short videos - temple introduction, part by part

These 1 to 2 minute videos from a Pure Land (Jodo-shu) Buddhist temple in Echizen-city, Fukui-ken give a good overview of the buildings, gardens, and special features of the place. All content is recorded in Japanese.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnFE-oiX-bWyAHX5JraeE8A/videos

親縁山大寳寺 (Daihou-ji is the ordinary name; its Sanmon name is Shinen-zan) was begun in 1603 when the local daimyo, Honda Tomimasa, was installed by the regional Matsudaira clan. In the 1700s and again in the 1800s the main hall burned down. The current hondo is from the 1850s.

Lessons from Okinawa's Shuri Castle tunnels of WWII

Article about a local citizen's movement to reopen the sealed tunnels as world (negative) heritage site.

EXCERPT

More than 75 years have passed since the Battle of Okinawa, but that has made this reckoning more urgent, not less. As Hojun Kakinohana put it, "The human lessons we can learn from this headquarters are vastly more important than what Shuri Castle has to teach us. It's about the value of life and the uselessness of war. I'm in a hurry to see it reopened and hope it will be designated a world negative heritage site. There are not many of us who experienced that war left to tell our stories. We'll be gone soon. So I'm in a hurry."

Full story with photos, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/wwii-bunker-shuri-castle-okinawa

virtual exhibition, Traveling in Tokugawa Japan

launch of the online exhibition "Travels in Tokugawa Japan (1603-1868): a Virtual Journey": https://t.co/2bGgqJKAjn?amp=1

I curated the exhibition in collaboration with the John Rylands Research Institute and Library of the University of Manchester. The exhibition is based on items from the Japanese Maps collection (you can browse the now complete collection on Manchester Digital Collections: https://www.digitalcollections.manchester.ac.uk/collections/japanesemaps/1).

Best regards, Sonia Favi

Still worth listening to, "Tohoku kara no Koe"

Students at Jochi Dai were instrumental is doing interviews with 3.11 survivors across many months. The conversations are valuable documents for future researchers, therapeutic for those who put their experiences into words, but also there is merit for learners of Japanese. After all, the highest levels of fluency in language, proficiency in society, and literacy in culture come from 5 main domains of human life. These are hardest to express, but also they are hardest to understand and appreciate fully.

<>humor

<>emotion [Voices from Tohoku, above]

<>persuasiveness (politics)

<>literary arts (poetry, sermons, lectures)

<>religion

Consider visiting "東北からの声," https://tohokukaranokoe.org/

more online sources of Japanese life, livelihoods, sights and sounds

cross-posting from the June 2021 newsletter of the Consulate General of Japan (Detroit office)

...the print publication known as niponica is now also a web magazine, available in Web and PDF formats, in English, French, Spanish, Arabic, and several other languages.     Another example is Japan Video Topics, a collection of over 150 videos on dozens of topics about modern life in Japan and Japanese cultural traditions. These informative videos are now available, in multiple languages, on the Web-Japan.org website and a dedicated Japan Video Topics YouTube channel. The YouTube channel playlists include "Japan's Famous Places," "Foods," "Pop Culture," "Technology," and more. Other resources, such as Japan Fact Sheets, Kids Web Japan, and Trends in Japan information may be found on the Web-Japan.org website.

The story of Shiga-ken and Michigan as sister-states

Newly added to the channel for Consulate General of the Government of Japan, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeqPrZrK9AA&t=4s

The video outlines the 50+ years of exchanges, activities, and volunteers making this relationship sustain and grow.

The case of Konan-city (formerly of Kosei-cho pre-2005 municipal mergers wave) and St. Johns, Michigan is foregrounded.

book and documentary (Kyushu) - 40 years of Japan fieldwork

Promoting her latest book, Prof. Joy Hendry talks of her long-term ties to the people of rural Japan [extremis.com 2021 An Affair with a Village],

https://youtu.be/JimK5daYkVg