06.19.2009 | 6:27 pm | Japan
Golf is a popular sport in many countries including Japan — Yet I cannot help noticing that golf represents a sport of the evil upper-class who conducts dirty politics and exploits the working class in Japanese TV dramas. It is common to see the contrast between corporate executives playing golf, having evil laughs, and his employees working hard, being exploited by them. In other words, there is a rule that heros don’t play golf in Japanese dramas (with an obvious exception if the drama is about golfers).
Is this a common phenomenon in other cultures too?
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06.16.2009 | 11:37 am | My Grad School Life, Travel
Washington DC is one of the most competitive cities for summer sublet. At any time of the year there are a large number of people watching craigslist’s new entries for housing, emailing quickly to set up appointments, and going through an interview after another with roommates. Trust me, it is not fun especially for a academic hermit like me. Fortunately I never had to find a summer sublet in this city, but rather was on the side of offering a room and selecting a subtenant. I have also seen my friends in DC getting hundreds of emails about summer sublets and selecting the most reasonable-looking people just based on their emails.
It is amazing to see how many people have no idea of how this works and how competitive it is to get temporary housing under $1000/month in DC. I would like to list quite obvious yet often ignored tips.
1. Don’t ask questions that are already explained in the craigslist post already.
I understand that people are responding to multiple posts, copying & pasting the same content in all emails. Don’t do that. Build a system in which you can trace which posts you have emailed to — one way is not to change the title of email; another way is to copy original craigslist posts somewhere else.
2. In most cases, you cannot negotiate the rent.
Remember, summer sublets in DC are very competitive. Unless the listed rent is extravagantly expensive, you have little chance to be able to negotiate the rent. You can request pro-rate, but not the reduction in rent itself.
3. Don’t make unreasonable requests.
It is funny to see that so many people make weird requests. “Can I bring two cats and one dog?” “Can I bring my own furniture?” “Can I rent the room only on weekends?”
4. Explain your background briefly, and preferably demonstrate that what you mention could be verified.
Don’t elaborate on how “fun” and “trustworthy” a person you are, but just give simple facts about yourself. It is a big plus if you have a website that shows your resume or professional affiliation etc.
5. You cannot avoid paying a key deposit in advance.
I don’t understand why people refuse to pay deposits. I know it is risky to pay money to someone you don’t know, but it is risky for the subleaser, too, for not getting the deposit at all. If you are worried, ask your friend or colleague to see the room and meet the subleaser, and be ready to pay the deposit and first month rent right away.
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05.13.2009 | 10:36 am | My Grad School Life
Wow. I managed to stay lazy, not writing a single posting in a few months.
I was not necessarily any busier than before. But I was mentally more restless. I started building my oral exam reading lists — mainly on “History of Childhood and Youth.” My other fields are Modern Japan, Modern Korea, and Imperialism/Colonialism. I have also started brainstorming for my grant proposals with fellow students. That means I am thinking about my question, research, travel plan, teaching plan, and overall academic goal every day. My contemplation happens while I take a bath — a luxury that I got after moving to a studio. I read and make notes in the bath.
Another big agenda for me is writerly writing. I enjoy doing research and writing, and suffer when I re-read and edit my own writing. I can no longer make an excuse for bad writing just because I am a foreigner. The burden should not be imposed on the reader but on me. Fortunately many of my friends are also anxious of improving writing skill, and my professors edit each sentence of my paper (and others’) closely.
I am thinking of using this blog space for writing exercise. While I celebrate the fact that I finally finished taking seminars, I am worried of not writing regularly. I need some space for practice so that I can experiment tips and tools that many “how-to” books recommend.
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02.24.2009 | 7:56 pm | History, My Grad School Life
I had a very busy month (or two) since I was one of the organizers of Columbia’s graduate student conference on East Asia, which happened on February 6th and 7th. We had more than 100 presenters and a number of faculty members serving as discussants. We usually have a unique party in the library, too. If you are a grad student, and have not presented at our conference, you should apply to next year’s. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/ealac/gradconf/ will be the permanent web address for every year’s conference.
Anyways, I am working as a TA for a class called “East Asian Civilization: Japan” aka. “Japan Civ.” The class covers from the very ancient times up to present Japan. I was explaining the tax system of the 8th century, since it partially explains the coming of the Samurai in the 10th century in my sections the other day. I asked students “so, what do you think were the forms of tax in the 8th century? Can you guess?” Their answer: “Income tax? Inheritance tax?”
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01.13.2009 | 7:06 pm | My Grad School Life, Travel
I made a short visit to Ireland over the New Year’s Day, and stayed with Colm’s family in Skerries, a lovely town close to Dublin. I usually travel a lot and stay for extensive periods of time in Asia, but am just a tourist in Europe and other parts of the world. The scenery of Skerries was very different from what I am used to — it is flat and full of colorful small houses and tiny shops.
Yes, I see small shops in my hometown in Japan, too. I grew up in Takarazuka, a suburb city of Osaka, but it’s much more populated and spread out than Skerries. Especially because of the gap in the population size, what impressed me most was the availability of good stylish local shops. Colm had to buy a new pair of shoes so his mom took him to the closest shoe store. It was the size of a small convenience store in Asia, yet has a great collection of nice and reasonable shoes. The shop had a sale and was lively. My experience in my hometown is that small local shops often have a crappy selection of expensive, old, and bad quality goods. If you want to buy clothes, you need to go to the center of the city or Osaka. It was also refreshing that people know the shop-owner, so the timing of the payment is flexible. It was not only that shoe store; the town had cute coffee shops, a nice men’s boutique, women’s boutique, a hair salon, and an excessive number of cozy bars.
Back in NY, I am trying to shop more locally these days. It might be a bit more expensive than K-mart or online shopping, but in the end, the benefit seems to come back to the neighborhood. Same for books. I wish Book Culture kept the wide variety of academics books as Labyrinth used to, but as much as possible, I am avoiding buying books online now (believe it or not!).
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12.26.2008 | 4:34 pm | My Grad School Life
Rumi and I went to the Natural History Museum the other day. It was my third or fourth time going there but I always find new and interesting things. The exhibitions were as fun as usual.
I did not remember it but this time I noticed there were “African peoples” “Asian peoples” sections. It sounded alarming to me — how can you exhibit “peoples” without objectifying people like animals? I suspiciously stepped into the section of “African peoples,” and it was actually a pleasant surprise. There was an obvious effort to avoid exhibiting African tribes like total others. The focus of the exhibits was consciously ‘material,’ at least to my observation. For example, the costumes and body paintings, while they tend to represent “savage”-ness in so many traditional museums, tries to minimize the exposure of human manikins as much as possible, and gives an impression that it is the exhibit of their “culture,” not the people themselves, that we are supposed to consume.
This is the most “human” look in this corner:
What fascinated me even more was this description of women’s lives in the Pokot tribes:
“Women who formerly were rivals begin to find a new unity [after marriage] and gossip incessantly about their husbands. This is not done out of spite but because gossip, and the men’s fear of ridicule, is the woman’s major means of protection against abuse. When women work at their chores in company, or drink beer together, they also formulate a body of opinion that by its very unity influences the behavior of men. Women have no formal authority in Pokot life but can exercise considerable power.”
Is this Foucauldian? or James Scott’s “Weapon of the Weak”? I was excited to read this explanation, and became all curious of the politics and scholarship going into the narratives exhibited in this museum behind the scene.
By the way, the “Asian peoples” room was not as exciting as the African one. I don’t know if it was because I was too tired by the time I got there.
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12.21.2008 | 2:57 am | My Grad School Life
I totally ditched my blog as I got busier during the semester. Blogging actually does require too much time, and it was a bad idea to stop writing. If you think about it, there are many bizarre things happening every day.
Today I went to get my hair cut. I found a Japanese hair salon with very good reviews (and reasonable prices) online. The place was almost hiding itself between big restaurants, and it was very hard to find. As I opened the door, I was stepping into “Japan.” I got the owner of the salon, and had a good chitchat with him. It always worries me when I have to tell a hair designer my life story when it is obvious that she/he is asking me just because it’s their job. My life is getting a little too complicated and I tend to confuse people. Today he probably felt it was partly his job to ask me about various things, too, but he started the conversation by asking me about my name in a funny way.
“So what happened to your name?”
My last name, Chatani, is not common in Japan, so I’m used to being asked about my name especially in NY where there are many possibilities such as marrying an Indian guy or an Italian guy. But I thought the way he asked me about my name was a bit weird. I answered:
“Ohh, it’s actually a Japanese name, although it’s rare. In Chinese characters, it’s tea and valley– Chatani.”
He goes;
“Oh Chatani! That’s not too unusual. I was confused because the person who took your reservation wrote down “Cathy Sayaka.” So I was checking if you had a wedding ring, although Cathy sounds a bit strange as a foreign surname. Then you said, ‘in Chinese characters…,’ so I was like, ‘Holy shit, how would you write Cathy in Chinese characters!”
We moved onto the next topic, my job (i.e. being a student). It is always hard to explain what it is like to be in a PhD program here to Japanese people in general. People with specialized occupations like hair designers in particular usually have very different life experience, and many people are not familiar with the term “Ph.D” either. I did not know where to start. So I just told him that one day I just realized that I liked being in school, which is mostly true. Apparently, however, this gave him an impression that I was one of those undecided young Japanese people who come and go, wasting a lot of parents’ money. I tried to tell him that wasn’t really the case. I probably looked too casual to be a serious student for him.
I got a nice hair cut, however. Although… the conversation there deepened my dilemma whether I should just tell a lie (See 嘘の上塗り entry) just as I used to, or try to explain things more accurately.
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11.6.2008 | 8:38 pm | History, Japan, Research
The Japanese librarian of my university sometimes asks me to take a look at the catalogues that she receives from Japanese publishers, and to pick the stuff I need for my research. She does this because she knows that I am working on colonialism and youth mobilization. I cannot exaggerate how much I love this collaboration between us! In fact, there have been a lot of reprints (復刻版) of colonial documents published by a number of Japanese publishers. Columbia seems to own a lot already, and is trying to keep up with new purchase as more students are working on Japanese imperialism now. These reprints are really useful since they are usually compiled in an organized way by specialists, and will save us A LOT of time to go through many different archives. It will certainly make it easier for Japan historians to step into the colonialist aspect of Japanese modern history, which probably intimidated many scholars who have no Korean and/or Chinese language ability in the past.
Unfortunately, these great resources are scattered around the library web catalogue, and there is no easy way to know the existence of these reprints unless you already know the title. I am thinking of making an annotated bibliography of the reprints of primary documents on Japanese colonialism that our library owns (as my final project for the Japanese bibliography class that I am taking this semester).
In the meantime, I would suggest that you take a look at 6 publishers to get a sense of what’s been reprinted. If it is reprinted, there is a high possibility that it is available through interlibrary loans in the US, so there is no need for you to spend hours to make a copy of them in Asia.
不二出版: The most prominent publisher famous for lots of important reprints. You can see the complete list of their publications here.
近現代資料刊行会：It mainly publishes reprints of social welfare related documents and journals. 朝鮮社会事業 etc.
ゆまに書房：Most famously they sell the digital version of 台湾日々新報. Their website does not have the complete list of 復刻版 for some reason, but they have reprinted a lot of interesting things. To find their publications, I would go to ジュンク堂書店’s database and search ゆまに書房, and then 絞込 with keywords like “台湾” or “朝鮮.”
緑蔭書房: I cannot find their website. Again, I would use ジュンク堂書店’s database and narrow down with keywords. They have reprinted 近代朝鮮文学日本語作品集、日本統治期台湾文学集成, and a lot of other interesting journals from the colonial period.
龍渓書舎: Search in ジュンク堂 again. It has lots of reprints of single volume publications from the colonial period, as well as massive 資料集 like 日本植民地教育政策史料集成.
三一書房: Not so much on Japanese colonies but it has lots of reprints on modern Japan. Their 資料集 titles are here.
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10.25.2008 | 10:06 pm | History, Japan, My Grad School Life
I am taking Kim Brandt’s seminar on consumerism in (mostly) prewar Japan this semester. In this seminar, students organize 4 sessions by ourselves. Another student and I decided to assign readings on ‘the rural’ since both of us work on rural Japan, and ‘the rural’ seems to be treated as a separate subfield while ‘the urban’ is usually the default space of investigation when discussing Japanese history. It is indeed worth asking when we study the rural, and when we don’t, I think. We assigned the whole or chapters from:
柳宗悦『地方性の文化的価値』1940
柳田国男『町風田舎風』「都市と農村」 Ch.4, 1929
小林多喜二「不在地主」1929
Kim Brandt, Kingdom of Beauty, 2007
Kerry Smith, A Time of Crisis, 2001
Some of the large questions we asked are:
Combining the Smith reading and the Kobayashi Takiji novel with what we read on the department stores, café waitresses and exhibitions in the preceding weeks, we see that there was a huge gap between the urban consumer society and the devastated rural society in the late 20s and the 30s. Intellectuals like Yanagita and Yanagi, Agrarianism activists and the state at the time all adopted the dichotomy of the rural and the urban. But thinking about the great mobility of the population between the two and more information circulation, what exactly was this distinction about? — was it about materialistic differences, conceptual differences or differences in consciousness? Does Brandt’s book blur or solidify this dichotomy?
In the historiography of the history of Japan, too, the urban is the default space of analysis, and the rural is often defined as the Other in the same nation. So, for those urban intellectuals at the time, as well as for historians today, why and when does the rural Other become important, and where does the distinction between the urban and the rural exist? Finally, what is the use of the dichotomy for us, historians?
Although their approaches were somewhat different, both Yanagi and Yanagita found true national values in the rural villages. They were the authorities who determined what was valuable and what was not, and in many ways they treated the rural as the pure, simple, beautiful Other. It is very tempting for us to conclude that it was an example of Said’s Orientalism, taking place within the national framework. But maybe we should examine the idea of Orientalism a bit more carefully. For example, Yanagi thought that the rural was superior to the urban, and tried to project the national Self to the rural. Yanagita was critical of the pastoral romanticism in the literature, and he himself was caught in the dilemma of how scholars could escape urban-centered analytical mode. Is Orientalism a useful concept here, or not? Is it better just to see it as a part of modernity, rather than Orientalism? Finally, are we, as urban intellectuals, capable of escaping the urban-bias in general?
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09.22.2008 | 10:07 pm | Languages, My Grad School Life
I just got a certificate of Chinese language ability that should let me fulfill the department’s language requirements. To be honest, I haven’t spoken serious Chinese for three years so it was embarrassing to claim that “my Chinese is good” in my very rusty spoken Chinese, but anyways the instructor agreed with me that it would be better-off for me to review Chinese in Taiwan when I do dissertation research than taking classes while I am in the US. Phew! But our little conversation convinced me that I really need to study Chinese again.
I like studying languages and I would not mind taking Chinese classes at all if I weren’t taking many seminars right now. I am taking Mark Mazower’s class on comparative empires, in which I am learning a lot of new things (or in other words, I feel like an idiot for knowing very little about European empires), Chatterjee’s class on Hegemony and Power (meaning Gramsci and Foucault), Kim Brandt’s seminar on modern Japan’s consumerism, and then Japanese bibliography class, which is more like a series of workshops. I feel a little guilty for not taking any class on Korea this semester but I am really happy taking Chatterjee’s class instead. Finally someone is teaching me Gramsci (look at the shameless title of this blog!).
There is a new master’s program in International Global History in my university, starting this semester. I have talked to a few students in the program. They need to take 30 credits of classes in the first year here, and then spend another year at LSE in London. 30 credits of classes (languages don’t count) are A LOT of classes! It is not easy for them to get into very popular seminars since PhD students get a priority over them. It sounded like a very tough student life.
One of the IGH master’s students asked me how I am finding a balance between regional focus and comparative/global focus in deciding which classes to take. It is actually a big problem for me. With a broad regional speciality and broad thematic interests, I am everywhere. I think I will have to pay the price when I prepare for my oral exams for not focusing on a narrow area of study. The whole IGH field is experimental anyways, so we will see how I will turn out as an intellectual product of the program.
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