Japan S Name Culture

First in-depth study in English of Japanese names, their history and evolution, and ontological implications.

This is the first comprehensive study in English of Japanese names - their history and evolution, and ontological implications. Its main purpose is to understand the development of the nomenclature in its religious (animistic) and socio-political contexts. We learn, for example, how belief in the animistic-symbolic property of names developed into extensive taboos and, in connection with these taboos, into the custom of revealing names in case of marriage or territorial surrender. Whereas private (religious) use of surnames was tolerated, commoners without public functions were prohibited from public use of surnames. In the Meiji period (1868-1912), on the other hand, the government enforced the universal registry of surnames to conform with its policy of universal conscription, education, taxation and the postal service. The book will be of particular interest to students of Japan and Japanese nomenclature. It will also appeal to the general reader drawn to learning more about Japan by looking at its history, religion and culture through the names of its people.

Politically the 1910s and 1920s were dark days for Japan: economic instability, frequent political assassinations, and increasing violent military interventions at home and overseas affected many. This book explores the literature of the period, showing how it contributed to this overall mood. It focuses on the Tatsukawa Library, an unusual collection of military chronicles based on traditions of popular storytelling found in the yose — a network of small theatrical venues that provided the masses living and working in Japan’s major cities with affordable entertainment. Capitalising on local advances in Western-style printing, the series facilitated a ‘new wave’ of literature that appealed especially to young, marginalised, economically-insecure urban youths. This book discusses how the narrative content of the Tatsukawa Library, which focuses on historical samurai struggling valiantly against adverse circumstances, helped inspire a generation with admiration for violence. This work also examines how this outlook fitted with the Japanese state’s reintroduction of imperial propaganda.

This groundbreaking collection examines the regional dynamics of state societies, looking at how people use the concepts of urban and rural, traditional and modern, and industrial and agricultural to define their existence and the experience of living in contemporary Japanese society. The book focuses on the Tohoku (Northeast) region, which many Japanese consider rural, agrarian, undeveloped economically, and the epitome of the traditional way of life. While this stereotype overstates the case—the region is home to one of Japan's largest cities—most Japanese contrast Tohoku (everything traditional) with Tokyo (everything modern). However, the contributors show how various regional phenomena—internationalization, lacquerware production, farming, enka (modern Japanese ballads), women's roles, and professional dance —combine the traditional, the modern, and the global. Wearing Cultural Styles in Japan demonstrates that while people use the dichotomies of urban/rural and traditional/modern in order to define their experiences, these categories are no longer useful in analyzing contemporary Japan.

What makes Japanese music sound Japanese? Each genre of Japan's pre-Western music (hogaku) morphed from the preceding one with singing at its foundation. In ancient Shinto prayers, words of power recited in a prescribed cadence communicated veneration and community needs to the divine spirit (kami). From the prayers, Japan's word-based music evolved into increasingly more sophisticated recitations with biwa, shamisen, and koto accompaniment. This examination reveals shortcomings in the typical interpretation of Japanese music from a pitch-based Western perspective and carefully explores how the quintessential musical elements of singing, instrumental accompaniment, scale, and format were transmitted from their Shinto inception through all of Japan's music. Japan's culture, with its unique iemoto system and teaching methods, served to exactly replicate Japan's music for centuries. Considering Japan's music in the context of its own culture, logic, and sources is essential to gaining a clear understanding and appreciation of Japan's music and dissipating the mystery of the music's "Japaneseness." Greater enjoyment of the music inevitably follows.

Fast-paced economic growth in Southeast Asia from the late 1960s until the mid-1990s brought increased attention to the overseas Chinese as an economically successful diaspora and their role in this economic growth. Events that followed, such as the transfer of Hong Kong and Macau to the People's Republic of China, the election of a non-KMT government in Taiwan, the Asian economic crisis and the plight of overseas Chinese in Indonesia as a result, and the durability of the Singapore economy during this same crisis, have helped to sustain this attention. The study of the overseas Chinese has by now become a global enterprise, raising new theoretical problems and empirical challenges. New case studies of overseas Chinese, such as those on communities in North America, Cuba, India, and South Africa, continually unveil different perspectives. New kinds of transnational connectivities linking Chinese communities are also being identified. It is now possible to make broader generalizations of a Chinese diaspora, on a global basis. Further, the intensifying study of the overseas Chinese has stimulated renewed intellectual vigor in other areas of research. The transnational and transregional activities of overseas Chinese, for example, pose serious challenges to analytical concepts of regional divides such as that between East and Southeast Asia. Despite the increased attention, new data, and the changing theoretical paradigms, basic questions concerning the overseas Chinese remain. The papers in this volume seek to understand the overseas Chinese migrants not just in terms of the overall Chinese diaspora per se, but also local Chinese migrants adapting to local societies, in different national contexts. Contents: Chineseness and “Overseas” Chinese Identifications and Identities of a Migrant Community:Five Southeast Asian Chinese Empire-Builders: Commonalities and Differences (J Mackie)Providers, Protectors, Guardians: Migration and Reconstruction of Masculinities (R Hibbins)Tasting the Night: Food, Ethnic Transaction, and the Pleasure of Chineseness in Malaysia (S-C Yao)Multiple Identities among the Returned Overseas Chinese in Hong Kong (J K Chin)Chinese or Western Education? Cultural Choices and Education:Chinese Education and Changing National and Cultural Identity among Overseas Chinese in Modern Japan: A Study of Chûka Dôbun Gakkô [Tongwen Chinese School] in Kobe (B W-M Ng)Chinese Education in Prewar Singapore: A Preliminary Analysis of Factors Affecting the Development of Chinese Vernacular Schools (T B Wee)Hokkien Immigrant Society and Modern Chinese Education in British Malaya (C H Yen)The Search for Modernity: The Chinese in Sabah and English Education (D T-K Wong)Fitting In: Social Integration in the Host Society:Language, Education, and Occupational Attainment of Foreign-Trained Chinese and Polish Professional Immigrants in Toronto, Canada (Z Li)Career and Family Factors in Intention for Permanent Settlement in Australia (S-E Khoo & A Mak)No Longer Migrants: Southern New Zealand Chinese in the Twentieth Century (N Pawakapan)Singapore Chinese Society in Transition: Reflections on the Cultural Implications of Modern Education (G K Lee) Readership: Academics and lay people who are interested in social studies of Chinese immigrant societies. Keywords: