In the Pines

I attended a symposium over the last two days held here in Kyoto by the Research Institute of Humanity and Nature entitled "Asian Green Belt: Its Past, Present, and the Future". The presenters varied in their disciplines from the keynote speaker Peter Bellwood, an archaeologist, to Yasunari Tetsuzo from the Hydrospheric Atmospheric Research Center at Nagoya University. Part of the goal of the symposium, it seemed to me, was to define "Asian Green Belt" (AGB) in some way. Definitions offered included climatic, geographical, cultural, and imagined. The symposium was dominated by ecologists and so I felt that there was a stark lack of critical analysis concerning the concept of AGB. There was a sense that AGB could be referred to as an eternal nature to which policies of renewal, conservation, and maintenance should be directed. The problem is that such an AGB concept takes no account of local diversity, both ecological and cultural. In response to this, I was most imp...

Congratulations to my little sister and her husband who found out recently that they are going to have a baby!!!! Youngest in the clan is setting the bar. Good job you two, wish you the best. My fieldwork is sort of non-existent at this point. I've contacted one village where I would like to do research, but haven't heard back from them yet. The village is called Otaki and it's located at the base of one of Japan's volcanoes, called Ontake. The village only has about 1,000 residents and about a third of them are over 65. I've been reading a report on their website from last year that details their plan to gain fiscal independence. It's really quite sad. At the national level there has been a move to amalgamate 3,500 municipalities that existed in 2004 to less than 1,000. At the same time there is a movement towards decentralization, which is partly a reflection of larger trends in Asia. The situation is bleak for villages like Otaki because they have v...

First off, this picture is from a "take-asobi" (lit. bamboo playing) event at a temple near my home here. Hundreds of cut bamboo are placed in a bamboo forest and lit with candles. Taiko drummers performed as well. A nice way to spend a fall evening. Several things to rant about today. I can start by apologizing for not posting more often. The reason is that we don't have a solid internet connection yet, so I've been pilfering off a neighboring wi-fi signal. Japan, despite being light years ahead of the U.S. in cell phone, TV, and toilet technology, is woefully behind when it comes to internet access. I guess I won't say woefully, but rather will point out that I am having to wait a month to get cable internet because they don't have the infrastructure . In part this is because Japanese haven't been suckered into paying for cable television like Americans have--whatever the reason, it's a bit annoying. I must say that I love my cell phone tho...

Yesterday I attended an "undoukai", literally exercise meet, at my nephew's preschool in Kyoto. For those who haven't experienced an undoukai, it's an event for school kids to show their parents what they have been learning, in terms of athletics, at school. For non-Japanese, or perhaps just for anthropologists, the whole scene can be quite surreal. An undoukai is full of pomp and circumstance, as most events in Japan are, that is fascinating in its ability to reinforce what has come to be called Japanese culture. I'm sure an "outsider" watching a similar event in America would be able to make similar observations. However, America has no analog for the undoukai, which makes it particularly interesting--but again, this may only be anthropological curiosity. The first thing I noticed at yesterday's undoukai were strings of flags of countries from around the world hung over the field where the event was taking place. I found this odd as the un...

The wife and I safely landed in Japan at about 4:20 pm local time on October 4th. How we made the flight and the ride from the airport with all of our luggage is a mystery to me, but somehow it all worked out--nothing broken either. The staff at the airport were wide-eyed when we walked up with all of our crap. A group of rich white folks on a tour of Japan were equally surprised as the MK Taxi employees piled our crap into the tiny van that was to take us to Kyoto--"let`s challenge", said the driver with a smile. I`ve titled this entry "kikoku", made up of the kanji for "return" and "country". Usually this word is reserved for nationals returning to their own home country, but I feel it is appropriate for me to use it for myself. Coming back to Japan is as much "returning home" to me now as returning to Utah is. The deserts of southern Utah and the mountains of central Japan are for me the lands of my birth--the places where I ha...