2011年6月30日木曜日

Weekly Blog 4


The Fukushima disaster at No.1 nuclear power plant raised a new problem to the current working nuclear power plants, which is about how to deal with the used nuclear fuel. By a survey of Asahi Shimbun, among Japan’s nuclear power plants, 70 percent of the total storage capacity of spent nuclear fuel has already been occupied. Among these nuclear power plants, the highest occupied rate is 93 percent in Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant and the second one is Tokai No.2 nuclear power plant in Ibaraki Prefecture by Japan Atomic Power Company which has an 86 percent usage rate. Once it is fully filled, the nuclear power plant would be useless and cannot operate because the newly wasted used nuclear fuel is not able to be stored. On the top two power plants with highest percentage of storage, they store some of the newly produced waste in the containers and put it into other buildings. These used fuels need to be stored in pools because of the heat and radiation they have. The storage pool in another power plant in Shizuoka Prefecture doubled its nuclear fuel assemblies. Japan is currently aims to build a reprocessing facility for the spent nuclear fuel. However, the plant has to stop because of several technical problems and it is not resumed yet. There is also another intermediate storage which is under planning by TEPCO and Japan Atomic Power in Mutsu, Aomori Prefecture that can accept 5000 tons of used nuclear fuel. However, after the Great East Japan Earthquake, the construction has to stop.
Reference:
Spent fuel causing headaches for nuclear power plants
After the accident, Tokyo Electric Power plans to rerun the program to reuse water to decrease the temperature of the reactors of Fukushima No.1 nuclear plant. However, the system ran on 27th June after 90 minutes of operation because some water had leaked due to unsecured joint point of pipe. TEPCO said the system was checked on June 12th and the water recirculation system was properly installed at that time. The system could allow sixteen tons of water per hour to be pumped to cool the No.1 to No.3 reactors. The water went through reactors will become radioactive since it was exposed to nuclear power. The water reuse system combines 3 tones of outside water with 13 tones of purified radioactive water per hour. This reduced the need of outside water and helped deal with the radioactive water stored in the power plant. The water purifying system was made by Kurion Inc. of the United States. It is supposed to absorb the radioactive content by minerals. There are also facilities made by French nuclear engineering company that lower the radioactive concentration by chemical agents. Although these equipments can treat contaminated water, polluted salt water was not be able to be treated by the desalination equipment unless the radiation level was less thant 1/10000. Because the equipment is complex, it is fragile and might fail easily. The engineers who worked on the machine did not expect it to be completely no problem either.
Reference:
TEPCO ready to give crucial water cleaning another go
http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201106280425.html

2011年6月29日水曜日

Photo Essay: Japanese Bathroom

  A general View

  Multi-Function toilet
  More functions


  Wash and dry your hands in the sink

 Typical Japanese bathroom. Sit down and clean yourself before and after taking the bath.


 Remote control of a toilet

 Typical floor plan. toilet is separated from the bathtub and sink area.

Four Points

The Cove is a documentary film which was produced in 2009 and won 2010 Academy Award. The movie is against Japanese killing dolphins. They dive into the village that is famous for dolphin hunting and set cameras to record. The dolphins who are migrating were attracted into a cove hidden and were killed by knives carried by small boats, which is cruel.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is located in Friday Harbor, Washington in the United States. It is a non-profit, marine conservation organization. The group protects sea animals by taking direct actions. It is founded in 1977 by an early member of Greenpeace. Due to their extreme actions, some governments or organizations referred them as terrorists.

IWC stands for International Whaling Commission, which is set by the terms of International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling. It was founded in Washington, D.C. on 12.2.1946. From the late 1970s, governments opposed commercial whaling started control the IWC group.

Tokyo 2 are activists Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki who are Greenpeace anti-whaling members. They were arrested for stealing whale meat in 2008.

2011年6月28日火曜日

10 points about the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki


1.       Most people died from burns. According to the health department of Hiroshima prefecture, on the day of the explosion, 60 percent of people died was because of flash or flame burn and 30 percent of people died from falling debris. After the bomb, only 15-20 percent died from radiation sickness.
2.       The way American chose target. It should be larger than 5 km and was a large urban area. Attacking Tokyo has a greater fame than other target but least strategic value. Hiroshima was attracted that day is partly because it is sunny and the weather is clear in Hiroshima that day.
3.       Genbaku dome. The genbaku dome left right now is only 150 m from where the bomb was. It is probably because the bomb detonated in the air and the blast was going more downward than sideways. Since the Genbaku dome is very close to the center, it survived.
4.       The closest survivor was only 170 meter from the center. He is in a basement of a reinforced concrete building. Another close survivor is Akiko Takakura. She was 300 meter away from the center and was in a solidly built Bank.
5.       Only 3 days after the Hiroshima nuclear attack, Nagasaki was attacked again. An air alert was sounded in 7:50 that day while cleared on 8:30. Then at 11:00, the bomb was dropped.
6.       The nuclear bombs themselves cost about $2 billion dollars each.
7.       Within the first several months of the bombing, about 150,000-250,000 people were killed which is about half of the people died on the first day.
8.       The U.S. has planed for several more atomic attacks on Japan in September and October.
9.       Even after the atomic bomb was dropped, the war council still kept its conditions for surrender.
10.   There are people that have experienced both bombs and survived.

2011年6月26日日曜日

Weekly Blog 3

 The nuclear disaster in Fukuyama results the eager of getting energy from other resources. Solar power energy is expected to become more popular and provides more electricity. The Sharp Company is designed to put money on solar power stations as it will become larger after the accident. The Sharp Company is working with Italy’s largest power company and trying to build solar power stations in different countries around the world. Its officials said that they believe that renewable energy has a great future and should rise globally especially after the Fukushima accident. However, the high initial cost of solar energy power station will be a problem and the price for solar power is pretty high, which is about 35-39 Japanese yen per kilowatt-hour and is 5 times the price of nuclear power.  There are also other problems such as finding a place to build a solar power station in Japan because it requires large area to build. A good news is that the price of constructing a solar power station is dropping. For example, the solar panels dropped 30 percent of the price this year.
Reference:
AKI SATO STAFF WRITER, Sharp to build solar power stations in Japan
The disappointments of people in Japan toward Tokyo Electric Power Company are increasing. The company failed to protect the Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant and the government is act stupid during and after the accident. There are around 90,000 residents in Fukuyama area have been evacuated due to the power plant. Among them, one third moved out of the Fukuyama prefecture completely. An interview survey questioned 407 residents of the Fukuyama people about the nuclear disaster. 70 percent of the interviewers said that they were opposed the use of nuclear energy while only 26 percent saying that they preferred nuclear energy. Compared to the interview in June, in which 37 percent residents preferred nuclear energy and 42 percent opposed it. However, most of the interviewers said that they will or want to return to the places they live if possible. Among the small percentage of people who do not want to go back, having young children is one of the most significant reasons. People are disappointed with TEPCO and experts because they kept saying that Japan’s nuclear power plant are very safe and there will be no accident ever. They feel betrayed after the nuclear accident. About the future of nuclear technology in Japan, only 30 percent of interviewers said that nuclear power plants should be increased of maintained at current levels. The other people were saying that nuclear power plants should either be decreased or eliminated.  The Japanese central government is also blamed for not doing anything helpful and giving confused evacuation instructions during and after the nuclear disaster. The interviewers said that the instructions they got from government were vague and incomplete or even conflict with itself which was hard to read and understand. As a result, almost 80 percent of interviewers said that the central government was either acting totally inappropriate or partial inappropriate. Another result of the vague instructions was that evacuees have to move between different evacuation centers. Most of them moved to three or more locations.
Reference:
Survey shows disappointment, anger among Fukushima evacuees
http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201106240204.html

2011年6月22日水曜日

Goodman

Nihonjinron literature is said “premordialist” by the continuities between modern Japanese social values and traditional Japanese culture. It involves different areas such as Japanese geography, topography and agriculture. Nippon Steel published a book in 1984 in both English and Japanese says that Japanese tend to avoid the possible frictions and would notice others’ comments and is very careful and serious to social relationship under culture heading about Japanese Character.
Wa is a Japanese word that literally translated as “harmony”. The people in Japan will keep the wa atmosphere of the society. Who do not obey the rule and maintain the wa sense are considered immature and comdemned. Under the wa theory, Japanese believe that team is more important than individuals. The Nippon Steel volume associates the group spirit in Japan with its wet rice culture because people have to work in some system to survive. The group work also causes Japan’s isolation from the rest of the world and its “homogeneity”.
The frame and attribute are distinct by Nakane. Frame, which is ba in Japanese means the group of a person. Nakane’s statement is that the individual’s personality comes from their belongingness of the group they are in. She provides an example that Japanese tend to care about where others belong to, like school, company or university.  Japanese feel their company as “my company” which extent their feeling of the company to a place they belonging to. Thus for a person, being inside and outside the company makes a lot of difference.
The well known concept of Nakane is tateshakai. It is saying that all Japanese relationship can be understood by the parent-child roles. The workers play child part and the leader is the parent part and take all the responsibilities for any member in the whole group. For example, headers in many Japanese corporations would take responsibility for their workers even they are not direct managed by the headers. The low level workers only need to do whatever their manager told them.
The concept amae is used to holds all of Nakane’s theories. The term amae is hard to translate into English because it could be a positive term in Japanese while the translation in English is negative. Amae is a positive term in Japanese because it means people realized that they rely on others and they need teamwork to achieve the goal.  

2011年6月21日火曜日

Schnell

The ie is a traditional Japanese family system that was produced during the rural society. Its power is decreasing and facing the danger of disappearing. The ie was protected by central power before and the ie usually cannot feed itself with its land. The head of the ie usually finds himself a job and leaves the land to other members or empty.  However, some modern companies reuse the idea of ie system. The managers in the company are treated as upper family members and the system runs to help staff build the royal for the company as a whole. Commonerization is the opposite of democratization among the samurai class and samuraization is the democracy of commoners. The rice is related to commonerization by being the staple grain and a major food in Japanese culture. However, since the main area of Japan is mountain area, the rise growing places are limited. Hida is a place that the residents there are almost isolated from the outer world. Tsuchi is a novel about the house owner and tenant problem and their reflection to the centralization power. Nihonjinron is dangerous because the culture itself is still undergrowing.

2011年6月20日月曜日

Weekly Blog No.2, swimming pools

The Fukushima power plant disaster left long term effects to its surrounding area. The nuclear radiation could damage the health of some residents for as long as 30 years.  Residents in Fukushima Prefecture are angry on their government radiation standard and worry about the radiation in the environment. The students from Koriyama in Fukushima Prefecture will not be able to swim in an outdoor swimming pool.
The education ministry is concerning about the outdoor pool radiation standard while there are increasing worries about the nuclear radiation level in swimming pool.  The government standard allowing students taking outdoor gym classes is 3.8 microsieverts per hour, which is considered too dangerous for children by their parents and experts because the possible total annually exposure is 20 millisieverts. As a result of parents anger and data from experts, on May 27th, a new annual radiation exposure limit is set as 1 millisievert, which is much lower than the previous standard. Due to the new limit, most of the outdoor swimming classes are suspended in Fukushima Prefecture. The data from Asahi survey shows 30 out of 33 cities will stop their outdoor pools. The uncovered 26 cities are either close to the power plant where people are almost evacuated or far away from the power plant. What is worse is that the residents living in Fukushima are losing their confidence on the government because the new limit is much lower than previous one and it was published suddenly. The various opinions that contradict with each other from many experts also confused people.  
In Koriyama, one of the most populous cities in Fukushima Prefecture, students will go to indoor pools instead of outdoor ones at least once and some swimming clubs are asked for lending their indoor pools to the schools. However, due to the limited space, students have restricted time for the swimming classes and have to walk to several swimming clubs.
Not only Fukushima Prefecture, residents in Kanto area also worried about the nuclear radiation effect there. Several cities in Ibaraki Prefecture prohibit the use of outdoor school pools and wait for the decision of the higher level government. In some of the cities, researches are run to check the radiation in school pools. The tests are performed in elementary schools, junior high schools and senior high schools. The officials stated earlier that the radiation level was safe and was not suppose to have any health effect on people. However, a private research group had different conclusion that the radiation in atmosphere is still in a dangerous level. There are also worries about the rain water with radioactive ashes falling into the swimming pool and accumulated. The radiation check is still incomplete and there are several more schools need to be inspected.  The Tokyo education office stated that the radioactive materials in pool is much lower than the safe level and tap water and rainwater are also safe.
Nuclear disasters leave long term effect. Not only the power plant itself is dangerous, the radioactive materials left in the air and soil will also result long time pollution.

Reference:
http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201106170203.html

2011年6月17日金曜日

Movie

In the movie we saw today, conch shells are used to make horns and perform the symbolic "ahn" sound during serious ceremonies. People believe the sound has the power to excess evil. Conch shell horns are the income of Yamabushi. It is generally believed by Japanese that Yamabushi can gain power by doing shugendo on the mountain for 4 months. There are articles in other countries showing that the people go through tough environment on purpose will obtain mystery power. These are probably made by people living in uncontrollable cruel environment to comfort themselves. Therefore all the unexplainable suffer they had will be the source of their inner power. At the end, the Yamabushi said that doing everything by himself is originally part of Shugendo procedure, which kind corresponding to the self-conforting theoery.

Reader & Tanabe

The most common shichifukujin are Ebisu, Daikoku, Bishamonten, Benzaiten, Fukurokuju and Hotei.
Ebisu is most respected by small shopkeepers and merchants. He wears a hat and field clothes and holds a fishing pole.
Daikoku is usually portrayed with angry face and stands on rice.
Bishamonten is a Buddhist guardian deity who always dressed in armor
Benzaiten is connected to wealth and talent and have usually four or eight arms.
Fukurokuju is the old man and close to the south pole. He also has white bearded.
Hotei is known for fun and happy. He has a round face and always laughs.

Vlastor will point out the fact that shichifukujins are modern re-invented figures because they have about 130 new routes between 1975 and 1985.

2011年6月16日木曜日

Question for presentations 2

1. Lucy - Living style
What forms the working males & housewives family structure in Japan?

2. Kristina - Japanese cosplay
Is the perfectionalism/ serious cosplay style related to Japanese culture?

3. Julian - Jazz
How would the serious Japanese people accept Jazz?

4. Chenghan - nuclear
What you think the future of nuclear in Japan will be?

5. Leonard - Okinawa
Does the military base in Okinawa bring any benefit to Japan?

6. Chi Hai
Junko-san wans to work because of her personal interest or the family need money?

2011年6月12日日曜日

Weekly Blog No.1 - Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant

After the Fukushima nuclear disaster,  Japanese reconsidered their situation and nuclear power plants. The Hamaoka power plant, which was partly destroyed by the earthquake happened on August 2009, has canceled its resumption plan for #5 reactor and shut down other two reactors. The residents near Hamaoka city are worried about the safety of Hamaoka power plant. However, they have no other choice. A woman in the supermarket told their situation - since Japan is a generally energy scarce country, Japanese have barely other choice but to use nuclear power.

2011年6月10日金曜日

Questions for Presentations

1. Chenghan - Judo
How is Judo changed after it became an Olympic Sport?

2. Leonard - Labour management
What is HRM?

3. Lucy - Geisha
Where will the odoriko girls who were not becoming Geisha go?

4. Kristina - Osechi Ryori
Any specific person who pushed the change of this meal?

5. Me

6. Chi Hai - Prince Shotoku
How Buddhism and Confucianism affect Shinto?

7. Julian - Japanese domesticity
What is the family in Japan looked like before western style was introduced?

2011年6月3日金曜日

2. Thinking about Culture Assignment

1. If traditions are not "direct cultural legacies", what are they?
They are contemporary terms that describe "social desirable institutions and ideas".

2. What does it mean to say that "familiar emblems of Japanese culture" are modern?
It means these "ancient" traditions are actually made, imported or modified in the recent centuries.

3. Distinguish, in your own words, the two ways that social scientists "have conventionally used tradition".
First, they use it to construct a framework for the society using traditions to define and distinct modern and past. Second, tradition is used to connect separated continuous actions and build a model of the society as a whole.

4. Identify the crucial sentence on page 5.
To say that all tradition is invented is still to rely upon a choice between invention and authenticity, between fiction and reality, between discourse and history.

5. Marilyn Ivy's "Important point" is too complex to deal with on this course, but what pitfall in the invention of tradition debate does Arif Dirlik identify?
The ignorance of social conditions of the production and reception of invented traditions.

6. The first paragraph of page 7 delineates a puzzling phenomenon. Can you think of any illustrative examples, perhaps from your own country?
The ancient Chinese emperors force historians to exaggerate or make up the emperors' contributions in official history books.

7. What problems did onjo-shugi pose to management?
It constructed a frame for the management style so that even onjo-shuki is rarely used anymore, the framework still fixed the management style.

8. Identify the crucial sentence in paragraph 1 of page 12.
The point, rather, is that cultural traditions are "chosen," not inherited.

9. What re-invented traditions can you think of from your own countries? Even trivial examples can be illustrative.
One of Chinese traditional operas -- Sichuan opera is famous for face-changing. To increase their income and make the Sichuan opera more popular, the troupe highlights the face-changing action and uses western instruments. The Sichuan opera now is rather different from before.

10. What does Vlastos call the book Mirror of Modernity and relegate Invented Traditions of Modern Japan to a subtitle?
Japan is a modern country that with its "original culture" alive while the modern western cultures are detached from theirs. The mirror is between Japan and other western countries which are all modern nations but different in their relationship with their traditions, which is also why Japan is pointed out in the subtitle.

2011年6月1日水曜日

1. Intro Session Assignment

Part 1. a paragraph relating "Mistake were Made" to your situation in Hiroshima
People usually have their own believes and trust them. If some conceptions they are exposed to contradict with their  thoughts, then instead of treating the problem sensible, they tend to stand for their own ideas. Japanese culture is different or even conflict with American and Chinese culture in many aspects. In my own example, the being polite style in Japan is far from what I learned and experienced before. People bow to each other and keep saying "sorry" or "thank you". At first I was considering these behaviors as useless and wasting time and energy. I feel frustrated for being stared by other people because I am acting weired. My situation is exactly the same as those people who fight for their own ideas. In rational thinking, people living in other country should follow the rules everyone else do to make their life easier and happier. My own example confirms the theory in "Mistake were Made" about dissonance.

Part 2. a paragraph contrasting the perspectives of Peacock & Kuper on Japan culture
The authors of "Substance" and "Culture" lived in two different places and ended with completely different conclusion about culture. Peacock lived in Surabaya, Indonesia and found that although the people there is poor and hard to survive, they still keep their culture. The Surabaya people did not have enough food or medicine, but they have their traditions and ceremonies. In "Substance", Peacock also says that culture is "learned, rather than inherited" and "social", "shared rather than a property of individual. However, the author of "Culture", Kuper has a different view. He lived in south Africa for several years and came back with the conclusion that south Africa did not have a culture and it is just "two or more 'cultures' interacted". It is even hard to give a specific definition of  culture. Kuper also believes that culture need to be taken care of and civilization is "fragile", which is different from Peacock's view that culture is strong and can survive in harsh environment. They both agree that culture is important for a nation.