The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus Newsletter
Newsletter No. 18. 2015        

May 4, 2015

New Articles
Greetings!

To the Okinawans, Oura Bay is a sacred place, and for nearly two decades they have protested its destruction by US/Japan military expansion in the form of construction of a new military base. Like Oura Bay, Mauna Kea in Hawaii is representative of the conquest and destruction at the hands of foreign powers, argues William B.C. Chang, where citizens have been rendered powerless to change their exploitation.

The worldwide revolutionary movement inspired by the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 led numerous artists throughout the world to passionately devote their work to the radical reconstitution of the world. Zeljko Cipris translates excerpts from the revolutionary writer Kobayashi Takiji's 1929 novel, The Crab Cannery Ship, based on an actual incident in which ship workers fought back against their treatment. Three quarters of a century after its publication the book became a runaway best seller in Japan.

Based on his experience of the Russo-Japanese War, Sōtō Zen Master Sawaki Kōdō wrote about the relationship between Zen and war, and appears to have endorsed Japanese aggression in Asia. Through a careful examination of his writings and records of his disciples, Brian Daizen Victoria argues that along with Sawaki's contemporaries this past is something that contemporary Buddhists must confront and learn from.

We are pleased to announce that contributing editor Jon Mitchell is the recipient of the Foreign Correspondent Club of Japan's Lifetime Achievement Award for reporting on Okinawa, notably the US use of Agent Orange in Okinawa and the role of Okinawa in the Vietnam War, with much of that work appearing at Asia-Pacific Journal.
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