10 things Japan does better than anywhere else
Video of the week:
I found this video so funny that I had to share it.
Days 2290 – 2296
Thursday, June 26 – Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Day 2290 ( )
Thursday, June 26, 2014
The days feel like they are flying away from me. Except for pay day which seems to take forever to come.
Did another recording for a listening test today at the school I'm at. That was pretty much my highlight of the day.
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Day 2291 ()
Friday, June 27, 2014
Had only 1 class today then stared at the walls, and on the computer as well.
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Day 2292 ( The Other Woman)
Saturday, June 28, 2014
A restful Saturday in contrast to last weeks craziness. Stayed in and played games and also watched a movie name "The Other Woman" with Cameron Diaz .....
Actually it has been number 1 in the box office now for some weeks. It was really funny....Had some good laughs from it. I mean it put some of us men in a bad light but yeah it was funny. I give it a 7/10.
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Day 2293 ()
Sunday, June 29, 2014
Stayed in again playing Assassin's Creed Revelations for most of the day.
Today, rode to an area of Toyama where I heard that they were having a flea market. When I got there at about 3pm, I heard that it was already over. The brother of the Jamaican restaurant owner in Toyama, was playing his music system there.
I wanted to get there earlier but the rain was falling and stopping randomly. So I decided to stay in and wait until it stopped for at least 45 mins.
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Day 2294 ( Fire Evacuation Exercise)
Monday, June 30, 2014
They had some sort of fire evacuation drill at the school today after teaching 2 classes.
I haven't done this in years. Actually this was the first time to have a fire evacuation drill since moving to Japan. I've done quite a few earthquake evacuation drills but no fire ones.
The over a thousand students had to run on the field ... class by class.... I'm not sure how effective this will be if a fire actually broke out in the school. I think it took like 5 minutes for all students and teachers to be on the field.
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Day 2295 ( )
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Went to the bank today to transfer some funds...I'm heading back to Jamaica in a bit so hopefully I can save enough to fully enjoy the trip.
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Day 2296 ( Pics of my life at English Club )
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Showed the students at English club some pictures of me growing up threw the years. From
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| Big jump but yeah at 17 |
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| At 25 Thanks Andrew, Kevin, Richard, Suzette and Sheldon ... Couldn't have done it without you guys. |
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| at 33 |
Comments
From what I understand, the Japanese government consciously allowed omission of any mention of it in school textbooks. Yet it might not be just so simple, the process of choosing appropriate curriculum is very cumbersome [4.2]. But Japan is far from the only country rewriting history as many other countries like the US [1, 2] and Russia [3] also stand guilty as charged. Why do this? I surmise it serves Nationalistic endeavors, but even more-so at it's base, as a means to control public knowledge, therefore opinion and ultimately action. These are the dark spots in history that have to be cleaned in the white-washing machine of revisionism [4] to help us, the people, avoid cognitive dissonance caused by having look at the mother (or father) country we love as a murderess. It is my belief that governments, worldwide, force wars on those they govern, the people. It is also my belief that people, worldwide, suffer from various weaknesses, such as herd mentality, which causes them to go with the wicked schemes of the leaders.
Returning to the main issue.
I'll try to paint a 'brief' timeline.
The Textbooks
During the American occupation in post-war Japan Japanese bureaucrats changed existing textbook policy by blotting out passages that might offend the aforementioned occupiers. 1946 the Supreme Command for the Allied Powers in an effort to ensure that textbooks did not encourage emperor-worship and militarism, imposed on the nation a system of government "certification" of schoolbooks. A system still in use albeit in a different manner.
"In Japan, each public and private school selects one history textbook from a list of seven or eight authorized by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (Monbukagakusho) every four years. This screening process then lasts one full year. In the United States (where adoption takes place on no set schedule at the state or local level), for all the talk of alternative means of instruction, the conventional textbook remains the core and often the sole teaching tool in most middle and high school classrooms. Japanese textbook companies submit manuscripts to the Ministry of Education, whose appointed committees examine them according to prescribed criteria. The Ministry offers the textbook companies opportunities to revise their drafts, and copies of the Ministry-approved manuscripts are then available for consideration by the local districts." [4.2]
[1] A fairly recent example from Texas.
1.1http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/culture/texas-school-board-approves-controversial-textbook-changes/954/
[2] This one's a bit older. It's a very chilling piece of history regarding the events taking place in a prosperous little community/district in Tulsa, Oklahoma, called the "Black Wall-Street" which was destroyed in a race riot and subsequently the object of a cover-up.
2.1
http://www.mc.cc.md.us/Departments/hpolscrv/VdeLaOliva.html
2.2
https://web.archive.org/web/20040207121114/http://www.ok-history.mus.ok.us/trrc/trrc.htm
2.3
http://subliminal.org/tulsa/
2.4
http://www.tulsaworld.com/app/race-riot/timeline.html
[3] Apparently the aim here is to create a "single Russian ideology" in an eerily Soviet-esque echo.
3.1
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/debate-rages-over-state-history-textbooks/479289.html
[4] More about Fujioka and the controversy itself.
4.1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobukatsu_Fujioka (as a starting point)
4.2
http://spice.stanford.edu/docs/134 (current home of the article "Examining the Japanese History Textbook Controversies")
4.3
https://web.archive.org/web/20060615162802/http://www.indiana.edu/~japan/Digests/textbook.html (this is where the article by K.W. Masalski, "Examining the Japanese History Textbook Controversies", originally appeared)
[5] Read more about Ienaga and the results of the lawsuits here and in [4.2]
5.1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saburo_Ienaga
5.2
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/dec/03/guardianobituaries.japan
Some additional resources.
It is argued here that (current, I believe) Japanese school curriculum does not "inculcate patriotism" but rather dryly represents facts and events without much interpretation or sentiment.
http://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a00703/
This site, though a bit empty on referental material, a bit more light hearted in spirit, still contains some items of interest.
http://www.tofugu.com/2012/03/22/japanese-textbook-controversy/
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