Peter Pantzer & Sven Saaler: Japanische Impressionen eines
Kaiserlichen Gesandten. Karl von Eisendecher im Japan der Meiji-Zeit. München
2007. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
How are you today? To begin with, thank you for the first round of presentations from last night. I was very excited to see what you could do and will give my reactions here.
I've found, and posted a picture above, of Sir Ernest Satow as a way of illustrating Tsuyoshi's presentation last night. Very interesting and illuminating.
My remarks about Oliver Cromwell may not be accurate, however; here's the to the Japanese Wikipedia article on Cromwell: http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/オリヴァー・クロムウェル (for some reason, it will not let me do an embedded link with this URL, so I have pasted the URL here). But I still believe Ernest Satow's stance on the constitutional and diplomatic questions of the shogun's status as a head of government and state of Japan may have been informed by his own country's history, and experience, with Oliver Cromwell.
Here are the selected shots of Haruka and Makoto's presentations on same sex marriage. Again, very illuminating and courageous for tackling what is an uncomfortable subject for a number of people:
When you get a chance, I recommend either of you to watch the full debate (only when you get the chance - it's long!).
I'll look forward to seeing the second round of presentations next week. Take care!
See you then!
I watched promo video about debate of same sex marriage. Watching this video, I thought many American think this problem from the point of view of religion. When I watched the demonstration against homosexuality in America, I was shocked because some people show the placard and this said "homo is supported by DEMON" I (and many Japanese, perhaps) have never had such idea(DEMON!!!!!). And in this video, two debaters mention'God' many times, so such cultural (religious) difference is interesting so much. I think many Japanese do not associate God with Homosexuality.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, the mindset against homosexuality (and by extension, gay rights and same-sex marriage) has been undertaken from a religious standpoint, but the thing to understand about this standpoint is that it is a particularly politicized religious outlook by the Christian right-wing, which has played a major role in American politics and society over the last 30 years or so, and sees everything in the world from within this viewpoint. This mindset makes the same case about health-care reform in the U.S. - that it is a godless, communist/socialist plot, and against minorities and immigrants, legal or illegal. They have said the same thing about Obama himself - that he is a communist Muslim atheist from Kenya. Some commentators from within this faction even said, after the 3/11 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, that it was God's retribution against a non-Christian nation.
ReplyDeleteSo as we say in America, take this with "a grain of salt" (that is, don't feel they are being clever or profound in their arguments). They will use the Bible, and Christian values, against anything they do not like and feel threatened by. Same-sex marriage is just the latest in along line of things they are against.
Andrew Sullivan is very interesting. He is a gay Catholic conservative originally from Britain, who sees same-sex marriage rights as a conservative, Christian value that real Christians should have no problem with, and should be supportive of. I follow his blog a lot and while I disagree with him on a number of things, he is passionate, willing to listen to those who disagree with him, willing to engage with facts and change his mind, and has been quite publicly courageous in taking on his opponents and debating them in his blog, on national TV, and in newspapers and magazines. I greatly respect his courage, not less for the fact that he is HIV-positive and has been for almost 25 years now.