Session #4 - March 11, Katsuya Hirano

[Brenda-Jean Shephard]

Interesting that in the case of the Emishi, they had horses, armor, and more advanced weapons such as swords before the Yamato.  I wonder if there have been other historical exceptions to the general rule of the invaders/conquerors having better technology.

[Kim Leng]

In Hirano’s “The Treatment of Natives,” the Ainu people, living in Hokkaido, were referred to as “tsuchigumo” or “dirt spiders” and many were killed by the colonizers. The fact that Japan’s history is not a homogenous one is new to me.  I don’t recall learning about the Ainu people.  When teaching about Japan’s history, let’s teach our students about the Ainu people.  I found some interesting articles about the Ainu people here:

Japan prepares law to finally recognize and protect its indigenous Ainu people (Washington Post)

How Japan’s Bear-Worshipping Indigenous Group Fought Its Way to Cultural Relevance (Smithsonian)

According to “How Japan’s Bear-Worshipping Indigenous Group Fought Its Way to Cultural Relevance,” the Ainu had a name for the Japanese people.   “The Ainu call ethnic Japanese Wajin, a term that originated in China, or Shamo, meaning colonizer. Or, as one Ainu told a researcher: people whom one cannot trust.”  From “dirt spiders” to “people whom one cannot trust,” it is interesting to know the words of both the colonizers and the native inhabitants and how such words were used to disparage each other.  I liked Dr. Hirano’s final thought regarding the history of “barbarism.”  He said to “approach history with suspicion.  Who’s telling the story?”

[Dan Thalkar]

Similarly to many others, I was particularly struck by the treatment of indigenous groups in ancient "Japan". This is a history of which I was completely unaware, and learning how these actual events morphed into mythology was fascinating. There are, unfortunately, many parallels to how the U.S. government - and other governments around the world, such as Australia - have treated indigenous peoples and then washed over their histories. It would be fascinating to have students compare/contrast these different narratives and also the different ways indigenous groups have resisted throughout history. 

I am also intrigued by a question posed at the end of last night's lecture - What is the difference between myth and history? That question could also lead to a fun and engaging unit with students. 

[Dan Thalkar]

Linda,

Your emphasis on language here is fascinating. It would be interesting to look more into how language is used by colonizers to dehumanize populations and how language has also been used to reclaim/resist the colonizer's gaze. 

[Dennis O'Connell]

Perhaps what I appreciated most about Session 4 was the emphasis on who writes history.  A historian really needs to evaluate sources and understand the perspective of the one writing that source.  I think this could be an incredibly rich and valuable discussion to have with students.  Where do we get our information about Asia?  Is it from Asians themselves or from outsiders who are attempting to infiltrate Asian markets?  Within Asia, how do we know about various people groups?  Is it from the people themselves or from the perspective of their conquerors?  Are there differernt ways to view the same circumstances?    Does might make right?  Is that the only voice worth hearing?  How can we give voice to the voiceless in history?  The teaching and learning of history can become so much richer as we take into consideration all the voices from the past.  

[Stephanie Rodriguez]

Okay so I got really excited about some of the things I got from this lecture.

1) he asked us what our students know about Japan and we started talking about anime, and then we talked about some history books that are anime. So here's my idea lets have students show what they know about the history lessons by creating an anime magazine. This would include talking about the features of an anime comic book.

2) We talked about how history is always changing, and that really stuck with me. I feel like because it includes dates and facts, history is rarely seen as objective and it is important to present history through that lense.

3) Japanese history is so complicated, but its not the only country like that, we can easily say that about every single country. I really like how Japan refers to their history as "modern Japanese history" and "ancient Japanese history" it honors the history of the past, while simultaneously teaching the modern one (the one usually found in text books). I wish more countries did this, this I something I want to teach and then have my students reflect on comparing how Japan presents their history versus how we present ours.

 

[Jimmy Martinez]

I really enjoyed the lecture for session #4 and enjoyed learning more about Japan, which I know very little about. One thing that struck me as very interesting was that the Japanese government refuses to let excavation of their important historical sites because of the possibility that it would take away from the originality of the culture. The possibility of having connections of ancestry to Korea must anger the Japanese government greatly. The best line from professor Hirano was that "There is no such thing as a homgeneous society." I think this is such a powerful line because it shows that no society is purely one race. This nationalistic way of thinking can obviously lead to views of racism and eventually lead to genocide. 

[Tiffany Chang]

Session 4 was very eye-opening since my knowledge about Japan is limited. In society, people are trying to change the viewpoints by telling their own story, to show the other side of history. What really stuck out to me was that history is often written by the conquerors. We continuously talk about how history repeats itself, especially about not starting up wars again, but with people in power or who want to gain power/status, it seems as though that is always the story that will be written. The thought provoking question was, "Why do histories always have to have a national adjective?" such as Chinese history or American history. The history of these people are so widespread that it really could be even more specific, but it is crucial to talk about who wrote the history. I want to challenge my students to see who wrote our textbooks, who wrote the documents, and who are people groups that may have been left out of the story. 

[Scott Craig]

It's horrifying to see the amount of genocide that has been committed throughout the history of the world. What's even more horrifying is to see the genocide that is going on today! For all the developments and evolving humans have done, there's still way too much cruelty and inhumanity in the world.

[Scott Craig]

This is one of the things I constantly point out to my students is that they need to question the source and look for bias and agenda. I really love Stanford's History Education Group's "Reading Like a Historian" resources. They have so many activities and lessons that help students ask the very questions you did about various sources of information. It really is a great way to get students to see that history doesn't have just one answer.

[Gerlinde Goschi]

I enjoyed Prof. Hirano's lecture.  The most eye opening for me was the treatment of Natives as mentioned by my peers above.  However, a quote in one of the slides shown by the professor intrigued me.  It was the following:

"Law is always present from the beginning in the social order:it is to put order into a pre-exising state of nature.  For as the codification of both prohibitions and positive injunctions, the law is a constitutive element of the politico-social field." These words are from a Greek political sociologist and philosopher, Nicos Poulantzas, who offered Marxist contributions to the analysis of fascism, social class and the collapse of dictatorship in Southern Europe in the 1970s.(source: https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/nicos-poulantzas-philosopher-of-democratic-socialism)

 

 

[Gerlinde Goschi]

Thank you for posting these articles.  The history of the Ainu People is fascinating and eye opening for me.  I enjoyed reading the article and to learn that the Japanese government is ready to make ammends.  Many governments today are not ready to make ammends with the past and it was refreshing to read that Japan is not one of them in this case.  I was reminded of the disappearance of the Manchu language when I read that only 13,118 identify as Ainu on the island of Hokkaido, but only a handful speak language.  This was also eye-opening.

[Linda Gonzales Diaz]

Hi Dan, I agree that looking at the language colonizers use is an important feature of history and worth investigating further with students. Helping students identify that the rhetoric used when colonizing and conquering other cultures tends to repeat itself, regardless of the time and location; past and present, east and west. I hope that teaching our students the mistakes of the past will help them building a better future. because they will be able to see the recurrent theme happening.

[Christine Moguel]

So much new information to process after this lecture.  I am reflecting back on my notes and the sheer way in with the natives were treated with such contempt is sad.  I learned so much about how barbaric -literally and figuratively the situation was during this pre modern period. 

"The original inhabitants are called tsuchigumo, translated as "dirt spiders," and are killed by the Yamato indiscriminately whenever they are encountered.  No attempt is made to bring them into alliance.  This is straight genocide as we would call it."  

I am still thinking about how I would modify the content in this topic for my students.  I guess I could explain it somehow resembeling a horror movie of some sort or a gory anime series set in pre- modern japan.  

[Salbador Gonzalez]

Session #4 on the part of the history of Japan was eye opening in making me realize the limited amount of history I know about Japan compared to China. What caught my attention was the changing of the capital from Yamato, to Nara and Kyoto, to Tokyo in present day Japan. This session made me realize that all I know about Japan is sushi and samurai's. This realization only makes me wonder about the many questions Japan has about their history as well as the rest of the world. 

Professor Hirano stated a great question about always questioning who wrote the history, women, men, the poor, or natives and how different would each perspective seem to the public. Japan's history should make the world question their own history writers as well as we all write based on what we're read from certain historians. 

And paraphrasing Professor Hirano, Walter Benjamin’s statement, “there is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism,” means the following: any civilizations have the history of barbarism precisely because they produced barbarians by demonizing, marginalizing, conquering or annihilating other civilizations. 

This statement made me realize that we are all a product of barbarians who have demonized someone to worship another. 

 

[Author]

Posts