Japanese Ways Research Articles

Civilizational Aspects of Japanese History: Continuities and Discontinuities

This paper discusses the merits and problems of civilizational perspectives on Japanese history, with particular reference to the task of combining a comparative approach with valid points made by those who see Japan as a highly self-contained cultural world. After a brief consideration of Claude Lévi-Strauss’s reflections on Japan, the central section of the paper deals with Shmuel Eisenstadt’s work. His conception of Japan as a distinctive civilization characterized by pre-axial patterns is rejected on the grounds that the native mode of thought which he proposes to describe is more plausibly interpreted as an offshoot of Chinese traditions, although a notably autonomous and historically changing one. The transmission of Daoism to Japan, although much less explicit than the reception of Confucianism and Buddhism, was of crucial importance. That said, Eisenstadt’s concrete analyses of Japanese ways to transform foreign inputs are often detailed and insightful, and his comments on the relationship between culture and institutions raise important questions, although they must in many cases be reformulated in more historical terms. The paper discusses the genesis, dynamics and collapse of the Tokugawa regime (1600–1868), and concludes with reflections on Japanese modernity, up to and including its present crisis.

Japanese style management in eras of change: new management model.

Changes in technologies and markets are issues for all global companies. Japanese companies also face difficulties in eras of change. There is a need for paradigm shifts in management style. This paper will look at four case studies of major global companies and analyze the concept of the hybrid approach. It looks at how western and Japanese ways of thinking and methods can be combined to create a new model. The new Japanese model proposes a basic framework on which customization and improvement can be carried out.

Robots and AI Artifacts in Plural Perspective(s) of Japan and the West: The Cultural–Ethical Traditions Behind People’s Views on Robots and AI Artifacts in the Information Era

In this paper, we examine the meanings of robots and AI artifacts in our societies and cultures, in particular the question: ‘How do Japanese people and Western people understand and interpret the phenomena and problems happening around them such as human–robot interaction, the encounter with AI, especially regarding plurality of meanings and wholeness of life experience in the information era?’ This is a kind of topic of information ethics or IIE (intercultural information ethics) in a broad sense. We focus our attention on world views in the informatized environments by examining the related views and theories as well as our own empirical research. In addition to these points, we will compare Japanese survey data with data from other cultural–social traditions and we will examine how the Japanese ways of seeing matters and their emphasis on the matters in process of awareness can be considered to have potentially universal connotations.

Дешифровка этимологически неизвестных названий музыкальных инструментов Сибири и Дальнего Востока

This study presents etymological deciphering using ancient Japanese ways of reading ancient Chinese scripts of the names for the five types of stringed instruments, known as komuz, tatonpa, sugut, tambur, and tonkori. Based on the phonetic variants of the term komuz written in Roman and Russian alphabets and Chinese scripts, two hypothetical forms *qonbulrsukie and *qonbulrsir were reconstructed: qon ‘sheep’, bulr ‘tendon’, sukie ‘string’, sir ‘string’. As to the form tatonpa, the ancient form *siudonbule {siu ‘boar’ + don ‘gut’ + bule ‘tendon-fiber’} was revealed. The hypothetical form *siugudi {siu ‘boar’ + gudi ‘gut’} was reconstructed from the phonetic variants of the name sugut, written in Chinese scripts. The hypothetical form *donbule {don ‘gut’ + bule ‘tendon-fiber’} was reconstructed from the phonetic variants of the name tambur written in Chinese scripts. An Ainu word tonkori consists of Altaic root-forms don ‘gut’ and kur ‘string-instrument’, followed by an Ainu suffix {i} ‘that’. We have proved that, except for the Ainu suffix {i}, all the root forms linguistically belong to Altaic lan- guages. Not a few ethnographers dealt with the etymological analysis of instrument names encountered in Siberia and the Russian Far East, mainly taking into account the context of shamanism. It is known that shamans used the instruments as tools in healing rituals. However, contrary to our expectations, the reconstructed root forms of the names revealed practical aspects of daily life.

Some Japanese ways of conducting comparative educational research

ABSTRACT This personal, tentative, self-reflective essay explores some Japanese ways of conducting comparative educational research. In this essay, I not only describe a Japanese style of conducting comparative education research but also do so in a Japanese way. The four key elements I discuss are: daijini (taking care), soboku (simplicity), nagaime (long perspective) and shuudan-sei and kanjin shugi (collectivism and contextualism). Like Rappleye’s and Takayama’s recent contributions in the 2020 special issue of this journal, my paper challenges the taken-for-grantedness of the Western philosophies, theories, and methods characteristic of Anglophone comparative educational scholarship. Like those contributions, this paper argues for the value Japanese perspectives hold for comparative educational research. For me, this means arguing for the value of research methods that are not inseparable from my being Japanese.

Regarding Change at Ise Jingū

This essay introduces the second of three installments of an “elegiac symposium” in Common Knowledge on figures and concepts devalued in what Thomas Kuhn refers to as “paradigm shifts.” The essay suggests that Kuhn’s idea is provincial, in three specified senses, and then goes on to show how differently Japanese culture regards and manages major change. The author of this introduction, who is also the journal’s editor, begins by evaluating a triptych of 1895 by Toshikata as a response to the seemingly revolutionary changes brought by the Meiji Restoration a generation before. He then goes on to discuss, as exemplary of Japanese attitudes toward change, the Shinto ritual during which the sacred shrines of Ise Jingū are torn down and rebuilt every twenty years. The essay concludes by explaining how the impetus for this ritual is also involved in less-exalted aspects of Japanese culture; for example, in the peculiarities of the market for ukiyo-e woodblock prints. Overall, this essay shows that Japanese ways of regarding concepts such as “old” and “new,” “continuity” and “change,” differ so radically from those presupposed in the West that the latter should be regarded as provincial rather than as universally valid.

Japanese Ways of Developing Urban Underground Recreation Space

This paper defines the concept of urban recreation space at first, and then focuses on the six aspects of experience in functional orientation, joint development, business planning, environment designing, recreational route designing, operation and management based on reviewing the development process of the underground street in urban recreation space in Japan. The results show that the overall planning and detailed design of urban recreational space in Japan is worth learning and drawing lessons for all countries in the world.

A Comparison Between Japanese and French Cost Management – Contingency and Institutional Perspectives

From an historical perspective, management accounting is a very recent phenomenon (see Johnson & Kaplan, 1987) and is culturally grounded in a few old-industrialized countries, in Europe: Germany, United-Kingdom, France, but also in Japan and in the United-States. Notwithstanding the cultural dominance of English-speaking countries on management, non-English speaking countries keep strong institutional and cultural roots that still influence their ways of managing companies. This is the case when looking at management accounting and more especially at cost accounting and cost management practices (now cost accounting/management). This paper, based on contingency and institutional frameworks, explores what are the similarities and differences of Japanese and French cost accounting/management. The first part describes the theoretical background, the second part presents the Japanese context, the third part the French one and the fourth part discusses the question. The historical, institutional and cultural backgrounds of the two countries are reviewed, focusing on cost accounting / management with a view on target costing. Through a comparative approach, specific French and Japanese ways of managing the costs are put in evidence. The research shows that the attitude towards target costing and the specific practices of cost accounting/management observed in France and Japan highlight the differences and similarities between the two countries. Both countries are also influenced by the Anglo-Saxon practices, and evidences of convergence become apparent.

院政期訓点資料研究の一問題 : 真言宗における教学的交流を巡って( 資料研究の現在)

院政期訓点資料研究の一問題 : 真言宗における教学的交流を巡って( 資料研究の現在)

Where Is Japan Heading After the Earthquake?

This article discusses the impact of the catastrophic earthquake incident on the internationalization of Japanese higher education and ways to overcome the imposed challenges.

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USE THE KANJI CARDS IN KANJI SHOKYU LEARNING

Japanese character (hiragana, katakana, kanji, and romaji) is difficult for the students who learn Japanese as a foreign language, especially the kanji. Kanji has stroke order, and also Chinese and Japanese ways of reading. Moreover one character of kanji is presenting one meaning, thus the amount of kanji is massive. The informal interview conduct in some students on Semarang State University, Japanese Department, 2 semester, reveal that they got problems in memorizing the meaning and also the ways of reading and writing kanji. The reasons are there are too many kanji character and kanji compound they had to memorize in a short time during the class. It was not easy for them to memorize all the kanji. It was like memorizing the new vocabulary. Some words they didn’t familiar with will cause any further problems such as they didn’t know how to apply it into the sentence. Sometimes they ask the teacher, sometimes they didn’t. If they ask to the peer, they didn’t get the answer because the peer didn’t know either. Actually, the text book they use has reading and writing practice sections which is enough and proper to learn by themselves. But sometimes students need to make they own sentences in order to make their memory of kanji more lasting. Since the students admitted that they lacks of practice making sentences themselves nor with their peer, inside or outside the class, therefore, we conducted an quasi experiment in a class, using roundtable cooperative learning technique combine with kanji card in order to overcome the student’s problems mentioned above. This technique encourages students to: produce sentences which using the memorized kanji, working together in groups, students feel fun in learning kanji. nd But, this technique not quite suitable if we conduct it in a large class.

MENINGKATKAN KEMAMPUAN KANJI MAHASISWA MELALUI MEDIA KARTU HURUF KANJI

AbstractJapanese character Kanji is difficult for the students who learn Japanese as a foreign language. Bacause Kanji has stroke order, and also Chinese and Japanese ways of reading. Moreover one character of kanji is presenting one meaning, thus the amount of kanji is massive. The informal interview conduct in some students on Semarang State University, Japanese Department, 2nd semester, reveal that students got problems in memorizing the meaning and also the ways of reading and writing kanji. They often find difficulties while combining two kanji characters become a word (jukugo). Some words they didn’t familiar with will cause any further problems such as they didn’t know how to apply it into the sentence. Actually, the text book they use has reading and writing practice sections which is enough and proper to learn by themselves. But sometimes students need to make they own sentences in order to make their memory of kanji more lasting. Since the students admitted that they lacks of practice making sentences, therefore, we conducted an experiment in a class, using kanji card in order to overcome the student’s problems mentioned above. The result shows that this technique is effective and encourages students to: produce jukugo, produce sentences which using the kanji, students feel fun in learning kanji. But, not quite suitable if we conduct it in a large class.

Endlessly Variegated Pictures: A Pictorial Encyclopedia of Old Japanese Life (An Introduction to Hokusai Mangaas Full Edition with Commentaries)

Hokusai Manga (HM) is the biggest and the best known work of Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) which consists of ca. 900 pp. published in 15 volumes from 1814 to 1875. This publication discusses the phenomenon of HM and its place in the context of Japanese picture books. Was it a drawing manual or comic cartoons or perhaps a pictorial encyclopedia? What are the historical meanings and etymology of the word manga? The special attention is devoted to the principles of compilation of HM and to the ways of organization of the compositional unity of its volumes. This research offers a major revision of the textual nature of this famous, yet insufficiently studied, masterpiece. Contrary to the common belief that HM is a chaotic jumble of random disjointed pictures, every volume is actually composed as a sophisticated whole with the help of elaborate schemata deeply imbedded in the traditional Japanese ways of textual organization.

USA Trends (9) “Japanese Ways vs. American Ways in Revival from Recent State of Chaos”

USA Trends (9) “Japanese Ways vs. American Ways in Revival from Recent State of Chaos”

Collectivistic individualism: Transcending a traditional opposition

Individualism is typically separated from its counterpart—collectivism. It is regarded as one of the most important characteristics of American people, comparing to collectivism of Eastern Asian people. However, such a simple dichotomy as individualism vs. collectivism is unproductive for psychology. An ethnographic study was performed at some schools in the United States from Japanese point of view. The result suggested that the dichotomy was too simple to understand American practices to socialize individualistic orientations. The study also fails to help in understanding cultural peculiarities of both the United States and Japan. The “American individualism” seemed to be salient in terms of guiding children to be selectively independent from peers, but not from parents—in contrast to the Japanese ways. Collectivistic aspects were also found in specific forms of social organization within schools in the United States. The “American collectivism” seemed to be salient in terms of promoting upward social mobility of the individualistic actor, and not viewed as a downward social trajectory or a repressive act against the individual.

USA Trends (8) “Japanese Ways vs. American Ways in Revival from Recent State of Chaos”

USA Trends (8) “Japanese Ways vs. American Ways in Revival from Recent State of Chaos”

Japanese And Western Management Approaches: Is Convergence Occurring?

Japans rapid economic growth in the 1970s and 1980s, and the success of a number of Japanese factories overseas, led to great interest in the Japanese managerial system and some specific techniques used by Japanese companies. A plethora of books and articles were written about the value of (or threat from) Japanese business-government cooperation, the Japanese employment system and management-labor cooperation, the avoidance of excessive competition, the wide use of long-term relationships and planning, and the emphasis on growth rather than short-term profits. There was also much written about specific Japanese techniques including the use of quality circles, continuous improvement, total quality management, flexible production, and just-in-time and lean production. Many European, Canadian, and U.S. companies adopted some of the most widely publicized Japanese techniques, often in substantially modified form. Important aspects of production and logistics were revolutionized. Some companies also used modified Japanese approaches in attempting to improve management-labor relations.In Japan, the economic problems from the 1990s to the present, and the success of some foreign firms, led to increased interest in Western management approaches. There was growing concern that the traditional Japanese ways of doing business were inadequate to cope with the changing international and domestic environments. During the past decade, there has been wide discussion in the business press of the need for adopting selected Western methods. A number of Japanese companies have announced that they are changing their traditional employment practices, and mergers and acquisitions have become increasingly common. It thus might appear that Japanese and Western managerial philosophy and approaches are converging.While Japan and the West have each benefited substantially from the adoption of ideas and techniques from the other, basic differences remain in the values, beliefs, and objectives of business, government, and society. In this paper, these differences are discussed, and the degree of convergence is seen to be limited more to techniques than to the basic assumptions, objectives, and strategies that drive business.

Redefining the field: auto-ethnographic notes

The geographers’ field has in the past two decades been redefined both through a series of theoretical innovations and the encounter of a series of new situations in the field. The latter can still be today the bounded place of traditional ethnography but also a more complex multi-sited, virtual space of investigation peopled by non-human and human entities, and approached through polysensorial, mobile or emotional forms of analysis. How do new theorizations in geography and the immersion in new field situations redefine the field and thus the categories and practice of fieldwork? This is the question addressed by the authors of the two pieces put in dialogue in this section. The first text, by Augustin Berque, apparently deals with a traditional situation: a researcher approaching a society quite different from the one in which he has been socialized. Yet, his encounter with Japanese ways of thinking the societynature relation led him to an epistemological conversion. Lin Weiqiang’s and Brenda Yeoh’s text regards transnational (im)mobilities of Singaporean migrants and thus phenomena that radically challenge canonical ways of defining the field and doing fieldwork in geography. They discuss the personal and methodological implications stemming from actually experiencing transnationality in the field. In this brief introduction, I will first situate these two contributions in the discussion about the ‘ontologies’ of the field and the practice of fieldwork in geography and, second, comment on how each of these short and incisive contributions redefine the field within geographical research.

Expressive Meaning and Historical Grounding in the Film Music of Fumio Hayasaka and Toru Takemitsu

As an introduction to the volume of the Journal of Film Music devoted to the film scores of Fumio Hayasaka and Toru Takemitsu, this article explores Hayasaka’s artistic legacy in establishing practices that Takemitsu would personalize and extend in his film music. Hayasaka’s contributions during the interwar and postwar years would help to establish modern artistic traditions in Japanese music and film that explore boundaries between reality and dream, provide social commentary on the present through references to the past, and express individuality through the active negotiation of Japanese traditions and global ways of framing knowledge. Takemitsu’s film and concert works display an originality grounded in multiple layers of tradition that directly relates to Hayasaka’s innovations. The article offers a critical perspective on the role of music in films by Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi, and Philip Kaufman.

Życie to kaisha. Specyficzne rozumienie japońskiej przedsiębiorczości

There are a lot of differences between Western and Japanese work culture. A discussion ofthese differences requires reference to Confucian thinking, for the organization of the kaisha,the Japanese company, is strongly influenced by Far Eastern ethics, morality and understandingof the law. Culture and tradition are also very important in determining the relations betweensuperiors and subordinates, which are organized in a way that resembles family relations.Personal responsibility, long-term commitment, the significance of mutual trust (as opposed towritten contract) are some of the qualities that characterize the Japanese labor market.Collectivism and a culture-bound ease the adaptation to changing conditions and they are alsoimportant for this matter. Strong personal connections between business and bureaucracy, aswell as long-term orientation of business contact, have a decisive role in shaping the wayJapanese companies are organized and run. In 19th century Japan, the slogan of the Meiji Erareformists was "wakon yosai", which can be translated as "Japanese spirit, Western science".At that time, Japanese commerce and industry were reformed as well. However, all thesechanges had to be implemented with respect for the "Japanese ways". The aim of this paper isto describe how these "ways" have formed Japanese entrepreneurship.