Keeping traditions alive is not easy; it's even harder when there is no one to teach them. When Ainu musician Oki recently re-created traditional tunes on the tonkori, the stringed instrument of the Ainu people, his only guides were pre-1970s recordings of tonkori music collected by ethnomusicologists on bulky open- reel recorders.

In Part I of this series on D.T. Suzuki's relationship with the Nazis, (Brian Daizen Victoria, D.T. Suzuki, Zen and the Nazis readers were promised a second part focusing primarily on Suzuki's relationship with one of wartime Japan's most influential Nazis, Count Karlfried Dūrckheim (1896-1988).

However, in the course of writing Part II, I quickly realized that the reader would benefit greatly were it possible to present more than simply Dürckheim's story in wartime Japan. That is to say, I recognized the importance, actually the necessity, of introducing Dürckheim's earlier history in Germany and the events that led to his arrival in Japan, not once but twice.

Since the formation of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to come to terms with the legacy of apartheid and colonialism, Commissions have sprung up in many countries that have sought to come to terms with painful legacies of colonialism, war, and internal strife. Nations with international and domestic traumas as diverse as Chile and Argentina, East Timor, and Sierra Leone have established TRCs.

The lone survivor of a Japanese infantry unit in World War 2, Nishimura Kokichi promised his comrades he would bring their bodies back to Japan. Sixty years later, he is still trying to fulfill his pledge in a story of indomitable will and determination.

On January 28, a panel of the Tokyo High Court rejected the demands of approximately 400 Tokyo public school teachers for a court declaration that they not be forced to stand before the Hinomaru, Japan's national flag, and sing Kimi ga Yo, Japan's national anthem, at school ceremonies. The High Court ruling overturned a historic Tokyo District Court decision of September 2006 that favored the teachers based on constitutional language which declares “Freedom of thought and conscience shall not be violated.”

As the government emphasizes patriotism as part of the national school curriculum and discussion continues apace over revising Article 9, some Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lawmakers are calling for changes to the Constitution that may put equal rights and individual freedom at risk.

The boardrooms and finance ministries of Seoul, Bangkok, Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur are today filled with a fair degree of schadenfreude at America's troubles. Schadenfreude is not a very nice emotion; Theodor Adorno once defined it as “unanticipated delight in the sufferings of another.” But asking Asia's business and governing elites to repress shivers of pleasure at the meltdown of the American financial system is probably demanding more than flesh and blood can bear. The spectacle of the politicians, pundits and academics of Washington and Chicago thrashing about in attempts to justify the vast amounts of money being shoveled at their, um, cronies on Wall Street is just a little too rich. Particularly since much of the money will have to be borrowed from the very people who a decade ago at the time of the so-called Asian Financial Crisis were being pooh-poohed for their “crony capitalism,” “opaque” banking systems, “incestuous” government-business relations, not to mention their supposed absence of transparent financial reporting, good corporate governance, or accountable executives and regulators.

As Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has adopted its draft of a new constitution that would clear the way for a greater role in international security, many people here and abroad will question:

In July 2005, the United Nations special rapporteur on discrimination and racism, Doudou Diene, went on a nine-day tour of Japan and talked to minority groups, antidiscrimination campaigners and government and police officials around the country. After releasing his preliminary findings to the press last year, Diene handed the completed 23-page report based on his research to the UN Commission on Human Rights in January. [Doudou Diene Report]

From the very first, it has been quite difficult to politicize earthquake and tsunami hit Tohoku, despite the poor planning, the slow and uneven response, the failure to provide aid in a timely way in the days and weeks afterward, and the often poorly organized evacuation centers—an issue which resulted in a number of unexplained deaths. Now, the temporary housing facilities virtually insure that communities, or what is left of them, will stay dysfunctional for a while, even as their residents are often the ones called upon to manage their own relief. While the silences of fatalism and the shock of such a terrible disaster have been noted, anyone who has been to the Northeast on a regular basis is aware that the frustration and anger erupt in different ways almost every day.

学びにはいろいろな方法があるけれども、体験 はとりわけ実りある教育をする教師である。現 在、原子力がいかに危険でありうるのかを学ん でいる日本人を例に考えてみよう。

日本にいる人びとが、核兵器による破滅的な体 験もしていることは言うまでもない。これ は、1945年に米国政府が原爆で広島と長崎を破 壊したときだけではない。1954年の米国の水爆 実験が、第五福竜丸という日本漁船に人の命に かかわるような放射性降下物を浴びせた時もそ うだ、この事件で死者が出て、広範な核兵器廃 絶運動が始まったのである。

In the second half of the twentieth century, typhoon-triggered floods affected all sectors of society in the Philippines, but none more so than the urban poor, particularly the esteros-dwellers or shanty-town inhabitants, residing in the low-lying locales of Manila and a number of other cities on Luzon and the Visayas. The growing number of post-war urban poor in Manila, Cebu City and elsewhere, was largely due to the policy repercussions of rapid economic growth and impoverishment under the military-led Marcos regime. At this time in the early 1970s, rural poverty and environmental devastation increased rapidly, and on a hitherto unknown scale in the Philippines. Widespread corruption, crony capitalism and deforesting the archipelago caused large-scale forced migration, homelessness and a radically skewed distribution of income and assets that continued to favour elite interests.

The “Declaration for Greater East Asian Cooperation” was a wartime booklet and elementary text published for use in Japan's Asian and Pacific colonies and occupied territories. Through the presentation of attractive images of children and people of many lands and cultures, the images convey the noble mission that informed Japanese wartime propaganda—that Japan would unite fellow Asians under its leadership to throw off the yoke of exploitive Western imperialism. The text also reveals the imperialist assumptions that Japan shared with those same imperialist powers, but here cloaked in a rhetoric evocative of Confucian benevolence.

In the scorching summer of 2007, record temperatures were set across Japan and electrical demand for air conditioning threatened power outages throughout the Tokyo metropolitan area. Despite the oppressive heat, the leafy green canopy along Zelkova Avenue (ケヤキ通り Keyaki Dōri) extending southwest from the Tsurugashima Station on the Tobu Tojo train line provided a shady passage on my bicycle rides to the station and nearby supermarket. The tips of the highest branches of the trees on one side of the street touched those on the other. This was somewhat unusual in Japan, where trees that line city streets are often closely cropped. The trees along Zelkova Avenue had been allowed to grow to relative maturity, so they indeed appeared like giant upside down brooms with splendid foliage, as described in a plaque next to a zelkova in a Kawagoe Park.

At a press conference in Seoul last week, Japanese Foreign Minister Okada Katsuya apologized for Japan's harsh occupation of Korea from 1910-1945. “We should remember the agonies of people being ruled and never forget the feelings of victims,” Okada said. The agony currently being remembered most visibly concerns forced labor by Koreans in wartime Japan. Now led by the Democratic Party and seeking greater regional integration, the Japanese government is moving toward a conciliatory approach to this painful colonial legacy.

Aso Mining Company had been producing coal to fuel Japan's modernization for nearly 70 years by the time Aso Taro, Japan's current foreign minister, was born in 1940. Faced with a severe heavy labor shortage as the China war gave way to the Pacific War, Japanese industry increasingly turned to Korean, Allied POW and Chinese forced labor. Some 10,000 Korean forced laborers toiled under miserable conditions for Aso Mining. In addition, it is now emerging that 300 Allied prisoners of war performed forced labor at Fukuoka POW Branch Camp No. 26, better known as the Aso Yoshikuma coal mine. Two-thirds of the prisoners were Australian; one-third was British; two were Dutch.

April 9, 2008 marks the 66th anniversary of the fall of Bataan which resulted in the largest surrender by the United States Army in its history. Over 77,000 American and Filipino troops were to become victims of one of the most brutal episodes in the Pacific War—the Bataan Death March.