Hip-hop Japan: Rap and the Paths of Cultural Globalization

Recently I have read the following book, its main points are:

Book title :Condry, Ian. 2006. Hip-hop Japan: Rap and the Paths of Cultural Globalization. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Book Summary:

The thesis of the book is that the path of hip-hop development had showed that cultural globalization was not solely driven by powerful media (as a Frankfurt school’s thinking). This book shows that localized cultural forms could have a global shared-ness (from the US underground to Japan), and to understand hip-hop in term of a dichotomy of local/global could be problematic.

Condry argues that while the Japanese rappers drew inspiration from hip-hop which was about African Americans’ struggles, hip-hop became an approach for these rappers to talk about race issues in a Japanese way. Contrasting the hip-hop in the US as black noise, some people called hip-hop in Japan as yellow noise. In Japan, race as a topic could touch on the much debated issue of Japanese homogeneity. Rappers also touched on new cultural politics, and advocated transnational connectedness with others ethnic groups, for example easing tension with the Korean (p.47).

Condry notices that many Japanese emcees often packaged themselves into the images of samurai toughness, representing a link to Japanese culture e.g. in history and language (p.49). The author suggests that genba (the actual sites of performance) enabled the audience to feel the global nature of hip-hop while at the same time enjoyed a local feeling (e.g. through the samurai image picked by the rappers/hip-hoppers to represent themselves). Hip-hop generated a challenge to understand cultural globalization using the dichotomy of global and local (p.86).

Focusing on some hip-hop events held in clubs, Condry points out that the clubs were in existence amidst the larger music industry and in a society that encountered a changing youth culture. The young people were facing a change in employment pattern and a drop in job opportunities (p.87). Condry asks the question: whether hip-hop performance in clubs could influence the society (to cause reforms to improve the situation of the youth), the business world (that was looking for sale and profit) and government politics (that was looking at pop music as a source of soft-power) respectively (p.87). The book argues that genba hip-hop, based on performativity, could offer a way to distinguish between the different paths of cultural globalization. Genba hip-hop emerged from the collective focus of energy and attention from all participants, which was different from other US globalized culture such as McDonald fast food. Condry also asserts that through genba we could see how the global and the local intersected (p.94).

For the purpose of examining the relation between rap fans and Japan’s consumer culture,  and  based on the ideas of Clammer and Miller, the author asserts that “consumerism shapes capitalism while extending its reach, becoming integrated into notions of national and local identities” (pp.112-113). Quoting Miller, Condry suggests that “people admire authenticity through creation: if you make it, it is yours” (p.113). The author further argues that Japan in 1990s witnessed a change that could be noticed in the self-organization of hip-hop fans. There were two broad changes: an increased massifcation of popular culture, and an increased diversification of markets. In hip-hop, there were specialized scenes for different styles of hip-hop, and a growing number of fans came to occupy relative autonomous “island in space” (p.115). The author identifies two worlds of Japanese rap fans: the underground hip-hop and the party rap. On the changes in consumer culture, Condry identifies two new concepts seen during 1980s to 1990s: the shinjinrui (the new human type, i.e. those who had money to spend due to the economic boom) and the otaku (those youth who retreated from the society) (p.124).

Condry also pointed out the scarcity of women rappers in Japan. He concluded that this situation reminded us that there was still a peculiar conservatism among the men who control entertainment business in Japan (p.180).

Condry also looks into the use of English in achieving rhyming in hip-hop and suggests that Japanese rap demonstrated the contingency of linguistic identity. Using English could be interpreted as Western domination. But some of these uses were aimed at cracking the hegemonic understanding that Japanese was one people with one language (the Nihonjinron) (pp.134-5). Rapping was not just about rhyming, it was about finding a language that could creak the fissure of artificial language i.e. the “standard Japanese” (p.152).  Language used in Japanese hip-hop told us about the power of English in global popular culture, and that to evaluate the role of English depended on knowing why it was used (might be aiming at generating aesthetic or political forces) (p.162). This view of language politics might help us to see beyond the stereotype that the use of English was an evidence of “American influence” (p.163).

Condry argues that it was not money alone that motived the development of Japanese hip-hop. Without the artists’ commitment in organizing shows and reaching out to the wider audience, hip-hop could not generate money. For the artists, there were other goals to promote hip-hop: to promote upcoming projects, to build a reputation and to extend fan support. (p.182). There were no clear line between culture and market. Both economic force and the cultural force could be at work. Condry concluded that commercialism alone did not drive hip-hop in Japan.

Hip-hop in Japan showed that the conventional understanding of globalization was in need of a revision. If we viewed transnational flow in terms of multinational corporation, powerful media, or government forces, we would fail to see the diversity of paths that connected the global culture. Genba, the actual sites of performance (including nightclubs and recording studios) was and important path for cultural globalization (p.207). Going to clubs embodied a movement against the mainstream; it emphasis leisure, consumption and speaking out. Hip-hop offered a chance to speak truth to those in power, and provided a way for hip-hoppers to imagine themselves as part of a global cultural movement (p.217).

Culture, Media, Language: Working Papers in Cultural Studies, 1972-1979

Recently I have read the following book, its main points are:

Book title: Hall, Stuart. 2003. Culture, Media, Language: Working Papers in Cultural Studies, 1972-1979. Stuart Hall, David Hobston, A. Lowe, and Paul Willis. London: Hutchinson.

Book summary:

This book is a collection of papers from the Birmingham Cultural Studies Center’s journal: the Working Papers in Cultural studies. They reflect on some key themes and topics touched on during the formative period of Cultural Studies (p.8).

Chapter one talks about the first issue of the Working paper in Cultural Studies published in 1972 which admitted that approaches on culture studies could have a greater variety of ways, and probably be more than the Birmingham Centre could handle (p.15). As such, the Centre refused to fix the range and scope of Cultural Studies. The journal aimed to define and occupy a space, and to put Cultural Studies on the intellectual map. Some intellectual in that era felt that they were confronting a post-war British society which was in a period of change and development (p.16). The revival of capitalist production appeared to bring economic, political and cultural forces into new kinds of relation. What type of social formation was now in the making? What would be the consequences for traditional class relationship? These issues set the term of post-war ‘cultural debate’ and defined the space from which Cultural studies would emerge. The tension between ‘political’ and intellectual concerns would shape cultural studies ever since (p.17). The new direction was to rework procedures and methods so as to apply them to the study of living class cultures.

Among the writers, Raymond William defined culture as the ‘whole process’ through which meaning and definitions were socially constructed and historically transformed, literature and art were merely one kind of social communication. E.P.Thompson defined culture as rooted in the collective experience (p.19). It situated culture between ‘social being’ and ‘social consciousness’. Thompson insisted on the historical specificity of culture. Their writings implied a break with previous conceptualization, and moved culture into the wider field of social practice and historical practice which were defined as ‘sociological’ in a loose sense (p.20).

The ‘sociological encounter’ could be described in many ways and led to a new range of work with emphasis on ‘lived culture’, for example the study of youth future and the study of deviance in schooling etc. (p.22). It extended the meaning of culture from text and representation to lived practice and belief system etc. (p.23).

During the development of Cultural Studies, the influence of ‘Althusseranism’ was important. Althusser and his followers had reshaped the central issue regarding the relationship between ideologies/culture and class formations (p.33). Cultures as the lived practices of social groups inevitably produce a focus on the class formations. Althusser not only challenged both the attempt to reduce the specificity of ‘ideological instance’ to economic factor (i.e. ‘over-determination’), but also the attempt to see a simple correspondence between class formation and cultural formation (p.34). The argument was that classes were not simple ‘economic structure’, the formations included all practices: economic, political and ideological. Also, classes were not integral formations and did not carry pre-set ideologies (p.34). Similarly, Gramsci also resisted any attempts to align cultural and ideological question with class and economic ones (p.35). As an alternative, Gramsci brought about the idea of ‘hegemony’ which had played a key role in Culture Studies. Therefore we could see different research could employed different paradigms and took different focus (p.40). Furthermore, different areas of research had retained distinct mythological emphasis: some emphases on ethnographic field work, some on the centrality of text and discourse, and some on using historical methods of research on archive documents (p.41).

Chapter 4 talks about the subcultural conflict that happened in a working class community in East End London where re-development had begun (p.78). Phil Cohen uses a Marx lens to explain the conflict between the parents and the younger generation, and also the appearance of a youth subculture inside this redeveloped community which was in opposition to the parent culture (p.82). In the concluding paragraphs in explaining the delinquency in the working class, the author suggests that  in the study of structural relation for the emergence of subcultures, we needed to look at not only the Marxist theory, but also in psychoanalytic terms (p.87).

Chapter 7 talks about the relationship between housewives and the mass media which included radio and television. On the radio, the author concentrated on the reaction of women to the disc jockeys (p.107). Regarding television, he focuses on the feminine world, i.e. on how and why a female viewer decided the programmes to watch (113). My comment is that this was a research on feminism.

Chapter 8 talks about development of Media Studies at the Birmingham Center. Basically it first broke from the model of ‘direct influence’ into a framework which drew much more on the ‘ideological’ role of the media (p.117). Second, it challenged the notion of media text as a ‘transparent’ bearer of meaning. Their concern was about the ideological nature of mass communication and the complexity of linguistic structuration of its form (p.118). Third, it broke with the passive conception of the audience. Fourth, it explains the role of the media played in ideological definitions and representation (p.118).

Chapter 9 talks about the ideological dimension of the media. The chapter starts with a definition on ideology by Althusser. Then it adds in the argument made by Veron and Eco. Finally it quotes the idea of Barthes to explain the concepts of signifier and signified.

Chapter 10 was about encoding and decoding. It asserts that traditionally mass-communication research had perceived the process of communication as a circulating loop. It points out that this process could also be conceptualized as a process that had connection yet with distinctive moments of production, circulation, distribution (consumption) and reproduction (p.128). The latter conception had the advantage in bringing out how a continuous circuit: production-distribution-production could be sustained through a ‘passage of forms’. Based on this perspective, the chapter explains how a television programme, as a meaningful discourse, was produced, circulated and consumed (p.130). This chapter points out that linguistic theory frequently distinguished between ‘denotation’ and ‘connotation’. ‘Denotation’ was equated with the literal meaning of a sign. ‘Connotation’ referred to a changeable meaning that needed the intervention of codes in order to give the meaning. To the author the terms ‘denotation’ and ‘connotation’ were regards as useful analytic tools to differentiate between the different levels at which ideologies and discourse encountered (p.133).

Chapter 11 talks about the ‘impartiality ‘of television news and current affairs programmes. The author suggested that it was wrong to perceive TV news and public affair programmes as bias and distorted. The author proves his case by using a television account of the Labor government’s attempts in 1974 to win over the trade unions to accept a policy of wage restraint (p.139). The article concluded that the similar viewpoints held by the broadcasters, the state and the hegemonic organs of civil society such the TUC was not due to conspiracy. The broadcasting accepted the government’s logic of thinking due to the latter’s status as the elected representatives of the people. It was the ‘antiquated fallacy’, not bias, which put the broadcaster, the government and the TUC on the same side.

Chapter 17 argues that the ideology of sexuality was disparate and contradictory for women, although contained within a patriarchal relation such as active/passive (p.220). Using three advertisements that had a female or a female’s body part as the focus of attention, the author illustrates several points on sexuality about women. 

Is Taiwan Chinese? The Impact of Culture, Power, and Migration on Changing Identities

Recently I have read the following book, its main points are:

Book Title: Melissa Brown. 2004. Is Taiwan Chinese?  The Impact of Culture, Power, and                     Migration on Changing Identities. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of                California Press.

Main Points:

Chapter 1.- since 1999 Taiwan had started to assert its claim over sovereignty in terms of the social basis of its identity. The complex ways in which identity underlay the political debate over Taiwan’s future relationship with China was the subject of the book (p.2).

- the examination the border of identities. The question on How borders were drawn and how people cross them – could help answer the question on how could we get to the reality underneath the political rhetoric. How did we know what identities ordinary individual in Taiwan and China had? (p.3)

- a similar identity changes happened before and after 1949  in China’s Hubei showed that changes in Taiwan in ethnic identity were not unique to Taiwan (p.3).

- “narratives of unfolding” were not history, nor were they simply a biased interpretation of past events; they are ideologies – a conscious falsification, a conscious selection of some of the available evidence to serve a political purpose (p.6).

- identities must be negotiated; they were not simply a matter of choice, because identity formation in individuals and groups derived from their interaction with the social and cultural context in which they lived in (p.13).

- if we were to use Confucian criteria related to ancestor worship to classify people as Han, Taiwanese would turn out to be more Han than Chinese in post-cultural revolution 1967. Tu Wei-ming argued that the periphery such as Taiwan, Hongkong were more Confucian than the PRC (p.29).

- chapter 2- the goal was to provide a historical overview of Taiwan that included plains Aborigines from the early 17^th century to end of the 20^th century (p.36).

- the villages Toushe, Jibeishua and Longtian in Taiwan were descendants of plains aborigines that maintained an aborigine identities in spite of some intermarriage with Hoklo through the Qing period until after the Japanese colonial government mandated a ban on foot-binding. The aborigines took on a Hoklo identity in the 1930s and the author called this recent identify change “the long route to Han” (p.66).

-  chapter 3. the author reconstructs when and how the changes in identity in these 3 villages had occurred (p.67).

- except for the gendered  practices of foot-binding and chewing betel among women, Toushe, Jibeishua, and Longtain appeared culturally very like poor Hoklo villages. But they were still regarded as savages by non-aborigines; they were not conferred with the Hoklo identity. It indicated that cultural practise were not enough to confer ethnic identity (p.92).

- why older identities was preferred? The whole point of constructing narratives of unfolding was the presumption that antiquity conferred authenticity (p.132). Yet actual historical development of recent identities could be traced and they showed all too clear that identities were closely tied to socio-political circumstances.

- chapter 4. the book explains that mixed population used ancestry, not culture to claim Han identity, probably through the use of Han surname as “the short route to Han”. They changed identity before they culturally changed towards the Han model (p.134).

- the late 17th century identity changes were important to consider a new narrative of Taiwan’s unfolding for 2 reasons. First, people in Taiwan today accept this older identity changes more readily because people view antiquity as conferring authenticity. The second reason why short-route identity changes (by marriage) was important for the consideration of a new narrative of Taiwan’s unfolding was its cultural impact on Hoklo Taiwanese culture (p.135).

- in the present day, in order for the Taiwanese not to be considered as simply another regional variety of Han, Taiwan’s narrative  must show the distinguished new Taiwanese identity as uniquely different, it was actually the long-route pattern which appeared to be unique to Taiwan and could provide a basis  for claiming a difference (p.165).

- chapter 5, the book introduces the identities changes in the Tujia (natives) in Enshi of Hubei. It was used to compare with the situation in Taiwan because it had similarities to the new narrative constructed about Taiwan’s past. It showed that identity changes were not unique to Taiwan (p.167).

- with the founding of PRC, identity change in Hubei took a different turn, undoing short-route identity changes. Many ‘locals’ in Hubei was classified as Tujia in the 1950s. Most notably, officials in Hubei concluded that intermarriage between Han patrilineal ancestor and non-Han matrilineal ancestors led to de-sinicization. Yet the PRC denied such de-sinicization occurred in Taiwan (p.168).

- chapter 5 the book reconstructs identity and cultural changes among Tujia and their ancestor in Hubei.

- in Hubei on the concept of local and outsiders, there were two important conclusions. First, the border between locals and outsider shifted with each new wave of immigrants, people already there became ‘locals’ to the new immigrants. The second important conclusion was that knowledge of these historical shifts in identity was preserved in genealogies and oral histories (p.185).

- in many practices and beliefs relating the parental authority, locals in Enshi differed significantly from Confucian-derived element of Han culture. Thus in spite of local’s sense of themselves as Han; the government felt strongly that they were not Han (p.205).

- what happened in Enshi provided some insight into the PRC’s reaction to Taiwan’s new narrative. The PRC did not deny that de-sinicization was possible; it denied that cultural changes had gone far enough to warrant a change to non-Han identity (p.210).

- the author investigates how culture, power and migration each impacted identity differently. Ideologies in the form of ‘narratives of unfolding’ talked about identity in terms of culture, demographic condition that would affect social experience (p.210).

- chapter 6 talks about why culture, social power, and demographic condition had different influence on people (p.210).

- The ‘Taiwan problem’ – the question of whether Taiwan should be a part of Chinese nation was a political issue. Moreover, it was fundamentally an issue of identity. Identity was political as proved by this book (p.211).

- in the concluding chapter, the book would first examined the ideological terms of debate as well as actual experience which influenced the choices, and action of people and government. The chapter examines them in a theoretical level and then used a theory to discuss the real-world political implication of the new Taiwanese identity (p.211).

- the author combines cognitive, evolutionary, interpretive, and postmodern insights to suggest that choices were influenced differently by culture meaning, social power, the cognitive structure and operation of the brain, and demographic trend (p.228).

- analysis of the underlying identity issue in the ‘Taiwan problem’ showed how difficult it would be to work out the political impasse over Taiwan’s future. Identity was the negotiated product of the interaction between what people claimed for themselves and what others allowed them to claim. (p.245).

Taiwan: a political history

Recently I have read the following book, its main points are:

Book title: Denny Roy. 2003. Taiwan: a political history. Ithaca and London: Cornell University                       Press.

Main points:

- this book seeks to tell Taiwan’s story in a way that would illumine the origin of Taiwan’s present domestic and international political situation (p.2).

- chapter 1 talks about Taiwan’s early history. The people who became known as the Taiwanese came to Taiwan to get away from conditions in China. This was the beginning of Taiwan’s divergence from the mainland in social, economic, and political development. From here foreign influence would play an important role as well – first the Dutch and then the japans (p.31). While growing within China’s shadow, Taiwan remained distinct from China.

- chapter 2 talks about the Japanese occupation.

- chapter 3 talks about the return of Taiwan to mainland rule in 1945. Mainlanders had regarded the Taiwanese as semi feudal Chinese. Five decades of Japanese influence created suspicion about the depth of Chinese patriotism on Taiwan (p.56).

- Taiwanese had a different interpretation of the significance of the Japanese colonial period. While they resented the discrimination and restrictions on their political power, many Taiwanese also believed Japanese rule had helped Taiwan’s advance economically, politically, and socially. Taiwanese had their own sense of superiority. As some Taiwanese had reminded the mainlanders, it was the Chinese government that had given Taiwan to Japan in the first place (p.57).

- chapter 4 talks about the martial law and Kuomintang domination. The KMT’s fixation on recovering China had contradictory consequence for Taiwan. On the one hand, the ROC government required Taiwan people’s dedication and sacrifice; on the other hand, the KMT believed that successfully implementation the ‘Three principles of the people’ in Taiwan could serve as a model of KMT rule and weaken support for the CCP on the mainland.  Thus doing well in Taiwan would help KMT win back China (p.79).

- Despite the harsh treatment of some political offenders, the combination of modest political reforms began to gain the KMT some legitimacy in the eyes of many Taiwanese (p.104).

- chapters 5 talks about Taiwan in the Cold War. The outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 convinced key US policymakers that the contest with the Sino-Soviet bloc had entered a new, more intense phase. In Truman’s word ‘the attack upon Korea makes it plain beyond all doubts that Communism has passed beyond the use of subversion to conquer independent nation’ (p.112).

- Truman saw the Korean War as a temporary setback to US-China relations and expected to return to their prewar policy of accommodating China (p.124).

-  Tokyo remained torn between the need to get along with the PRC, and the affinity of many Japanese for Taiwan based on ties of history and ideology (p.129).

- during the PRC’s Cultural Revolution (1967-77), Taipei answered  with a movement called the Cultural Renaissance, which reaffirmed Sun Yat-sen’s ‘Three principles of the people’ as the basis of Chinese society (p.144).

- the events of the Cold War and the Chinese civil war melded together partially but not completely. There was considerable tension between KMT and the US in the context of American Cold War strategy (p.150).

- it was hard to dispute that American discouragement of KMT’s planned ‘return to the mainland’ was in Taiwan’s best interest at least in the short term. The US continued to provide weaponry to Taiwan (p.151).

- Chapter 6 talks about the struggle of the Taiwanese for political reform and freedom. The ruling KMT conservatives worried that liberalization would make Taiwan more vulnerable to separatism or communist subversion (p.154).

- the opposition party DPP members made their public speeches in the Taiwanese dialect rather than in mandarin. DPP adopted a program with the basic goal that included self-determination of Taiwan’s political status trough plebiscite and rejoining the UN (p.173).

- chapter 7 talks about Taiwan under Lee Teng-hui. KMT’s evolution through the 1980s saw the beginning of a deep division; the most important fault lines involved the perennial struggle between Taiwanese and mainlanders (p.184).

- strategically, international connections and recognition could enhance Taiwan’s security. By strengthening its membership in the international community through economic, culture etc., Taiwan became more eligible to the protection offered by international norm (p.212).

- by and large Taiwanese preferred to wait rather than commit to either unification with China or independence. President Lee said ‘Most Taiwan resident have a fluid and ambivalent national identity’ (p.213).

- disagreement over the one-China principle was an obstacle to cross-strait talks between CCP and KMT. In 1992, negotiators for Taiwan and China agreed to shelve this tough political issue. Subsequently, a controversy developed over whether the two sides had reached a ‘consensus’ that they could hold differing interpretations of the one-China principle (p.219).

- chapter 8 talks about how the DPP captured the presidency. The trends of Taiwanese empowerment and weakening of the KMT culminated in the election of DPP candidate Chen Shui-bian as the president in March 2000 (p.227). The DPP’s successes when Taiwan entered a new century underscored the two main themes of Taiwan’s recent political history: democratization and the persistence of tensions with China (p.239).

- Chapter 9 concludes that this survey of Taiwan’s political history sought to aid comprehension of the island’s unusual present-day political circumstance. One peculiarity was that two distinct ‘Chinese’ government claim over the ownership of Taiwan (p.241). At issue was not only the question of which Chinese government had rightful claim to Taiwan, but also the possibility that Taiwan might reject both and opted instead for political separation from China. Taiwan had not made up its own mind. The identity of Taiwan’s people as a whole remained unsettled (p.242). While recognizing their cultural and genealogical roots in China, Taiwanese were particularly reticent toward the notion of to be ruled by mainland Chinese. Chinese in Taiwan took Taiwan’s handover to Japan in 1895 as a sell out by the central government. The US and China faced the prospect of a war over Taiwan that neither side wanted. China was committed to attack Taiwan under certain circumstances while the US was committed to defend Taiwan under certain circumstances (p.243).

Book’s idea in one paragraph: this book tells Taiwan’s story in a way that would illumine the origin of Taiwan’s present domestic and international political situation (p.2). By and large Taiwanese preferred to wait rather than commit to either unification with China or independence. Most Taiwan residents have a fluid and ambivalent national identity (p.213) and the identity of Taiwan’s people as a whole remained unsettled (p.242). While recognizing their cultural and genealogical roots in China, Taiwanese were particularly reticent toward the notion of being ruled by mainland Chinese.

The Price of Affluence: dilemmas of contemporary Japan

Recently I have read the following book. A book summary is attached:

Book title: Hidaka, Rokuro. 1984. The Price of Affluence: dilemmas of contemporary Japan. Kodanshi International Ltd.

Main points:

Chapter one: it was his reflection on the postwar period while Hidaka lectured on history of postwar thought at a college in Kyoto. One of the people he talked about was Miki Kiyoshi who was a political prisoner that died in a prison cell even when the War was already over. This incident was discovered by a foreign reporter (p.17). He also talks about the Tribunal (p.19). Some of the former prisoners of war in Japan were released and took leading position again after the War. He also talked about the Lockheed affair, a corruption scandal that shook Japan in the 1970s (p.21).

- one problem with the ‘increased comfort’ in Japan was tied to the increased in pollution and the Japanese economic expansion overseas (p.29).

- the author wonders whether or not Japan was slowly heading in the direction of another 15 August. There had been no sign that the conservative business and political leadership were re-examining their own ways (p.33).

Chapter two was about his personal experience. He was 28 years old when the War ended in 1945. He told his war time life and experience to his students and found 3 things about his student’s reaction. First they were moved by the things that he had felt strongly. Second, students came to appreciate the connection the meanings of various events. Third, their interest was aroused when he discusses the points of contact between military and political development on the global scale and the behavior of everyday life of normal people. They were interested in knowing how people spent their days during the War (pp.36-7).

- it must be admitted that ordinary people too, in their everyday life, sowed the seeds of war, and fertilized them (p.39).

Chapter 3 talks about the struggle inside the author himself. It was about his childhood spent in Qingdao in China (p.48).

- it was undeniable that presently Japan’s economic expansion in Asia and other countries contained elements of economic aggression and caused the destruction of local national industries. (p.61).

Chapter 4: the author holds the view that from 1945 to 1984, an important qualitative transformation had occurred (p.63). The change was that Japan had become one of the world’s leading economic powers, into a state of conflict and contradiction with the third world, especially with Asia (p.64).

- Japan should internationally abide by pacifism, and domestically it should build a democratic society to share the resources.

- using an opinion survey from 1930s to 1980s, the author noted in the 1958 there was a change which he called it the period of economism (p.67). It showed how deeply the desire for comfortable life had penetrated into our psyche (p.71).

- he believes that unrestrained self-indulgence would result in highly perilous state of affair (p.73). To put economic consideration before all else had three problems. It destroys relation between human and nature, it destroyed relation between human, and it created contraction between Japan and Asian countries (p.74).

Chapter 5 is about the danger of moving toward a controlled society. The discussion was about the book 1984 by George Orwell (p.79). He also used the Seventh Physical Training School in Romania to highlight the control of the country by a government (p.82).

- in Japan there was growing grounds for concern that strong feeling of nationalism might merge again in the 1980s, especially since he LDP overwhelming victory in elections (p.85).

- the book suggests ways to overcome the trend toward a controlled society: regulated administration shifting to dispersed, self-management type of socialist administration; and to change mass production into small scale production, from private automobile to public transport etc. (p.102).

Chapter 6 talks about youth. Now youth had lost all interest in correctness and wisdom and had become enslaved by gentleness. To adults, young people were no longer hostile being. Adults merely worried about their delinquency, their suicide and their neuroses (p.120).

Chapter 7 talks about the 19 April incident that happened in Korea in 1960 to overthrow President Syngman Rhee for democracy, and the 15 June incident of Security Treaty struggle happened in Japan at the same year. He asked why the 19 April incident had been passed on and survived to the present day while the 15 June had not survived (p.129).

Chapter 8 was about the Minamata incident (p.136). Later the chapter digresses to talk about schools in Japan. In Japan, the gap between schools in terms of status had reached an alarming level. High schools were considered superior to vocational high school. In higher education, there was hierarchical gap between ‘first rate’, ‘second rate’ and ‘third rate’ universities (p.150).

- in the concluding remark, the author us a story to end the discussion. He read this story in a book of German Gestalt psychology during his student years (p.163). He suggests that Japanese could be in danger again and fell into the ‘lake’ mentioned in the story book (p.167).

A Cultural History of Postwar Japan 1945-1980

Recently I have read the following book. A book summary is attached:

Book title: Tsurumi, Shunsuke. 1987. A Cultural History of Postwar Japan 1945-1980. Kegan Paul International.

Main points:

Chapter 1: talks about the occupation of Japan by the US since August 1945. The early phase of the occupation perpetuated the original spirit of the New Deal as it had existed in the US. (p.2)

-  the Japanese government had constructed an elaborate message to the Japanese people that they had acted wisely in bringing the long war to an honorable close (in avoiding using the word surrender) (p.5).

- the occupation authority allowed the Japanese to use the term ‘termination of war’ and ‘stationing of forces’ in lieu of ‘defeat’ and ‘occupation’ (6).

- for the people at large, the most durable influence of the Occupation was on the Japanese life style, especially with respect to relationships between women and man.

Chapter 2: was on the sense of justice as seen from the War Tribunal. The view of Japanese on the tribunal during the period of existence was different from that of 30 years later (p.13). On 9^th August 1945, Ministry of Foreign Office stated that the term ‘war criminal’ would refer only to those who had violated international laws by action such as ill-treating prisoner of war. The war leaders did not consider the possibility of being prosecuted by the international court in front of the Japanese people (p.13).

- according to Keenan the main purpose of the trial was to defend peace and international law, and the punishment of the accused was only a subsidiary purpose. The Japanese felt that those seven had died as scapegoats; some though that they had died for the emperor. Seeing the trial as a modern legal cover of a primitive form of retaliation, the Japanese accepted the justice imposed by the conquerors as a physical necessity (pp.14-15).

- the absence of the Emperor at the trial was a relief to most Japanese, it was universally understood throughout the War that all orders were given in the name of the Emperor (p.16).

- in 1952 the Occupation was over, in response to the Korean war, the US began to support the return of wartime leaders, the Japanese economy was able to achieve a recovery (p.21).

- in the wake of the prosperity since 1960 there had been a surge of compassion for the victims of the War Crime Trials, expressed in a play by Takeda Taijuin published in 1954, with an English version performed in 1967 (p.23).

- the last testament of General Tojo was a 31-sylable poem. Tojo fought courageously in the trial for his belief that the war was inevitable and just, he could meet his death unburdened by regrets. (p.24).

- 30 years after the War, the Emperor in a press interview on TV said that he was not aware of any such thing as responsibility for war, showing disregard to the sentiment of people and the victims of War. Since the surrender, Japanese had retained affection and respect for the Emperor as was shown in polls and surveys (p.26).

Chapter 3 – talks about comics in post war Japan. In addition to picture-card shows and the lending library, a third factor contributed to the unique character of modern Japanese comics was the emergence of women cartoonists (p.41). Therefore its path of development was different from that of the US.

Chapter 4 – it was about vaudeville acts. The continuing stream of common culture was a basic reason why more than 90 per cent of Japanese today label themselves as middle class. Standard of living, measured in terms of automobiles, washing machines and color TV could not alone account of the middle-class consciousness. It had its roots in the mid-Tokugawa city culture (p.49).

- according a folklorist, linguistic arts in Japan had their origin in banquet amusement. It was the manzai performance. The heart of the performance was a simple dialogue between the serious character and the nitwit.

- manzai differed from the rakugo, the art of telling droll stories, another vaudeville art fostered in the Edo period (p.53).

Chapter 5 talks about legends of common culture, mainly focuses on TV.

- national feeling had to be expressed in postwar Japan with means other than the national flag, the national anthem, and the imperial edicts. After Japan entered its period of economic growth, the TV broadcasting of a song congest by NHK TV at the close of the year seemed to have been a major national symbol (p.64). Other popular programmes were the NHK serialized drama broadcast each morning, and the Great River Drama seen on Sunday evenings.

- in a highly developed capitalist society, the art form most accessible to the general populace was advertising. (74)

- another literary pole was journalism. This form of literature had a prehistory in Japanese detective novel, which became highly popular after 1960s (p.77). After his early success as a mystery writer, Matsumoto went on to write a social history series: mysteries of the occupation period, mysteries of the prewar Japanese government etc. (p.78). His Black Fog Series had contributed an invaluable service in reporting social activities (p.78).

Chapter 6. It was about trends in popular songs since the 1960s. Three groups of songs could be identified. The first group was song in the pre-Meiji tradition of Japanese music. The second group was the early Western-style melodies composed in Japan. The third group were from the postwar period after the close contact with American culture during the Occupation that formed a new stream (pp.94-98).

Chapter 7: the magazine World Culture and the weekly paper Saturday were not bound by ideology; they were issue-oriented and were the forerunners of the citizen’s movement after 1960s.

- After the bloody May Day of 1952, factional fighting within the Communist party caused them to loosen their grip on the “circles”. By 1960, the word ‘circle’ had come to mean any small group of amateurs pursing some cultural activity (p.106).

- when the industrialization of Japan introduced new disease and created more victims of pollution, a citizens’ movement emerged (p.107).

- as a theorist of the citizen’s movement, and former member of the ‘World culture’ circle during the War, Taketani Mitsuo talked about public issues (p.107).

- the most famous incident in the anti-pollution movement was the protest against Minamata disease (p.108).

- of all the postwar Japanese cartoons, ‘Sazaesan’ by Hasegawa Machiko had enjoyed the longest life, from 1946 up to the present (p.111). This ‘Sazaesan’ reflected the social outlook of some 15 to 20 million ordinary Japanese (p.113).

Chapter 8: It was about patterns of life. A society for the study of contemporary customs beginning in 1976 asked its 500 members about their breakfast habits. Only 6 percent ate the traditional Japanese breakfast of boiled rice, bean-paste soup, and fermented soy beans etc. (p.117).

- the government policy of high industrialization at the cost of agriculture had so far made Japan a prosperous country. It had urbanized Japan and turned the majority of Japanese into city dwellers. (p.120).

- since the 1960s, the majority of Japanese men and women had worn western clothes, even when they were at home (p.122).

- according to an estimate by a population institute in 1979, the Japanese population had stabilized, and would reach zero growth after 50 years (p.123).

Chapter 9: the misconception of British schoolchildren regarding Japan was often duplicated in western guidebooks (p.129). Among the many issues, the author pointed out 3 areas that the guidebooks had overlooked. 

Labour and Imperial Democracy in Prewar Japan

Recently I have read the following book. Its details are:

Book title: Gordon, Andrew. Labour and Imperial Democracy in Prewar Japan. Berkeley: University of Californian Press, 1991.

Thesis: labour movement was social factor for unrest. The unrest gave good reasons for the regime/rulers in Japan to tighten social control.

Goal/Objective: to understand the political role that working men and women had played in the 20^th century Japan (p.3). There were two types of behaviour (and idea): rioting crowds and the non-union labour disputes, the focus was on the labour working in the east side of Tokyo called Nankatsu (p.3).

Book structure: three parts: part one explores how the wage labourers and urban poor responded to the political world and the world of work (often using court records for research). Part 2 was about the working-class movement under the imperial democratic structure of rules. By the late 1920s it appeared that bureaucrats and party leaders were implementing a liberal version of imperial democracy. Part 3 examines the crisis of depression and the retreat of both unions and the proletarian parties during the 1930s (p.25).

Key points:

- talks about the labour movement in pre-war Japan under Imperial democracy (1905-1932); the movement was started before the beginning of the Taisho period (1912-1925).

- less than 8% of prewar workers joined unions at the peak of the movement and that the leftist did poorly in the early elections (p.4).

- proposes the notion of a trajectory from imperial bureaucracy to imperial democracy then to fascism as a framework to account for the labour history (p.9).

- suggests that those western historians who saw ‘militarism’ primarily as a response of the bureaucratic  and military elites in Japan to international crisis had overlooked both the obsessive fear of these leaders, and the deep belief that their democratic society was collapsing. They would subsequently decide to reorder the society (p.10).

- suggests that ‘Taisho democracy’ was chronologically inaccurate and analytically empty (p.5)

- imperial democracy had two incarnations: it began as a political movement, later it became a system of rule (p.13). As party rule became a routine, many people sought further reform as a means to control worker, poor farmer and intellectual radical movement (p.14). In the 1930s, the parties eclipsed and democratic ideas repudiated, a new regime came into being (p.14).

- the ideology of imperial democracy was that a strong modern nation required the active participation of a prosperous popular. This belief was the glue that held together the diverse issues that had motivated the leaders and drew the crowds: threats of imperialism abroad, lower taxes and economic relief at home etc. (p.50).

- the rice riot in 1918 differed from earlier incidents because of the absence of preliminary agitation by bourgeois political leaders. In 1919, the Yuaikai, renamed Sodomei, began to handle labour disputes. The rice riot propelled Hara Kei into the prime minister’s office and the ascendancy of imperial democracy as a structure of rule (p.108).

- the 1914 riot was the last in which all elements in the chemistry of the crowd reacted together. The next 2 Tokyo disturbances in 1918 was the turning point in two respects: the separation of elements of the crowd, and the transformation of the imperial democracy from a movement into a structure of rule (p.59).

- the formation of the Hara cabinet was a milestone in the transformation of imperial democracy into a structure of rule (p.61).

- Gordon’s objective was to explain labour’s political performance and to assess it significance, not to label it as a ‘success’ or a ‘failure’. To describe the labour offensive of union-building, the disputes and electoral politics was a relatively straightforward task, although historians had not often recognize the extent to which disputes became an integral part of urban culture of Japan in the 1920s (p.203).

- after the 1923 earthquake, the ‘dispute culture’ spread to smaller places. Working men and women began to demand precisely those standards assumed to prevail in large factories (p.218).

- discerning the goals of the men and women who organized the unions and engaged in disputes was difficult because of the expectation imposed  upon rank and file by organizers, and by historians of later generation (p.219).

- Gordon believes that the relationship between labour and social problems, and the ‘big story’ of the ascendancy of the military and fascism in the 1930s had been insufficiently studied and its significance was under-appreciated (p.238). A range of evidence from diaries and memoirs to newspaper etc. suggested that a relationship did exit (p.239). The military men and bureaucrats, among others, truly feared that the social order might collapse. This fear propelled a wide range of new domestic and foreign policy (p.239). It is the thesis of the book.

- the retreat of labour and the leftist had political reasons basically. The crisis of imperial democracy led various ruling groups to make 3 critical initiatives: the army decided to take Manchuria, the Home Ministry retreated from its relatively liberal social policy in the 1920s; the military and bureaucrats promoted the right-wing forces at the grass roots (p.275).