Test information

March 14th Test on Early History and Calligraphy

For this test, you need to study with the following two things:
1. Calligraphy video transcript
2. My post on the blog about the early history of Japan.


Also, this day is due of the first comparison paper (*see syllabus).

Here are the notes from today's class. Sorry if it looks messy.
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縄文時代1,000BC-300BC Jomon Period
The Oldest Period

-縄文土器Cord-marked (=”Jomon”) pottery vessels
-竪穴式住居Pit houses
-狩猟採集生活Hunting and gathering → 稲作の始まりWet-rice cultivation begins
-土偶”Dogu” Clay Jomon figurines (only female figures)

Cord-marked (=”Jomon”) pottery vessels


























Pit houses










Clay Jomon figurines (Dogu)












======================

弥生時代300BC-AD300 Yayoi Period
The Beginning of Rice Cultivation

-弥生土器 Yayoi pottery (* “Yayoi” is name of the place where the pottery was discovered.)
-竪穴式住居Pit houses
-稲作の広がりWet-rice cultivation spread all over Japan (except Hokkaido and Okinawa)
→ wealth and poverty, formation of clans, fight against each other
-Yamatai koku: Queen Himiko (in Kyushu region or Kinki region):中国との交流開始 International relations/trade with China starts
-銅器、鉄器の始まりfirst use of bronze and iron-edged tools (for agriculture and battle)
-「倭国」country name:“Wa”

Yayoi Pottery












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古墳時代300-710 Kofun Period
The Period of Tumulus, The Beginning of State

-大規模な古墳 Kofun (=ancient tomb)　
＊墳丘墓Mounded Tombs
＊前方後円墳Front-squared and rear round tomb mound
＊埴輪haniwa (sculptures to protect and/or house the spirit of the deceased)
-ヤマト王権Formation of the State: the first state in Japan, “Yamato” emerged.

Front-squared and rear round tomb mound












Haniwa















====================

飛鳥時代593-710 Asuka Period
The Period of Prince Shotoku, The Beginning of “Nihon”

-“Asuka” is the name of the capital city (Today’s Nara)
-推古天皇Empress Suiko
-聖徳太子Prince Shotoku 摂政regent to Suiko
← *Christ-like legendary figure
*十七条憲法seventeen-article constitution
*冠位十二階twelve court ranks　
http://ha7.seikyou.ne.jp/home/wa-mi/naizou/icon/okanmuri.htm
*Prince Shotoku constructed Horyu-ji temple: the oldest wooden building in the world
*Interaction with China: Kenzuishi (Embassies to China)
仏教伝来introducing Buddhism to Japan from China
漢字伝来introducing Chinese characters kanji
------------------------------------------------------
After Empress Suiko and Prince Shotoku died, Soga Clan got control of politics.
→大化の改新604 Taika Reform (or Great Reform): the oldest coup
Prince Nakano Oe (later Emperor Tenji) killed Soga leader:
centralization of power to the emperor

-Name of the country: 倭Wa →日本 Nihon “Origin of Sun”

Prince Shotoku (on 1000 yen bill)







Horyuji temple









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奈良時代710-794 Nara Period
The Period of Buddhism

-平城京Heijokyo capital at today’s Nara
-仏教の隆盛flourishing of Buddhism: the establishment of Buddhism as the state religion
＊東大寺大仏 Daibutsu (Great Buddha statue at Todaiji temple) established by Emperor Shomu and a monk Gyoki

-文学Japan’s 3 oldest literatures
*日本書紀Nihon Shoki (“Chronicles of Japan”)
*古事記Kojiki (“Record of Ancient Matters”)
*万葉集Manyo Shu (“Anthology of 1,000 leafs” *poetic anthology)
<--use of 漢字kanji and 万葉仮名manyo gana:
Development of Japan’s native writing system
Daibutsu (big Buddha statue) in Todaiji temple












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平安時代794-1185 Heian Period
The Beginning of Kyoto as Capital City

-平安京Heiankyo in today’s Kyoto
-武家政治 (Samurai emerged as the guard against bandits →) first Samurai domination of Japan by 平家Heike Clan・平清盛Taira no Kiyomori
-ひらがな、カタカナdevelopment of hiragana, katakana
-女流作家flourishing female writers
*紫式部Murasaki Shikibu「源氏物語」 “Tales of Genji” (*Story)
*清少納言Seisho Nagon「枕草子」 “Pillow Book” (*essay)
-菅原道真Sugawara no Mitizane: Scholar: God of studying and school entrance exam
-空海（弘法大師）Kukai (Kobo Daishi): Monk: The most famous Calligrapher (one of the “Three Brushes”)
＜calligraphy: “Shodo (way of writing)” or “Shuji (learning characters)”＞
*Three Brushes: Kukai (Kobo Daishi), Emperor Saga, Tachibana no Hayanari
*Three major writing styles: Kaisho (Block style, standard script), Gyosho (semi-cursive style, running script), Sosho (cursive style, grass sccript)


Taira no Kiyomori












Murasaki Shikibu

Seisho Nagon













Kukai (Kobo Daishi)











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鎌倉時代1185-1333 Kamakura Period
The Period of the Rise of Samurai’s Power

-“Kamakura” is name of capital city (Kanto region)
-鎌倉幕府Kamakura Shogunate: Samurai government
*“Shogunate” means the government by Shogun (=military general)
*源氏Genji Clan: defeat Heike Clan
*源頼朝Minamoto no Yoritomo: Shogun, leader of Genji clan
*源義経 Minamoto no Yoshitsune:
Yoritomo’s brother in law, played a big role in the battles against
Heike Clan
→Genghis Khan?
*武蔵坊弁慶Musashibo Benkei: monk, Yoshitsune’s follower
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-北条家 Hojo family succeeded the power after Yoritomo’s death.　
＊北条政子Hojo Masako (Minamoto no Yoritomo’s wife)
-元寇Mongolian Invasions on Kyushu by Khubilai Khan * “kamikaze”

Minamoto no Yoritomo

Minamoto no Yoshitsune













Musashibo benkei













Yoshitsune and Benkei










Hojo Masako













Genghis Khan and Khubilai Khan













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室町時代1333-1568 Muromachi Period
The Period of Disorder

-“Muromachi” is name of capital city (Kyoto in Kinki region)
-南北朝時代Northern and Southern Courts period 1336-1392
*南朝 South Imperial Court in Nara：後醍醐天皇Emperor Godaigo
*北朝 North Imperial Court in Kyoto：Ashikaga Takauji<--
Samurai（室町幕府Muromachi Shogunate）
→ 北朝Samurai = Muromachi Shogunate win
----------------------------------------------------------------
-応仁の乱 Onin War: over the successor of Shogun (son vs brother) 11 years
→ son won: the son is physically weak → Shogun’s power declined → 戦国時代warring states period

-禅宗の隆盛Zen Buddhism prospers.
-キリスト教伝来1549 Francisco de Xavier, from Spain, arrived at Kyushu region to preach Christianity.


Emperor Godaigo







Ashikaga Takauji













Francisco de Xavier

What Japanese Movie is Good?

We Japanese program shows two movies at the Japanese Movie Festival every semester.
Usually, we pick one classic Japanese movie such as Kurosawa, Akira's movie, and one contemporary movie.

What kind of Japanese movie would you be interested? or do you have any particular movie that you recommend?

Probably Kurosawa movies are the most highly evaluated movie in the world. But actually in Japan young people like college students are not interested in his movies. Kurosawa movies are maybe too old to them. They go see newer ones, and they like American movies. When I was a college student in Japan, I rarely saw Kurosawa, too. I watch more Japanese movies since I came to America.

Is that similar to Americans? One time I was playing Stevie Wonder song in my car (although I am not really a fan of his), and my American friend laughed at that. Stevie Wonder is too old maybe?

Kyushu region

For Chubu region for first test

Chubu Region Information

Chubu is famous for Temples and Shrines:
The Chubu region produced many military commanders, and many famous castles and sites of former castles known throughout Japan remain in the area even now. Also extant are numerous well-known temples and shrines with connections to these military commanders. Visiting them affords you the opportunity to encounter history.

The 1998 Winter Olympics were held in Nagano, a major city in Chubu region:
The Nagano Olympic stadium was used for the opening and closing ceremonies for the 1998 Winter Olympics.
Japan received 10 metals in all: 5 gold, 1 silver, and 4 bronzes.
The Nagano 1998 Olympics emblem represents a flower, with each petal representing an athlete practicing a different winter sport.

Nagoya Castle:
During the Edo period, Nagoya Castle was the center of one of the most important castle towns in Japan.
During WWII, the castle was used as the District army headquarters and as a POW camp. During the bombing of Japan, by the USAF air raid, the castle was burned down, but has been rebuilt today with some reserved artifacts.

Chubu Region is best known for these three top agricultures:
Tea, Mandarin Oranges, and Rice.

Chubu is also known as Snow Country since it receives some of the heaviest snowfall in Japan. This makes Chubu, Japan’s undisputed winter sports capital with main attractions in Nagano.

Chubu is sake country and Niigata. Which produces rice and some of the most famous beer and sake labels, like Kubota.

It also specializes in green tea.

It’s also known as the handle region, accurately reflecting its two Japanese poles of Kansai. The ‘poles’ of Kansai, are visited by many foreign tourists, and have temples in the mountains.

Three well-known Samurai, celebrated not only in Chubu region as well as the rest of Japan, because they helped shape Japan into one unified country.

Uesugi Kenshin: “God of War” The most powerful lord of his time.
Uesugi Kenshin arranged to put fourth a grand army to defeat all who opposed him, but he died rather suddenly before he could accomplish that.
Uesugi Kenshin’s death was disastrous for his clan. He never had any sons, but adopted two different sons who would be his heirs. Upon their adopted father’s death, the two immediately entered in a power struggle, which cost them everything when they were shortly defeated by another shogun.
Oda Nobunaga: “Spread the militarism over the whole land”
Nobunaga lived a life of continuous military conquest conquering most of Japan before his death in 1582.
Nobunaga was the first of three unifiers, who’s goal was the unity all of Japan.
Militarily, Nobunaga’s revolutionary vision not only changed the way war fought in Japan, but also in turn made one of the most modernized forces in the world at that time.

Tokugawa Ieyasu: The Second most powerful leader of all time.
In 1603, Ieyasu received the title of shogun. Ieyasu was 60 years old. This man reformed the Kanto provinces, controlled and pacified the Hojo samurai and improved the underlying economic infrastructure of the lands.
Following a well-established Japanese pattern, Ieyasu abdicated his official position as shogun in 1605. His successor was his son.

Guest Lectures and Next Class-I rewrited this post.

This is Shoji.
I had to rewrite this post because, in the old post, I asked for your response to the guest lecturers, but I just found out I cannot do that online. The guest lecturers are the candidates for a new Japanese assistant professor position. The guest lectures are a par of the selection, and the selection is still going on. I cannot ask for reviews on them on the internet site which the candidates could see.

Anyway,please don't write reviews on the guests on this site. I'm so sorry for the people who already commented my old post.

The below is my original post.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Sorry for the crazyness of today (Thursday)'s class.

By the way, how did you like the guest lecturers from today and last week?
I appreciate if you could let me know your review on their lectures.

I'll ask the same question again after the next lecturer came next week.

====
Next class schedule
5-6pm: Guest Lecturer
(10min break)
6:10pm-: Test on the northern four regions.
*Please make sure you remember the names of islands and regions with their location on a map of Japan. Also, please memorize the major cities of each region.
*Don't study too much details like numbers such as "population of this city is 10000000" or "area of this region is 100000squre meter."

Class Schedule Changed-2

This is Shoji. Please read through this post.

As you know, our class schedule was changed coz we didn't have time for Kyushu region presentation last week. (I'm sorry, Kyushu people.)
I tried to reschedule the rest of the semester.
I'll put the new schedule below. What do you think about this schedule?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
1/10
Introduction
Distribution of presentation-topics
*Sign up for the Japanese Culture Blog

1/17
School Closed due to Snow

1/24
Japanese Film Festival “Sanjuro” @ COED 010, 5pm

1/31
Presentations: Geography (Hokkaido, Tohoku, Kanto, Chubu region)
Origami (Paper folding)

2/7
Guest Lecture-1
Presentations: Geography (Kinki, Chugoku, Shikoku region)

2/14
Guest Lecture-2
Presentations: Geography (Kyushu region)
Calligraphy

2/21
Guest Lecture-3
1st Test: Geography-A

2/28
1st Test: Geography-B
History (Jomon Period, Yayoi Period, Kofun Period, Asuka Period, Nara Period, Heian Period, Kamakura Period, Muromachi Period)

3/6
Spring Break

3/13
2nd Test: History, Calligraphy
*1st Comparative Paper Due

3/20
History (Azuchi-Momoyama Period, Edo Period)
Tea Ceremony, Traditional Performing Arts (Noh, Kabuki, Bunraku), or Flower Arrangement

3/27
Japanese Film Festival “Umizaru: The Sea Monkey” @ (some good room), 5pm

4/3
3rd Test: History, Traditional Performing Arts
*2nd Comparative Paper Due

4/10
History (Meiji Period, Taisho Period, Showa Period, Heisei Period)

4/17
4th test; History

4/24
Final Presentations-1

5/7
Final Presentations-2

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The main changes are:
1. I divided the first test on geography into two different test (Geography test-A covers northern 4 regions, and test-B covers southern 4 regions) because your presentation covered a lot of information (*I thank you for your good presentations). I thought it might be too much to cover for one test...isn't it?
2. I divided the final presentations into 2 days (at the end of the semester). Just because it took so long last semester when I did this in one day, and some people left before all presentations ended. I felt sorry for the presenters who went last.

Anyway, I'll ask what you think about this new schedule at class tomorrow.


PS: Please try not to sleep in the guest lecture tomorrow.

F-1 in Suzuka

This is just a random post.

I'm from Tsu-city, Mie prefecture in Kinki region.
My prefecture is very rural and the capital city of the prefecture, Tsu-city which is my hometown is the second least populated capital of any prefectures in Japan (The least populated capital is yamaguchi city as in the Chugoku region presentation).
Several years ago, Yamaguchi city consolidated smaller municipalities to be the second least populated capital, then Tsu-city became the least populated capital, but then Tsu-city consolidated small villages around it to be the second least populated city again. Good job my homwtown.

Mie prefecture is famous for some things. Matsusaka beef, Ise Shrine(<-this shrine was in the video we watched in class), and F1(Formula 1 Auto Race) in Suzuka city.
http://mytown.asahi.com/mie/news.php?k_id=25000200712260001
http://mytown.asahi.com/mie/news.php?k_id=25000000802090003


Suzuka Circuit is locaed close to Honda Suzuka factory (my father was working for this factory), and the circuit was long famous for F1. Especially when F1 was a big boom in Japan around 1990, so many people came to Suzuka to see the race. I also went to see the race. The race was on Sunday, so we had to get there Saturday afternoon to get seats and stay there overnight. Me and my friend went there even in the exam week (I didn't care tests at all when I was going to highschool).

F1 in Japan was moved to Fuji Speedway (Chubu region) last year, but the news says it's coming back to Suzuka this year. I'm happy.

I was writing a paper tonight, and I'm so exhausted. I don't know why I'm writing this when I don't have many time. I often do things when I don't have to and make myself more busy. I'll get 4 hours sleep and go to school. By the way is there anybody who is not busy on Monday? I need someone who correct my English in the paper. It's a 3,4-page-long critical review on an article which talks about some research on Japanese learning (I'm taking an applied linguistic class). If you could do this sometime Monday, I'll wait for your textmessage to 704-975-3191. Arigatou! (Thank you)

Shikoku Region

Kinki Region

Kinki Region Presentation

Major Cities of Kinki & Economic Information:

- Kyoto
Former capital of Japan and the residence of emperors from 794 to 1868.
It is famous for its temples, shrines, and other historical sites.
Estimated population: 2.6 million.

- Osaka
Is the financial center of western Japan. It is an industrial center as
well, especially for chemicals, machinery, steel, and metal. Osaka is a
base connecting Tokyo and Kyushu by the Bullet Train. Estimated
population: 2.6 million.

- Kobe
One of western Japan's most important ports for commerce. Estimated
population: 1.5 million.

* Rice and citrus-fruit production, lumbering, and fishing are all
important to the Kinki region's economy.

Temples in Kyoto:

- Nanzenji Temple
Considered the most famous and important Zen temple in the world. Is
home to the Rinzai sect of Zen Buddhism.

- Kiyomizu Temple
Located in eastern Japan and was established in 798.

- Chionin Temple
Home to the Pure Land sect of Buddhism. In October 2002, was used in
the filming of the Tom Cruise movie The Last Samurai.

Japan's Largest Lake:

- Lake Biwa
The largest freshwater lake in Japan. Is located just 10 minutes from
Kyoto. It is divided into a North Lake and a South Lake with an average
depth of the Noth Lake being 50 meters (164 ft.) and the average depth
of the South Lake being 5 meters (16 ft.).

Chugoku Region

It looks kind of screwed up above. You can download the powerpoint file here:
http://webpages.uncc.edu/~baclontz/Chugoku.ppt

Class Schedule Changed

Sorry for mis-time management for today's class.
As I told at the end of today's class, the class schedule on syllabus is changed.
Next week:
5-6pm Guest lecture
-break-
6:10-6:30pm
Kyushu region video and presentation
6:30-
some early history of Japan


The following Thursday
5-6pm Guest lecture
-break-
6:10-
Test on geography

Guns in Japan

This is shoji.
I just ramdomly write about something from an article in Japanese newspapers whenever I feel like to.

2,885 gun owners turning in firearm licenses after uproar over Sasebo rampage
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200802070388.html

The shooting incident in the last December in Japan was such a sensational news in Japan. A guy came into a fitness club and shot his friend and an instructor.
Basically it's banned in Japan to hold a gun, but it's allowed if you pass some test and get a gun license for hunting or whatever. So, most people have never seen a gun in their lives, I guess.

Some years ago me and my friend were at Waffle House near UNCC late at night, and two men suddenly came in and shot the roof. They took money from the cashier and run away. We all had to stay there for about 2 hours and wait for the policemen coming and asking us some questions about the burglars. Everybody looked shocked, and cashiers were crying (and off course I couldn't ask them for serving foods while waiting for policemen. I was hungry and run out of cigarettes, too, damn.) Anyway it was surprising to me that burglars with guns are around my life.

I'm just wondering if having a gun is a negative thing or positive thing here. or maybe people have very diverse opinions about this topic?