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AnonymousOne of the units I teach was created by the district. It includes clips from the documentary "Happy". One section discusses the idea of Karoshi, gives examples, and even features a song that has been written about Karoshi victims. Karoshi is death caused by overwork/exhaustion.
When we started studying Japan I became interested in post war Japan. The idea of working for the greater good of rebuilding the country seems to be at the root of the problem. People are encouraged to work and produce and discouraged from taking time with family or for recreation. I wanted to know more about Karoshi so I looked up an article on Reuters.com and read "Death by overwork on rise among Japan's vulnerable workers" Tuesday, April 19, 2016. One lawyer indicated that he has been dealing with Karoshi since the 1980's. He said that 95% of his cases used to be middle-aged men in white collar jobs, but now approximately 20% are women.
Another recent change is that it used to be mainly death from cardiovascular illness linked to overwork, but now includes suicide due to work related mental stress. I will use this updated information next year since it is more current than the statistics in the 2011 documentary. Since the unit is a study about happiness and one of the basic ideas is finding balance--I hope the current information will help my students find a good balance as they enter adulthood.
AnonymousAt first I was going to use this as a website review--until I reviewed the criteria and realized that the whole website needs to be Asian focused--not just one page. So I am adding this to my Japan posts because Haiku is a Japanese form of poetry.
http://www.webexhibits.org/poetry/explore_famous_haiku_background.html
This course has led me to look more deeply into areas that I have briefly touched on in the past. Being an English teacher, poetry is a part of my curriculum. I decided to dig deeper into Haiku--since I only had the most elementary understanding of it. I found the above website easy to understand and easy to navigate. This is some place I can send my students to research and learn.
I was researching further into the past of Japanese history--specifically the Heian Period and was interested in the fact that this period was highly cultured and they esteemed the arts. One of the beliefs of that period was that "everything beautiful is fleeting". Since Haiku is brief--and tends to take a snapshot of something natural (and nature never stays the same)--I wonder if Haiku's earlier roots go to this period.
AnonymousThis session was a great help to those of us teaching WWII history in other countries. I think it was interesting to learn about the atrocities as I know we focus more on the holocaust. It could be a good counterpoint and it would help reinforce the concept of some people are just not good people. I also liked the information about wartime Japan as we don’t often hear about their hardships.
AnonymousI found the "Diary of an evacuated schoolgirl" to be the most helpful to classroom studies. I could see using this to teach WWII and have the students look at different parallels. Most students have read the "Diary of Anne Frank" and I think there are many similarities. The fact that major historical events are either left out or not touched on due to the fact these are diaries could be something they could comment on. The fact that Nakene seemed to be unaware that two Atomic weapons were dropped is interesting from a historical perspective. Other things to have students look at could be when she describes her older sister writing that their house was burned down. Nakene writes about how terrible the Americans are and I think that could be really important to have students read about this. Very often we separate the world into good and bad and this is one that shows the gray in between.
AnonymousWow! Professor Yamashita bombarded us with so much information about this horrible event in history. I had never before learned about the role of East Asia in the development of this terrible episode in human history. I do appreciate the readings; now I feel more confident to talk about the details on how Japan paved the road to its destiny. Perhaps, the horrific things that Japan did to other nations cannot be placed on the same scale as the ones done by the Germans, but still both are simply disgusting acts against humanity. Hope the horror of WW II remains in history for many more years to come.
AnonymousLearning the facts leading to Japan’s war in China as well as the Pacific is very interesting, but even more is to learn how quickly they were able to recover economically. I did not know that they had taken technologies from the U.S to start the manufacturing and improving household items, such as the small radio created by Sony electronics. It is pleasing to see that the usage of educated human resources as well as the support of the U. S and the creation of a consuming society, greatly contributed to the economic recovery of the nation. Thanks for all readings professor Yamashita
AnonymousProfessor Yamashita began his lecture with the question “Why did Japan Industrialize?” His short answer was, “because they had to,” it was a do-or-die situation. Like the proverb “necessity is the mother of invention,” Japan had to reinvent itself if it wanted to survive in an age of Euro-American Imperialism.
This would make a good Economics lesson. Japan managed to overcome an unfavorable balance of trade and a lack of homegrown industries and financial institutions. The man credited with turning things around was Prince Matsukata Masayoshi, whose economic reforms helped set the stage for Japan’s industrial rise. He changed the land tax from rice to fiat money, established a central bank, and shaped the growth of Japan’s export industries that would evolve into the zaibatsu system. As a result of Masayoshi’s efforts, Japan reached tariff autonomy by 1911, a favorable balance of trade by 1914, and engaged in an arms race with the United States and Britain.
AnonymousProfessor Yamashita briefly mentioned the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923 when he was setting up the events leading to the attack on Pearl Harbor. I am always interested in the economic, social and political impact of natural disasters on people, and I’ve incorporated disasters from the San Francisco Earthquake to Hurricane Katrina into my class lessons in order to define, compare, and evaluate the short –term and long-term consequences of an event.
The magnitude 7.9 Kantō Earthquake killed 140,000 people and destroyed 70% of Tokyo. Over 570,000 homes were destroyed, leaving an estimated 1.9 million homeless. The quake devastated Japanese Industry—estroying nearly 7,000 factories. In the City of Tokyo alone, 121 bank headquarter offices out of a total 138 were destroyed. 162 hospitals and 117 out of Tokyo’s 196 primary schools also suffered ruin. The physical damage caused by the earthquake amounted to a whopping 30% of Japan’s GDP.
To aid the firms that were damaged by the earthquake, the government created a system that allowed companies to get two-year bank loans that were to be collateralized by their receivables due from the companies affected by the earthquake. In other words, the loans were given to companies based on the value of the debt owed to those companies. This system was also used to help many companies that were in trouble for reasons not related to the earthquake, including firms that had overextended during WWI. The system was to be phased out in two years but was extended for two more years.
The short-term effect of the earthquake was to place a huge burden on Japan’s lending institutions that were already in poor shape after the economic slowdown following WWI. When the central bank proposed to redeem government bonds in 1927, worries that the banks holding the bonds would go bankrupt sparked a banking crisis. The run on banks spelled the end of 37 banks throughout Japan and consolidated control of Japan’s finances in Japan’s first-tier economy. In the long-run, the large financial branches of the five great zaibatsu houses were thus able to dominate Japanese finances until the end of World War II.
AnonymousNew partnerships and strategic business ventures seem on the rise with the excitement around the CES convention. I’m amazed to see the technologies showcased at CES from the latest in 3D printing machinese to vehicle and smart home technology. This digital age has transformed our lives. Asia technology companies are also building larger broadband network equipment and smartphones used in movies like “The Matrix”. Most surprising of upcoming projects include apps that interact with the dead where users can download human consciousness into computers. This reminds me of how the Japanese valued the Yasukuni Shrine. They treated the dead in the same way as if they were alive. Perhaps this technology would generate more business by linking the spiritual world to the digital world.
AnonymousI think contrasting the war diaries is where I would go in the classroom as well. Students identify well with other children, it creates empathy. I think I would use the WWII diaries in my US class and maybe the accounts of children throughout the world sprinkled in every unit. Sometimes our kids don't realize how lucky they are until they read about a child their own age who is suffering.
AnonymousProfessor Yamashita touched on the decision by the Truman administration to drop the atomic bombs on Japan. Although he did not wade into what has been one of the 21st century’s paramount controversies, Yamashita did say that “the Japanese were at the end of their rope,” with starving children, rising internal resistance to the war effort, and massive casualties from B-29 firebombing raids. Although he stopped short of taking sides in the traditionalist vs. revisionist debate over the decision, he did say that the War Department cooked-up the estimated number of U.S. casualties in the case of an invasion of the Japanese homeland. Either way, the United States is still the only country ever to use nuclear weapons against another country, a fact that is not forgotten in Japan.
Last year was the 50th anniversary of the twin bombings in Japan. As I was watching coverage of the official ceremony commemorating the Hiroshima bombing my mind wandered to a Radiolab story I heard on NPR a few years ago. It was about a man named Tsutomu Yamaguchi, who miraculously survived both bombs and still lived to the age of 93 years.
AnonymousThanks to Professor Yamashita for sharing the wealth of knowledge about Early Modern Japan.
Students will explore the social ranks of the Japanese society and understand the complex power structure in Japan. These ideas can be effectively shared with students by examining the Tokugawa Hierarchy order of warriors, farmers, artisans, and merchants and how moving between the social class order was prohibited. Students will also compare and contrast the role of an Emperor and Shogun. One was mainly concerned with religion and culture during this period while the other was concerned with the military life, and thus had more power.
AnonymousProfessor Yamashita’s lecture about Japan and WWII included the fate of members of the Japanese government after surrender. “The nationalists and military leadership kill themselves within two weeks,” he said in class. Minister of War Hajime Sugiyama (who succeeded Tojo) committed suicide by shooting himself four times in the chest with his revolver. At home, Sugiyama’s wife also killed herself, but the one that impressed me was the death of Kamikaze leader Takijirō Ōnishi, who committed ritual suicide (seppuku) the day after Japan’s unconditional surrender.
I haven’t thought much about hari-kari since I was in middle school and it held a certain fascination, but Ōnishi’s death sticks out because he didn’t take the easy way out as many did. Tojo tried to shoot himself like Sugiyama but was unsuccessful, receiving life-saving medical attention—and even new dentures—before being found guilty of war crimes and hanged in 1948. According to Professor Yamashita it took Ōnishi 15 hours to die as he languished in self-inflicted disembowelment. His suicide note apologized to the pilots whom he had sent to their deaths and also stated that his death was penance to the kamikaze pilots and their families. This psychological courage is impressive, and no-doubt makes modern-day nationalists like Prime Minister Abe proud, as evidenced by the fact that the sword Ōnishi used to perform the grisly act hangs proudly in the Yasukuni Shrine.
AnonymousI also agree. “The Rape of Nanking” written by Iris Chang highlighted this terrible chapter in history. Some of the scenes were even shown in the movie theatres with the film “Flowers of War” directed by Zhang Yimou and starring Academy Award winner Christian Bale. Both stories were set in Nanking, China, during the 1937 Second Sino-Japanese War. In the film, a group of Chinese girls try to find sanctuary in a church to escape the horrifying violence of war and showed terrifying scenes about the Nanking Massacre. Both Chang and Yimou did a great service in bringing the crimes committed by the Japanese to our attention.
AnonymousMy first thought when I started reading this was that I could have my students read this and compare it to The Diary of Anne Frank, maybe have them look at how war affects those beyond the front lines - that when countries go to war, so many are affected. But, as I continued to read, it reminds me more of the book, Little Green that my students read last year. It's not nearly as poetic, but very matter of fact. In it, we get a real sense of what was happening at the time. I think what I like most about the diary is that it seems to be an objective record of events. I don't feel her sense of devastation at having been evacuated or read about her staying up at night worrying about where her parents are. There definitely is a lesson about resiliency in this text! Now, if only I could decide where and when to use it in my classroom...