notehelfer session

[Anonymous]

Who knew today's lecture would be so engaging. We are so use to using all the visual bells and whistles we can to keep students' attention, it was refreshing to see someone who could keep us engaged, just by talking. It kind of felt like storytelling to me. Dr. Noteheifer was an awesome speaker and gave us so much information!! I found it most interesting to hear about the political and social changes during the Tokugawa period. Also to learn about the Tokugawa's (beginning) entreprenurial (no time for spell check) side and the business aspects. And it is interesting to consider the threat (rich samurai) vs. new opportunity (countrymen as merchants). These are fascinating topics to learn about and ponder, putting ourself into the picture and thinking, what if......

[Anonymous]

Japan is another place I would like more information about on the 20th and 21st centuries.

An interesting conversation to bring up in class is one on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the atomic bomb. Of course, students have to know that their opinions won't be shot down, and the teacher must realize that often their first comments are coming from what htey have heard their parents say. I teach Hiroshima by Hersey, adn before the reading we have a conversation about their knowledge of Japan and WWII, Einstein, the atomic bomb, and the effects of it. Somewhere in the reading I bring in articles and propaganda from both the US and Japan. Then, after we have read and discussed the book, I bring in some information on the radiation effects on people today, as I know some people who have deformities because of the radiation their grandparents were exposed to. We then have the conversation of whether dropping the atomic bomb was justified. It turns out to be a very good conversation. [Edit by="ritow on Aug 8, 6:17:28 PM"][/Edit]

[Anonymous]

Awesome flow of events of 19th century Japan. Interesting turn of events, that out of the chaotic period, feudalism would give way to foreign trade and economic expansion. Rare possibility that peasants would become military leaders. Tokugawa-moving away from the feudal system, establishing stability by neo Confucianism and the rise of the classes-gentry, agrarians and merchants. Interesting that the Samurai families should reside in the culture rich city of Edo. The concepts of 'deficit spending', commercializing of agriculture existed in 17-1800's. The scientific and industrial revolution as a result of Perry's naval ships entering the harbors of Japan.
I enjoyed the visuals presented by Prof. Notehelfer.
For my Language Arts class I would read the excerpts of Japan in the Tokugawa period and 'Modernization and the peasants.'

[Anonymous]

To: ritow and friends,

The discussion of this issue is still going on in Japan, in Japanese-American community and worldwide. In Los Angeles, there is an "Atomic bomb Survivors Association".

I visited both Hiroshima and Nagasaki Peace Parks and the Memorial Center. I was so depressed and felt anger while I was actually seeing the display of deformed human figures and the re-creation of the voices of atomic bomb victims.

When I teach origami as a part of Japanese culture, we always make "tsuru" (Japanese crane), and talk about their historical background. My students become so sympathetic and want to make "a thousand cranes" (there is a story about the thousand cranes).

http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/top_e.html　

広島平和記念資料館 Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum
[Edit by="kirion on Aug 11, 12:58:18 AM"][/Edit]

[Anonymous]

The Meiji Restration, is one of the most dramatic and exciting periods in Japanese hitory. Prof. Notehelfer lectured without using notes, like a dramatic experienced story teller, throughout the session. He also showed us historical and useful slides.

During the Edo (Tokugawa) period, merchants helped the economic growth even though their social status was the lowest: shi, noo, koo, shoo (shoo means the merchants). Although the "Sankin kotai" system was harsh to the feudal loards (they had to spend 60-70 % income to go to Edo, and spend 30 % to run their domain) and their families (wife and children had to stay in Edo), it helped merchants to create a banking community. Also the "deficit spending" created economic growth. In the country side the new merchants, who handle surplus, arose (like Fushimi's sake maker). They also created the "kabu nakama" and "tonya" system.

At the beginning of Meiji period, the government had almost no money and no national army. They had to industrialize the country. Shibusawa Eiichi used some of the available money for an industrial revolution.

In education, Fukuzawa Yukichi (remember, the person on 10,000-yen bank note. Prof. Dube showed us this picture on 7/28) intruduced Western culture through his writings, such as "Seiyo jijo" (Conditions in the West). In 1868, he established Keio Gijuku (now known as Keio University in Tokyo). He also published a famous "Gakumon no susume" (Encouragement of Learning) (1872), and "Bunmeiron no gairyaku" (An outline of a Theory of Civilization) (1875). Fukuzawa advocated his most lasting principle, "national independence through personal independence". His understanding was that Western society had become powerful relative to other countries at the time because Western countries fostered education, individualism (independence), competition and exchange of ideas. Another person who contributed to education was Iwakura Tomomi, who led Iwakura Mission with 100 brilliant students to the West.

I would like to give my students the "Meiji Restoration" as background research for Japanese culture lessons.

Suggested TV program: "Atsu-hime"
on channel 18, every Saturday 9:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.
a hitoriacl drama, about Tokugawa Iesada (13th Shogun)'s wife Atsu-hime.
You can see the end of Tokugawa period (Matthew Perry came to Japan), and its political turmoil.[Edit by="kirion on Aug 11, 1:55:32 AM"][/Edit]

[Anonymous]

He was called a Twilight Samurai because he left to go home at twilight, instead of going drinking with his fellow samurai in the evening after classes. He was unaware of the insult, but his buddies thought better of it when they realized how good he was with his blade.

[Anonymous]

Aizawa Seishisai (1782-1863) said of of barbarians from the West that we are always "trampling other countries underfoot, and daring...to override other nations." He demands, "What manner of arrogance is this?" And, he comments that "...it stands to reason that the Westerners...by overstepping their bounds, are inviting their own eventual downfall..." This does sound familiar in terms of Iraq?

I asked Dr. Notehelfer about the second bomb in Japan. Was it necessary? He said, "Yes," and added that someone he knew at West Point told him that, actually, nine bombs were planned. I cannot agree with the good scholar, but students of mine whose parents are Japanese told them that it had to be done. What do the rest of you think?

I thought exploding a bomb on an uninhabited island would be enough. No one seems to agree with me. And, where's all our thunder now that Georgia has been invaded?

[Anonymous]

ritow:

I really think your lesson sounds awesome. I have not refined a good lesson on Japan's side of WWII and I am searching for good ideas. Do you do this in a World History or US class? I actually have not read Hiroshima by Hersey but I bought it at the museum in Pasadena and will def. read it ASAP. Where did you get your propaganda articles from the Japanese point of view? I would love to see these.

Thanks for your ideas.

[Anonymous]

Speaking of history:

There is a horror in history, and literature documents our brutal inhumanity to one another. When I teach the Puritan period and THE CRUCIBLE (aka McCarthyism), I bring in other literature describing the holocausts of larger proportion, holocausts propelled by the same reasoning (that is, finding a group to label as "other" and scapegoat): the genocide of the Native Americans;the witchhunts by the Catholic and Protestant Churches and the slaughter of innocent women and female children (there was a villages in Germany I read about where not a single female was left living (incidentally, they also hung female dogs or any animal suspected of being possessed) and, of course, the instruments of torture used to get a confession were blessed before being used [the "pear" was an interesting example...shaped like a pear, the iron was heated until white-hot, put in some bodily orifice and slowly opened [a student who visited Germany took a picture of one that was actually in use a few centuries ago]...confession of being in league with the devil followed...consider Iraq]); the enslavement of the Africans, read THE INTERESTING NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF OLAUDAH EQUIANO; Thoreau's thoughts on the Mexican-American War and the essay "On Civil Disobedience";the internment of the Japanese; SURVIVAL IN AUSCHWITZ by Primo Levi, etc.

Get the idea? A killer book (literally!) was the MALLEUS MALEFICARIUM (the hammer of witches) by Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger and it was the most important text in the construction of the witch craze. I have a copy of this in my class (a primary source). It's authors are two Catholic friars (doctors of thelogy). It was a guide to the faithful for almost 150 years in the identification, persecution and killing of women accused of witchcraft. Well, someone had to pay for the birth pains of Modernity in Midieval Times. That's what we gals get for opening Pandora's box and offering Adam the apple.

Looking at how people in the past have fallen into a mass pathology and have done-in vast numbers of humanity when great changes or traumas occur in society, hopefully helps us not to fall into the same hysteria and authorize our leaders to commit genocide in the name of protecting our faith, our country or whatever. Alas, we humans are, as Twain said, the only creatures that blush OR NEED TO!

P.S. Here's one of my favorite lines from the essay that Arthur Miller sticks in THE CRUCIBLE:

"The concept of unity, in which positive and negative are attributes of the same force, in which good and evil are relative, ever-changing, and always joined to the same phenomenon---such a concept is still reserved to the physical sciences and to the few who have grasped the history of ideas."

Clayton, are you out there? Are you reading this? What do you think? Is THE HISTORY OF IDEAS the real hand that rocks the cradle? And, to my classmates, are you one of THE FEW who have grasped the history of ideas"? Let us not forget Mao. Now, there's a guy who was hung up on the IDEA of struggle. What suffering his ideas caused. What do you think?

Long ago I got interested in why we accept as truth some ideas, take them to heart and rule by them. In fact, they may not be true. You only need to look at the evolution of one idea to see that this is true. I like what a teacher once taught me to say, "Are you sure?"

Here's a question for all of you: What is the history of the idea that 13 is unlucky,so unlucky that we don't have a 13th floor in hotels or hospitals? How'd you like to be on the 13th floor in room 13? You'll have to search long and hard to get the correct answer, not the fast one on Google.[Edit by="canaise on Aug 12, 2:31:14 PM"][/Edit]

[Anonymous]

Tuesday August 5th 2008

Prof. Fred Notehelfer, of UCLA on Meiji Restoration
Collapse of Feudal era in Japan and the rise of Meiji

So many high points today. A few that I loved or I think odd facts my students will love - These are basically from my rough notes and not very perfect. A nice reminder of a fantastic speaker. Everything that I can recall - may be fun classroom discussions

If you could not trade you may become a pirate. British ships carrying rice or other goods encountered Japanese pirates.
Japanese at some point are making guns. They learned by looking at what westerns could do. The Japanese looked at what others did and were innovative. 1n the 1570's Japan made tiered firing. Technology wise Japan and Europe were very close.

They killed the children and wives in the past. NOW, they move all the wives and children to Edo to visit the Lords wife and children for a year. Every other year the Lord may go to Edo and bring a whole group of Samurai.
Many armed samurai who left their own wife’s at home have a need for women - so prostitution exists
--remember the Lord is paid in rice. He needs some body to trade rice for something lighter like gold. Foreign trade except for the Dutch is closed. --Everything was based on rice sales.
The Lord could not kill the villagers without real cause. The lord will pay for his services with money he got for his rice. Most villages are small and self sufficient. Villagers must pay their taxes (with rice). The villager may decide he will grow strawberry because he can not grow rice. Hopefully he has surplus and this in a very basic way creates capitalism. In the process of keeping the Lords poor the villagers over many decades grow more diverse crops. So when Feudal lords go broke they borrow from their merchants and are in dept. The lord continues spending borrowed monies/rice DEFICIT SPENDING leads to economic growth. So now Japan has a shift in wealth. The Merchants become richer and the lords more and more in debt. BY THE END OF THE Tokugawa Period we have a significant change of wealth. Merchants now have charters to produce for the … In the country side we begin getting the commercialization of farming. Sometimes there may even be a village head man. No police- samurai were the police. Village head man - if problems happened in a village the head man had to take all the responsibility and he was killed if problems existed
.
Samurai studied for 20 years and are very educated. But are getting poorer. Teachers are hired (samurai) to educate the villagers in the text of farming and teach the people to read and write.
(Many famines are regional) // If your surpluses was in rice that the cost was not going up so what do you do? Many started making Saki’ from rice (brewing was going on!! Virtually they have learned to pasteurize). What the country guys do not know is that the cities have already started brewing. So, 1840’s a warehousing system was established.

When Perry came. The common people were friendly toward westerners offering tea and other hospitalities. Now The Samurai hated foreigners they were (xenophobic??). In the 19th century we westerners have scientific and industrial revolution. The Japanese are now behind. Westerners mounted an expedition fought on sea and on land (Samurai wanted the great guns that the westerners had).

In Japan every human emotion was weighted for pay back. It must be repaid by simple friendship. Country men get 20% less in taxes. Samurai are still spending money - in 1870 they get Tom Cruises the Last Samurai. Samurai self help political movement - late 1870’s at a brewer convention the wealth country boys want “no taxation without representation” -- The country men now become targets of the elite. In 1881 government folds and the country men win. 1881 a Parliament begins. Samurai wants to get a constitution before the country men get theirs. (A man the teacher knows found the documents of the country men in his excavation of an abandoned domain).

The economy in Japan was already in place before the war in the 1930’s.
The surrender of Japan to the west allowed the common people and loyal subjects to stop sacrificing themselves for the government,

When new Meiji government comes there is no national army and they need to get rid of the Samurai. Meiji wants to bring in factories (heavy industry = ship building, arsenals)
--
First son not always had to be constrictable up to now women could inherit property. Everyone had the right to vote yet no one did because the headman (leaders did

Slides and information on Perry included:
whaling expeditions, black ships in 1853/54, Perry brought his troops and lessons of neatness, order, a huge American flag, steam engine, and telegraph,

Now the industrial Revolution comes bringing Bank of Japan, 1st store, stock exchange, 1st tram, expositions, national museum, silk mills that look a lot like British mills.

The emperor blesss the silk factory so women could work.
Sewing machines, new hair cut got rid of top knot, British umbrella, clocks, wheeled vehicles are seen everywhere, ship building and repairs, new buildings and new gates are going in, the imperial Palace.
Samurai live in western buildings, dancing club for westerners Japanese learned to dance which had been forbidden. Eating beef began with Saki and Veg, gold watch, beer is being made, many are using western dress mixed with old.

[Anonymous]

Notehelfer-sensei left me speechless. His lecturing style was described by one participant as "the wind-up and go!" method. But it was more than than- here was a man sharing with us what was clearly one of the most amazing economic feats in world history, and his own awe at the story he weaved was infectious. What was the most interesting century in Japan? The 16th century! (Not the later Tokugawa period? Wha..?) From there he had me in his narrative grip. Farmboys becoming military leaders! Nobunaga and the genius of tiered firing of guns! Ming Dynasty gets out of town (50 miles from the coastline) as the wako bands prowl the Chinese coast! Free cities like Osaka are rising up and finally Ieyasu institutes the system of alternative residency where the regional lords are controlled by the stipulation that wives and heirs must live in Edo (and then they don't want to come home!). All the foreigners were expelled in 1630, the economy was transformed... and this was the beginning of the lecture.
Greatest Regret: No powerpoint for this lecture. A little devastating.
And face it Wyss: you were grinning like a schoolboy the entire three hours.[Edit by="ablackwelder on Aug 27, 5:40:05 PM"][/Edit]

[Anonymous]

The most fascinating idea brought up in Prof. Notehelfer's very eloquent lecture was the idea of banking. Could you imagine carrying hundreds of bale's of rice from cit to city as you traveled to Edo? It seems impossible! What a better way than to establish notes that gave credit for your current rice bales and eventually for future bales. It's also the beginnig of the end where it comes to finances and the lords. The shift of wealth during this period of time is austanding and a hooray for the little guys. Tunring the heirarchy upside down. It also seems tragic, why? Well, the old is abandoned. Plus, in my mind, the sumari always seemed so righteous, little did I know that they were money and power hungry. The shift seems very beneficial to the merchants, who had previously been the low man. Now, while I'm busy celebrating the rise of the common man, I do remember the extents that many commoners took to get a piece of pie and using any "thing" in thier power to gain power. Since women were objects of affection, well then, in this country that produced the first novel by a woman, prostitution becomes a trade.

Throughout the lesson I heard many historical commonalities: power, money, war. Prior to this seminar I had this perscpective that the Japanese were peaceful. Afterall, they have tea ceremonies, Japanese gardens, haiku, samuri. It is clear that they had just as much upheaval as any western country. I'm reminded of Maya Angelou's poem: "We are more alike my friends than we are unalike..." Good or bad, this is true.

[Anonymous]

I loved the image that Professor Notehelfer showed of the Modern Japanese Woman. I found the image online and it is titled, Tipsy (Horoyol). It was painted in 1930 and the artist is Kobayakawa Kiyoshi. I included the link below. For all of my 10th grade World History teachers I am looking forward to using this image when teaching about the brief section on the world between the world wars. How I am going to use it I do not know yet, but when I figure it out I will post it!

http://chronicle.com/photos/v50/i37/5037b191.jpg

[Anonymous]

Well, as I am double checking all my entries, I see that the Notehelfer entry didn't make it for some reason.
I was struck by several things:
Notehelfer's passion for his subject, first of all. This was way beyond "I grew up there, so I know about the history." He is incredibly knowledgeable about Japanese history, but he is very obviously respectful of it, as well. I felt that there were no mistakes, that Japan's history, good and sad, had reason for existing, and he understood that. It made sense, after all, thinking about the social development and cultural development.
Also, I thought the history was really rocky, to say the least...they were traditionalists, no, they were pirates, no, they were still feudal, no, they were warriors, no, they were modernists...etc. Coming through all this, is the incredible Japanese ability to take a look around, reflect, and make adjustments - course correct, so to speak.
I witnessed that when I visited there. There are so many very positive things about the culture that have come about on purpose. Because the emperor said this is how things should be, and the people reflected on it and said okay. That's why I have to think the sex trade will be eradicated, eventually. Even though it seems as though the gov't. regards the female (victims) of the sex trade to be the new "stupid people," I still think they will come to terms with the human rights issue.
Which brings me to the bomb. I thought it interesting that people seem to think it was necessary. I guess I still can't agree. Not when I read accounts of people's skin and muscle falling off their hands like gloves, and children floating down the river, dead. No. They could have demonstrated it somewhere relatively harmless, although I can't even think where that might be, given the outrageous testing in the 'barren' Nevada desert.
I don't know. It's kind of useless speculation at this point, anyway.
I know there are several lessons waiting to be used in Notehelfer's material - I just have to go back and scrutinize the notes and his readings.

[Anonymous]

Professor Notehelfer's session was fascinating but I wished he had gone further in his analysis. It has been my impression that though the daimyo and samurai class social organization gave way to a corporate business model, the notion of bushido did not disappear but was amplified by the adoption western military models and weapons. Soon Japan would be participating in the great colonial game. First a war with China, then one with Russia, and a secret treaty with the United Statees ended with the Japanese annexation of Korea. Joining the allies in WWI, Japan was rewarded with the Carolines, the Marianas and the Marshalls, but gave the German port of Tsintao back to China after capturing it during the war. With the end of WWI, the Japanese and Americans competed in a naval weapons race despite the Washington Naval Treaty. Japan returned to China with a number of "incidents" challenging the Chinese until the outbreak of war in 1937. This, plus Japan's alliance with Germany and Italy, brought friction with the United States resulting in the attack on Pearl Harbor and war in the Pacific. 1945 brought two atomic bombings and an end to the war.

Professor Notefelder felt that the bombing were totally justified and necessary. He brought up the figure of 1,000,000 American casualties associated with "X"-Day and the invasion of Japan. I had thought this fiction had been totally dispelled long ago but apparently not. I respectfully disagreed with him, but pursued it no further. The issue has been highly politicized again since the Smithsonian's attempt to portray the effects on the Japanese in their Enola Gay display. I won't go into all the arguments, but two seem particularly compelling to me. The Japanese had been putting out feelers about surrender for nine months before the bombs were used; and second, most of the major American military commanders ( MacArthur, Nimitz, Halsey, Spatz, LeMay, Eisenhower, and others) thought the bombs were not necessary to end the war, it was already over. http://www.doug-long.com/ga1.htm We always do origami cranes during the Japan unit; this year I think I'll start early and attempt 1,000 cranes in honor of Sadako Sasaki and the other civilian victims at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

[Author]

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