井の中の蛙

Sean Malloy has withdrawn the pictures once touted as “newly discovered” photographs of Hiroshima in the immediate aftermath of the atomic bombing. Over the last few days, after the pictures were reported by HNN, the Huffington Post, and Wired, among others, members of the Japanese studies community took a closer look and began to doubt. I saw it unfold at H-Japan: questions about the clothing worn by the people standing in the photos, injuries that didn’t match the atomic bombing, topography issues. Most of all, there were similarities to other known pictures from the Kanto Earthquake of 1923 and the anti-Korean/anti-leftist massacres which followed: the injuries, topography and clothing are more consistent with that disaster/atrocity. How the pictures acquired the Hiroshima story is still a mystery though, as one commenter pointed out, there’s a three day gap between the bombing and the first known pictures which we’d dearly love to fill.

By a curious coincidence, I (and a lot of other innocent scholars of Asia, I warrant) got an email from an ironically named Japanese group¹ whose sole purpose is to deny the realities of Japanese WWII atrocities, and one of their highlight publications is an attempt to debunk as many Nanjing Massacre photographs as possible. Daqing Yang, one of the premier scholars on the Nanjing Massacre has written

Even photographic evidence, as many of them have come to realize, can be fraught with danger if its origins cannot be ascertained. When a conservative Japanese daily newspaper made a news story out of a wartime photograph used with the wrong caption in Kasahara’s book, he offered a swift public apology for his negligence and replaced the photograph.94 One of Kasahara’s historian colleagues has included a cautionary note about the use of photographic evidence in a college textbook on historical sources, using the Rape of Nanjing as an example.95

A few days back, peacay wrote me to get clarification on a satirical map found in the ‘Block Prints of the Chinese Revolution’ collection at Princeton. The problem with it, what was confusing peacay, is that the map seemed to be too broad and didn’t say much about the 1911 Revolution. The archival commentary wasn’t helpful, being a general statement about the whole collection. So, I got a good look at it and reported back that it was actually a Japanese-drawn (that much peacay already knew, which is why I got the call) WWI satire, dated late 1914, and the sum total of Chinese commentary was to depict China as a Mandarin pig, anxiously looking at a rain gauge. (peacay has a nice detail shot of it) The rest of the collection seems to actually be from Shanghai and relate to the 1911 revolution (at least, I assume Alan would have said something!). I don’t know that Princeton is going to withdraw the out-of-place image — they’ve already got a disclaimer on the collection saying that they don’t endorse any of the sentiments contained therein — but I expect that their in-house cataloging is more detailed and accurate. I hope so, but that’s no protection for researchers who aren’t in New Jersey.

This is going to come up more and more: as archives and collections become more public, the likelihood of discovering errors (or worse, propogating them in our research) is going to increase. As others have noted, I’m sure, historians are rarely trained specifically in the critical use of visual evidence, photographic or artistic. I’ve seen some grossly overinterpreted and casually thoughtless uses of visual materials.² Nor are many archivists, though we rely heavily on their record-keeping and expertise. But it’s getting harder and harder to excuse this kind of carelessness, while our training is not at all keeping up with the materials we’re expected to use.

1. I’ll tell you if you really want, but I don’t want to give them any more publicity than they deserve [↩]
2. I used a world history textbook once which both: a. presented a photograph of modern African folk dancers in a chapter on pre-1500 African history, the only instance in which a modern photo was used as evidence in a pre-modern context; b. and claimed that the solemn expressions on native Americans in a mid-19c picture were evidence of their social and cultural plight instead of the long exposures of contemporary technology [↩]

The Frog in a Well project is expanding. While we hope our three bilingual collaborative weblogs dedicated to the study of East Asian history will continue to develop and add more contributors, I would like to announce a new project that we are hosting here, the East Asian Libraries and Archives wiki, or EALA:

The East Asian Libraries and Archives Wiki

This wiki will serve as a central collection site for information about archives, libraries, museums, etc. in East Asia that are of potential interest for anyone doing research on or in East Asia. It will also include sections dedicated to other kinds of resources but its primary focus it to provide researchers with a good starting place and reference for information on sites they may be visiting. While many archives have websites, my experience has been that they vary significantly in quality, convenience, organization, and speed of access. Also, visitors to archives can often provide extremely useful information to future visitors that may not be of the kind you are likely to read on the archive’s official homepage. The two most important aspects of each archive entry will be: 1) Basic reference information that will help a researcher plan ahead for their visit and easily find links to more details 2) Provide a place where researchers may record their personal experiences in the archive. As a wiki, anyone will be able to edit the individual entries, update information that might be out of date, and record their own experiences.

The East Asian Libraries and Archives wiki was originally founded in 2003 and originally hosted in a similar form at Chinajapan.org. It was inspired by the Chinese archives website at UCSD which hosts a range of useful, if somewhat outdated information for students and scholars wanting to do research in the archives of China.

I hope that other students and scholars of East Asia will share some of their experiences and, as they conduct their own research will consider updating information available. You may read more about the site here, and there are numerous help files on how to edit and create pages on the site here. The wiki has links to a blank archive form (PDF, Word, and wiki formatted text) for convenient note taking on your visit. I have posted a few entries from my time in Japan, which I added to the original site in 2003-4. To get an idea of what kind of information entries can include, see for example the entries for International Library of Children’s Literature, the Ōya Sōichi Library, and the Yokohama Archives of History.

While it is off to a slow start, I would also like to take this opportunity to introduce the Frog in a Well Library, or the 文庫, where we will host various primary documents related to the history of East Asia: The Frog in a Well Library

A recent message on H-Japan from Yuko Okubo at UC Berkeley announced an interesting online resource: The Japanese Historical Text Initiative Here is a part of that announcement which outlines some of the materials already available:

The Japanese Historical Text Initiative (JHTI) is a rapidly expanding
database made up of historical texts written during the last 1292 years.
The original version of every paragraph in every text is cross-tagged with
its English translation, making it possible for any researcher to see, on
the same screen, both the original and English translation of any word or
phrase appearing in any JHTI text.

The texts now included are of the following types:

Ancient chronicles. These were compiled by officials of the Imperial
Court in compliance with edicts handed down by occupants of the throne.
The three oldest chronicles have been placed on JHTI: (1) the Kojiki
(completed in 712 CE) and cross-tagged with its English translation by
Donald L. Philippi, (2) the Nihon Shoki (completed in 720) with its
translation by W. G. Aston, and (3) the Shoku Nihongi (covering 697 to
791) with its translation by J. B. Snellen.

Ancient gazetteers. These texts were submitted by provincial officials in
compliance with an Imperial edict handed down during the first half of the
8th century. Only a few remain. We are inserting on JHTI the original of
the most complete extant gazetteer, the Izumo no Kuni Fudoki (submitted in
733), and linking it with Michiko Aoki’s translation. Remaining portions
of other gazetteers will be added and linked to translations by Professor
Aoki.

Ancient religo-civil code. In 927, at the close of the Great Reform period
that began in 645, a comprehensive compilation of religious and civil law
(the Engi Shiki) was submitted to the Imperial court. The first 10 books
are made up of religious (Kami) law. All other books are devoted to civil
law. The originals of the 10 Kami books have been placed on JHTI and
cross-tagged with Felicia Gressitt Bock’s translation.

Medieval stories. After the Great Reform period, and during early years of
the emerging feudal age, the most valuable historical texts were stories
written about what was said and done by powerful leaders of aristocratic
and military clans. Three are being placed on JHTI: (1) the Okagami
(covering the years 866 to 1027) with the translation by Helen Craig
McCullough; (2) the Eiga Monogatari (covering the years 794 to 1185) with
the translation by William H. & Helen Craig McCullough; and (3) the
Taiheiki (completed around 1371) with the Helen Craig McCullough
translation. Other translated texts of this type will be added later.

Medieval and early-modern interpretive histories. Between 1219 and 1712,
three great interpretive histories were written, mirroring the religious
and political interests of their authors. The originals and translations
of two are being placed on JHTI: (1) the Gukansho (completed in 1219) has
been linked with the Delmer M. Brown and Ichiro Ishida translation, and
(2) the Jinno Shotoki (completed in 1339) with the H. Paul Varley
translation. The third history of this type, the Tokushi Yoron (completed
in 1712), will soon be cross-tagged and inserted with the Joyce Ackroyd
translation.

The Japanese state and Imperial Shinto. After the Meiji Restoration of
1868, and in response to increasing pressure from Western powers, the
Japanese state adopted reforms in all areas of public life, including
religious life. After World War II the government collected and published
important religious orders issued between 1868 and 1945. This is entitled
Meiji Igo Shukyo Kankei Horei Ruisan (Collection of Religious Orders
Issued since the Beginning of Meiji) and it is being placed on JHTI, and
is being linked with translations by Brown and Okubo. In 1937, the
Japanese government published and distributed its official interpretation
of Imperial Shinto. Entitled Kokutai no Hongi (Principles of Nation-Body)
this has been placed on JHTI and cross-tagged with the English translation
by John Owen Gauntlett.

Scriptures of Japan’s New Religions. After Japan was forced to adopt a
constitution that freed religion from state control, numerous New
Religions emerged and flourished. The strongest two have amassed 10
million or more members. Their teachings are rooted in the Lotus Sutra
(Hokke-kyo) and this Sutra, thought to be the earliest of the Mahayana
scriptures, will be placed on JHTI and cross-tagged with the English
translation by Banno Kato et al and revised by W. L. Soothill and William
Schiffer et al. The Ofudesaki written by the founder of Tenri-kyo will
also be added, and linked with the translation by Iwao P. Hino.

This is an exciting project and I hope it continues to develop, adding material and ironing out problems as it does. I have only given the site a quick look but a few quick observations:

1) Searching some of the materials requires obtaining a password, which apparently is available from one of the site administrators.

2) There is a fascinating “Frequency of Appearance” feature which allows you to search a single or in all of the texts for the frequency of certain words.

3) The design of the website still needs some work. The site uses frames, which is fine, but the encoding is not set in the HEAD tag for some of the files, which renders the Japanese characters wrong in some cases unless the visitor manually chooses the correct encoding in their browser (example: their logsel.cgi file produces files without encoding, which is just lazy programming) or has the default encoding set to the appropriate Japanese encoding.

4) Some of the search pages still need work, as well as the browse function. For example, browsing the Kojiki lists the language as “Japanese and English” but only the English appears except in the footnotes.

5) Some links on the site are still broken (the search page for nihon shoki was broken at the time of writing this post)

A recent initiative in the US to limit access to birth and death records [via] along with other personal data would severely limit the ability of historical and geneaological researchers, not to mention the epidemiological studies mentioned in the article.

This reminded me that I’d meant to blog a long time ago about Sharon Domier’s H-Japan announcement that a similar law in Japan passed last year was hindering historical researchers. I’ve removed a few of the URLs she provided because they don’t seem to work anymore, but I’d be happy to provide them if anyone wants to root around in the archives.

The Japanese government recently enacted a Personal Information Protection Law that is having a significant impact on both publishing and research. In Japanese it is called Kojin Joho hogo ho.
…
The Japan Media Review is a good place to read about the effect of the new law on publishing. Here is an article in English: http://www.japanmediareview.com/japan/media/1060286367.php

What this means to libraries is that many are withdrawing meibo (registers) that contain personal information. School yearbooks are off limits as are many biographical registers. If you subscribe to online databases that include biographical information, you may find that the content has changed significantly in order to comply with the law. Many of the librarians that I have talked to in my recent travels are grappling with how to preserve materials and be in compliance with the law.

For an article that explains how one library handled historical material (court cases from the Meiji-Taisho period), please see this Asahi Shinbun article in Japanese. http://www.asahi.com/national/update/0414/OSK200504130060.html [I can't seem to find this, either at Asahi or in Lexis-Nexis, sorry]

Please note that libraries are removing the bibliographic records from OPACs so that there is no public trace of the materials that are problematic.

As I replied to Domier at the time, My research probably will be affected, but I haven’t done a Japanese archive trip in a while, so I can’t be sure. It sounds like some of what I had access to — official records with names and addresses — might well be included, so I’m sitting on a stash of “gray market” evidence. One of my concerns — aside from the obvious — is that research already done with these records will now be unverifiable by future researchers. Have you run into a problem in the last year or so? Let us know.

This is a serious issue: privacy and personal information protection are indeed valuable principles worthy of care and protection. But there has to be some way to preserve those principles without seriously compromising our ability to do legitimate research.

While looking for a supplement to the anemic textbook offerings on Tokugawa Japan (none of the stuff is out of copyright, probably, which is why it’s not in the document set), I came across this great collection of links to history resources. (via Early Modern Resources) I still haven’t found what I’m looking for (quick document readings for world history students) but it’s a likely source for something especially visual materials.

Update (1/23/06): I didn’t think I’d find much in the David Rumsey Map collection, because it seemed to be heavily European maps, and I was right: a few interesting maps of Japan produced by Europeans, but not much compared to the wealth of material for Western historians. Then, as I was about to give up, I noticed the link to the Japan collection Yes, the UC Berkeley East Asian Library collection of historical Japanese maps (and a few other images) has been digitized and is available under Creative Commons license. There’s a lot of mid-to-late Tokugawa and Meiji era stuff, in particular: right up my alley.

Here’s a good illustration of the image quality and flexibility of the service: the very center of a 1710 map of the world:

While looking for some old Gallup polls in Lexis-Nexis, I came across the following poll question from May of 1946. Some readers may find either the results or the answer options interesting:

Which of the following statements comes closest to describing how you feel, on the whole, about the people who live in Japan?

The Japanese people will always want to go to war to make themselves as powerful as possible - 35%

The Japanese people may not like war, but they have shown that they are too easily led into war by powerful leaders - 39

The Japanese people do not like war. If they could have the same chance as people in other countries, they would become good citizens of the world - 19

Don’t know - 7

ORGANIZATION CONDUCTING SURVEY: NATIONAL OPINION RESEARCH CENTER
POPULATION: National adult
NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS: 2,589
INTERVIEW METHOD: Personal
BEGINNING DATE: May 1946
ENDING DATE: May 1946
SOURCE DOCUMENT: MINORITIES, UNITED NATIONS
DATE OF RELEASE OF SOURCE DOCUMENT: May 1946
QUESTION ID: USNORC.460241, R11B

Following KML’s post about the new museum on sexual slavery that is reported to open on August 1, found some links that I thought might deserve a separate post.

“The Women’s Active Museum on War and Peace,” as it was reported by Japan Times, is the translation of アクティブ・ミュージアム「女たちの戦争と平和資料館」. The site, which is only in Japanese, can be found here.

For those who are in Tokyo, a museum opening event will be held on July 31.

There is some information in English about this museum, by way of a notice on the passing of Yayori Matsui, a journalist, activist, and a key person behind the museum.

The museum site is part of Violence against Women in War - Network Japan (The Japanese page is here.)

VAWW-NET Japan is an organization dedicated to ending violence against women during war and is currently positioning the museum as a node to connect to other such centers of information and activism in other Asian countries.

Here’s another piece of news that I’m sure some readers here will already know about. In 2000 they organized the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal, known as Women’s Tribunal 2000 (in English, Japanese). But earlier this year Asahi Shinbun reported that some government officials clandestinely interfered with the tribunal and attempted to discredit VAWW-NET Japan. This report was based on a disclosure from a producer at NHK.

For more on this, see VAWW-NET Japan’s blog. This post in English (here) has a good summary of the history of this scandal.

The presentation I attended on the Japan Memory Project which I covered in my last posting also discussed another part of their institute’s online efforts. Wakabayashi Haruko introduced us to their Online Glossary of Japanese Historical Terms which allows researches to search a database of (currently) about 21,000 pre-modern historical terms. The contents of the database itself is made up the glossary entries found in many English language (and later apparently other languages will be included) works on pre-modern Japanese history. For example, if you search for the term 天皇 the glossary will show you how seven different works, including the Cambridge History, have translated and romanized the word.

You can also enter whole passages, perhaps copied and pasted into their search box. However, their search algorithm does a poor job of separating the words as the algorithm is based on modern Japanese rather than classical. Although an audience member was hard on them for this, the truth is that such algorithms for even modern Japanese and Chinese are still full of errors. According to one Chinese language professor I heard present at a recent conference in New York, the careers of many bright programmers are dedicated to solving the difficult question of how to accurately divide words in texts without spacing.

UPDATE: The glossary seems to have moved links. The new home can be accessed via here: Access to the Japanese Historical Terms Glossary and other databases

Three visiting scholars (Sakakibara Sayoko, Roy Ron, and Wakabayashi Haruko) from the University of Tokyo’s Historiographical Institute gave a talk this week at Harvard about their massive Japan Memory Project. The project consists of a collection of online databases of mostly pre-modern primary sources, including the 『大日本資料』 and 『大日本故文書』as well as many other important collections of historical documents.

Many of these sources have been digitized through the project and their indexes can be searched online. Also, many of the documents, maps and other visual sources can be viewed and downloaded directly from their site, but depending on the database, may only be available to scholars visiting the institute.
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