しあわせ

Yamato sank and her giant body lies shattered 200 miles northwest of Tokunoshima. 430 meters down.
Three thousand corpses, still entombed today.
What were their thoughts as they died?

In April 1945, Yoshida Mitsuru was a junior officer stationed on the bridge of the Yamato during her ill-concieved and hopeless 特攻 Special Attack mission that was meant to draw off American aircraft from the attack on Okinawa to allow a better hope of success for the 神風 Kamikaze aircraft attacking the American fleet. But as the Japanese themselves demonstrated in their 1941 attack on the HMS Prince of Wales, a battleship without aircover was no match for a concerted attack by over 400 aircraft. The Aircraft carrier group was the new supreme force on the high seas. Read the rest of this entry »

I got a nice email from the author of futurefire, a blog about Japanese study written in German, so I went to check out her site.
I can’t read German but I’m sure it would be useful if you can. As you might expect from someone studying design the graphics are interesting. Check out the article on a re-design of the Tokyo subway map and one on furoshiki.
Also have a look at thephotographs on Wanda’s main site.

Yesterday I had my closest encounter with the bombing of Hiroshima.
Closer than having been in Hiroshima and seen the remains and memorials.
Closer than seeing documentaries, and reading contemporary accounts.
Closer than touching a stunted tree that survived the blast.

A friend of mine on mixi wrote about how her grandfather died in Hiroshima that day.
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For several months I’ve been following Okinawa Soba’s fascinating photostream at Flickr. He has an enormous collection of Meiji period photographs mainly by a photographer called T. Enami which he is generously sharing via his flickr account. His comments make for interesting reading as well. He is what might be called cantankerous and I’m sure would be an interesting companion over a drink or two in a izakaya.

(original photo from Okinawa Soba used under creative commons licence)

This illustrates why I like Japan. And also features kanji and gaffertape.

If you’ve ever been to Japan you will have seen guards with illuminated batons who direct people away from construction sites. On one hand it looks an even worse job than the bored security guards in the UK but as is often the case in Japan the guards take their job seriously and seem to have pride in it.

Shuetsu Sato went one step further. On his own initiative he started to make signs out of gaffertape while the station he was working at was under renovation. I believe it was Shinjuku which is confusing at the best of times. He does it out of public-spiritedness, to help people find their way. His bosses allow or encourage it. He takes great care over his work. I’d say he takes great pride in it. Apparently in his own freetime he has made signs in other locations.

You can see him at work here

He came to the attention of some artists who made a documentary about him and has now even appeared in a pop promo making one of his signs.

The typography is amazing, especially considering the materials he works with. It’s a lesson in information design.
For me it demonstrates Japan’s wealth in talented amateurs doing amazing things for the joy of it. It also demonstrates Japans genuine public-spiritedness and attention to detail. I think “only in Japan”.

Unfortunately I’ve never seen any of these signs myself. The photo above is by antjeverena on Flickr and is used (and cropped) under his Creative Commons license.

Falling Blossom– A British officer’s enduring love for a Japanese woman.
by Peter Pagnamenta & Momoko Williams published by Century

I found a very interesting book in a second hand bookshop at the weekend. (I buy almost any book about Japan! even the ones written in Japanese I can’t read that appear in this shop from time to time)
It reminded me of the old curse “may you live in interesting times”.

It is about the love affair between an British Army Officer (Arthur Hart-Synott) from Ireland and a Japanese woman (Suzuki Masa-san) in the early days of the 20th century. It is based on his letters that were found in Japan when Masa-san’s daughter-in-law was clearing the house. A unique record I think. Unfortunately Masa-san’s side of the correspondence is lost but it is a very interesting, albeit sad, story indeed.
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