From the Director

The fall term has passed as quickly as it came and the Year of the Snake already is upon us, a Happy New Year to you all. We closed the Year of the Dragon with our annual Open House. It was held jointly with the Center for Chinese Studies and the Korean Studies Program on the third floor of the International Institute, where our offices are located. We moved back and forth between sushi, baozi (steamed buns) and chapche (clear noodles), all of which disappeared in no time, leaving only butter cookies and cream cheese sandwiches for latecomers' consumption. Some took their camaraderie to Tampopo, the last CJS film to be shown in the Year of the Dragon and a fittingly delicious experience on an icy cold evening.

Here and at other universities in the United States, it is common for the three East Asian area units to coordinate activities. Indeed, despite periods of intense intra-regional conflicts and cultural differences, Japan, Korea, and China historically have shared various aspects of civilization, including calendars, directional signs, some bureaucratic structures, and a writing system. Scholars, however, have debated the pros and cons of grouping the three countries for intellectual, administrative, or curricular goals. Meanwhile, the US Government's Department of Education takes East Asia as one geographical unit in its Title VI funding package. At the University of Michigan, three units emerged independently. The Center for Japanese Studies, established in 1947, was the first, followed by the Center for Chinese Studies in 1961. The Korean Studies Program was created when the International Institute was established in 1993. Consequently, we remain administratively separate but do create and enjoy jointly sponsored activities. In addition, survey courses on East Asia, taught by CJS, CCS, and KSP faculty members, continue to be popular among first- and second-year students on our campus.

We expect that the Center for Japanese Studies will continue its close working relationship with the Center for Chinese Studies and the Korean Studies Program in the years to come. The new century, however, brings a challenge for all area centers to advance the tide of globalization that demands involvement in greater world regions outside our familiar waters. The successful application by the International Institute to the Ford Foundation for its initiative on "Crossing Borders: Revitalizing Area Studies" resulted in a call for collaboration among specialists of diverse world regions in developing conferences and workshops. In 1998, for example, the Center for Japanese Studies hosted a conference on "Global Processes of Privacies" that involved scholars working on areas of Japan, China, Russia, Africa, Persia, Italy, France, and Iran. In Winter 2001, CJS will be co-hosting, with the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, an event that focuses on Diaspora and concerns, specifically, the lives of Brazilian workers in Japan and their return to their native land. Mr. Masato Harada, the writer-director of a celebrated film, Kamikaze Taxi, will visit Ann Arbor to show his film at the Michigan Theater, to participate in a panel discussion, and make visits to a few film studies classes. In the fall of 2001, some of the CJS faculty associates will be participating in a workshop on the meanings of "Expert and Expertise" in global historical settings. Other centers within the International Institute will be hosting a number of additional events. The website http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/ CrossingBorders/index.html will take you to more information on the "Crossing Borders" projects.

"Globalization" is a challenge. Learning about new regions is only the beginning. Globalization also means the vigorous reexamination of one's own area of knowledge and expertise and the exploration of old issues and concepts with a vision that reaches beyond our own location. In 2001, the Center for Japanese Studies renews its commitment to fostering programs that respond to and hopefully fulfill some aspects of this challenge and its accompanying opportunities.

I wish to close this column by expressing my gratitude to Brett Johnson, our Program Associate, and Linda Williams, our Administrative Assistant, for their hard work in bringing ideas and concepts to successful programmatic reality. I would also like you to join me in a warm welcome for our new Office Assistant Arlene Williams. It is truly the work of our staff that makes "CJS" an operational reality.

Hitomi Tonomura, Director

Publications

Our spring 2001 list contains two titles in our Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies and two titles in our series Michigan Classics in Japanese Studies, our reprint series. The reprints are Victor's Justice and The Splendor of Longing in the Tale of Genji.

When it was first published, Victor's Justice: The Tokyo War Crimes Trial, by Richard H. Minear, was the first full-length treatment of the international war crimes tribunal held in Tokyo, 1946-48. It garnered exceptional reviews, including the following: "Aside from Telford Taylor¹s Nuremberg and Vietnam: An American Tragedy, [Victor's Justice is] the most important study of our time on the subject of war crimes" (Progressive). Now, in the twenty-first century, as the United Nations undertakes war crimes proceedings in the former Yugoslavia, Sierra Leone, Cambodia, and elsewhere, the issues raised in Professor Minear's book thirty years ago loom larger than ever. ISBN 1-929280-06-8, paper, $18.95.

J. Thomas Rimer wrote of The Splendor of Longing in the Tale of Genji, by Norma Field, "In highly informed yet sympathetic and persuasive terms, Norma Field delineates the characters of a number of the most important women who figure in the Tale of Genji in order to show the way in which their lives mirror and ultimately explicate the vast structure of this most wonderful of Japanese novels. This is Genji as read and loved by a person of truly contemporary sensibility." The Center is proud to reissue this study of the heroines and heroes in one of the world's literary masterpieces. ISBN
1-929280-05-X, paper, $18.95.

Individual Dignity in Modern Japanese Thought: The Evolution of the Concept of Jinkaku in Moral and Education Discourse, by Kyoko Inoue, is a fascinating book that traces the development of jinkaku (moral character) from its use as a strongly elitist concept to its use in the foundation of postwar Japanese education and Japan's communitarian view of democracy. Especially interesting is how the Japanese translated "individual dignity" in the American draft of the Japanese Constitution to mean "respect for moral character." This book is important for scholars of modern Japanese intellectual history and Japanese democracy, for political scientists interested in political socialization, and for scholars of comparative history, law, politics, and education. ISBN 1-929280-03-3, cloth, $60.00.

Later this summer the Center will publish Takebe Ayatari: A Bunjin Bohemian in Early Modern Japan, by Lawrence E. Marceau. This multi-faceted look at the cultural and intellectual life and milieu of a mid-eighteenth-century aesthete provides the reader with a rich view of life for the individualist thriving in a conformist-oriented society. The book contains a number of Ayatari's landscape and bird-and-flower paintings and woodblock painting manuals. ISBN 1-929280-04-1, cloth, $64.95.

Finally, the publication of a few books has been delayed due to factors beyond our control, but they will be available this spring. They are: Shanghai, a novel by Yokomitsu Riichi, translated with a postscript by Dennis Washburn (ISBN 1-929280-00-9, cloth, $45.00; ISBN 1-929280-01-7, paper, $18.95); Spirits of Another Sort: The Plays of Izumi Kyoka, by M. Cody Poulton (ISBN 0-939512-01-7; cloth, $60.00); Shugendo: Essays on the Structure of Japanese Folk Religion, by Miyake Hitoshi, edited and with an Introduction by H. Byron Earhart (ISBN 0-939512-05-X; cloth, $60.00); Japan in the World, the World in Japan: Fifty Years of Japanese Studies at Michigan (ISBN 0-939512-95-5, paper, $15.95).

To order these and other titles, please contact the University of Michigan Press, 839 Greene St., P.O. Box 1104, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1104, tel: 734/764-4392; fax: 734/936-0456; e-mail: um.press.bus@umich.edu. To find descriptions of all of our publications, see the Center's web page and click on Publications.

Bruce Willoughby
Executive Editor
CJS Publications

From the Librarian

The Japan collection in the Asia Library this fall has been tended by Mari Suzuki and Kenji Niki as the search (soon to be completed) for a replacement Japanese Language Materials Cataloguer got underway, and other acquisition staff have been on leave. Ms. Suzuki and I have done our best in the interim to continue to provide a full range of services. The position search should end, and staff should return earlier in the Winter semester so we will soon be back to a full complement.

I am pleased to report to the Japan-related academic community a sample of our recent multi-volume acquisitions (since July, 2000): Tohogakugaku kaiso 6 v. / Gunki bungaku kenkyu sosho s/o., / Henentai Taishou bungaku zenshu s/o, / Jiin jinja daijiten, 3 v.--Kyoto-Yamashiro hen, Yamato-kii hen, Oomi-Wakasa-Echizen hen, Jodo Bukkyo no shiso 10 v. / Kinsei no mibun-teki shuen 6 v. / Shin Kenkyu shiryo gendai nihon bungaku 7 v. / Watanabe kyoji hyoron shusei 4 v. / Todai-ho Kabashima Ikuo zemi : Gendai Nihon no seijika zo 2 v.

I'm equally happy to report that a Japanese version of Windows '98 has ironed out the last of the bugs interfering with our Japanese language database search engines. It is now possible to fully utilize the Asahi CD- HIASK. Additionally, we will now pursue the purchase of a new Nichigai Associates resource called "Magazine-plus" which will enable users to retrieve not only Serial Article Indexes but also Dissertation Indexes and more. Mid-December of 2000, finds the titles: "Meiji-ki Yomiuri Shinbun Database" and "Taisho-ki Yomiuri Shinbun Database" under consideration as resources for the Asia Library's Japanese-language computing site. When brought on-line, you will have an enormous added potential to search Japanese news archives from 1878 (year the Yomiuri Shinbun began publication) through 1926. Budgetary issues aside, these will be welcome additions to the scholars' arsenal of tools already available.

Please feel free to contact me if you want more detailed information on the type of Japanese-language searches we now have available, or with any other questions you have relative to the Japan collection here at the Asia Library.

Kenji Niki
Japanese Collection Curator of the Asia Library


CJS Events

Robert L. Danly Memorial Lecture and Reception
Edwin Cranston, a Professor of Japanese Literature at Harvard University, will be presenting "The Dark at the Bottom of the Dish: Fishing for Myth in the Poetry of Mizuno Ruriko" as the third annual Robert Lyons Danly Memorial Lecture. The lecture will be held in the Michigan League, Kalamazoo Room 1636, 4:00-5:30PM, with a reception to follow. "The Dark at the Bottom of the Dish" probes the mystery at the heart of the poetic vision of Mizuno Ruriko, a contemporary poet who writes of children, animals, and the world of dream. Her vehicles are the prose poem (sanbunshi) and the so-called "modern poem" (gendaishi); her technique is surrealist. Mizuno has published four collections of her poems, the second of which, Henzeru to Gureteru no Shima, won the coveted H-Shi Sho. This talk presents several translations and commentary on a fine poet as yet little known in this country.

Toyota Visiting Professor (TVP) Short Course, Noon Lecture, and Reception
CJS welcomes TVP Fumiko Umezawa of Keisen University who will be on campus from February 1 to mid March. Professor Umezawa's interests lie in poplar religion in 18th and 19th century Japan, especially the cult of Mt. Fuji. While at Michigan she will teach a short course titled "Early Modern Japan in Documents" that will offer rare access to the intricate realities of Tokugawa Japanese society through hands-on reading of documents in English translation and Japanese original. Professor Umezawa will also offer the Noon Lecture "Women Climbing Mount Fuji: Why Not?" on March 8.

CJS Director Hitomi Tonomura invites you to join us in a reception for Umezawa-sensei that will be held on February 14th beginning at 5:00 p.m. (for other details contact the Center)

We are also pleased to announce that Jordan Sand has accepted our invitation for the Toyota Visiting Professorship in 2001-2002 and will be in residence for the fall and winter semesters. Professor Sand is an Assistant Professor of Japanese History at Georgetown University with interests in modern Japanese history and architectural and material culture history.

Film Director Masato Harada on Campus for a Series of Events
The International Institute, the Center for Japanese Studies, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, the Department of Film and Video, the History Department and several other campus organizations are co-sponsoring events under the title: "The Latin Connection in Japanese Cinema: A Symposium with Filmmaker Masato Harada." The events will include a free screening of Japanese filmmaker, Masato Harada's KAMIKAZE TAXI (2 hrs. 21 min., Pony Canyon Films, 1994) at the Michigan Theater, February 1, 2001 at 7 p.m. The film, which takes a bold look at return migrants of Japanese origin from Latin America and their social marginalization in contemporary Japanese society, is a hair-raising journey through the inner-workings of the famed yakuza, or crime gangs, exposing their historical links to Japanese Imperialism during World War II. Following documentary testimonies by gaijin, or "Latin American" return migrants, KAMIKAZE TAXI delves into an original blend of road movies, the "samurai" genre, and American gangster film to provide a truly transcultural experience on both image and soundtrack. Director Masato Harada will be present at the screening to take questions from the audience. Admission to the film is free (Mature audiences only).

On February 2nd, from 4-6 PM Mr. Harada will join U of M faculty Markus Nornes (Film and Video/Asian Languages and Cultures), Catherine Benamou (American Cultures/Film and Video/Romance Languages and Literatures), and Professor Jeffrey Lesser of Emory University to engage in a lively public panel discussion of the film, its Japanese context of production and release, and the legacy of Japanese migration to Latin America.

Other events involving Mr. Harada the week of the symposium include, A masters class on screenwriting and cultural difference for students in film/video studies (Wednesday 1/31), and a meeting with a Transnational Media class (Thursday, 2/1). Mr. Harada's visit is made possible by Ford Foundation support for "Crossing Borders" programs in UM's International Institute.

Noon Lecture Series
The CJS Noon Lecture Series begins this winter on January 11, 2001 with Sonia Ryang, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at John Hopkins University, speaking on "Koreans in Japan: Shifting Positions and Uncertain Identities." Other lecturers are winter TVP Fumiko Umezawa, as well as ALC Ph.D. candidate Tim Van Compernolle, and visiting scholars including Thomas Looser, Mark Elder, Henry Ooms, Sabine Fruhstuck, Mimi Yiengpruksawan, and Bonnie Abiko.

All noon lectures are held on Thursdays from 12:00-1:00p.m. in room 1636 on the first floor of the School of Social Work Building.


Special Events

Dairakudakan presents Sea-Dappled Horse

Sea-Dappled Horse, directed by Akaji Maro, will be performed on February 14, 2001 at 8:00 PM at the Power Center. Following on the heels of last season's performance by Sankai Juku, the Japanese Butoh company Dairakudakan ("Great Camel Battleship") returns for its first U.S. tour since 1982, repeating its widely-acclaimed performance of Sea-Dappled Horse. Beginning with the creation of the world and ending with hell and spirit figures central to Japanese ghost stories, this visionary spectacle reaches for the fantasy world.

Lean Manufacturing Study Tour
February 25-27, 2001. The Japan Technology Management Program will host a tour of University of Michigan students and faculty to the Toyota Motor Manufacturing facility in Georgetown, Kentucky and two supplier companies to see the principles of the Toyota Production System in action. The trip will begin with a seminar on lean manufacturing on the U-M campus. For more information and an application form see the JTMP website http://www.umich.edu/~umjtmp/leantour.htm

Spring Conference on Japanese Law to be held at U-M
"Change, Continuity, and Context: Japanese Law in the 21st Century," will be held April 6-7, 2001 at the University of Michigan Law School. Most of the United States resident scholars of Japanese law will be present, as well as several comparative law scholars from Japan. This conference is supported by the Japan Foundation, the Center for Japanese Studies, and Law School endowments from the Sumitomo Bank, Ltd. and Nippon Life Insurance Company. For more information, please contact Professor Mark West at the Law School.

7th Annual Lean Manufacturing Conference April 30-May 2, 2001
The Japan Technology Management Program and the Lean Enterprise Institute will host this gathering of the leading thinkers and movers in lean manufacturing in Dearborn, Michigan. The conference will begin with an optional half-day session on Value Stream Mapping and will feature speakers from top corporations and smaller workshops on topics of specific interest. The con-ference is open to University of Michigan students, faculty, and staff at a reduced price. Information will be available on the JTMP website http://www.umich.edu/ ~umjtmp/leanconf.htm

Faculty Profile: Yuzuru Takeshita, Personal Peace, Global Healing

In July of last year, Yuzuru Takeshita, Professor Emeritus of health behavior and health education in the University of Michigan School of Public Health, was honored as a Distinguished Alumnus of Missouri's Park University. Given his internationally known and respected work on population planning, his long career as a researcher and educator at UM, and his other scholarly awards and activities the award was an understandable and moving tribute to his public achievements. Professor Takeshita, who has taken part in a variety of Japan-related activities at the Center for Japanese Studies during his nearly 50 years at UM was a student at CJS, then a faculty lecturer who eventually served on the Executive and other committees within the Center. This information many of you know. However, Yuzuru Takeshita has a private, personal, Japan-focused commitment to peace and interracial understanding that can only really be understood in the context of the intersection of his life with three other lives that have become the touchstone of his existence. This you should know.

In 1937, Okazaki Morito was a Japanese soldier attached to a truck battalion. Freshly returned to Japan from China, away from his company of soldiers, and in the presence of an admiring 11-year-old boy, Okazaki's eyes welled-up with tears as his soldierly resolve broke down to reveal the personal demons of war. In 1942, Margaret Gunderson gave up her teaching post in the Bay area of California and joined the teaching staff at Tule Lake, one of 10 concentration camps set up for Japanese Americans in America during WWII. Hers was the daunting task of teaching American History and English, to chart in civics lessons to victims of an American system gone awry the ways in which they could cherish and defend the essential ideals that brought the American way into being. Her initial reward was to be taunted as a "Jap-lover" and "traitor". In 1945, with defeat in the Pacific a foregone conclusion in Japan's halls of power, Inoue Tsugio, among the last of the best and brightest of an entire generation died a kamikaze pilot in the seas near Iwo Jima. The intersection of these three lives fuels the spirit of reconciliation that for two decades has driven Yuzuru Takeshita to help others find their own peace.

Takeshita's road to this intersection begins in Alameda, California in 1926. Yuzuru (a unique Japanese name that literally means "to yield") Takeshita was the third son among nine children born to immigrant parents about to come face-to-face with the realities of the Great Depression. To combat the prospects of a bleak American job market Yuzuru was sent back to Japan to live with his maternal grandfather, a recent returnee who had spent 25 years in the US. In Japan from 1934 to 1940, Takeshita went from being a large, out-of-place eight-year-old who couldn't read Japanese, to a confident, 14-year-old academic star on track to enter the Japanese naval academy. It was during this period of his life that his best friend was Inoue Tsugiyo, nine years away from death as a doomed, young kamikaze pilot. Together the two impressionable boys dreamed of a future in service of Japan. It was a time when Japan invaded China, and prepared for war with the US. Militarism was rampant in Japan's education system, and midway through this period, just a few months after the fall of Nanking (which generated a village festival Takeshita participated in), Takeshita met and befriended a draftee who stayed at his grandfather's house while training for service in China. Okazaki Morito treated the youngster to soldier's rations and seemed a tangible tie to Japan's glorious military. It was when Okazaki came back from China to recover in a hospital near the village that Takeshita was the only witness to a soulful confession. Okazaki's tearful breakdown, "Japan was doing terrible things in China," a forgettable moment at the time, firmly lodged itself in the 11 year-olds brain.

Three years later, Takeshita had to be pried from Japan by his older brother when their parents and grandparents became concerned with a possible Japan/US war. At the time, Yuzuru was shocked to learn that he was a US citizen. The American-born, Japan-raised teenager was soon thrust back in to American life. His mother admitted to him much later in life that his parents had intended to send him back to Japan had the war not broken out because he was so unhappy after his return to the United States.

Takeshita's return to the US was problematic. His English skills had deteriorated to such an extent that he could no longer communicate. An academic leader in Japan, he reentered the American school system to attend third grade classes on reading, gradually working his way back up, after a year of arduous study, to his own age group. He was in 8th grade at age 15 when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Executive order 9066 authorized what would eventually become 10 concentration camps for Japanese Americans (although the original order didn't name them) and in the spring of 1942 Yuzuru Takeshita, like the rest of his family and most of his friends and neighbors, packed his one allowable suitcase (his was filled mostly with dictionaries and other language aids) dressed himself in as many layers of clothes as he possibly could, and left his boyhood home forever. He was soon herded into a desolate camp surrounded by barbed wire fences and machine-gun bearing guards. Shikataganai was a phrase children heard most often from their parents here. This was war, it couldn't be helped. Out of 127,000 (47,000 Issei, 80,000 Nisei--20% of this total Kibei, like Takeshita Americans born of immigrant Japanese parents but educated in Japan) people ordered to the camps, only four attempted to defy the order on constitutional grounds. They were jailed.

At the Tule Lake camp, Takeshita met a towering redhead who would be his earthbound angel. Margaret Gunderson faced a rebellious class of confused and angered students. Their internment as untrustworthy citizens came at the hands of the very system that she would attempt to teach them to cherish and defend as the best in the word. Gunderson persuaded them by words and deeds. She and her husband had given up jobs in the Alameda County school system to protest President Roosevelt's decision to put Americans of Japanese descent behind barbed wire. What she wanted her students to understand, however, is that this was a failure of leadership and the public that supported that leadership, not the failure of the Constitution. In years of daily classes, Takeshita was eventually convinced that he learned more about the true meaning of America, as embodied in the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, in a high school-behind barbed-wire fences with his basic civil rights denied, than he would have had the incarceration and the guidance of Mrs. Gunderson not occurred. These were dark days for Japanese Americans, their fate in their own country unknown for a long time. For the recently returned Takeshita, this could have resulted in a lifetime of unmitigated indignity and confusion. Instead, when the war ended and his release from camp was imminent, he was inspired by the words and deeds of Margaret Gunderson. At the time of his graduation from Tri-State High School (as the camp's school was named), Takeshita asked Gunderson to give him an American name to celebrate his return to America, and was honored to receive the name "John" after her beloved father, an immigrant from Ireland who had recently passed away.

Takeshita went on to attend Park College in Missouri, learning later that Park was one of a relatively few US colleges that showed strong support for education for Japanese Americans coming out of the camps. The University of Michigan for example rejected at least one Japanese American who wanted to transfer in because he was of Japanese descent (as the letter of rejection said explicitly). Following his undergraduate years and at the recommendation of a friend who knew of the Center for Japanese Studies, Takeshita arrived in Michigan in 1951, accepted as a student in both the Japanese Studies Program and the Sociology department. His knowledge of Japanese landed him a job working nights at what is now the Asia library. That position gave him the chance to read a lot about Japanese society and eventually led him to want to concentrate on sociology. His work in sociology took precedence, though enrollment in courses such as the CJS integrated seminar on Japan allowed him to maintain contact with Japanese studies related faculty and students. John to his classmates and Yuzuru on paper, Takeshita pursued a Sociology masters program that included a newly inaugurated "Detroit Area Study" practicum. Working in the library also helped define what he wanted to do with his Ph.D. Engrossed by a book he read on the scientific study of the Japanese population, his interest grew as two "big names" in population studies stopped by Michigan on their way back from research in Japan. Irene Taueber and Frank Notestein (both from Princeton) had been called in by the occupation forces to study the Japanese post war baby boom and returnees. They presented a very pessimistic outlook for Japan, but were intriguing enough to cement Takeshita's sociology focus.

After spending time in Japan on a Fullbright to survey family planning in the Osaka area in 1955, Takeshita finished his dissertation receiving his Ph.D. in Sociology. A faculty position in Sociology at UCLA followed, but Ronald Freedman, head of the populations Studies Center at UM and Takeshita's mentor, lured him back to Michigan as a way for Michigan to pursue a Population Council grant to help Taiwan with their population situation. Takeshita spent 1962-1964 in Taiwan. The hidden story of the success of this project was that since Taiwan had been a Japanese colony, many of the researchers that Takeshita worked with had grown up speaking Japanese. Japanese became the working language of the project. As a direct result, a similar project being undertaken in Korea sent representatives to the Taiwan project. When they saw that the US advisor was fluent in Japanese, they requested that he next be sent to them. Though anti-Japanese sentiment was high in Korea, on an individual basis it was an easier language for the researchers to communicate in than was English. Takeshita started making trips to Korea in 1964 and went back many times over the years. In 1966 he got involved in a population-planning program in Malaysia as well.

Taiwan, Korea, and Malaysia, ironically all places Japan had once colonized or invaded and occupied. Even as Takeshita developed close relationships with the people in these countries, and learned to appreciate their national histories from their perspectives, he was often confronted with what "his people (meaning the Japanese)" had done. When such accusations became too painful, he would tell them that he was really "an American". It was difficult to be reminded that the country of his ancestors, where he had lived for six years, could perpetrate so many wrongs against their fellow human beings. Worse still, he was tormented by the uncertainty of how he might have behaved had he stayed in Japan in 1940.

Spending a lonely holiday in Korea in the 1970s, Takeshita suddenly remembered Pvt. Okazaki and Margaret Gunderson, both of whom had acted according to their conscience and conviction, unpopular though their actions were at the time. Okazaki could not shed tears of remorse in front of his fellow soldiers or adults, but he dared share his remorse with a schoolboy of 11. Margaret, insisted she was only doing what she believed was the right thing to do. Even as he was beginning to understand the full significance of the encounters he had with Gunderson and Okazaki, he had a strange spiritual encounter with Tsugio. Over the pacific on a flight to Taiwan, it occurred to Takeshita that his childhood friend might have flown his last mission somewhere near the waters below. It angered Takeshita that he had to lose his life so young. At that moment Yuzuru Takeshita resolved to dedicate his life to seeking reconciliation among people who were adversaries in a war that tore the world apart.

In the time since, professor Takeshita has personally helped a great variety and number of people conquer personal and national demons. He published an article in praise of Margaret Gunderson in the Fresno Bee, The Hokubei Mainichi, The Rafu Shimpo, and the Ann Arbor News in 1984 to publicly thank Margaret for all that she had meant. He brought peace to residents of Bly, Oregon, the site of the only Americans (seven) to die in enemy action on the U.S. mainland in World War II. They were the victims of a Japanese balloon bomb; a tragedy hushed up by the military the year that it happened so as not to cause a wartime panic. Reconciliation in this case came in the form of 1,000 cranes folded by Yoshiko Hisaga and her former students. Hisaga was a Japanese high-school teacher who struggled, along with her wartime students, to help make the balloon bombs. Takeshita saw Hisaga speaking on NHK TV in Japan one day, then had the chance opportunity to talk to her several months later at a conference. Immediately before he was to return to the US Hisaga phoned, she and a group of her former students had folded the cranes as a symbol of healing, atonement, forgiveness, and peace. The women, now in their 60s, had also written letters of contrition to the victim's relatives in Bly. All these Takeshita translated and delivered to Bly himself. In 1988, Takeshita visited Nanjing and placed a sting of one thousand cranes folded by he, his wife, and his daughter at the foot of the Nanjing War Memorial. He looked up the relatives of the Japan draftee that had broken down in his presence so many years before and was able to share with them a side of their father they had never seen.

The ripples from all these activities have spread outward and Takeshita powers a network of people who have come to more personal understandings of national events. He continues to help people make peace with themselves and others in the aftermath of Japan's defeat. He takes every opportunity, including presentations to high school and college students, to talk and write about his experiences, and feels that, together, we should prove wrong the cynic who is said to have remarked: "What we learn from history is that we never learn from history."

Professor Takeshita continues to live in Ann Arbor and now works with his wife offering the children of the community an opportunity to master math and reading under a Japan-inspired program called KUMON.

Faculty & Associate News
For the second consecutive year, a delegation of faculty from the University of Michigan Department of Family Medicine visited leaders of Family Medicine in Japan to support the growth and development of Family Medicine as an academic specialty in Japan. The Michigan delegation included, Samuel E. Romano, PhD, Clinical Psychologist and Director of Behavioral Science Education; Wendy S. Biggs, MD, Assistant Residency Director; Kiyoshi Sano, MD, Director of Clinical Programs of the Japanese Family Health Program; and Michael D. Fetters, MD, MPH, MA, Director of the Japanese Family Health Program and Director, Medical Ethics Education in Family Medicine. The delegation made presentations in the "Second Nagoya-Michigan Primary Care Forum" at Nagoya University which featured breakout and large group sessions on topics including: "Woman As A Physician"; "Dealing With A Difficult Patient And Family"; "How To Have A Medical Student In Private Practice"; and "Developing A Medical Ethics Curriculum". The trip also included group member presentations to and discussions with groups of faculty, residents, and medical students at Mie University, Nagasaki University, and Oita Medical School. While Family Medicine has yet to become a widely accepted academic discipline in Japan, the delegation reports that the enthusiasm of the family medicine proponents that they met was most encouraging, and that the growing interest in Family Medicine in Japan reverberated among students, residents, and faculty in each place they went. Planning for an autumn 2001 Michigan-Japan delegation with a theme of "Evaluating the effectiveness of Family Medicine Education" is underway.

Aileen Gatten continues her work on her study of "The family and world of Fujiwara no Tamefusa and his family," late eleventh-century aristocrats, as told in Tamefusa's kanbun diary and in the letters written by Tamefusa, his principal wife, and some of their children. In order for her to develop a better understanding of Heian kanbun style and become used to working with primary source material in this field, she participated in the Kanbun Workshop held at Cornell University in July-August 2000, led by a specialist in Heian kanbun nikki, Professor Yoshida Sanae of Tokyo University.

Rather than focusing solely on literary issues, her research covers various disciplines including women's studies, children's education in a Buddhist temple, the role of the family in Heian Japan, and Heian attitudes toward disease and healing. In spring 2000, she presented preliminary results of this research at the Universities of Zurich and Venice in an hour-long lecture, "Faith, Love, and Smallpox: Letters of an Eleventh-Century Japanese Noblewoman." In addition, she continues to serve as a referee and reader for scholarly journals and university presses.

Professor NorikoKamachi (History, UM Dearborn) has recently published Culture and Customs of Japan (part of the "Culture and Customs of Asia" series) available through Greenwood Press.

Visitors

The Law School welcomes professors Tomotaka Fujita and Minoru Nakazato to the UM campus for winter term 2001 as part of a long-term exchange program with Tokyo University.

Kazuya Kitamura, MD is a Clinical Instructor, Department of General Medicine, Nagoya University Hospital and currently in residence at the UM Medical School. During his academic Family Medicine Fellowship in the Department of Family Medicine, his goals are: 1) To understand the clinical approaches to patients (including behavioral science, clinical ethics) in Family Medicine; 2) To understand the philosophy of Family Medicine (including how it is taught to residents and medical students); and 3) to conduct a research project on the impact of lifestyle changes on health measures of Japanese people on temporary assignment in the United States, and how these compare with people in Japan.

Student & Alumni News

Ruth Ann Keyso-Vail is pleased to announce that her book Women of Okinawa: Nine Voices from a Garrison Island (the topic of her brown bag lecture at Michigan last year) was released on November 15, 2000 by Cornell University Press. You can view the book on Cornell's website www.cornellpress.cornell.edu. Ruth was married in August 2000 to Mark Vail. They now live in Vernon Hills, IL where Ruth is working as an editor and writer with Unext.com, an online learning company that produces business courses. She maintains her connection with Okinawa by participating in an Okinawan dance group, which meets in the Chicago suburbs.

Jerome Loew, a 1943-45 member of A Company in the Army Japanese Language School at UM passed away November 10th after a long illness.

Edwin L. Neville Jr. passed away October 1, 2000. A professor of history at Canisius College at the time of his death, professor Neville received both his MA and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. Son of an U.S. consul general in Tokyo, Neville was a native of Tokyo and spent his childhood in Japan. He was a freshman at Harvard University when he received his father's permission to enlist in the U.S. Navy. Commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1944, when he was 18, he was believed to be the second-youngest lieutenant in the history of the Marines. In 1945 and 1946, Neville was stationed in Kyushu, Japan as part of the U.S. occupation forces. He interviewed Japanese soldiers returning from Manchuria, translated Japanese documents, served as an interpreter and assisted in destroying Japan's military equipment and munitions. He returned to Harvard and received a bachelor's degree in Oriental languages and literature. His master's and doctoral degrees at UM were in history. His scholarly teaching and research focused on Asia, particularly Japanese History.

David Rosenfeld, Ph.D. 1999, is a lecturer at the University of Michigan. The book based on his dissertation, Unhappy Soldier: Hino Ashihei and Japanese World War Two Literature, will be published by Lexington Books in 2001.

Marcus Willensky, a recent graduate is currently the Director of Dynaword Corporation K.K. Dynaword is a translation and communication services corporation located in Tokyo. He is presently living in Kagurazaka, near Iidabashi, in central Tokyo. In June, he and Satomi traveled to the Czech Republic for a reunion of their Ann Arbor townie, and UM alumni and friends. At the moment, a literary agent is investigating having his thesis "Sonnou Toukan!" published, but there has not been any news yet.

Faculty & Student Support

Internships Announced
Eleven students were placed in internships at Japanese companies through the Japan Technology Internship Program, an intern matching program sponsored by JETRO and coordinated by the Japan Technology Management Program at the University of Michigan. The JTMP serves students at schools in the states of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. University of Michigan students heading to Japan are Jason Fairbanks (Electrical Engineering) to Fuji Electric Corporate Research and Development, Ltd., Jonathon Bauman (Computer Science) to Nippon Steel Information and Communication Systems, Inc., Haksun Li (Electrical Engineering) to NTT Communicationware Corp., Daniel Pressel (Electrical Engineering and Asian Studies) to NTT, and Margaret Yee Lam (Electrical Engineering and Asian Studies) to NTT. Other students placed were from the University of Wisconsin, Rose-Hulman Institute, the University of Illinois, and the University of Akron. Students from schools across the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom compete for placements at Japanese companies and corporate research laboratories.

Deadlines
The Foreign Language Area Studies (FLAS) fellowship deadline is February 1, 2000. For more information, please consult http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/ii/flas/.

Deadlines for Center for Japanese Studies students specializing in Japanese area studies conference travel support are November 30, January 31, and March 31 annually.

Monbusho deadlines are April 1 for Japanese Studies Scholarships for undergraduates and the In-Service Training for Teachers Scholarships. The interview and language testing will take place on April 8 at the Japan Consulate in Detroit. For information on these and other funding possibilities, please consult the CJS Funding Webpage at: http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/cjs/

Announcements

Employment Opportunity
The University of Michigan Center for Japanese Studies seeks a Program Associate with excellent interpersonal, writing, management, and computer skills. The successful candidate will work with CJS Director and staff to maintain and promote CJS activities, including visiting professorships, film and lecture series, conferences, graduate programs, publicity, fund-raising and development, grant- and Newsletter-writing, K-12 outreach, and other initiatives. A Japan-focused graduate degree, and/or strong knowledge of Japanese language and living experience in Japan are desirable. The Center is a multi-faceted active organization that demands an ability to work, as both a member of a team and independently, with a wide range of people including University faculty, students, and staff, interested public, and representatives of academic institutions, businesses and government agencies mostly in the USA and Japan. Review of applications will begin February 15 and continue until the position is filled. To apply, submit cover letter, and CV to: CJS, University of Michigan, Suite 3603, 1080 S. University, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1106, FAX 734-936-2948 or email attachment umcjs@umich.edu.

Japan Student Association (JSA)
The JSA is a 100% student-run, non-profit U-M organization. Over the last decade, especially in the past a few years, the JSA has seen a tremendous growth not only in terms of membership but also in terms of the variety of both cultural and social activities. Visit the JSA web page at: http://www.umich.edu/~nihon/.

Looking for Updates
CJS invites all faculty, associates, students, and alumni to send in news about what you've been doing. Additionally, if this newsletter has been forwarded to you, if you have moved or are planning to move, or if you have not been receiving a copy of the CJS Newsletter regularly, please let us know. We can be contacted at:

Newsletter
Center for Japanese Studies
Suite 3603, 1080 S. University
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1106
fax: (001) 734-936-2948

or email Linda Williams at:
umcjs@umich.edu

The Center for Japanese Studies wishes to take this opportunity to thank our donors for their generous contributions to Center programs.

Conferences

For a more complete listing of conferences see the CJS Conference website at:
http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/cjs/events/conf2000.html

11th Annual Asian Business Conference-February 8-9, 2001
The 2001 Asian Business Conference at the University of Michigan Business school has been scheduled from February 8-9. For more information, please contact asiabus.2001@umich.edu.

Graduate Student Conference on East Asia-February 10-11, 2001
The Graduate Student Conference on East Asia at Columbia University has been scheduled from February 10-11. For more information, please contact asiagradcon@columbia.edu or visit http://www.columbia.edu/cu/ ealac/gradcon

Lean Manufacturing Study Tour-February 25-27, 2001
The Japan Technology Management Program will host a tour of University of Michigan students and faculty to the Toyota Motor Manufacturing facility in Georgetown, Kentucky and two supplier companies to see the principles of the Toyota Production system in action. The trip will begin with a seminar on lean manufacturing on the U-M campus. For more information and an application form see the JTMP website: http://www.umich.edu/ ~umjtmp/leantour.htm

Association for Asian Studies (AAS) Annual Meeting-March 22-25, 2001
AAS will be holding their annual meeting March 22-25, 2001 at the Chicago, Illinois Sheraton Hotel. For more information, please see http://www.aasianst.org/annmtg.htm or contact them at 1021 East Huron Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 48104. Phone: 734.665.2490; Fax: 734.665.6801.

Change, Continuity, and Context: Japanese Law in the Twenty-First Century-April 6-7, 2001
This Japanese law conference will be held at the University of Michigan Law School, and there will be most of the United States resident scholars of Japanese law present, as well as several comparative law scholars from Japan. For more information, please contact Professor Mark West at the Law School, markwest@umich.edu.

7th Annual Lean Manufacturing Conference-April 30- May 2, 2001
The Japan Technology Management Program and the Lean Enterprise Institute will host this gathering of the leading thinkers and movers in lean manufacturing in Dearborn, Michigan. The conference will begin with an optional half-day session on Value Stream Mapping and will feature speakers from top corporations and smaller workshops on topics of specific interest. The conference is open to University of Michigan students, faculty, and staff at a reduced price. Information will be available on the JTMP website: http://www.umich.edu/~umjtmp/leanconf.htm

14th Annual AJBS Conference-June 11-13, 2001
The Association of Japanese Business Studies (AJBS) will be holding its 14th Annual Conference at the Seinjoki Polytechnic University in Seinjoki, Finland. There will be workshops and panels on topics such as "Japanese multinationals in the EU since 1992," as well as many others. There will also be social events before and after the conference, allowing opportunities to get to know each other. For more information: http://www.ajbs.seamk.fi/socialprogramme

Fifth Asian Studies Conference Japan-June 23-24, 2001
ASCJ will be hosting its fifth Asian Studies Conference Japan at the Ichigaya campus of Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan. ASCJ emphasizes interdisciplinary scholarly exchange in English language format to broaden communication among Asian scholars of diverse disciplines and backgrounds that are based in Japan. The conference also welcomes scholars from other countries. ASCJ conducts a yearly conference. For more information, see http://www.meijigakuin.ac.jp/ ~kokusai/ascj01.htm

2001 WINTER CALENDAR

JANUARY
11 Lecture: Koreans in Japan - Shifting Positions , Uncertain Identities, Soon Ryang, Anthropology, Johns Hopkins University
18 Lecture: A Play of Gazes: Higuchi Ichiyo's "Takekurabe"(Child's Play), Timothy Van Compernolle, Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Michigan
26 Robert L. Danly Memorial Lecture: Edwin Cranston, a Professor of Japanese Literature at Harvard University, will be presenting The Dark at the Bottom of the Dish: Fishing for Myth in the Poetry of Mizuno Ruriko. The lecture will be held in the Michigan League, Kalamazoo Room 1636, 4:00-5:30PM, Reception to follow
31 DEADLINE: CJS Student Conference Travel Support, JTMP Fellowships and Internships

FEBRUARY
1 Lecture: Orders of Time, Visions of State: The Use of the No Theater in 19th C. Japan, Thomas Looser, East Asian Studies, McGill University
1 DEADLINE: Grant K. Goodman Fund, Foreign Language Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships
1 Film: Kamikaze Taxi, Director Masato Harada on hand to answer questions after the screening
2 Panel Discussion: Panel to discuss Kamikaze Taxi with director Masato Harada, room 1636, SSWB. See page 4
8 Lecture: Trade Policy Preferences of Japanese Industries in the Postwar Period: Did Japanese Manufacturers Support Trade Protection for Important Inputs?, Mark Elder, Political Economy, Michigan State University
8-9 Conference: The 11th Asian Business Conference at the University Michigan Business School. For more information, please contact asiabus.2001@umich.edu.
14 Performance: Sea-Dappled Horse, directed by Akaji Maro, performed by the Japanese Butoh company Dairakudakan at 8:00 PM at the Power Center.
15 Lecture: Purity and Power in Pre-Tokugawa Japan, Herman Ooms, History, University of California, Los Angeles
15 DEADLINE: Center for Japanese Studies Faculty Research Grants
16 Reception: Beginning at 5:00 p.m for Toyota Visiting Professor Fumiko Umezawa, contact CJS for details.
22 Lecture: Real Men, Fake Women, and Military Politics in Japan Today, Sabine Fruhstuck, East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara
25-27 Tour: Lean Manufacturing Study Tour. The Japan Technology Management Program will host a tour of University of Michigan students and faculty to the Toyota Motor Manufacturing facility in Georgetown, Kentucky and two supplier companies to see the principles of the Toyota Production system in action. The trip will begin with a seminar on lean manufacturing on the U-M campus. For more information and an application form see the JTMP website: http://www.umich.edu/~umjtmp/leantour.htm

MARCH

8 Lecture: Fumiko Umezawa-Women Climbing Mount Fuji: Why Not? University of Michigan Toyota Visiting Professor, Winter 2000
15 Lecture: Michinaga's Eye Disease and its Art Historical Reprecussions, Mimi Hall Yiengpruksawan, History of Art, Yale University
17 Workshop: Global Education Workshop for K-14 teachers on Gender, 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
29 Lecture: Ando Hiroshige's Early 19th Century travels on the Tokaido Highway, Bonnie Abiko, Art History and East Asian Studies, Oakland University
31 DEADLINE: Center for Japanese Studies Student Conference Travel Support

APRIL

6-7 Conference: "Change, Continuity, and Context: Japanese Law in the Twenty-First Centruy", will be held at the University of Michigan Law School. There will be most of the United States resident scholars of Japanese law present, as well as several comparative law scholars from Japan. This conference is supported by the Japan Foundation, the Center for Japanese Studies, and the endowments at the Law School of the Sumitomo Bank, Ltd. and Nippon Life Insurance Company. For more information, please contact Professor Mark West at the Law School.
9 DEADLINE: Japan America Society of Chicago Scholarship Foundation
15 DEADLINE: The Library of Congress Junior Fellows Program
30- May 2 Conference: 7th Annual Lean Manufacturing Conference. The Japan Technology Management Program and the Lean Enterprise Institute will host this gathering of the leading thinkers and movers in lean manufacturing in Dearborn, Michigan. The conference will begin with an optional half-day session on Value Stream Mapping and will feature speakers from top corporations and smaller workshops on topics of specifics interest. The conference is open to University of Michigan students, faculty, and staff at a reduced price. Information will be available on the JTMP website: http://www.umich.edu/~umjtmp/leanconf.htm

All Lectures begin at Noon in Room 1636 SSWB unless otherwise noted
Lectures made possible in part by a Title VI grant from the Department of Education
Please see the CJS Events Calendar, http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/cjs/events/CJSevents.html, for up-to-date information.

Regents of the University of Michigan: David A. Brandon, Ann Arbor; Laurence B. Deitch, Bloomfield Hills; Daniel D. Horning, Grand Haven; Olivia P. Maynard, Goodrich; Rebecca McGowan, Ann Arbor; Andrea Fischer Newman, Ann Arbor; S. Martin Taylor, Grosse Pointe Farms; Katherine E. White, Ann Arbor; Lee C. Bollinger (ex officio).

The University of Michigan, an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer, complies with all applicable federal and state laws regarding non-discrimination and affirmative action, including Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The University of Michigan is committed to a policy of non-discrimination and equal opportunity for all persons regardless of race, sex, color, religion, creed, national origin or ancestry, age, marital status, sexual orientation, disability, or Vietnam-era veteran status in employment, educational programs and activities, and admissions. Inquiries or complaints may be addressed to the University's Director of Affirmative Action and Title IX/Section 504 Coordinator, 4005 Wolverine Tower, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1281, (734) 763-0235, TDD (734) 647-1388. For other University of Michigan information call (734)764-1817.

 

 

Director: Hitomi Tonomura
Program Associate: Brett Johnson
Administrative Asst.: Linda Williams
Office Assistant: Arlene Williams

Student Assistants:
Michelle Branderhorst
Jennifer Chuong
Miriam Lee-Palis

Publications Program
Executive Editor: Bruce Willoughby
Assistant Editor: Robert Mory

Center for Japanese Studies
University of Michigan
Suite 3603, 1080 S. University
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1106

Telephone 734-764-6307
Facsimile 734-936-2948
e-mail umcjs@umich.edu

http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/cjs

Center for Japanese Studies
University of Michigan
Suite 3603, 1080 S. University
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1106