Category: Japan

Karen started today’s discussion with her presentation of “In light of Minamata” in which it was a sort of compare and contrasts between the “nature” of the two disasters and reactions from the government. While Minamata was clearly labeled a man-made disaster and Fukushima a “natural”-disaster: there was a rather similar response from the government and the companies associated (Chisso and TEPCO respectively)- a denial of responsibility. Furthermore, the question of the disaster being “over” was introduced. Can it really be over, if the mercury in the water as well as the radiation in the soil can only be diluted and not eradicated? It changes our perspective from thinking of a disaster being over to moving forward and learning how to live with them…

“what would it mean for the environment to be healed?

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Due to the political structure of Japan and the societal pressure to conform, protest and social activism are seen as unpopular to engage with. Michael talked about the power role of women, especially mothers in activism in Japan. Women and children are seen as the most vulnerable of the population-when they suffer it becomes more tragic, and therefore social protests turn from factual and violent riots to emphatic movements.  Through the feminization of memory, the social movements appeal to societal values-which provokes the masses to voice their concerns and cause a change.

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We briefly reviewed the history of some the places we will be visiting in Japan, such as Harajuku, where america transitioned from violence to desire and Meiji Shrine, the “Man-Planned” eternal forest. Throughout the viewing the Meiji Shrine Video, there were audible gasps and comments of awe due to the diversity found in the the “eternal forest.” The forest in the heart of Tokyo that surrounds Meiji Shrine is an interesting political as well as environmental experiment. After carefully planning the forest onto a wasteland, the forest has been left alone to take its own course…

明後日は日本に行きますね！　私はこの旅行に興奮しています。楽しみにしています。興奮みましょう、みんなさん！\(^o^)/

こんばんは。今朝、グループは話して、明治神宮のビデオを見ました。明後日に日本へ行きますね。楽しみにしていますよ！

We’ve completed our trip preparation discussions and the day after tomorrow we’ll be on a plane to Tokyo. Although I’m elated to spend nine days in Tokyo and then live in Hokkaido for 2 and a half months following that, I will gladly be soaking in these last hours of time in the US. After spending time abroad this past semester, I’ve grown an appreciation for the settledness that familiar settings bring. At the very least, I’ve definitely benefited from some time at home to reflect and recharge.

My classmates Karen and Michael presented today on a couple of articles related to the government’s and public’s reactions to pollution and disasters that put human health at risk. One article focused on the aftermath of the 3/11 disaster in light of the history of Minamata disease. Minamata disease is methylmercury poisoning. The Chisso Corporation began dumping methylmercury waste in 1932 and the substance bioaccumulated until it reached people, bringing devastating effects. Year after year the corporation denied responsibility and the government did not proactively adhere to victims’ needs. With the history of Minamata disease in mind, it could be a long time until the political and social impacts of the 3/11 disaster are settled.

The other article looked at the special power of mothers in protests following the 3/11 disaster. The disruption of their lives and the danger presented to their children gave them a strong voice to sway the government to act on behalf of the victims in Tohoku. These articles and my peers’ presentations shifted our discussion to the political activity of citizens in environmental issues. I’m glad that we got to hear about these articles because the legal process of enacting change in environmental pollution or some kind of injustice presents an important intersection of how the Japanese political system works, how the state views the environment, and how it views its citizens.

明治神宮の近くでとても古そうな森があります。じつは、この森が百年前にできました。今の時、おもしろい動物があります。

Since we will be visiting the Meiji Shrine, we took some time to watch a video produced by NHK on the “primordial” forest surrounding the shrine. This is actually quite a phenomenal space since the forest is only about 100 years old, although it’s meant to appear ages old. Scientists who specialized in forestry carefully planned the construction of the forest so that the ecological succession would follow a particular course — one in which deciduous trees would eventually take over coniferous ones. Recently, researchers were permitted to do a full study of the ecosystems present in the forest and found that the forest has a very unique environment for the Tokyo area. In some ways, this natural space is engineered. There was careful planning of tree placement, but after that the forest was not tampered with and nature could take its own course. Is this a human space since it was created and planned by humans? Do the unique animals, insects, and fungi just serve the purpose of entertaining us? Probably not, but these are the kinds of questions that come to mind regarding this built forest.

Today was a bit of a shorter day, but really good discussions nonetheless. It was also a little sparse, since Christmas-sensei, Aridome-sensei, and Anna-san were all  out today. We had presentations and discussions led by Karen and Michael. Karen presented first on a reading she did called “Fukushima in Light of Minamata.” This reading made the case that, although Minamata Bay (and Minamata Disease) is seen as a “man-made disaster” and Fukushuma is traditionally seen as a “natural” disaster (though, see our discussion on Satsuki Takahashi’s “Four-fold Disaster”), there are a lot of similarities between them. Karen also brought up the idea of whether “disasters” such as these can ever really be over. Instead, she suggested, disasters can be thought of as a beginning; that is, what’ll become of things in the wake of these disasters?

Following Karen’s presentation, Michael presented on the role of women in Japan’s environmental movements. I thought he did a really good job of setting up our understanding of activism in Japan in general prior to his discussion of mother’s and women’s activism. There was a lot I didn’t know or had been exposed to, so it was definitely a really interesting discussion today!

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We closed the day by watching an NHK documentary on Meiji Shrine, with live “play-by-play” translations courtesy of Michael and Selinger-sensei. I’ll be honest, I was expecting a documentary on the shrine itself, but was pleasantly surprised to find myself watching a documentary on the ecology of the forest surrounding Meiji Shrine. Although supposedly this is an “Eternal Forest,” meant not to be disturbed by humans, apparently it was artificially constructed or planted about 100 years ago. What I find fascinating is that the planners of this forest were able to accurately project how succession might occur in the forest based on planting a certain composition of coniferous, evergreen, and deciduous trees. For the 100th year anniversary, the Meiji Shrine Forest was opened to researchers of various disciplines to document the astonishing biodiversity in the forest. What I’d be really interested to know is, were animal species added at the beginning with the planted trees or did they colonize there on their own?

(Apologies, coming up with suitable titles has always been difficult)

As prep week is coming to an end, I have learned to consider topics in many different ways. Our research and discussions are definitely taking a humanistic, sociocultural approach to nature as well, striking my initial worries of the dominating science-oriented aspects of the trip.

Today, we started by talking about kanpo, 漢方 (Han way), defined by Wikipedia as the Japanese adaptation of Traditional Chinese Medicine. I began approaching the question in a very materialistic view, thinking about the environmental effects of the herbs and other materials used in the treatment (since most of them do come directly through foraging, harvesting, etc). I have always had a long-term interest in “traditional medicine” including wanting to pursue it as a career and doing a herb related science fair project in high school. Having grown up seeing a traditional medicine doctor monthly, I am much more familiar with the more inquiring techniques than diagnostic. Furthermore, my interest in Korean culture in middle and high school years led me to explore the development of similar practices in the peninsula. Because of my long interest, most of the information I learned today were not “surprising” or “novel.” What is interesting over the years is the resurgence of kanpo, in China as well, in multi-generational popularity. For the last two summers I spent in China, I was surrounded by long-term patients complaining about minor discomforts and praises for the treatments (and doctors) despite the high costs not covered by insurance. China has also increasingly used traditional medicine as a means to re-establish its national image and connect to the “Western” biomedical world with frequent international conferences and increasing funding for research. I am very excited to see how the practices are adopted in Japan by a doctor of Chinese origins.

The second discussion evolved around zoos and aquariums. I am surprised to hear about the history of the development of the attractions because I forgot how recently things have changed. In terms of animal viewing attractions, the sense of dominating has shifted to blurring the boundaries between humans and “the Other.” I still remain against the aquarium and zoos despite their educational and conservational values. I think I stand in the more extreme turf to say that contained studies of a species is “unnatural” (haha), since social ethics now dictate that is immoral to do to other humans. As much as I enjoy seeing roaming pandas at the conservation base in Sichuan, I do feel that by keeping them isolated from the world, they are more likely to experience unsettlement once released into the wild again. These are big questions that need very fine answers, but before anything else, I will see how my experience at a zoo and an aquarium goes.

TWO DAYS. VERY EXCITED.

 

 

Our discussion was centered in Kanpo and then aquariums as Julian led us. In the reading of Kanpo, we explored the implications of treating illnesses and diseases and further established the defining differences between western medicine and Kanpo medicine. The fascination of Kanpo, however, is that it has cultural implications in Japan and that we can never discuss Kanpo outside of the Japanese cultural environment, and vice versa.

We started off discussion of Kanpo with Valeria’s presentation on part of Illness and Culture in Contemporary Japan by Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney. She talked about the major difference between Western medicine and Kanpo medicine by making a distinction between pathogen and etiology. While Western medicine is focused on finding the exact pathogen and fighting it out of the patient’s body, Kanpo medicine is concentrated in studying the etiology of certain illness and trying to adjust the body’s relation to the environment in order to recover health. Suggesting that etiology includes climate conditions or environmental factors, the author is able to make a common ground for Kanpo, which encapsulates the Japanese understanding of illnesses, and the culture. Then, Valeria picked an example that illustrates this common ground. The fact that Kanpo characterizes the inner environment as pure and the outer environment as dirty aligns with the cultural meaning of 玄関 as separating the dirtiness outside and the purity inside.

Then regarding the reading, Prof. Selinger proposed some binaries to consider when thinking about the relationship between Kanpo and the Western medicine: illness vs. disease, treating imbalance vs. treating pathogens, chronic illness vs. acute illness, correlational thinking vs. magic-bullet thinking, the body as homeostatic vs. the body as discrete parts, and treatment vs. diagnosis. As Prof. Selinger pointed out and observed in the reading, the binary between illness and disease is not one of nonscience and science, but one of social understanding and science. Above all the differences in the way of thinking, the fundamental uniqueness of Kanpo is that it has an incredible amount of social interactions and implications; Kanpo has gone so far that it is no longer a school of medicine, but a way of interacting with the body and interacting with the outer environment.

An example we discussed was the “contradiction” of drinking cold water at restaurants while drinking hot tea at home, even for people with 冷え性. Restaurants are places for social interactions, with a sense of openness and constant flow of people, while the home is a highly private and cultural space, where the person receives care. 冷え性, a highly cultural concept, is better looked after at a cultural space like home; meanwhile, the closeness at home also parallels the privacy of 体質 and separates the inner(cultural space, home) and outer environment (social space, e.g. workplace, restaurants) of a person.

Julian’s presentation about aquariums then inspired a lot of discussion and different opinions. An interesting question he brought up is: as a place with high technology and human effort, are aquariums trying to pass the message of human conquest of nature? Does aquariums’ effort for immersion downplay this message or contradict it?

One thing undeniable about aquariums is their display of containment of nature by the human. By having those huge tanks, whatever forms they take and however blurred the line between human and fish is, the aquariums express the idea of manipulating nature. As opposed to wrapping a rock with a paper straw in Shinto temples, containing animals in tanks and displaying them for profits are a clear establishment of power instead of connection. However, the educational purpose of aquariums cannot be erased. When the most innocent eyes of children gaze at the beautiful fish and manmade coral reefs, the aquariums are responsible for teaching them the reality of animals living in the ocean, which is different from those living in a tank, even a delicate one.