Kakuta Haruo---Decoding Japan---

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Location: Sakai, Osaka, Japan

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Medical Checkup at the Foot of Mt. Rokko

Town lights are ascending toward the foot of Mt. Rokko. The view through the window is unbelivably beautiful. The unbelievability is highlighted by the fact that the building I am in is a hospital. I am staying here for an anual medical checkup. Tsukaguchi Station had been renewed after my last stay here, 6 years ago. The Daiei supermarket was replaced by the Ikari supermarket, a celebrated supermarket chain around Ashiya, a high-class residential town between Osaka and Kobe. Those suggest the area around here has been bouncing back from the aftermath of the Hanshin earthquake. I just hope newly-built houses creeping up the hill will never get to the top of the mountain.

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Shinsen-gumi Pilgrims

After getting off the train at Omiya Station we walked down for a block, and turned West into Aya-koji Alley, where we could already find a couple of sightseeing groups. The Mibu area, where we were visiting, was not a busy one. We scarecely found neighbouhood people walking or driving. All the visitors were wandering around looking for memorial buildings and monuments of Shinsen-gumi, a militia formed to maintain "the public peace of Kyoto" at the end of Edo Period, or 'bakumatsu' in Japanese. My family is not exceptional of course. My younger daughter is a Shinsen-gumi freak, rather a 'bakumatsu' freak. Any society at any time has varieties of freaks in it, I suppose. In today's Japanese society, some freaks love to have a pilgrimage to certain "sacred" places. The sacred places for Shinsen-gumi freaks are centered in Tokyo and Kyoto. Many central figures in Shinsen-gumi were born and raised in or around Edo, today's Tokyo. They moved to Kyoto, but some even visit the Nothmost island, Hokkaido, to visit Hakodate, where Hijikata Toshizo, a longtime comrade of Kondo Isamu, were killed in a fight against the new imperial government. My younger daughter is a Shinsen-gumi freak, too. In front of Yamanimi Keisuke's grave, I asked:
"Why was Yamanami killed?"
"It was Mr. Yamanami that was killed."
"Ah, yes, sorry. Then, why was Mr. Yamanami killed"
She gave me a detailed explanation of the incident. It is amazing (or relieving?) to find many more Shinsen-gumi freaks in the world, I mean, besides my daughter. In front of Kawai's grave, a girl in her teens screamed, "How happy I am to be able to see even his grave!" The grave feelings the pilgrims gave me reminded me of the fact that we Japanese people have prefered doing not only religious pilgrimage but also cultural one. A famous medieval poet, Matsuo Basho, for example, traveled around today's Tohoku area following the spots where ancient poets composed well-known poems. That type of trips used to be very popular during Edo period. Shinsen-gumi-freak young girls might be god-sent children in Japanese culture.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Shinsen-gumi Freaks

We got off the train at Omiya Station along Hankyu Kyoto Line. We had had to change from a rapid train to a local train at Katsura Station. That suggests the Mibu area, where we were going to visit, is not, and was not a busy one. Shinsen-Gumi, a militia formed to maintain "the public peace of Kyoto" at the end of Edo Period, started their services as militiamen at Mibu, and stayed there for about 3 years. The location of their first station suggests that they were not welcomed by Kyoto people at the time. We walked down from the station for a block, and turned West into Aya-koji Alley. Koen-ji is on the North of the alley, and has Ymanami Keisuke's grave. He was forced to commit 'seppuku' because he tried to leave the militia. Maekawa-tei Residence was the second destination. As Shinsen-Gumi expanded their militant services and the number of their members, some members stayed at the residence. It still preserves its storehouse which used to be used as a torture room. Yagi-tei Residence was in 'Kitayama-shigure,' a typical cold rain in Kyoto. The residence was the third but main destination of today. There were 2 guides, and they guided their guets in turn. The system suggested that the place would enjoy considerable amount of visiters. A guide made unimportant talks about Kyoto and the 'Bakumatsu' period, the years at the end of Tokugawa Shogunate. When he started explaining about the 200-year-old house,the room was already full of Shinsengumi pilgrims. The area used to be a farming village. Yagi family was a 'goshi,' a farmer with clarification as a 'bushi.' That enabled the family to keep a fairy big residence, and that, unluckily, was one of main reasons why the family had to accept militiamen. The residence's entrance hall keeps some weapons. It has a beautiful garden with rare 'Rengeji-gata toro,' a garden lanturn with Rengen-ji Temple style. Its building has 'kaze-no-tori-michi,' a Kyoto style structure which enables cool winds breezes through lightly in summer, when the weather is sultry and close. The structure helped the Kondo faction clean up Serizawa faction. Serizawa Kamo was the first director of the militia. The purge, or the killing, enabled Kondo Isamu to become Serizawa's successor. We then visited Mibu-dera Temple. The temple used to be used as a drill ground, and still has the grave of Kawai Kisaburo. He was beheaded because of embezzling some money of the militia. Some believe it was Kondo himself who embezzled the money. After lunch we walked along Abura-koji Alley. We found 2 stone monuments for the militiamen. The first one was for Nakai Seigoro and others, who were attacked by their enemies. The second was for Ito Kashiro and others. They splintered off from Shinsen-gumi because their idea was pro-Emperor while the leading faction's was pro-Shogunate. We tend to believe the people at the time was clearly divided along the line pro-Emperor vs pro-Shogunate, but the incident suggests the real situation was much more confusing. There also used to be a division between between the idea to exclude foreigners and the idea to open national borders. The number of combination could, at least, be 4. The number, however, was multipled due to some communal feelings. So it is no suprise that Kondo and Ito had been in the same militia, but the times splitted them. Many other militias answered one another's violence with violence. Today's Kyoto is full of memorials for those who were sacrificed during the period. We had been lucky anyway, because we hadn't had plastic bombs yet then. Otherwise Kyoto might have become quite like a Bagdad today. We payed our last visit at Fudo-do near Kyoto Station. There Kondo finally won a daimyo-manshion-like station for his militia, just for 6 months though. Now the place is occupied by a gorgeous hotel, which disappointed my Shinsengumi-freak daughter a lot, who had been expecting for seeing the realization of Kondo's dream, a vast Japanese-style manshion with many memorials. 'Natsu-kusa ya, tsuwamono domo ga yume no ato' (Matsuo Basho) Summer weeds, (which cover) the site of warriors' dreams.

Saturday, February 10, 2007

January 2007

The number of frameworks which a person's cognition has is limited. The number may increase or decrease along the life cycle of the person. Stories depicted through too few frameworks might seem to be lies.
Everything has something to do with cognition, that is what our cognitive frameworks are like
Globalization will never let us settle in a native cognition. Instead, we are forced to float from one cognition to another. If we don't want it, we should keep cognition forced to us in ourselves, so as to have them co-live in ourselves.
The person-centered care of Tom Kitwood. How about the person-centered education? What about the person-centered diplomacy, or the person-centered international communication?
The individualism revolution is going on all over the world. It is unavoidable. The revolution consists of commoditization of individuals and globalization of labour market, that is each individual person has to sell his labour power at the global labour market.
The evolutional development of the life course. The cognition of the life course develops evolutionally, that is it develops as we walk along our own life course. Counseling students on their choosing colleges to enter.
Teachers train themselves as they coach students. That can be safely said even teaching essay writing. Their coaching abilities enhanced through the process will work when they are supposed to tutor their students.