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.