To Taiwan with Students (revised)

It does not always mean you have had a delayed flight when you are behind your schedule during your tour abroad. Our plain arrived at Taoyuan International Airport about a half hour earlier than its flight schedule. However, a bus had trouble, and that caused one class to leave the airport well behind the schedule.
Good luck and bad luck come in turn. The delay forced us to go to Zhongzheng Memorial at dusk. As we climbed the steps to the memorial hall, dusk fell, the buildings and monuments were lit up, and the park itself was surrounded with the lit skyscrapers. Breath-taking beauty spread around us. The lit gate at the other end of the park seemed to be open to a completely alien world.

Next morning, we were in a completely alien world. As we headed to Zhongshan Girls' High School in buses, motorbikes ran around like speeders in Star Wars, cars ran head-to-head as if to make defense against the bikes, and even a public-transportation bus cut in front of ours like a battleship. What a dazzlingly exciting world we were in!
In the high school, each of our students was introduced to their buddy. The Zhongshan buddies escorted our students to a hall where a welcome ceremony was held. Familiar lengthy speeches started. Students, both ours and theirs, familiarly started buzzing. It was, however, rather surprising that as many as 2 broadcasting companies came to take footage. One crew, to my real surprise, picked up two pairs of students and led them out of the hall to have an interview. As the ceremony went on, another crew naturally started interviewing another few pairs of students in the hall. A Japanese photographer who was accompanying our tour was taking pictures, in contrast, with reserve.


Jiufen used to flourish in its gold rush days, and revived itself with tourism, instead of becoming a ghost town. A famous Taiwanese movie, Feiqing Chengshi (A City of Sadness), was filmed here. The imaginary town in the Japanese movie, Spirited Away, was inspired by this town. These two films have helped the town attract Japanese tourists as well as domestic ones.
When we visited Jiufen, its streets were full of tourists. We increased the number by more than hundred. Japanese words other than our own reached our ears. It sounded like many Japanese tourists were there.
Jiufen's narrow, crooked and steep streets reminded me of the scenes when I visited antique posting stations and temple towns in Japan. The streets were sandwiched between souvenir shops, small eating houses, and some other mysterious storefronts. As we sauntered along the streets, various smells swirled around us; a sugary scent from the Chinese sweets shop, and the strong odor of stinky tofu among others.
The last street abruptly opened, and the lookout at the end commanded a bay and its port town, Jilong, far down the hills. The misty rain heightened a rather exotic mood.
Returning from the lookout gave our students shopping opportunities. Some raided a calligraphy shop to ask to draw their names and favorite phrases in snake-like letters. A couple of students looked for lucky-charm stones. Many others were having a look in various souvenir shops.
Jiufen was sufficiently an attraction.

In Japan, some mimic post-World-War-II Showa streets have been built to attract domestic Japanese tourism. They give baby boomers nostalgia.
There is a reason why Jiufen evokes nostalgia for some Japanese tourists.
The Meiji Restoration Government in Japan launched an expedition to Taiwan in April 1874. In May, the Qing Dynasty in China began to send in troops to the island. The government of Japan realized the Japanese Imperial Regime was still not ready to fight for a supremacy over the East Asia with the Qing Dynasty, and decided to withdraw its forces by the end of the year.
The First Sino-Japanese War broke out between the Qing Dynasty and the Meiji Loyalist Government in 1894, over control of Korea. Following its defeat, China ceded Taiwan to Japan in the Treaty of Shimonoseki, signed on April 17, 1895.
In 1893, gold had been discovered in the Jiufen area. The resulting gold rush made the town prosperous during the Japanese rule. Many present features of Jiufen reflect the era under Japanese colonization, with many Japanese inns surviving to this day.

Domestic Japanese tourists are also attracted to ethnic towns and restaurants in Japan. We have come to have a couple of mimic China towns both in Tokyo and Osaka, along with traditional genuine China towns in Yokohama, Kobe, and Nagasaki. Both kinds of China towns attract tourists because of their exotic atmosphere.
Jiufen streets look exotic, authentically Chinese, to us. As the town is in Taiwan, it is not surprising that the town bears a Chinese ambiance, despite the controversy over whether the island is a part of the Republic of China, the People’s Republic of China, or an independent country. The controversy caused the 228 Incident, or also known as the 228 Massacre, on February 28, 1947. In 1989, Hou Hsiao-hsien's film touched on the incident, and became a big hit. Jiufen, where the film was set, revived thanks to the film's popularity. The nostalgic scenery of Jiufen charmed many Taiwanese people into visiting the town. The tourist boom even increased retro-Chinese style cafes, tea houses, and souvenir stores.

Jiufen gives us both exotic and retro feelings.


It is always fun and exciting to see how our students behave in a different culture. This time, I could even observe how Taiwanese students react to our students.
In Zhongshan Girls' High School, some of our boy students were very popular. I was wondering if they had been, or would be, so popular in Japan. So many girls, so many minds. Cultural differences seem to have even varied the minds.

Chinese cuisine is one of the three best food in the world, and is one of our choices when we dine out in Japan. Having Chinese food every day, however, is another thing, especially when the dishes are genuine and are not modified for Japanese tastes.
One girl student got sick in her stomach, and had to spend her afternoon with me at a cafe along Tanshui Beach. She had a cup of tea, and I had a cup of coffee, as we spent more than 2 hours on the deck of the shop. A middle-aged Chinese man was playing the ocarina as a kind of a street musician near the shop across the promenade. He seemed to have just 4 or 5 songs in his repertoire. As we heard him perform many cycles of his songs, sipping our cups, a marvelous purplish orange sky ceded itself to the dusk. Spotted lights romantically twinkled along the beach. Taiwanese couples started filling the beach, in stead of their predecessors, families and large groups of people. The girl was unluckily fated to be entertained with the middle-aged man's music together with another middle-aged man at her table.

Last-minute shopping is always busy and thrilling in the airport. It's a challenge to try to use up your last penny. After going through the embarkation procedure, some girls were busy purchasing further souvenirs including brand cosmetics, other girls were visiting fast food restaurants to use their last pennies, some boys had given up and were making a long line to exchange their Taiwanese currency, wasting their time and charge for remittance, or they might have been paying their charges to Taiwanese officials to show their gratitude for the friendliness of Taiwanese people.
The time had come for the students to come to the boarding gate. Three girl students were still missing. They must have been those who asked me the whereabouts of Starbucks in the airport. When I started worrying if I should go all over to the other end of the airport, I found three girls rushing toward us along the long corridor. There came the three girls, with their last memory in Taiwan clutched to their bosom, a Taipei Starbucks cup.

Korean Road in Osaka

I got off at the Momodani Station. From the southern edge of the station, the Momodani shopping mall stretches eastward for almost 4 miles, slightly winding. The shopping mall surely is an exceptionally up and lively one, with only a few stores shuttered. These days in Japan, a shopping mall in front of a station is a byword of the depression, with many stores in it shuttered.
As is often the case with shopping malls in Osaka, the mall has many kona-mon shops. Kona-mon is the higher category of tako-yaki, Ika-yaki, okonomi-yaki, and the likes. 'Kona' means powder. 'Mon' means a thing or things, or food here. In Japan, grains other than rice are usually ground into powder, and the powders are made into noodles, dumplings, cakes, or crackers.
As you walk along the mall, you find it exceptional not only because of its liveliness, but also because of its slightly exotic vibes. At the end of the mall, you turn left, north, and walk for another mile. Turn right, east, to walk into Miyuki-mori Shrine, out of it, and you are magically in a different world. Welcome to Korean Road in the Ikuno board, Osaka.
Korean Road, which runs west to east, is a shopping street with so many Korean stores and shops with signs in the Hankul alphabet. Some sell kimchi, some others meat, and still others Korean groceries, clothes, gadgets etc. Of course, you can find varieties of Korean food restaurants and shops.
After another mile along the street, turning right, south, you find Miyuki-mori Elementary School on your left. According to a teacher there, 40% pupils there have either North Korean or South Korean nationality. The number goes up to 70% when you include those with Korean roots. Here, the minority in Japanese society are the majority.

Jiufen

Jiufen used to flourish in its gold rush days, and revived itself with tourism, instead of becoming a ghost town. A famous Taiwanese movie, Feiqing Chengshi (A City of Sadness), was filmed here. The imaginary town in the Japanese movie, Spirited Away, was inspired by this town. These two films have helped the town attract Japanese tourists as well as domestic ones.
When we visited Jiufen, its streets were full of tourists. We increased the number by more than hundred. Japanese words other than our own reached our ears. It sounded like many Japanese tourists were there.
Jiufen's narrow, crooked and steep streets reminded me of the scenes when I visited antique posting stations and temple towns in Japan. The streets were sandwiched between souvenir shops, small eating houses, and some other mysterious storefronts. As we sauntered along the streets, various smells swirled around us; a sugary scent from the Chinese sweets shop, and the strong odor of stinky tofu among others.
The last street abruptly opened, and the lookout at the end commanded a bay and its port town, Jilong, far down the hills. The misty rain heightened a rather exotic mood.
Returning from the lookout gave our students shopping opportunities. Some raided a calligraphy shop to ask to draw their names and favorite phrases in snake-like letters. A couple of students looked for lucky-charm stones. Many others were having a look in various souvenir shops.
Jiufen was sufficiently an attraction.

In Japan, some mimic post-World-War-II Showa streets have been built to attract domestic Japanese tourism. They give baby boomers nostalgia.
There is a reason why Jiufen evokes nostalgia for some Japanese tourists.
The Meiji Restoration Government in Japan launched an expedition to Taiwan in April 1874. In May, the Qing Dynasty in China began to send in troops to the island. The government of Japan realized the Japanese Imperial Regime was still not ready to fight for a supremacy over the East Asia with the Qing Dynasty, and decided to withdraw its forces by the end of the year.
The First Sino-Japanese War broke out between the Qing Dynasty and the Meiji Loyalist Government in 1894, over control of Korea. Following its defeat, China ceded Taiwan to Japan in the Treaty of Shimonoseki, signed on April 17, 1895.
In 1893, gold had been discovered in the Jiufen area. The resulting gold rush made the town prosperous during the Japanese rule. Many present features of Jiufen reflect the era under Japanese colonization, with many Japanese inns surviving to this day.

Domestic Japanese tourists are also attracted to ethnic towns and restaurants in Japan. We have come to have a couple of mimic China towns both in Tokyo and Osaka, along with traditional genuine China towns in Yokohama, Kobe, and Nagasaki. Both kinds of China towns attract tourists because of their exotic atmosphere.
Jiufen streets look exotic, authentically Chinese, to us. As the town is in Taiwan, it is not surprising that the town bears a Chinese ambiance, despite the controversy over whether the island is a part of the Republic of China, the People’s Republic of China, or an independent country. The controversy caused the 228 Incident, or also known as the 228 Massacre, on February 28, 1947. In 1989, Hou Hsiao-hsien's film touched on the incident, and became a big hit. Jiufen, where the film was set, revived thanks to the film's popularity. The nostalgic scenery of Jiufen charmed many Taiwanese people into visiting the town. The tourist boom even increased retro-Chinese style cafes, tea houses, and souvenir stores.

Jiufen gives us both exotic and retro feelings.

To Taiwan with Students

It does not always mean you have had a delayed flight when you are behind your schedule during your tour abroad. Our plain arrived at Taoyuan International Airport about a half hour earlier than its flight schedule. However, a bus had trouble, and that caused one class to leave the airport well behind the schedule.
Good luck and bad luck come in turn. The delay forced us to go to Zhongzheng Memorial at dusk. As we climbed the steps to the memorial hall, dusk fell, the buildings and monuments were lit up, and the park itself was surrounded with the lit skyscrapers. Breath-taking beauty spread around us. The lit gate at the other end of the park seemed to be open to a completely alien world.

Next morning, we were in a completely alien world. As we headed to Zhongshan Girls' High School in buses, motorbikes ran around like speeders in Star Wars, cars ran head-to-head as if to make defense against the bikes, and even a public-transportation bus cut in front of ours like a battleship. What a dazzlingly exciting world we were in!
In the high school, each of our students was introduced to their buddy. The Zhongshan buddies escorted our students to a hall where a welcome ceremony was held. Familiar lengthy speeches started. Students, both ours and theirs, familiarly started buzzing. It was, however, rather surprising that as many as 2 broadcasting companies came to take footage. One crew, to my real surprise, picked up two pairs of students and led them out of the hall to have an interview. As the ceremony went on, another crew naturally started interviewing another few pairs of students in the hall. A Japanese photographer who was accompanying our tour was taking pictures, in contrust, with reserve.

Jiufen used to flourish in its gold rush days, and revived itself with tourism, instead of becoming a ghost town. A famous Taiwanese movie, Feiqing Chengshi, was filmed here. The imaginary town in the Japanese movie, Spirited Away, was inspired by this town. These two films helped attract both domestic and Japanese tourists.
Its streets looked retrospective. I went into a public lavatory, which looked modern. However, it had, as expected, no toilet paper. It was a flush toilet, but it had a bin to put used paper in.

It is always fun and exciting to see how our students behave in a different culture. This time, I could even observe how Taiwanese students react to our students.
In Zhongshan Girls' High School, some of our boy students were very popular. I was wondering if they had been, or would be, so popular in Japan. So many girls, so many minds. Cultural differences seem to have even varied the minds.

Chinese cuisine is one of the three best food in the world, and is one of our choices when we dine out in Japan. Having Chinese food every day, however, is another thing, especially when the dishes are genuine and are not modified for Japanese tastes.
One girl student got sick in her stomach, and had to spend her afternoon with me at a cafe along Tanshui Beach. She had a cup of tea, and I had a cup of coffee, as we spent more than 2 hours on the deck of the shop. A middle-aged Chinese man was playing the ocarina as a kind of a street musician near the shop across the promenade. He seemed to have just 4 or 5 songs in his repertoire. As we heard him perform many cycles of his songs, sipping our cups, a marvelous purplish orange sky ceded itself to the dusk. Spotted lights romantically twinkled along the beach. Taiwanese couples started filling the beach, in stead of their predecessors, families and large groups of people. The girl was unluckily fated to be entertained with the middle-aged man's music together with another middle-aged man at her table.

Last-minute shopping is always busy and thrilling in the airport. It's a challenge to try to use up your last penny. After going through the embarkation procedure, some girls were busy purchasing further souvenirs including brand cosmetics, other girls were visiting fast food restaurants to use their last pennies, some boys had given up and were making a long line to exchange their Taiwanese currency, wasting their time and charge for remittance, or they might have been paying their charges to Taiwanese officials to show their gratitude for the friendliness of Taiwanese people.
The time had come for the students to come to the boarding gate. Three girl students were still missing. They must have been those who asked me the whereabouts of Starbucks in the airport. When I started worrying if I should go all over to the other end of the airport, I found three girls rushing toward us along the long corridor. There came the three girls, with their last memory in Taiwan clutched to their bosom, a Taipei Starbucks cup.

Haru ya Mukashi (translation) (5)

On the day, Shin-san was walking along Dai-Kaidoh Street in the castle town, and was hailed by
"Uncle Ikeuchi,"
who was an ex-samurai. His name is Ikenouchi Nobuo. He is an old man, who used to hold a superintendent office of infantry samurai with Hiragoroh, and has been associating with Akiyama Family as close as relatives. For your information, the man's fourth son is named Kiyoshi, who will be adopted to Takahama Family, and will make haiku poet, Takahama Kyoshi.
"Rare sight, isn't it?"
Thus said Uncle. He says to regard him a curiosity more. In the third year of Meiji, the Prefecture allowed, or even recommended, ex-samurai to change their jobs to farming or commerce, and to live in where they want to. Ikeuchi Nobuo thought living in the caste town any more would lead them only to starvation, made the registration quickly to be a farmer, was given the gratuity of housing expenditure and outfit allowance by the Prefecture, and moved to Nishi-no-shita Village at Kazahaya County in the Prefecture with the whole family. Today, he comes to the castle town after a long while, so he insists to be thought "a curiosity more."
"We mustn't stand talking."
Thus Uncle looked around. Standing chatting is what town people and peasants do, and samurai must not do that. He cannot get rid of the custom from ex-Clan's days. As he looked around, he found a bench in front of a haberdashery. It was at the entrance of the shop that bears no relation to him, but he sat on it without permission. That shows he cannot get rid of the custom to be arrogant against town people.
"Do you know?"
Asked Uncle. Shin-san asked standing, "What are you talking about?"
"So you don't know it yet. They started a teachers college in Osaka. This is, you know, a free school."
Thus he told a serious information. Shin-san was surprised and asked again only to be replied:
"I don't know its details. However, what's the matter that your father, Hiragoroh, who works for the educational affairs section of the Prefecture, has't told you the information yet. Well, sometime,"
Uncle Ikenouchi stood up,
"Why don't you ask him?"
On hearing that, Shin-san started running without a word. When he ran back to his house, his father, Hiragoroh, was planting something like medical herbs.
"Is the information of a teachers college true?"
The question was responded with, "Who told you?" As the boy told what had happened, Hiragoroh replied,
"That's true."
Only with the word, he keeps digging the ground with a spatula. As the boy reproached why he had not been informed, Hiragoroh scorned that.
Hiragoroh said, as the information had not been made public yet, how could it be revealed just to his family?
Shin-san, however, was not interested in listening that official morals, but knowing entrance regulations. As he asked about them in a haste, Hiragoroh said,
"I can't tell you here. Why don't you come over to the office?"
He demanded his son to come as the general public do, and then the rules shall be taught. It shows he is, in any respect, just a conscientious castle officer who follows an old custom of ex-Clan.

Haru ya Mukashi (translation) (4)

Hiragoroh Hisataka, Akiyama family head, has as few anecdotes as people usually have.
"I have never seen such a conscientious man."
Thus was he reputed in his younger days. From young, he held a superintendent office of infantry samurai, worked faithfully, and then met the fall of Shogunate at the Restoration. The family salary was seized, and less than 1,000 yen was substituted in lump sum. With this 1,000 yen, other samurai attempted business.
"I am not so competent."
Hence he did not do anything. He might just as well not. Most of those who attempted business failed, bankrupted, and some of them even ended up in the streets.
Hiragoroh Hisataka was rather lucky to be hired as a petty official for the educational affairs section of the Prefecture. However, he got such a small salary that it can hardly support the household of Akiyama Family with this many children.
"I do no more than feed you. Do everything else by yourselves."
Thus Hiragoroh Hisataka would always say to his children.
It was, as it were, because of Hiragoroh Hisataka's education policy that Shin-san started heating water and coming home with a Tempoh coin [a nickel] a day. Shin-san bought books with these Tempho coins, but could not attend school with the wages for heating water.
"Let me attend school."
Shin-san asked his father once. Hiragoroh Hisataka relied in a small voice:
"I have no money."
The father made a witty remark. All the heroes and giants in all ages were born poor. He was poor, as he said, for his children's own good in a sense.
He said without having money for school expenses:
"Shin, if you don't like poverty, study hard."
That was the spirit of the times. The sovereign power belonged to Satsuma and Choh-shuh Clans. The Clan sectarian government, instead, summoned all the youth in Japan to study, and guaranteed that the Government shall employ those who do well at school. Every single samurai had become masterless all together, and their new way to enter the government service was stated to be to study.
That was the way to eat, and especially for those ex-samurai of the Clans who found themselves in the position of the rebel army in Boshin War, that was the only way to escape from the slough of the poverty.
"I want to study, too."
Thus Shin-san thought. That moved him to heat water for a bathhouse, to collect bath charges, and to watch the clothes of bathing customers.
"I wonder if there weren't any school free of fees in Japan."
Thus Shin-san had been dreaming of something impossible. Thinking something or reading a book at his watcher's seat, he sometimes forgot handing changes of bath charges, and was claimed. Female customers were, notably, critical.
"Akiyama's son is, with his handsome face, a fool."
Thus, of course, he heard them gossiping on the floor in his hearing.
One day, Shin-san caught a good hearsay.
"A free school was built in Osaka."

By the People, For the People, Of the People

“U.S. House OK’s bailout bill” (The Daily Yomiuri, Sunday, October 05, 2008, p.1)
The article reports: “The bailout bill will empower the Treasury Department to purchase up to $700 billion of broken mortgage-backed securities that are choking world capital markets.”
Will anyone that is choked be saved? Obviously not. Only those who live along Wall Street are to be saved.
In the hope that “the benefits of deregulating finance would trickle down to all Americans” (Macdonald)? Suspiciously not. It is because “the choice was between the Democratic former CEO of Goldman Sachs and the Republican former CEO of Goldman Sachs: Robert Rubin or Hank Paulson.” (ibid.) Residents along Main Street have never been ‘people.’

Source:
Michael D. MacDonald: Government by Goldman Sachs,
(http://www.tri-cityherald.com/987/story/338745.html), Sunday, October 5, 2008

Establishing Class Identity and the Brand Strategy of Sumiyoshi Senior High School (draft)

Foreign Language faculty can contribute to the brand strategy of Sumiyoshi Senior High School by establishing the brand strategy of English-related classes.
Let me clarify my terminology here in this writing. I use the words "class" and "subject" such as to mention, "English Subject has English Understanding Class, English Expression Class, and etc." Since Sumiyoshi Senior High School has Science Course and International Course, I avoided using the word "course" to talk about its curriculum.
In this sense, we have 1 English-related class in the subject "Foreign Language," 5 classes in the subject "English," and 1 class in the subject "International Cultures." Establishing the identity of a class will strengthen the brand equity of the class. The stronger brand equity of each class, in turn, can be woven into a web of brand equity, which enhances the school identity of Sumiyoshi Senior High School. We can contribute to the School Identity of Sumiyoshi Senior High School, by enhancing the identities of those classes.
"Establishing a school identity can give your children a sense of security and help them to feel 'normal'. ... The more you put into your school identity, the more unity and pride your kids will feel." (Hernandez)
Obviously, the stronger school identity makes students more motivated and confident. That is the case even with class identity. The stronger class identity makes participating students more motivated and confident.
"An effective brand strategy will create a unique identity that will differentiate you from the competition." (Lake)
If we can establish more effective brand strategy, we can enjoy a stronger class identity.
To establish more effective brand strategy, we have to "analyze the factors of brand equity which underlie brand strategy." (Osuga, p.363) By analyzing the factors of brand equity, we can "clarify the relationship between brand strategy and the key factors of brand equity." (ibid.)
The identity of English related classes or their brand equity has 3 factors: to have students develop their ability of English practical usage, to get students ready for college entrance examinations, and to have the school. Each class should be analyzed from these 3 viewpoints so as that each of the classes is to establish or strengthen its brand equity with one or two of these factors.
We can, and have to, accumulate the brand equity of classes to strengthen class identity. Thinking through a more effective brand strategy is the key of the accumulation, and is very important for Sumiyoshi Senior High School, which is in an accumulation crisis.

References:
Beverly Hernandez, "Establishing a School Identity", http://homeschooling.about.com/cs/gettingstarted/a/backidentity.htm
Laura Lake, "Developing Your Brand Strategy ",
http://marketing.about.com/od/brandstrategy/tp/brandstrategydev.htm
Osuga Akira, "The Relationship between Brand Strategy and Brand Equity", Journal of business and economics, 2005, Vol.51, No.3, pp.363-376, Kinki University, http://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/110004622785/en/

Expression Literacy as the International Common Property (draft)

Area Studies research various nations and regions that compose the international community, aiming to understand their peculiarity and characteristic overall, trying to understand multimodal ways of the international community as they are. Area Studies also help understand multimodal international community as it is, and deepen recognition, knowledge, and information on the modern world where the globalization is being especially deepened. They promote mutual cross-cultural understanding, and support the coexistence of the cultures and the international cooperation.
Area Studies as a modern academic field is a liaison of area studies which usually have names of corresponding nations or regions in their names.
It is critically necessary to understand the international society as a whole, as the pressure from globalization has risen in recent years. Big social needs toward the development of Area Studies have arisen. It is vitally important to research various nations and regions in the world, to understand various realities of the international community, and to promote the next generation who can deal with various problems occurring in the world.
"It is indispensable for any country that lives in the present age to accumulate the knowledge and information on various regions in the world, to understand the multimodal international community both in the whole and in the parts, and to have deep knowledge and unshaken wisdom of it."(p.2/3)
As the globalization has been rapidly progressing, and mutual understanding is further increasing its importance, the expectation for Area Studies' social contribution has risen significantly. To enhance the mutual understanding within the international community, Area Studies both in Japan and abroad should be developed further.
The development of Area Studies needs investigation in foreign countries. The financial support to the investigation itself and to the overseas branch which supports the investigation is indispensable, if a country is to truly respond to the globalization, is to build lasting mutual trust with various countries and regions in the world, and is to play the role that it should in the international community.
Accumulation of longtime research and study, including the acquisition of a local language and the construction of mutual trust with a local society, is indispensable in Area Studies. It is an indispensable condition for the accumulation of research and study that the postgraduates and the young researchers of target area master the local language and carry out a long series of fieldwork of investigation in the area.
Moreover, the cooperation of a certain period with local research laboratories in the corresponding nation or region is indispensable for Area Studies from the character of the research. As in anthropology and in sociology, the interview investigation, the data collection, history study, collecting historical materials, statistics, the hearing survey, studying political system, and economic system are dispensable. Overseas offices maintain daily contact with local government agencies, research laboratories, and social cultural various groups, etc. to help the researchers carry on the researches mentioned above.
The current state of globalization cannot be understood merely by the expansion of European and American models, or by the type of the globalism of the United States alone. The knowledge of the wisdom that exists inside each nation or region is strongly requested.
Therefore, Area Studies should collect whereabouts information on materials related to these area studies, and should develop a common platform to arrange and open the information to the public, Developing the homepage where average users interested in a region and the researchers of the nation or region can access the information easily becomes urgent tasks in Area Studies.
The diversity of international community cannot be understood without knowing the wisdom system that exists inside each nation or region, and Area Studies exactly study for the understanding. Area studies provide basic researches for the mutual understanding. Any nation or region confronts various nations and regions in the world today. To build lasting mutual trust with the other party,understanding the other party is indispensable.

Haru ya Mukashi (translation) (3)

In the old Shogunate days, when it comes to education systems, Japan might have achieved the world standard. Some of its states might have surpassed the levels of other civilized nations.
Iyo Matsuyama State has a state school:
"Mei-kyoh Kan [namely, Clear Instruction College]."
All the samurai sons enter the school. Mei-kyoh Kan had an affiliated elementary school "Yoh-sei Sha [namely, Bring-up House]." Usually, they entered the house in their eighth year.
Akiyama Yoshifuru, who used to be called Shin-san, entered the school at the age of 8.
As it had become Meiji, in its 4th year, elementary schools were started, and samurai children entered the elementary schools as well as townie children did. Shin-san, however, was 13 years old with his unfortunate timing, and was on the border.
"That was why I didn't enter."
Thus spoke Yoshifuru later. He did not enter, however, not only because of his age, but also because of the extreme poverty of his family due to the impoverishment of samurai families after Meiji Restoration.
In the 7th year of Meiji, a secondary school was subsequently founded in Matsuyama.
Shin-san did not enter it either. What is even worse, Shin-san's every day was that of laborers.
"He used to be heating water for a bathhouse."
Such a hearsay has been handed down in Matsuyama. Shin-san is already 16 years old.
He had fair skin, enormously big eyes, and a too tall nose. He looked, so to speak, un-Japanese.
"He looks like a foreigner in Nagasaki."
That was the talk of the town. His big eyes were drooping, which was a charm of his. With his lips as red as those of girls, as Shin-san walked along a town street, young girls gossiped with their voice dropped.
To be plain, a bathhouse was built in his neighborhood. It is Mr. Kaita, ex-samurai, who built it. He was gossiped in the whole town:
"Samuurai started a bathhouse."
It was more an ill fame than a simple gossip. They blamed him, "Why on the earth samurai runs a business to wash off others' dirt?"
"Running a bathhouse is not so bad. Akiyama family's son is heating water for the worse."
Thus gossips heated up. Actually, Shin-san asked for the job.
"Very well. Your wage is a Tempoh coin [a nickel] a day."
Thus said Mr. Kaita. Once getting started, he realized what a hard labor it is.
First, he has to start from gathering fuel. In the eastern suburb, there is Mt. Yokotani. He goes there to gather twigs. Then he draws a well bucket for many times to fill the bath, and heats it.
He even makes a watcher at the bathhouse.
"Shin-san does really well."
Mr. Kaita praised him everyday. This mister is a good flatterer. He had a bad reputation for flattering neighborhood children into sweat.
"Shin-san is miserable. He is driven hard with a single Tempoh coin a day. He will be worked hard to the bone."
Thus neighborers accused of and pitied in this Shin-san's case.

Area Studies and English Education in Japan

We need literacy to express ourselves in the age of globalization. The globalization has caused some conflicts among different cultures or civilizations. To avoid the conflicts, we need mutual understanding. The development of Area Studies in each nation or region gives its people a profound platform to enhance popular understanding of distinct cultures. The problem is the distribution of the wealth of nations is skewed, which might cause the asymmetrical development of each Area Studies.

Hru ya Mukashi (translation) (2)

"Ad Interim Trust of Tosa State"
So read official signs, which had been put up in front of the castle as well as at street corners of the castle town.
The fact was, however, Tosa men didn't use violence here in Matsuyama. Tosa's commander was Ogasawara Tadahachi, who was known to be a frank man, commanded his men strictly, and tried not to hurt Matsuyama samurai's feelings.
Rather, Matsuyama State was saved by him, when Choh-shuh men, one group of the Loyalist Army, came over the sea, and landed at Mitsuhama, Matsuyama's sea port.
"We shall revenge the grudge of the past year's Punitive Expedition to Choh-shuh."
Thus, Choh-shuh men came here vengefully from the outset. Ogasawara Tadahachi, however, soothed them, prevented their entry, and sent them back to the sea. On their retreat, Choh-shuh men deprived Matsuyama State of its largest asset, a steam ship.
The hardest problem for Matsuyama State to deal with was their financial problem rather than these insults. The reparation of 150,000 ryo [nominally half a ton of gold] was almost impossible to pay from the State's financial condition.
The compensation drained the State finance, and made the samurai's livings extremely poor.
Families such as Akiyama Family, 10-koku-salaried o-kachi, were wretched worst.
They had got 4 children already. Bringing them up was already hard. Another boy baby was born in March in the first year of Meiji (the 4th year of Keioh) [1868], when this "Tosa State Occupation" broke out.
"Shall we rather abort?"
So told Heigoroh, the head of the family, to his wife O-sada when she was pregnant. Townie families and peasant families have customs to cull out. Just ask a midwife to cull, and she will drench the baby to death when she is giving it its first bath. As samurai families didn't have such a custom, they, however, couldn't carry the plan out. After all, he got born. As a result, they made up their mind:
"Better yet, shall we make him a bonze?"
Shin-san, at the age of 10, happened to hear that, came in front of his parents, and said, "Uchi [I] would say, that is not so good." From sometime, Iyo Dialect has been considered the most relaxed dialect in Japan.
“Uchi would say, Father. Uchi would rather not like you to make the baby a bonze. Before long, uchi would study, and would make as thick money as tofu.”
The word uchi [homie?] is used by girls in Kansai, while it seems to be used even by samurai boys in Iyo.
To “make as thick money as tofu.”
Such simile sounds like a relaxed Matsuyama dialect all over. Matsuyama grown-ups say they would like to make money as thick as tofu, piling up State’s bills. Shin-san seems to have picked that up.

Accumulation Crisis

The next step, in a kind of its larger meaning, is to solve the accumulation crisis. The accumulation crisis is obvious in some spheres of school operations.

Branding English Classes

Establishing the identity of a course will strengthen the brand equity of the course. The stronger brand equity of each course can be woven into a web of brand equity, which enhances the school identity of Sumiyoshi Senior High School.

"Establishing a school identity can give your children a sense of security and help them to feel 'normal'. ... The more you put into your school identity, the more unity and pride your kids will feel." (Beverly Hernandez, "Establishing a School Identity")

Obviously, The stronger school identity makes students more motivated and confident.

"An effective brand strategy will create a unique identity that will differentiate you from the competition." (Laura Lake, "Developing Your Brand Strategy ")

If we can establish more effective brand strategy, we can enjoy a stronger school identity.
To establish more effective brand strategy, we have to

"analyze the factors of brand equity which underlie brand strategy." (Osuga Akira, "The Relationship between Brand Strategy and Brand Equity", Journal of business and economics, 2005, Vol.51, No.3(20050331) pp. 363-376, Kinki University)

By analyzing the factors of brand equity, we can

"clarify the relationship between brand strategy and the key factors of brand equity." (Osuga, ibid.)

All in all, we can, and have to, accumulate course identities and accumulate brand equity to strengthen school identity. Thinking through a more effective brand strategy is the key of the accumulation, and is very important for Sumiyoshi Senior High School, which is in an accumulation crisis.

Haru ya Mukashi (translation) (1)

Spring is ... in times gone by.
A really small country is trying to get civilized.
One of the islands of the country is Shikoku Island, and Shikoku is divided into Sanuki, Awa, Tosa, and Iyo. The capital of Iyo is Matsuyama.
The castle is called Matsuyama-joh Castle. The castle town has the population of 30,000 including samurai. In the middle of the urban area, there lies a hill, which looks like an iron pot upside-down. The hill is covered with red pine trees. You can see, through the trees, 20-yard high stone walls grow into the heaven. High above the walls against the heaven of the Seto Inland Sea, there stands a three-layered donjon. From earlier days, Matsuyama Castle has been praised to be the biggest castle in Shikoku. With the elegant landscape around, however, the stone walls and turrets don't look that coercive.
We may say the main character of this story is small Japan at this time. We, however, should follow three people. One of the three became a haiku poet. He is Masaoka Shiki, who became the father of the restoration of Japanese traditional short poems such as haiku and tanka, by breathing new life into them. Shiki, in the 28th year of Meiji, came back to this home town, and made this haiku:

Spring's in the castle town
of three thousand samurai
in times gone by

This haiku's flaw might be that it is rather too lovely. Shiki sang the praise of the relaxed humanity and scenery of Iyo Matsuyama in a relaxed manner, while Ishikawa Takuboku, who started making haiku after Shiki, had a complex feeling toward his hometown. The difference might have been caused by the different climates and features of Toh'hoku and Nankai-doh, the Northeastern district and the Southern-sea district.
"Shin-san"
Akiyama Shinzaburoh Yoshifuru was called so, and was born as a child of o-kachi, an infantry samurai. O-kachi is a class higher than ashigaru, a footman, but cannot claim to be joh-shi, a knight. Akiyama Family has been given as little as 10 koku, nominaly 4 bushels of rice, as a stipend by the lord for generations. Shin-san was born in the 6th year of Ansei, in 1859, as a 7-month-born baby. He, however, grew up to be a big man. Being a premature baby might not affect their later growth.
In the spring when Shin-san got 10 years old, an incident broke out, which upset the feudal clan, the castle, and Akiyama Family.
The Meiji Restoration was that.
"Tosa soldiers are coming to the town!"
Thus, the feudal clan, their men, and the townspeople were all frightened. The lord of the feudal clan is Hisamatsu Clan. Tokugawa Ieyasu's stepbrother was the ancestor of the clan, and had enjoyed special conditions than other 300 clans. At the end of Edo Period, the clan were ordered by Shogunate to cross the sea for the Punitive Expedition to Choh-shuh, and fought within Choh-shuh's territory. In short, from the division of the era, they belonged to the pro-Shogunate.
In the same island, Shikoku, Tosa belongs to the loyalist army. Tosa State come up to north, with only less than 200 men, to occupy Matsuyama State.
"Surrender to Imperial Government. Pay the government the reparation of 150,000 ryo [nominally half a ton of gold]."
A young commander from Tosa demanded. The clan was thrown into an upheaval, but decided to follow the demand. The castle, the town, and the territory were all temporally under the rule of Tosa in the form of a protectorate. Signs were put up at government offices and temples in the castle town:
"Tosa Temporary Camp"
Shin-san, who saw the scenes at the age of 10, could not forget them through his whole life.
"Remembering those scenes rises my anger even today,"
He revealed years later in his letter from Paris.
Iyo Matsuyama has fertile hinterland, rich harvest, mild climates, and even Dohgo Hot Spring in its outskirts. Everything there is peaceful and relaxing. People there naturally lack fighting spirits.
This clan was defeated in the Punitive Expedition to Choh-shuh. Instead of being chagrined at the defeat, they made a chant.

The war in Choh-shuh, de and feat,
like a cat within a bag,
in a crawl made a retreat.

Even samurai children sang the chant.
Speaking of defeats, they lost in Toba-Fushimi too. The men ran away home across the sea. They lost and lost, and even their castle and territory came to be charged by Tosa State.

Bakumatsu Pilgrimage in the Western Seto Inland Sea (2nd draft)

“I'd rather go to Suwoh-Ohshima,” said my younger daughter. “What on the earth is it?” asked my wife. “A tiny island occupied by Tokugawa Shogunate Navy at the beginning of the Second Punitive Expedition to Choh-shuh,” said I. “What are there?” asked her mother. “I just want to immerse myself in the air there,” replied the girl.
Thus our pilgrimage to Suwoh, the eastern half of today's Yamaguchi Prefecture, started.
Suwoh-Ohshima is just a strait away from Honshu Island, and is hooked with a bridge today. Yet, the island is not along Shinkansen Line, and you must take a local train and a bus for hours to get there even from its nearest Shinkansen station, Iwakuni. The most convenient way to visit the island may be hiring a rental car.
The most reasonable way to get around there is by long-distance bus. A night bus runs to Shimonoseki, the largest city in Yamaguchi, and stops at Iwakuni on its way. A day bus runs either to Hiroshima or Kokura, but both of them arrive there in the afternoon and leaves there early in the morning. If I were much younger, I would plan a four-day trip with two stays on the bus and one stay in a hotel. That sounds like a suicide to today's me.
An idea hit me. A day bus runs to Matsuyama very often, as often as to Kochi, where we visited last spring. We might take a ferry to Suwoh-Ohshima from Mitsuhama, a port town near Matsuyama. The sea used to be a road rather than a boundary.
The itinerary has, however, a risk. August 18/19 is just after Bon holidays. Beach hotels and inns must be still busy, being occupied with sea bathers. It may be at the start of a typhoon season as well. That might be worked out by staying in Matsuyama, although our stay in Suwoh-Ohshima will be a short one.
Preparing for the trip, I watch a TV program on Beijing Olympics. The announcer shouts: “Toki o koete, yume o tsunagu” (To pass the dream over the history), as a captain of the Japanese male gymnastics team lands to gain their silver medal after the gold in Athens.
The port of Matsuyama has 3 districts. Its oldest district is called Mitsu-hama Port. The history of Mitsu-hama Port goes back to Muromachi Period, when Kohno Clan castled to the opposite bank (Minato-yama Joh, namely Port-Mountain Castle), and made it to the base of their Navy.
Kohno Clan used to be the biggest clan in Iyo, the Northwestern part of Shikoku Island, and prosperous for about 400 years till it was subverted by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1585.
It is in this Mitsu-hama Port that Natsume Sohseki got off when he came for his post to Matsuyama in 1895, and thus the port became one of the stages of the popular novel Bocchan, one of two youth-market-oriented well-known novels by Sohseki. Of course at that time, there was not a satisfactory wharf, and was only a summer-house-like waiting room as an equipment of the port. People used to take a shallop to land from a ship which dropped anchor off the shore.
Today, a car ferry sails to Yanai Port in Yamaguchi Prefecture from Mitsu-hama Port.
In the Autumn of 1853, Murata Zohroku, later known as Ohmura Masujiroh, a founder of modern Japanese Army, sailed from Yanai to Matsuyama on his way from Choh-shuh to Uwajima for his post. That is the one of two reasons why my daughter wanted to visit Suwoh-ohshima.
Ohmura had wanted to sail directly from Yanai to Matsuyama, but having found no service available, and having made up his mind to go island-by-island, he took a boat from Tohsaki to Suoh-ohshima. According to Shiba Ryotaro's Kahin, he arrived at Komatsu Port on the island, and stayed there for one night. My daughter had wanted to breathe the air Murata (or Ohmura) breathed.
Out of Mitsuhama Port, there stands Iyo-ko-Fuji (“A Mt. Fuji in Iyo”: named after Mt. Fuji near Tokyo, to show their admiration to the mountain or that to the central culture). We leave Mitsuhama Port westward, past Iyo-ko-Fuji, Tsuji-jima, which has one of the oldest western-style modern lighthouse, Koichi-jima, Yoko-jima, and Futagami-jima. Now we are in the easternmost teritorial waters of medieval Suwoh Country. We sail through the strait between Nasake-jima, the easternmost tiny inhabited island of Suwoh just having Moro-jima, an uninhabited island, a channel east, and Suwoh-Ohshima, and land at Ihoda, the easternmost port of the island. Here sleeps one of the last medieval pirates, Shima Yoshitoshi (?-1602). In Edo Period, people's world was Han (a feudal domain) they belonged to. Yoshitoshi and his men seem as if they were turning their back on the world, later known as Choh-shuh Han.
Yoshitoshi worked and fought for Murakami Takeyoshi (1533-1604), who led Noshima Branch of Murakami Clan, one of the biggest navy or pirate clans in medieval Japan, and enjoyed the control of the Western Seto Inland Sea in his days. Three branches of the clan, castling in three tiny islands (Noshima, Kurushima, and In'noshima) in the inland sea between Honshu Island and Shikoku Island, sometimes worked and fought for Kohno Clan in Shikoku, sometimes for Mohri Clan in Honshu, and other times for themselves; sometimes together, and sometimes separately, fighting each other.
As early as in 838, the central government of Japan at the time issued an order for their local governments around the Seto Inland Sea to chase and arrest pirates. A century later, Fujiwara Sumitomo (?-941) was Iyo no Joh, a third-ranked local official, to chase and arrest pirates, but did not come back to the capital in 934 even after his term there ended. From here, we have two stories. One story says that, in Hiburi-jima Island in 936, more than 2500 pirates surrendered to him. Another story says that, in the same island in the same year, Sumitomo gathered more than 1000 boats to start his rebellion. Anyway, he attacked the local capitals of Iyo and Sanuki in 939, but was defeated by Ono Yoshifuru (884-968), who had been appointed as general to chase and arrest Sumitomo.
After 7 and a half centuries after the first order, Pirate Prohibition was issued once again by Toyotomi Hideyoshi. This time, it worked. Navy clans' powers including Murakami's were forced to decline. Isn't it interesting that the difference between navies and pirates had been so unclear? Ever since Sumitomo's time?
At last, Noshima Branch of Murakami Clan was secluded into Suwoh-Ohsima after Seki-ga-hara War, as they fought with Mohri Clan against Tokugawa Clan. Mohri Clan was reduced into the westernmost two countries in Honshu Island, Nagato and Suwoh. Isn't it interesting again that Mohri was reduced into almost ¼, while Murakami was “reduced” into an island which is 51 times larger than Noshima? Mohri's two countries were later called Choh-shuh with Nagato's first character, naga or choh. Ihoda is at the easternmost tip of the easternmost island of Choh-shuh. Murakami Takeyoshi's grave is also just a mile west from the port. Takeyoshi and Yoshitoshi themselves, and their successors or descendants as well were not turning their back to the West, but were turning their face to the East. The war between Choh-shuh and Tokugawa Shogunate started in this island 261 years after Takeyoshi's death, or 263 after Yoshitoshi's. Were their dreams passed over the history?
The second reason why my daughter wanted to visit the island is that it is an old battlefield of the war between Choh-shuh and Bakufu, Tokugawa Shogunate, in the year 1865. The war has 3 kinds of names. If you are pro-Shogunate, you call it Choh-shuh Seibatsu, Punitive Expedition to Choh-shuh. If you stand neutral, you may call it Choh-Baku Sensoh, the War between Choh-shuh and Bakufu. If you lived in Cho-shu at that time, you definitely called it Shi-kyo Sensoh, Four Fronts War.
Kashin writes; “Shogunate had formulated the strategy; 'first of all, to attack Ohshima with its fleet, to land the Army soldiers and occupy the whole island, and to make Kuga Port a temporary naval port' to have command of the Western Seto Inland Sea.”
From Ihoda Port, we are driving further westward. After more than half an hour drive, we are standing at the beach of Kuga, facing Mae-jima off the shore.
“In Ohshima's coast of Kuga, the Shogunate fleet of warships, each with 1000 tons or more, is heavily anchored. Those days, night attack was considered to be impossible in naval battles. Takasugi Shinsaku, a well known revolutionist and military tactician at Bakumatsu, the end of Edo Period, dared do it. His military ship alone opened fire against Shogunate fleet, which had turned off their steam, and ran away into the dark with its lamplights off. Having only light cannons, the physical damage he gave was not so big, but the psychological fear was so huge that the fleet escaped from the sea around Choh-shu to the east in panic, with their beached blue forces left. After a while, they were unseated from the island.”
My daughter is breathing the air people of Kuga and soldiers of Bakufu breathed. After her long breath for about a half hour, we are examining stone statues in a bush near the beach. They were built in 1891, the 24th year of Meiji, 26 years later to memorize the war. Coincidentally, the Sino=Japanese War, the first full-scale external war as modern Japan, broke out 3 years after the erection. It seems as if the monuments had been the preparation of patriotism for the coming wars; the Russo=Japanese War, World War I, and so on, rather than recollections of the past heroic loyalism.
We are driving eastward to go back to Matsuyama. Past Ihoda, we drive a little bit southward across a small mountain pass and its tunnel. Now we are in Johsei-Ji Temple, which commands the view of a fishing village, Yuh.
“The first attack was on a morning, June 7. A battleship of Tokugawa Shogunate came, sailed around Ohshima, bombarded the fishing villages Agenoshoh, Tononyuh, and Yuh to burn out, and left somewhere. The next day, the Shogunate Army and Navy raided Ohshima in force. They bombarded several places, and landed soldiers afterward.”
One web-page argues there is a hole made by a bomb on its stone wall, but we can hardly tell which hole was made at the time.
We have left Ihoda Port at dusk, and are sailing back to Matsuyama in a total darkness now. There sometimes pass some boats with tiny lights. They appear from the darkness almost suddenly, at least it seems to me. I wonder how Takasugi Shinsaku dare to make up his mind to attack the Shogunate fleet, and how lucky he was to arrive at the sea without being wrecked on the way in the darkness.
We have another reason why we have chosen Matsuyama route. Matsuyama has Saka-no-ue-no-Kumo Museum.
The novel Saka no ue no Kumo starts as:
“A really small country is trying to get civilized.
“One of the islands of the country is Shikoku Island, and Shikoku is divided into Sanuki, Awa, Tosa, and Iyo. The capital of Iyo is Matsuyama.”
Matsuyama is a birth place of Akiyama Yoshifuru (1859-1930), Akiyama Saneyuki (1868-1918), and Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902). Saka no ue no Kumo continues:
“We may say the main character of this story is small Japan at this time. We, however, should follow three people.”
After staying at a hotel in front of JR Matsuyama Station, we are following the three people.
First, Masaoka Shiki. We leave the hotel, and drive a little bit southward in the city of Matsuyama following the direction of a car navigation system. We are definitely around Shiki Doh House, his birth place, but can find no sign showing its entrance. We keep driving in despair, this time eastward, toward Dohgo Hot Spring area. Kohno Clan's main castle used to be in this area, and was called Yu-duki Joh, (namely Hot-spring Built Castle). The castle is now Dohgo Park.
Shiki Memorial Museum is built in the north area of Dohgo Park. The museum has collections of his original handwritten manuscripts, copies of his publications at the time, and related materials such as his bag and so on. We are impressed with the quantity and quality of their collections, and also overpowered by how productive Shiki was. Shiki started editing "Shuji-gaku Zairyoh" (Rhetoric Materials) as early as in 1889, or as the latest in1891. He made 65 notebooks of 3 categories: seasonal words, things and affairs, and forms. He also made another notebook on tones. Furthermore, with those materials, he edited a tree diagram of the relationship among haiku poets, and a chronological table of haiku. It is also surprising that so many collections have not been scattered and lost. We must pay respect to his survived family and followers as well as to the good job of the museum.
He was actually struggling to reform haiku, tanka, and novels in Japan. He researched and classified almost all haiku published during Edo Period, and organized three types of literary salons for haiku, tanka, and Japanese novels. Each of the salons produced distinguished talents of the field. Natsume Sohseki was only an example of many. Shiki also was working as a newspaper reporter, and even tried to report the Sino=Japanese War.
Saka no ue no Kumo's author, Shiba Ryohtaroh, tried to describe how Japan modernized itself by writing a story of struggling young people at the time.
Akiyama Brothers struggled to defeat Russia in battlefields. At the war time, the elder brother, Yoshifuru, was a cavalry brigade commander, and the younger, Saneyuki, was a Navy staff officer.
The birth house of the brothers shows how poor they used to be, and Saka-no-ue-no-Kumo Museum tells how many people have been moved by the story, but the both lack the exhibits which show how hard they had struggled. Without the contents, they are just a showcase of a success story or a sightseeing attraction.
Shiba writes about his interest in the stage of Japanese history:
“The 30 years or more after the Meiji Restoration till Russo-Japanese War is very distinctive in the history of Japanese culture and mentality, in its long history.
“There used to be no age as optimistic as this.”
He thought people at the time were, however poor they were, optimistically struggling to progress:
“Optimists walk forward, as often the case in such an era, just looking ahead. As a cloud in a blue heaven shines over a hill they are climbing, they keep climbing the hill fixing their eyes just on the cloud.”
Have we ever caught the cloud?

Bakumatsu Pilgrimage in the Western Seto Inland Sea (1st draft)

“I'd rather go to Suwoh-Ohshima,” said my younger daughter. “What on the earth is it?” asked my wife. “A tiny island occupied by Tokugawa Shogunate Navy at the beginning of the Second Punitive Expedition to Choh-shuh,” said I. “What are there?” asked her mother. “I just want to immerse myself in the air there,” replied the girl.
Thus our pilgrimage to Suwoh, the eastern half of today's Yamaguchi Prefecture, started.
Suwoh-Ohshima is just a strait away from Honshu Island, and is hooked with a bridge today. Yet, the island is not along Shinkansen Line, and you must take a local train and a bus for hours to get there even from its nearest Shinkansen station, Iwakuni. The most convenient way to visit the island may be hiring a rental car.
The most reasonable way to get around there is by long-distance bus. A night bus runs to Shimonoseki, the largest city in Yamaguchi, and stops at Iwakuni on its way. A day bus runs either to Hiroshima or Kokura, but both of them arrive there in the afternoon and leaves there early in the morning. If I were much younger, I would plan a four-day trip with two stays on the bus and one stay in a hotel. That sounds like a suicide to today's me.
An idea hit me. A day bus runs to Matsuyama very often, as often as to Kochi, where we visited last spring. We might take a ferry to Suwoh-Ohshima from Mitsuhama, a port town near Matsuyama. The sea used to be a road rather than a boundary.
The itinerary has, however, a risk. August 18/19 is just after Bon holidays. Beach hotels and inns must be still busy, being occupied with sea bathers. It may be at the start of a typhoon season as well. That might be worked out by staying in Matsuyama, although our stay in Suwoh-Ohshima will be a short one.
Preparing for the trip, I watch a TV program on Beijing Olympics. The announcer shouts: “Toki o koete, yume o tsunagu” (To pass the dream over the history), as a captain of the Japanese male gymnastics team lands to gain their silver medal after the gold in Athens.
The port of Matsuyama has 3 districts. Its oldest district is called Mitsu-hama Port. The history of Mitsu-hama Port goes back to Muromachi Period, when Kohno Clan castled to the opposite bank (Minato-yama Joh, namely Port-Mountain Castle), and made it to the base of their Navy.
Kohno Clan used to be the biggest clan in Iyo, the Northwestern part of Shikoku Island, and prosperous for about 400 years till it was subverted by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1585.
It is in this Mitsu-hama Port that Natsume Sohseki got off when he came for his post to Matsuyama in 1895, and thus the port became one of the stages of the popular novel Bocchan, one of two youth-market-oriented well-known novels by Sohseki. Of course at that time, there was not a satisfactory wharf, and was only a summer-house-like waiting room as an equipment of the port. People used to take a shallop to land from a ship which dropped anchor off the shore.
Today, a car ferry sails to Yanai Port in Yamaguchi Prefecture from Mitsu-hama Port.
In the Autumn of 1853, Murata Zohroku, later known as Ohmura Masujiroh, a founder of modern Japanese Army, sailed from Yanai to Matsuyama on his way from Choh-shuh to Uwajima for his post. That is the one of two reasons why my daughter wanted to visit Suwoh-ohshima.
Ohmura had wanted to sail directly from Yanai to Matsuyama, but having found no service available, and having made up his mind to go island-by-island, he took a boat from Tohsaki to Suoh-ohshima. According to Shiba Ryotaro's Kahin, he arrived at Komatsu Port on the island, and stayed there for one night. My daughter had wanted to breathe the air Murata (or Ohmura) breathed.
Out of Mitsuhama Port, there stands Iyo-ko-Fuji (“A Mt. Fuji in Iyo”: named after Mt. Fuji near Tokyo, to show their admiration to the mountain or that to the central culture). We leave Mitsuhama Port westward, past Iyo-ko-Fuji, Tsuji-jima, which has one of the oldest western-style modern lighthouse, Koichi-jima, Yoko-jima, and Futagami-jima. Now we are in the easternmost teritorial waters of medieval Suwoh Country. We sail through the strait between Nasake-jima, the easternmost tiny inhabited island of Suwoh just having Moro-jima, an uninhabited island, a channel east, and Suwoh-Ohshima, and land at Ihoda, the easternmost port of the island. Here sleeps one of the last medieval pirates, Shima Yoshitoshi (?-1602). In Edo Period, people's world was Han (a feudal domain) they belonged to. Yoshitoshi and his men seem as if they were turning their back on the world, later known as Choh-shuh Han.
Yoshitoshi worked and fought for Murakami Takeyoshi (1533-1604), who led Noshima Branch of Murakami Clan, one of the biggest navy or pirate clans in medieval Japan, and enjoyed the control of the Western Seto Inland Sea in his days. Three branches of the clan, castling in three tiny islands (Noshima, Kurushima, and In'noshima) in the inland sea between Honshu Island and Shikoku Island, sometimes worked and fought for Kohno Clan in Shikoku, sometimes for Mohri Clan in Honshu, and other times for themselves; sometimes together, and sometimes separately, fighting each other.
As early as in 838, the central government of Japan at the time issued an order for their local governments around the Seto Inland Sea to chase and arrest pirates. A century later, Fujiwara Sumitomo (?-941) was Iyo no Joh, a third-ranked local official, to chase and arrest pirates, but did not come back to the capital in 934 even after his term there ended. From here, we have two stories. One story says that, in Hiburi-jima Island in 936, more than 2500 pirates surrendered to him. Another story says that, in the same island in the same year, Sumitomo gathered more than 1000 boats to start his rebellion. Anyway, he attacked the local capitals of Iyo and Sanuki in 939, but was defeated by Ono Yoshifuru (884-968), who had been appointed as general to chase and arrest Sumitomo.
After 7 and a half centuries after the first order, Pirate Prohibition was issued once again by Toyotomi Hideyoshi. This time, it worked. Navy clans' power including Murakami's were forced to decline. Isn't it interesting that the difference between navies and pirates had been so unclear? Ever since Sumitomo's time?
At last, Noshima Branch of Murakami Clan was secluded into Suwoh-Ohsima after Seki-ga-hara War, as they fought with Mohri Clan against Tokugawa Clan. Mohri Clan was reduced into the westernmost two countries in Honshu Island, Nagato and Suwoh. Isn't it interesting again that Mohri was reduced into almost ¼, while Murakami was “reduced” into an island which is 51 times larger than Noshima? Mohri's two countries were later called Choh-shuh with Nagato's first character, naga or choh. Ihoda is at the easternmost tip of the easternmost island of Choh-shuh. Murakami Takeyoshi's grave is also just a mile west from the port. Takeyoshi and Yoshitoshi themselves, and their successors or descendants as well were not turning their back to the West, but were turning their face to the East. The war between Choh-shuh and Tokugawa Shogunate started in this island 261 years after Takeyoshi's death, or 263 after Yoshitoshi's. Were their dreams passed over the history?
The second reason why my daughter wanted to visit the island is that it is an old battlefield of the war between Choh-shuh and Bakufu, Tokugawa Shogunate, in the year 1865. The war has 3 kinds of names. If you are pro-Shogunate, you call it Choh-shuh Seibatsu, Punitive Expedition to Choh-shuh. If you stand neutral, you may call it Choh-Baku Sensoh, the War between Choh-shuh and Bakufu. If you lived in Cho-shu at that time, you definitely called it Shi-kyo Sensoh, Four Fronts War.
Kashin writes; “Shogunate had formulated the strategy; 'first of all, to attack Ohshima with its fleet, to land the Army soldiers and occupy the whole island, and to make Kuga Port a temporary naval port' to have command of the Western Seto Inland Sea.”
From Ihoda Port, we are driving further westward. After more than half an hour drive, we are standing at the beach of Kuga, facing Mae-jima off the shore.
“In Ohshima's coast of Kuga, the Shogunate fleet of warships, each with 1000 tons or more, is heavily anchored. Those days, night attack was considered to be impossible in naval battles. Takasugi Shinsaku, a well known revolutionist and military tactician at Bakumatsu, the end of Edo Period, dared do it. His military ship alone opened fire against Shogunate fleet, which had turned off their steam, and ran away into the dark with its lamplights off. Having only light cannons, the physical damage he gave was not so big, but the psychological fear was so huge that the fleet escaped from the sea around Choh-shu to the east in panic, with their beached blue forces left. After a while, they were unseated from the island.”
My daughter is breathing the air people of Kuga and soldiers of Bakufu breathed. After her long breath for about a half hour, we are examining stone statues in a bush near the beach. They were built in 1891, the 24th year of Meiji, 26 years later to memorize the war. Coincidentally, the Sino=Japanese War, the first full-scale external war as modern Japan, broke out 3 years after the erection. It seems as if the monuments had been the preparation of patriotism for the coming wars; the Russo=Japanese War, World War I, and so on, rather than recollections of the past heroic loyalism.
We are driving eastward to go back to Matsuyama. Past Ihoda, we drive a little bit southward across a small mountain pass and its tunnel. Now we are in Johsei-Ji Temple, which commands the view of a fishing village, Yuh.
“The first attack was on a morning, June 7. A battleship of Tokugawa Shogunate came, sailed around Ohshima, bombarded the fishing villages Agenoshoh, Tononyuh, and Yuh to burn out, and left somewhere. The next day, the Shogunate Army and Navy raided Ohshima in force. They bombarded several places, and landed soldiers afterward.”
One web-page argues there is a hole made by a bomb on its stone wall, but we can hardly tell which hole was made at the time.
We have left Ihoda Port at dusk, and are sailing back to Matsuyama in a total darkness now. There sometimes pass some boats with tiny lights. They appear from the darkness almost suddenly, at least it seems to me. I wonder how Takasugi Shinsaku dare to make up his mind to attack the Shogunate fleet, and how lucky he was to arrive at the sea without being wrecked on the way in the darkness.
We have another reason why we have chosen Matsuyama route. Matsuyama has Saka-no-ue-no-Kumo Museum.
The novel Saka no ue no Kumo starts as:
“A really small country is trying to get civilized.
“One of the islands of the country is Shikoku Island, and Shikoku is divided into Sanuki, Awa, Tosa, and Iyo. The capital of Iyo is Matsuyama.”
Matsuyama is a birth place of Akiyama Yoshifuru (1859-1930), Akiyama Saneyuki (1868-1918), and Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902). Saka no ue no Kumo continues:
“We may say the main character of this story is small Japan at this time. We, however, should follow three people.”
After staying at a hotel in front of JR Matsuyama Station, we are following the three people.
First, Masaoka Shiki. We leave the hotel, and drive a little bit southward in the city of Matsuyama following the direction of a car navigation system. We are definitely around Shiki Doh House, his birth place, but can find no sign showing its entrance. We keep driving in despair, this time eastward, toward Dohgo Hot Spring area. Kohno Clan's main castle used to be in this area, and was called Yu-duki Joh, (namely Hot-spring Built Castle). The castle is now Dohgo Park.
Shiki Memorial Museum is built in the north area of Dohgo Park. The museum has collections of his original handwritten manuscripts, copies of his publications at the time, and related materials such as his bag and so on. We are impressed with the quantity and quality of their collections, and also overpowered by how productive Shiki was. Shiki started editing "Shuji-gaku Zairyoh" (Rhetoric Materials) as early as in 1889, or as late as in1891. He made 65 notebooks of 3 categories: seasonal words, things and affairs, and forms. He also made another notebook on tones. Furthermore, with those materials, he edited a tree diagram of the relationship among haiku poets, and a chronological table of haiku. It is also surprising that so many collections have not been scattered and lost. We must pay respect to his survived family and followers as well as to the good job of the museum.
He was actually struggling to reform haiku, tanka, and novels in Japan. He researched and classified almost all haiku published during Edo Period, and organized three types of literary salons for haiku, tanka, and Japanese novels. Each of the salons produced distinguished talents of the field. Natsume Sohseki was only an example of many. Shiki also was working as a newspaper reporter, and even tried to report the Sino=Japanese War.
Saka no ue no Kumo's author, Shiba Ryohtaroh, tried to describe how Japan modernized itself by writing a story of struggling young people at the time.
Akiyama Brothers struggled to defeat Russia in battlefields. At the war time, the elder brother, Yoshifuru, was a cavalry brigade commander, and the younger, Saneyuki, was a Navy staff officer.
The birth house of the brothers shows how poor they used to be, and Saka-no-ue-no-Kumo Museum tells how many people have been moved by the story, but the both lack the exhibits which show how hard they had struggled. Without the contents, they are just a showcase of a success story or a sightseeing attraction.
Shiba writes about his interest in the stage of Japanese history:
“The 30 years or more after the Meiji Restoration till Russo-Japanese War is very distinctive in the history of Japanese culture and mentality, in its long history.
“There used to be no age as optimistic as this.”
He thought people at the time were, however poor they were, optimistically struggling to progress:
“Optimists walk forward, as often the case in such an era, just looking ahead. As a cloud in a blue heaven shines over a hill they are climbing, they keep climbing the hill fixing their eyes just on the cloud.”
Have we ever caught the cloud?

Content-Based Instruction and Grammar (2nd draft)

"Content-based grammar instruction involves showing students how grammar works within texts.” (DelQuadro) I have made 3 types of lists, which relate English authorized textbooks with Grammar & Sentence Structures. My idea is to relate Grammar & Sentence Structures with the contents of the textbooks, so as that our students can understand “how grammar works within texts.”
Understanding Grammar (= syntax in the terminology of linguistics) needs a competency to process abstract symbols. Every human being is better at some things and worse at others. We have varieties of students, and some of them are, as the matter of course, not good at handling abstract knowledge. Having the competency or not is a matter of nature, and it is we teachers who are to show its solution.
Handling abstract or academic knowledge needs a corresponding schema. Let me describe the schema something like a map in our mind. Those students who are worse at handling academic knowledge are not good at drawing the mental map (=cognitive map) of the academic knowledge, and their knowledge tends either to be that of sticking to pieces of concrete, yet incidental, realities or to be isolated pieces of abstract one. They should be provided with opportunities to weave the pieces into a web of knowledge, to make all the dots they have into a map. Their chances of connecting these dots are, of course, educational school activities, including classes themselves.
It is clear that a mental map is drawn with the activities of brain cells, but it is yet to be seen how it relates with the neural networks of the cells. Here I would like to propose a procedure of the solution on the hypothesis that showing an explicit mapping of English-related knowledge can help their brain draw an English-related mental map.
In the traditional idea of English education, students are supposed to need the knowledge of Grammar, Words, Idioms, and Sentence Structures to generate English language and to pass entrance examinations. If you are good at abstract understanding, you can implicitly fabricate those types of knowledge items into one web of English language competency. If not, you should be shown how each items are related each other, and the understanding itself can facilitate the acquisition of each items.
"Schematic mapping” is “a simple technique that enables the user to graphically encode information in an organized manner" (Suenaga, p.136) To help students draw the Mental Map of English Usage (MMEU), English classes and materials should be provided in the way to explicitly and clearly form one network. Considering the English classes in Sumiyoshi Senior High School have been naturally organized around the idea of Content-Based Instruction, the best way to provide whole parts of them in an explicit and clear form of networks might be to organize them under the principle of CBI.
The lists I have made help Grammar and Sentence Structures networked around the contents of authorized textbooks. Idioms, then, could be networked around the contents, as idiom cards to remember them are made from the textbooks instead of having students buy a ready-made phrase book off the shelf. The form of “cards” is preferable, because idioms should be remembered not only in the relation with contents or, worse, in alphabetical order, but also by categorizing them from the view point of the certain key word of their constitutive parts to have students ready for entrance examinations. With the cards, Idioms could be regrouped under different categories from time to time. That is why the card-type textbook is preferable for Idioms.
With the lists of Grammar & Sentence Structures and Idiom cards, I have provided a prototype of MMEU, but only for the first and second graders, in the hope that the students, once learned, will form their favorite type of networks of knowledge when they become the third graders.

References:
Gillian Cohen, ‘schemata’, "The Blackwell Dictionary of Cognitive Psychology", 1990, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, UK
Levia DelQuadro, "Content Based Grammar Instruction in the Basic Writing Classroom", Community College of Southern Nevada
"It was not until I delved into the mysteries of teaching ESL that I realized that grammar had a subtle, yet vital, role to play."
"Content-based grammar instruction involves showing students how grammar works within texts. This can involve using either the student’s own papers or using published texts. What makes this very different from the old drill and practice ideology is that the student is never looking at grammar at only the sentence level. This type of instruction entails using at least paragraphs to contextualize how grammar works."

Peter Morris, ‘cognitive maps’, "The Blackwell Dictionary of Cognitive Psychology", 1990, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, UK
Eiji Leland Suenaga, 'A Content-Based Approach to the Learning of Vocabulary Through Composition and Schematic Mapping', "Studies in Culture" No.1, November 1993, Hokkai-Gakuen University
"by encouraging the students to personalize the theme" (p.133)
"It is hoped that this personalization of thematic unit will heighten the students' involvement with the content and, thus, increase their motivation." (p.133)
"One way that writers can directly access vocabulary schemata appropriate to a theme is through schematic mapping, a simple technique that enables the user to graphically encode information in an organized manner" (p.136)
"Through this technique, users learn to identify not only main ideas, subcategories, and supporting details but also associated vocabulary --- the same skill that is necessary when constructing coherent paragraphs and essays." (p.137)

A Poet at Sumiyoshi (revised)

Prof. Satoh visited our high school to recruit candidates for Kinki University. He delivered a common appeal for his university, and then, abruptly enough, started talking about Itoh, a poet. According to him, the poet used to be a teacher at Sumiyoshi Secondary School before the World War II. His story moved on to his field of study, Mishima Yukio, one of the most famous novelists after the war, who was also known to be a chauvinist. The novelist respected the poet very much, imitated his poems, and even once visited Sumiyoshi SS to see him.
A math teacher here recalled that we have a stone monument for Itoh along the small alley which leads from an old gate, which used to be a front main gate of the school. Prof. Saitoh was excited about the information, and left the office in rather hurried but lovely haste.
Walking from the old gate, approaching the school gym, you can find a deep-green stone monument on your left, between the alley and the ground, surrounded by a small bush, Sumiyoshi no Mori. A poem is carved in white. The poem is titled Koh’ya no Uta.

Koh'ya no uta
(The Song of an Empty Field)
Itoh Shizuo
waga shisemu
utsukushiki hi no tame ni
(For a beautiful day when I may have died)
renrei no musoh yo! na ga shirayuki o
(Mountains of dreams! Have not your white snow)
kesazu are
(melted away.)
ikigurushii kihaku no kore no koh'ya ni
(In this air-thin empty field)
hitoshirenu izumi o sugi
(Past an unknown fountain)
tokijiku no ki no mi ururu
(Past a hidden place)
kakure taru basho o sugi
(with ever-fragrant citrus ripening)
ware no maku hana no shirushi
(On the day when my seeds come to show,)
chikazuku hi waga nakigara o hikan uma o
(these signs would lead home)
kono shime wa izanai kaesamu
(a horse that pulls my coffin.)
aa kakute waga towa no kikyoh o
(Alas! Thus my eternal homecoming is)
kohki naru na ga shiroki hikari miokuri
(seen off by your white beacons)
ki no mi teri izumi wa warai---
(by the shining berries, and by a rippling fountain.)
waga itaki yume yo kono toki zo tsuini
(My aching dreams will rest forever)
yasurawamu mono!
(on this moment at last!)

Bakumatsu Pilgrimage in the Western Seto Inland Sea (preparation notes)

“I'd rather go to Suwoh-Ohshima,” said my younger daughter. “What on the earth is it?” asked my wife. “A tiny island occupied by Tokugawa Shogunate Navy at the beginning of the Second Punitive Expedition to Choh-shuh,” said I. “What are there?” asked her mother. “I just want to immerse myself in the air there,” replied the girl.
Thus our pilgrimage to Suwoh, the eastern half of today's Yamaguchi Prefecture, started.
Suwoh-Ohshima is just a strait away from Honshu Island, and is hooked with a bridge today. Yet, the island is not along Shinkansen Line, and you must take a local train and a bus for hours to get there even from its nearest Shinkansen station, Iwakuni. The most convenient way to visit the island may be hiring a rental car.
The most reasonable way to get around there is by long-distance bus. A night bus runs to Shimonoseki, the largest city in Yamaguchi, and stops at Iwakuni on its way. A day bus runs either to Hiroshima or Kokura, but both of them arrive there in the afternoon and leaves there early in the morning. If I were much younger, I would plan a four-day trip with two stays on the bus and one stay in a hotel. That sounds like a suicide to today's me.
An idea hit me. A day bus runs to Matsuyama very often, as often as to Kochi, where we visited last spring. We might take a ferry to Suwoh-Ohshima from Mitsuhama, a port town near Matsuyama. The sea used to be a road rather than a boundary.
The itinerary has, however, a risk. August 18/19 is just after Bon holidays. Beach hotels and inns must be still busy, being occupied with sea bathers. It may be at the start of a typhoon season as well. That might be worked out by staying in Matsuyama, although our stay in Suwoh-Ohshima will be a short one.
The port of Matsuyama has 3 districts. Its oldest district is called Mitsu-hama Port. The history of Mitsu-hama Port goes back to Muromachi Period, when Kohno Clan castled to the opposite bank (Minato-yama Joh, namely Port-Mountain Castle), and made it to the base of their Navy.
Kohno Clan used to be the biggest clan in Iyo, the Northwestern part of Shikoku Island, and prosperous for about 400 years till it was subverted by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1585. Its main castle used to be in today's Dogo Hot Spring area, and was called Yu-duki Joh, namely Hot-spring Built Castle).
It is in this Mitsu-hama Port that Natsume Soseki got off when he went for his post to Matsuyama in 1895, and thus the port became one of the stages of the popular novel Bocchan, one of two youth-market-oriented well-known novels by Sohseki. Of course at that time, there was not a satisfactory wharf, and was only a summer-house-like waiting room as an equipment of the port. People used to take a shallop to get on a ship dropped anchor off the shore.
Today, a car ferry sails to the Yanai port in Yamaguchi Prefecture from this port.
In the Autumn of 1853, Murata Zohroku, later known as Ohmura Masujiro, a founder of modern Japanese Army, sailed from Yanai to Matsuyama on his way from Choh-shuh to Uwajima for his post. That is the one of two reasons why my daughter wanted to visit Suwoh-ohshima.
Ohmura had wanted to sail directly from Yanai to Matsuyama, but having found no service available, and having made up his mind to go island-by-island, he took a boat from Tohsaki to Suoh-ohshima. According to Shiba Ryotaro's Kahin, he arrived at the Komatsu Port on the island, and stayed there for one night. My daughter had wanted to breathe the air Murata (or Ohmura) breathed.


The second reason why my daughter wanted to visit the island is that it is an old battlefield of the war between Choh-shuh and Bakufu, Tokugawa Shogunate, in the year 1865. The war has 3 kinds of names. If you are pro-Shogunate, you call it Choh-shuh Seibatsu. If you stand neutral, you may call it Choh-Baku Sensoh. If you lived in Cho-shu at that time, you definitely called it Shi-kyo Sensoh, Four Fronts War.
Kashin writes; Shogunate had formulated the strategy; "first of all, to attack Ohshima with its fleet, to land the Army soldiers and occupy the whole island, and to make Kuga Port a temporary naval port" to have command of the Western Seto Inland Sea.
The first attack was on a morning, June 7. A battleship of Tokugawa Shogunate came, sailed around Ohshima, bombarded the fishing villages Agenoshoh, Tononyuh, and Yuh to burn out, and left somewhere. The next day, the Shogunate Army and Navy raided Ohshima in force. They bombarded several places, and landed soldiers afterward.
In Ohshima's coast of Kuga, the Shogunate fleet of warships, each with 1000 tons or more, is heavily anchored. Those days, night attack was considered to be impossible in naval battles. Takasugi Shinsaku, a well known revolutionist and military tactician at Bakumatsu, the end of Edo Period, dared do it. His military ship alone opened fire against Shogunate fleet, which had turned off their steam, and run away into the dark with its lamplights off. Having only light cannons, the physical damage he gave was not so big, but the psychological fear was so huge that the fleet escaped from the sea around Choh-shu to the east in panic, with their beached blue forces left. After a while, they were unseated from the island.
We have another reason why to have chosen Matsuyama route and stay. Matsuyama has Saka-no-ue-no-Kumo Museum.
The novel Saka no ue no Kumo starts as:
“A really small country is trying to get civilized.
“One of the islands of the country is Shikoku Island, and Shikoku is divided into Sanuki, Awa, Tosa, and Iyo. The capital of Iyo is Matsuyama.”
Matsuyama is a birth place of Akiyama Yoshifuru (1859-1930), Akiyama Saneyuki (1868-1918), and Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902). Saka no ue no Kumo continues:
“We may say the main character of this story is small Japan at this time. We, however, should follow three people.”
Its author, Shiba Ryohtaroh, tried to describe how Japan modernized itself by writing a story of struggling young people at the time.
He writes about his interest in the stage of Japanese history:
“The 30 years or more after the Meiji Restoration till Russo-Japanese War is very distinctive in the history of Japanese culture and mentality, in its long history.
“There used to be no age as optimistic as this.”
He thought people at the time were, however poor they were, optimistically struggling to progress:
“Optimists walk forward, as often the case in such an era, just looking ahead. As a cloud in a blue heaven shines over a hill they are climbing, they keep climbing the hill fixing their eyes just on the cloud.”
Have we ever caught the cloud?

Content-Based Instruction and Grammar (1st draft)

I have made 3 types of lists, which relate English authorized textbooks with Grammar & Sentence Structures.
Understanding Grammar (= syntax in the terminology of linguistics) needs a competency to process abstract symbols. Every human being is good at some things and bad at others. We have varieties of students, and some of them are, as the matter of course, not good at handling abstract knowledge. Having the competency or not is a matter of nature, and it is we teachers who are to show its solution.
Handling abstract or academic knowledge needs a corresponding schema. Let me describe the schema something like a map in our mind. Those students are not good at drawing the mental map (=cognitive map) of academic knowledge, and their knowledge tends either to be that of sticking to pieces of concrete, yet incidental, realities or to be isolated pieces of abstract one. They should be provided with opportunities to weave the pieces into a web of knowledge, to make all the dots they have into a map. The chances are, of course, educational school activities, including classes themselves.
It is clear that a mental map is drawn with the activities of brain cells, but it is yet to be seen how it relates with the neural networks of the cells. Here I would like to propose a procedure of the solution on the hypothesis that showing an explicit mapping of English-related knowledge can help their brain draw an English-related mental map.
In the traditional idea of English education, students are supposed to need the knowledge of Grammar, words, idioms, and sentence structures to generate English language and to pass entrance examinations. If you are good at abstract understanding, you can implicitly fabricate those types of knowledge into one web of English language competency. If not, you should be shown how each items are related each other, and the knowledge itself can facilitate the acquisition of each items.
To help students draw the Mental Map of English Usage (MMEU), English classes and materials provided should explicitly and clearly form one network. Considering the English classes in Sumiyoshi Senior High School have been naturally organized around the idea of Content-Based Instruction, the best way to provide whole parts of them in an explicit form of networks might be to organize them under the principle of CBI.
The lists I have made help Grammar and Sentence Structures networked around the contents of authorized textbooks.
Idiom could be networked around the contents, as idiom cards to remember them are made from the textbooks instead of having students buy a ready-made phrase book off the shelf. The form of “cards” is preferable, because idioms should be remembered not only in the relation with contents or, worse, in alphabetical order, but also by categorizing them from the view point of the certain key word of their constitutive parts to have students ready for entrance examinations. Accordingly, idioms should be able to be regrouped under different categories from time to time. That is why card type is preferable.
Here I provide prototype of mapping only for the first and second graders, in the hope that the students, once learned, will form their favorite type of networks of knowledge when they become the third graders.

References:
Gillian Cohen, ‘schemata’, "The Blackwell Dictionary of Cognitive Psychology", 1990, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, UK
Levia DelQuadro, "Content Based Grammar Instruction in the Basic Writing Classroom", Community College of Southern Nevada
Peter Morris, ‘cognitive maps’, "The Blackwell Dictionary of Cognitive Psychology", 1990, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, UK
Eiji Leland Suenaga, 'A Content-Based Approach to the Learning of Vocabulary Through Composition and Schematic Mapping', "Studies in Culture" No.1, November 1993, Hokkai-Gakuen University


Eiji Leland Suenaga, 'A Content-Based Approach to the Learning of Vocabulary Through Composition and Schematic Mapping', "STudies in Culture" No.1, November 1993, Hkkai-Gakuen University:
"by encouraging the students to personalize the theme" (p.133)
"It is hoped that this personalization of thematic unit will heighten the students' involvement with the content and, thus, increase their motivation." (p.133)
"One way that writers can directly access vocabulary schemata appropriate to a theme is through schematic mapping, a simple technique that enables the user to graphically encode information in an organized manner" (p.136)
"Through this technique, users learn to identify not only main ideas, subcategories, and supporting details but also associated vocabulary --- the same skill that is necessary when constructing coherent paragraphs and essays." (p.137)


Levia DelQuadro, "Content Based Grammar Instruction in the Basic Writing Classroom", Community College of Southern Nevada:
"It was not until I delved into the mysteries of teaching ESL that I realized that grammar had a subtle, yet vital, role to play."
"Content-based grammar instruction involves showing students how grammar works within texts. This can involve using either the student’s own papers or using published texts. What makes this very different from the old drill and practice ideology is that the student is never looking at grammar at only the sentence level. This type of instruction entails using at least paragraphs to contextualize how grammar works."

Theme-Based Vocabulary Building

As I argued in “How far could we apply Content-Based Instruction?” Theme-Based Language Instruction, the sub-method of Content-Based Instruction, is naturally associated with cramming for entrance examinations. The first publication of “Janru Betsu Eibun Dokkai Izen” (Furufuji Akira, Kenkyu-sha) in 1992, the first Theme-Based cramming reader, suggests having secure background knowledge in related themes or genres has become essential to understand English essays within limited time in today's English entrance examinations.
Since then, varieties of Theme-Based cramming vocabulary textbooks have also been published, such as “Ei-tango Bun'ya-betsu” (Kanai Takahisa et al, 1996, Kawai Shuppan), “Wadai-betsu Ei-tango --- Lingua-Metallica” (Nakazawa Yukio, 2006, Z-KAI), “Sokudoku Ei-tango” (Hayami Hiroshi, 1992, Z-KAI), “Dokkai Ei-tango” (Kohbe Fumiaki, 2003, Gakushuh Kenkyuh-sha), and as such. At first, all we had to do seemed to be choosing the right one at the right time.
As a part of their title, “-betsu” (namely: “classified”), suggests, the first 2 vocabularies are divided into sections of themes. The latter 2 have either “doku” or “dokkai” in their titles, which suggests they incline to reading, although their words and phrases are slightly divided under certain numbers of themes.
Some English teachers firmly believe that "words should be taught in the context of story, theme, or content area." (Barney, p.3) Because of the belief, the latter 3 titles have short essays to give their words and phrases certain contexts.
Sharing the belief somewhat however, I find the 3 rather reading-oriented and, above all, high-class-entrance-examination-oriented. Simpler structure may be preferable.
Then should we choose “Ei-tango Bun'ya-betsu”? Unluckily enough, it is out of print. I am afraid we have no other way but to make it by ourselves.
“Ei-tango Bun'ya-betsu” has 2178 words and phrases. I have entered the English words and phrases into an EXCEL file. Those words and phrases are divided into 15 categories. The categories have 83 sub-categories in total. The category names and those of sub-categories in the title are in Japanese. I have input the data along with their English translations. The question is whether its grouping is appropriate in quality and in quantity or not.
The number of sub-categories, 83, means each sub-category has 26.2 words and phrases on average. The biggest number of entries is, however, 59. From my experience, students might find difficulty in handling, mainly in memorizing, new words and phrases when the number gets far beyond about 20.
Reconsidering the categorization of the data might be indispensable. Including and excluding some entries may be inevitable. Checking my translation of category and sub-category names must be critical.


References:
Carol Barney, "The Impact of Contextual Vocabulary Strategies for ELL Learners", 2005, Shawnee Mission Northwest High School, http://www.smsd.org/custom/curriculum/ActionResearch2005/Barney.pdf
Jack c. Richard and Theodore s. Rodgers, "Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching" (2nd ed.), 2001, Cambridge University Press, New York
Eiji Leland Suenaga, 'A Content-Based Approach to the Learning of Vocabulary Through Composition and Schematic Mapping', "Sｔudies in Culture" No.1, November 1993, Hkkai=Gakuen University