Wander-wonder 2023 Japan 1875-1925

  From Tatsuno-city example, just west of Himeji in Hyogo prefecture - Imagining possible instances of visible traces of each part of the past and prehistory, too, https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/34.8374/134.5599 1. Boxes show modern Tatsuno (left) & Himeji (right); circles for imagined Jomon sites visible. For much of Japan's history and prehistory the land was incrementally reworked and structures were made from wood and paper. Only the foundation stones, stone artifacts (and later, metal tools and pottery), as well as ceramic roof tiles last for centuries and millennia. So the visible traces (and ones from archaeological excavations) present patterns characteristic of each era. Modern-day cities of Tatsuno (top left) and Himeji (right margin) are highlighted, too, on these screenshots from OpenStreetMap.org   This first map with imaginary traces of the past is for prehistory before agriculture and settled villages began. Some locations of shell mounds and other...

11-2018 cultural landscape south of Echizen-city, Fukui-ken My first impressions of Japan date to the jet's final approach into Narita on June 26, 1984. That's when the new cohort of native speakers of (USA) English in the "Monbusho English Fellow" program were being assembled for orientation to the life and work during the next 12 months. Based on a positive experience in rural Fukui-ken, I returned a few years later to improve my Japanese language skills, renew friendships, and earn enough money to cover monthly costs. Around that time I began the 7 years of graduate school, fieldwork, and dissertation writing that resulted in professional credential for teaching and research in higher education. But it was public engagement and outreach that came to mean most to my ongoing career in Japanese language and society, international education, museum studies, and visual anthropology. From 1999-2001 a fellowship at the National Museum of Ethnology allowed publication of t...