Rekishi means "history." One of the changes TP users will see in Version 2.0 is a focus on Japan and Japanese affairs. I visited Japan with ___ over the New Year, and was completely taken by it, even more than I thought I would be. Words alone cannot describe how extraordinary a place Japan is, and I feel quite certain in saying that Japan--the country itself, let alone the culture or language--will play a relatively large role in the remainder of my life.
One of the terrific aspects of traveling, Mom always says, is how good it feels to come home, and I had found this to be the universal case, except upon returning home from Japan. I really was not ready to leave Japan, and Tokyo in particular.
So, I will return every year, and hopefully more often than that.
The English language version of Asahi Shinbun, a leading Japanese daily newspaper, has a fascinating editorial today on the Russo-Japanese War, which occurred right at the fin de siecle, at the height of the Meiji Restoration. As modern Japan is caught in the difficult decision of whether to send troops to Iraq, which it has now done, the political and social roots of modern Japanese military development are all the more relevant. This editorial surveys the revisionist history that is being done on the Russo-Japanese War, which has always been thought of in Japan as a response to Russian aggression and attempts to dominate all of East Asia. New research shows that this was not always the case, and the editorial even cites a Japanese critic who warned, with astonishing prescience, on the eve of the Russo-Japanese War, that "victory in this war will be the beginning of our country's destruction."
Rekishi never ceases to enthrall me.
Today is the great nihonjin filmmaker Kurosawa Akira's birthday. If you've never had the chance, I highly recommend watching several of his greats. My personal favorites include The Seven Samurai (Shichinin no Samurai) (which served as the basis for the also excellent American version, The Magnificent Seven) and the spectacular Yojinbo.
