This video is up for votes on Current.TV here.

A chance encounter with a vision from Japan’s past

A vision from the past - A Komuso Zen Priest
While I was in Nagoya last month, I was walking to my temporary home for the night (i.e. an internet cafe) when I encountered a vision out of Japan’s past - a Buddhist priest playing a Japanese […]

In a Reuters article a few weeks back, I got a history lesson on four disputed islands north of Hokkaido.  The article discusses these sparsely populated islands and their history.  A few tidbits:

17,000 Japanese fled or were forced from the islands after the invasion in August, 1945 — just after Russia declared war on Japan and just […]

Timothy Harada, a musician whose music we have played on the Japan Talk pocast, has written something titled “Contrasting US and Japanese steretypes of each other Before, During and After World War II” for the the Sendai Voice.
Before, during and after World War II, the stereotypes Japanese held of United States (US) citizens and […]

Japanese broadcaster TBS has the citizens of Aizuwakamatsu in Fukushima Prefecture in an uproar after it reported on a recent game show that it was a massive build-up of human waste that cause the defenders of the Aizuwakamatsu Castle to surrender during a major battles during the 19th century.
Aizuwakamatsu Castle was one of the […]

The New York Times has a quartet of articles related to Japan.
One article deals with a lawsuit regarding WWII forced suicides. I have not heard much about this issue before and it is quite interesting. The topic of revisionist history is a universal one. In this particular case an author wrote about […]

The other day we got email from renowned Dutch journalist, photographer, and producer Kjeld Duits letting us know that he is a regular reader of JAPUNDIT. He also took the opportunity to alert us to a new blog he has started that is dedicated to old photographs of Japan.
Old Photos of Japan is dedicated […]

Slate.com, one of my favorite websites, has an article on Hiroshima which I found disappointing.  It’s long (very long — whatever happened to being concise?), unfocused, and somewhat pointless.  Despite that, it does raise a few thought-provoking questions and makes a couple of interesting observations even while rehashing a lot of old material.  Points […]

scattered around buddhist temples in the tohoku region of japan there are mummified bodies enshrined in . practitioners of an ancient set of rituals known as shugendô, these monks actually mummified themselves in a prolonged act of asceticism. believing that they could attain enlightenment in a mere ten thousand days (about 8 years, […]

The Tokyo Fire Department puts on a blazing show

Japanese Firefighters of the past - Hikeshi - show their stuff
Dezomeshiki - it’s any five year old boy’s dream come in the form of blaring fire engines, fires, firefighters, and piercing fire sirens. Dezomeshiki is an annual event where the Tokyo Fire Department calls together all of […]

It’s interesting, looking at Japan through some of the “firsts” in its history.
Like John Kendrick, the ship’s captain who participated in the Boston Tea Party and fought in the Revolutionary War then went on to be an explorer, eventually becoming the first American to visit Japan.
Or Horace Wilson, a teacher at the predecessor […]

Centuries-old ritual held for the fortune of new adults

Archers in old style kimono preparing to shoot in the archery ritual known as Momote Shiki
Seijin-no-Hi or Coming of Age Day is celebrated all throughout Japan on the second Monday of January. Throughout the country, similar ceremonies and activities take place among those newly turned 20 such […]

On Seijin-no-Hi (Coming of Age Day) in early January in Japan, an archery ritual known as Momote Shiki is held at Meiji Shrine in Tokyo for all those turning 20 for that year.
10 Archers at a time shoot two arrows at a central target. The ritual is performed by the Ogasawara-ryu school of archery.

Here’s a […]

A film company is feeling the heat from Japanese extremists over a documentary they are planning to release about Yasukuni Shrine.
“The threats began about two months ago, when we started press screenings of the movie in Japan,” [Chinese-born director Li Ying] told The Hollywood Reporter in Berlin, where “Yasukuni” screened at the Berlin International Film […]

Check out this article on the origins of the Japanese from Discover Magazine.
Unearthing the origins of the Japanese is a much harder task than you might guess. Among world powers today, the Japanese are the most distinctive in their culture and environment. The origins of their language are one of the most disputed questions of […]

Andy Young who runs Siberian Light - The Russian Blog, writes in to point us to his post about a long forgotten battle fought between Japan and the Soviet Union in the opening days of World War II. Forgotten, but so significant that it literall altered the course of history.
In August 1939, just weeks before […]

Have you ever noticed that when two groups occupy a similar space, rivalries emerge? Whether you’re talking about Mac vs PC, Coke vs Pepsi, or the national rugby teams of Australia and New Zealand, each party will try as hard as they can to win against their hated rivals.
The top two private universities in […]

Love and Honor (2006) is a great movie that should remind you of Twilight Samurai  – not too much “action” in it — but how it really was. I should say that this is not as good as Twilight Samurai but still pretty good and well worth your 1.5 hours of time.
But, what else is […]

A new movie out of Japan named The Truth About Nanjing attempts to claim that the Nanjing Massacre never happened.
According to Satoru Mizushima, the film’s director, “There is one indisputable fact: there was no massacre at Nanjing. We don’t want our children to grow up thinking Japan is a barbarian country.”
A preview of […]

Are the Japanese actually one of  the long Lost Tribes of Israel? Seems unlikely, but according to an interesting post in Oniazuma, the idea is not new, has plausible evidence behind it, and may well be accurate. There are a lot of mysterious connections that seem hard to explain otherwise.
A very interesting and contested theory […]