I can certainly vouch for my friend and the sincerity of this project. Please consider supporting them.

In some areas, people didn’t just lose their family, friends, pets, houses and jobs, but also the assurance of feeling part of the universe. Just to see cloths from the other end of the world will remind them they haven’t been forgotten.

Send Cotton-Muslin Squares to Japan Tsunami Areas
We are sending Muslin Squares to help young mothers and mothers-to-be in the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear affected areas in Japan.
Muslin Squares are large cloths used to wipe babies’ mouths, for breastfeeding or as burp cloths. They are not traditionally used in Japan, but we know they will be extremely useful for mothers who are struggling to wash and dry clothes in the evacuation centres. We have been contacted by NPOs, supporting organizations and maternity centres that are in desperate need of supplies for clean cloths for mothers.
We have already sent more than 1,500 Muslin Squares to help, but they need many, many more. We pack two large muslin squares per bag, and send them with instructions.

Please help us to help young mothers during a very difficult time. Your donation will be used to buy Muslin Squares and to ship them to Japan.
To donate, please go to the Muslin Square Project webpage　(Japanese)

For bank transfer and cheque payment, please contact msayaka@gmail.com.

London Mothers’ Praying for Japan, Muslin Squares Project | Contact: londonmothers@gmail.com (Sayaka)

You can read about the Project in Japanese (or just look at pictures) at Sayaka-san’s blog

cross-posted on microblog

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The SOAS web site hasn’t updated for this information as yet, but the contact details are there to request information and/or an application pack.

This is fantastic news. Unfortunately I doubt I am ready to sit a test in 4 months time. I think it’ll be December for me. I have a month to ponder spending £70 on a trial run… Maybe if I work really hard.

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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.

Richard H. Minear’s translation of Mitsuru’s account is a very easy and interesting read. The style is very clipped and terse. The original was written entirely in katakana in a now seldom used style called bungotai 文語体. First written in 1946, It fell foul of the military censor on several occasions during the American occupation. Only in 1952 was a version published, and the original didn’t appear until 1981.

It is patriotic and unashamedly militaristic in terms of sacrifice and duty, yet it is oddly matter of fact and I wouldn’t say it glorifies war. If it were an American writing about America’s military history no-one would find it strange at all. The British envisioned a similar forlorn hope and would have committed it’s fleet to engage a German invasion at all costs. Had that happened the sacrifice would have been deemed heroic.

Regardless of nationalistic sentiments, this speaks of the waste of war, the expenditure of young lives dutifully following orders of old men who wouldn’t bear the consequences. The sailors knew what they were doing. They also knew they couldn’t protest, that should have happened in the thirties with the rise of militarism not in 1945 when it was all falling down around them.

I heartily recommend this book for an insight into the thoughts of the Japanese who pointlessly sacrificed themselves in huge numbers in the closing year of the Pacific War. Not for it’s war story but for the glimpses of universal human life, in the bride left behind, the old sailor who posted all his possessions home before the attack, the captain knowing details about a junior officer, the crew getting slightly drunk together the night before the attack, it could have been almost any navy at any time.

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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.

Her grandfather was going to work near the epicentre of the explosion. Hopefully he died instantly. Three weeks later her relatives managed to enter Hiroshima looking for his remains. All they could find was his teeth. (How they could tell I don’t know). But that is all that was able to be put in his tomb where today she lit some incense for him.

The remains are important in Japan, more so that the West. From my experience of my farther-in-law’s funeral the remains become part of daily life for the family enshrined in a Butsudan and part may also be buried in a tomb or a temple as well. I don’t know what happens if there are no remains or no family to observe the rites.

For me my friends grandfather illustrates the big tragedy of Hiroshima and countless other places. It is about the people just trying to live their lives that have no power over what their governments do. The people that are steamrollered by the indiscriminate military machine. For most there is no grand sweep of history, just death or survival in turbulent times.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki should be remembered and studied.
I don’t believe the reason that it had to be done to save lives. Kill 100,000 to somehow save a different 500,000. Japan was already defeated by the fire bomb raids and the blockades. Nor can Japan’s wartime atrocities justify it. (ie. two wrongs don’t make a right) The bomb was revenge. It was also a field test of a very expensive weapons system on unbombed cities to find out what would happen. And it was a warning to the Russians in Europe.
By today’s standards it would be a war crime. By the standards of the day, long abandoned by 1945, that civilians shouldn’t be targeted, it would have been too except there was no-one to indict.
It was done by the “good-guys”

There is an interesting news report on JapanProbe about a 90 year old survivor Toshie Une
Doug has an entry on his blog Japan: Life and Religion today.
And I’ve written about Hiroshima before with links to other articles and films.

Pray for peace if that is part of what you do.
Hope for a world free from nuclear weapons; not just held by the “good” regimes.
Practice empathy.

For the people in Hiroshima 6 August 1945
ご冥福をおいのりします。。。

–update 07Aug09–
An interesting blog that has quotes and links to papers expanding the motives for bombing Hiroshima and an interesting comments section.

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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)

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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.

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.

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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.

Hart was posted to Tokyo in 1906 to learn Japanese and fell in love with Masa-san. But due to the nature of class and racial prejudices of the day and family pressures and global turmoils they were somewhat doomed to a tragic ending.

The backdrop is the decline of the British Empire and the rise of Japan. The Boer War, The Japanese-Russian War, The War of Independence and Anglo-Irish War in Ireland and 2 World Wars. Interesting times indeed and I wouldn’t want to experience them.

Not so long ago either. It’s my Grandparents time. I have an autograph album of my great aunt’s that has drawings by army officers from 1914. I remember family photographs of relatives in uniform from that time. And some Japonisme ornaments we had. Even some of the places in the book are familiar. One street mentioned is adjacent to where I live in London.

Hart is not entirely sympathetic from his letters. I found his lack of concern for his children very selfish, but maybe it was a very different time. In the end I don’t think he treated Masa-san very well. It could be his limited Japanese didn’t allow much nuance (and I’m reading translated extracts) but he often sounds like a petulant teen.

It think it is a pity we only hear Masa-san in the reflection of Harts letters. I’t be very interesting to know what her concerns and day to day life were. And in the end I perhaps think it might be the opposite of the sub title; it seems more a Japanese Woman’s enduring love for a British Officer.

—
The books title is never explained but I wonder if it isn’t to do with the following phrases I found to do with falling blossom 落花 [らっか]
落花流水 [らっかりゅうすい] (n) mutual love,
落花枝に帰らず破鏡再び照らさず (exp) fallen blossom doesn’t return to the branch, what’s done is done.

It is available from Amazon.

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I’ve been wondering lately if I should allow comments here. This is actually the second time I’ve posted this piece. I pulled it the last time.

At first I used WordPress more as a content management tool. しあわせ started as a static website. I can’t remember why I decided to shift to WordPress actually.

This is just hobby stuff really. I spend rather than make any money on it. I’m not even sure why I’m shouting into the void of the web about these various topics. Something to do I guess. The 21st century equivalent of writing manifestos on a wall.

But I saw a video of a presentation by Liz Strauss at WordCamp Dallas and I think her call of “C’mon Let’s Talk!” inspired me a bit.

I’ve sporadically commented on other blogs. Mostly I prefer bulletin boards for discussions such as JapanesePod101 or BigHeadedMan Club. I always try to comment on friends posts on mixi and always reply there.
Maybe it’s because I’ve been commenting on HaikuGirl’s blog and I read a post on commenting at WeblogTools that I’m pondering opening comments.

My concerns might be
1. Is commenting suitable for the post. I don’t think a lot of what I write needs commenting on. How do you comment on a post about what films are upcoming for instance.
But sometimes in comments there can be extra useful information and discussion.

2. Spam Hopefully Askimet will catch it, but it’s boring to deal with spam. When I look at places like MySpace and YouTube the comments are … spammy. I might need to keep comments for people who can be bothered to register. I need to think of an incentive to register for that matter.

3. Quality of comment. At the risk of offending, I’d want some quality beyond hi there. (and pingbacks what the hell are they about?) I’d be tempted to have draconian comment vetting. Which might mean people don’t comment. But while I’m all for free speech, this is my kingdom, you can start your own blog should you feel the need to rant.

4. No one comes to play This is a very minor blog. I consider 100 visitors in a day really good, but don’t drop below 30 most days. When I got linked the other day from 2ch I got a big spike, I was once stumbled on and got an enormous spike (for me).
But if comments are open and then there are none, it’ll feel like tumbleweeds blowing through! My teacher Chika-san had this feeling maybe on her class site. There must be around 100 students but few comments or participation.

So this post is open to comments.
And when I have the time I’ll open up my other posts.

The policy is Play nice, Help each other, Don’t make a mess. Just like kindergarten really.

話しましょう〜♪

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