Quran, they also provide visitors with connections to local imams. Their touch-screen interfaces are equipped with bar codes, allowing users to learn more about the weekly schedules of mosque staff, including clerics who lead Friday sermons. In addition, these robots can connect visitors with Islamic scholars via video interactions to answer their queries around the clock.</p>
<p>What this shows is that while robots can serve as valuable sources of religious knowledge, the strategic channeling of inquiries back to established religious leaders is reinforcing the credibility of priestly authority. </p>
<h2>3. Religious leaders can create and share ethical guidelines</h2>
<p>Clergy are trying to raise awareness of AI’s potential for human flourishing and well-being. For example, in recent years, Pope Francis has been vocal in addressing the potential benefits and disruptive dangers of the new AI technologies. </p>
<p>The Vatican has hosted technology industry leaders and called for <a href="https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2023-01/pope-francis-receives-rome-call-vatican-audience.html">ethical guidelines</a> to “safeguard the good of the human family” and maintain “vigilance against technology misuse.” The ethical use of AI for religion includes a concern for human bias in programming, which can result in inaccuracies and unsafe outcomes. </p>
<p>In June 2023, the Vatican’s culture and education body, in partnership with Santa Clara University, released a 140-page <a href="https://www.scu.edu/ethics/media-mentions/stories/the-vatican-releases-its-own-ai-ethics-handbook.html">AI ethics handbook</a> for technology organizations. The handbook stressed the importance of embedding moral ideals in the development of AI, including respect for human dignity and rights in data privacy, machine learning and facial recognition technologies. </p>
<p>By creating and sharing ethical guidelines on AI, religious leaders can speak to future AI development from its inception, to guide design and consumer implementation toward cherished values.</p>
<p>In sum, while religious leaders appear to be undervalued in AI development and discourse, I argue that it is important to recognize the ways in which clergy are contributing to skillful communication involving AI technologies. In the process, they are co-constructing the conversations that chatbots such as the one at the church in Bavaria are having with congregants.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210679/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pauline Hope Cheong does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A scholar of digital religion explains why the use of AI isn’t necessarily displacing religious leadership: It is the clergy who are helping with the programming, critical for its deployment.
Pauline Hope Cheong, Professor of Human Communication and Communication Technologies, Arizona State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.