Tsukuba Schools Introduce New Eco-Global Curriculum

Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan. The parents' orientation handouts listed two hours a week for "Tsukuba Style Studies." My wife and I raised our eyebrows. What are 'style' studies and why would our son get two hours a week of it when he enters Yatabe Higashi Junior High School in April?

The handout page for Tsukuba Style Studies listed objective thinking, problem discovery, communications, cooperation, self-consciousness, independent correction, "information gathering, analysis and activism," regional and global citizenship, life and career design, creativity and innovation - all leading edge education areas.

Eating Manners of Farm Women - Tsuchiura, circa 1926

The Japanese character for "to eat" 食 has two readings. The first that students of Japanese learn is "taberu" (食べる), which carries connotations that most people associated with eating: sitting at a table with family and friends to consume a meal. The other reading "kuu" (食う) treats the act as a bodily function with no graces. This distinction separated farm women from town women.


From: "Life in the Sewing School (お裁縫所の暮らし)," told by Oshima Mitsu, born 1906

Rice, Pawn Shops & Day Laborers - Tsuchiura, circa 1920-1925

When it rained, there would be no work - and no rice. After a day of rain, maybe day laborers would pawn something. More days of rain meant no rice: they would run out of things to pawn. Some families would subsist on barley alone.


From "Tenements (不動長屋)," told by Terauchi Ryutaro, born in 1905

Bathing the Neighborhood - Tsuchiura, circa 1915

Tatsutamachi in Tsuchiura is is a neighborhood once surrounded by rivers and canals. In 1915, it was a cluster of thatched tenements bordered on its west side by a middle school for women.

From "Mystery in Tatsuta (立田の怪)," told by Ishido Yoshio, born in 1905

Japan Cabinet designates Tsukuba an "International Strategic Zone"

22 December 2011, Tsukuba.

Japan's Cabinet Office has designated Tsukuba City as an "International Strategic Zone." This designation is part of a national initiative to create 360,000 new jobs in strategic zones.

Restarting Tokai Daini nuclear reactor

Here are some related articles to be reviewed and summarized. Parking the references here for now.

Famine and infanticide in 18th century Japan

"There is, among the customs of Hitachi Province, one of crushing a newborn to death at its birthplace, called 'culling' children."
- Kubo Akamizu, 1773 report to Mito Clan

War, filth, famine, infanticide - in A Farewell to Alms⁵, Gregory Clark argues that, before the Industrial Revolution, the world's societies were in Malthusian traps. Their populations needed control of some sort. In Europe, this control was by war, filth and occasional famine; in the rest of the world less by war and filth, more by famine and infanticide. After the Tokugawa family took control of Japan in 1615, war was essentially absent, and, by Clark's accounts, hygiene in Japan surpassed that the rest of the world. This left population control to famine and infanticide.

Any reader tempted to derive a morality tale from the documents described below should keep in mind that, before the Industrial Revolution, all societies of the world were in Malthusian traps.