Week 4

[morgan...@gmail.com]

• Reply to at least 2 discussion topics
• Optional - reply to at least 1 person's posting

Discussion topics

1. There's a wide variety of possible answers, but why do you think the rural kids would target the evacuees?
2. Throughout this book, but especially in this section, you see pressure to volunteer (for example see page 150).  Would you use this idea of peer pressure, community pressure, national pressure, Confucian pressure... in your use of the book?  Explain what that might look like.
3. Page 159 has something of note that most younger readers won’t be aware of.  A character says “help build a world where you can marry the woman you love,” but even though the medieval class system was gone, many Japanese people still could not get family permission to marry someone of a lower-class or otherwise objected to by their family.  Does this quote refer only to the war or if not how does this knowledge change your reading of that quote?
   
4. On the page "Additional Resources" there is a folder called "Author Stuff."  In that folder are two detailed interviews with the author.  Read one (or both) and then discuss any affect that would have on your reading of the text and/or your use of the text in your classroom.
5. Apply what you learned from the video about graphic novels to something from this section.
6. Is there anything else from this section that you would like to highlight or would use in your classroom?
7. Do you have any questions?

[bac...@pps.k12.mi.us]

1. Apart from general bullying of kids new to the area, I think an underlying reason for the urban kids targeting the evacuees is a fear of the evacuees taking resources (in the kids' minds food) that "rightly" belongs to them.

4. The biggest takeaway from the author interviews I read has got to be the section where Nakazawa discusses going back for his father and siblings bodies. The part where he mentions putting their skulls in a bucket is very powerful. This will really drive home for students just how far beyond what we imagine daily life to be has become. Asking students to imagine themselves in Nakazawa's shoes will make for a rich discussion. Possibly a thoughtful writing assignment is waiting here if a respectful way is found to present the prompt/topic.

Also, aren't the interviews the folks at The Comics Journal do wonderful?

[Donna Kokojan]

3.  My Arab students would understand part of what this quote means.  I have one student that turned seventeen this year and was immediately told that she has should marry her 1st cousin back in Jordan.  She has not graduated, but will be traveling back to her native country to meet this cousin.  If she likes him, so will be married.  I am not really sure she has the power to prevent the marriage if she does not want to marry him.  I get the impression that she is hearing what she wants to hear.  I think this quote deals with the war in the situation it was used.  I am not sure my students will realize that these soldiers won’t be marrying the ones they love because they are expected to die in battle.  I would like for my students to discuss the differences between being forced to get married and being expected to die for your country.

 

4.  I think the interview brings up a questions as to which genre is the best one for Barefoot Gen.  It might be better to place it into Realistic Fiction opposed to an autobiography.  I think the interview brings up some interesting concepts.  For example, Gen basically lived his hold life in war until the dropping of the Atomic bomb.  I think it would be interesting to compare the differences between war for Gen and war for children in the US  or children from the Middle East that have been born during the Middle Eastern wars.  I think Americans don’t understand the devastation of war because we haven’t experienced it daily in our country. I was fascinated by his description of the effects of the bomb and the irony of the fact that luck was on the side of his family.  I was surprised that they could return to Hiroshima because I thought the radiation was similar to the radiation given off by nuclear power plants when they melted down.  I think this could lead to an interesting conversation.  I agreed with his statement that Japan would finally get better once it lost the war.  Gen’s dad didn’t think war was right.  Is there ever a time when war is justified?  Finally, I agree that more Americans and people around the world need to clearly remember the events of WWII and the dropping of the bombs.  Until recently, I did not realize that so many Japanese people were killed by the fire bombs dropped.  

[epi...@apps.homewood.k12.al.us]

Week  (June 25) Pages 125- 169  Liz Pipkin Response to the question 

1. There's a wide variety of possible answers, but why do you think the rural kids would target the evacuees?  At the turn of the century Japan became a colonial power itself and Japanese racist views against other Asians worked against it in building a united Asian front against Western imperialism.  This type of racism was part of the colonial ideology that the Japanese people were subjected to by the government.  After Korea was annexed, the Japanese used Korean men as laborers in many types of industries in Korea and Japan.  Japan attempted to erase Korean culture by destroying buildings and artifacts of the Korean people.  Koreans were forced to renounce their own culture by the Japanese government.  Under Japanese rule, Koreans were not allowed to speak their language, sing traditional songs or wear traditional clothes. Korean temples and shrines were destroyed, Korean history was banned from schools and Koreans were forced to worship at Japanese Shinto shrines and revere the Japanese emperor.  These rural children had been taught that the Japanese were superior to the Koreans.  The Korean people lost  their identify and power to control their lives under Japanese rule.  Anti-Korean sentiment has a long history in Japan; even today Japan is having racial incidents among children. The term “Chon” comes from “Chōsenjin”, an insulting term to refer to Korean residents in Japan. School children were taught the Imperial Rescript on Education, 1890 edict that was used to promote militaristic education during World War II. “Should emergency arise, offer yourselves courageously to the State; and thus guard and maintain the prosperity of Our Imperial Throne coeval with heaven and earth.” School children all over Japan was taught this on a daily basis of explicit racism. 

[epi...@apps.homewood.k12.al.us]

1. Week 4 (June 26)  Liz Pipkin response Question 3  Page 159 has something of note that most younger readers won’t be aware of.  A character says “help build a world where you can marry the woman you love,” but even though the medieval class system was gone, many Japanese people still could not get family permission to marry someone of a lower-class or otherwise objected to by their family.  Does this quote refer only to the war or if not how does this knowledge change your reading of that quote?  The character Mr. Nakayama was referring to his dilemma of wanting to go home to the two women he loved but he was unable because his duty to country and the emperor.  The disgrace of his Japanese manhood is held over him as a Kamikaze Special Attack Corps.  In this respect he is referring to the nobler love, done in cheek as his cause of his sacrifice for country.  Love/loyalty of Japan is the higher ranking than his love for his mother and love at home.  The medieval thinking was still evident during the Pacific War-where country came before personal needs or wants.

 

[morgan...@gmail.com]

Bachpe

Yes the TCJ is a great resource.  I agree that there could be some strong journals to go along with that part of the interview.  One thing that I think is worth mentioning to kids is the during and after effects of trauma.  I'm not sure that I'd be willing to say that the author was in the after effects stage yet though.  

I'm sure there's a psychological or medical name for it, but we see it in times of great trauma like war, disasters and terror attacks.  Many people will almost switch off their emotions while they take care of what needs to be done and then when they are in the after time the emotions kick in.  

A few years back I was doing some research for a book I'm working on and one of the refugees I was interviewing was telling me a story about a traumatic event in her village.  A small group of Burmese soldiers had driven into the village to steal food, workers and possibly women.  When they came into the village they started shooting at the houses and people for sport/fun.  After everything was over she was checking on a neighbor whose baby was crying.  The neighbor had been breastfeeding her baby when a bullet killed her.  The baby was dropped onto the floor and started crying.  The woman I was interviewing talked about all the steps they went through after that and how she wasn't emotional at the time but she was still dealing with it more than a decade later.  

[morgan...@gmail.com]

Donna

You bring up an interesting comparison between compulsory military service and compulsory marriage. Many cultures around the world still have arranged marriages or expectations that are practically arranged marriages.  I work with many Hmong families and there's still a strong cultural expectation of marrying young and marrying only certain family approved people.  A good Hmong friend of mine was disowned by his family for marrying a Hmong girl that wasn't approved of by his family.  But with young people getting married because of certain expectations/pressures has led to a "crisis" in the Hmong community in Minnesota.  Some of the young people who are getting married aren't staying married.  Divorce is technically allowed (although usually it's more acceptable if the man leaves the wife for another woman), but wasn't very common.  Now many of these young people are getting divorced within 10 years of getting married and there have actually been meetings and discussions about how to stop this growing epidemic, none of the ideas I've heard include relaxing the expectations of marriage.  

As for the radiation, they (including the US) didn't really know about the radiation from the bombs back then.  Remember that the American invasion plans included dropping 14 atomic bombs on Japan and having US troops march into each bombed area 48 hours after a bomb was dropped.  So no one really knew to avoid Hiroshima or Nagasaki and certainly there weren't adequate resources to keep people out even if they knew.  When people started to learn about the radiation (well after the author returned to Hiroshima to collect his family) it was kept very secret from the public.  News and other sources (including manga) weren't allowed to talk about the radiation during the American occupation, although I'm sure this didn't stop word of mouth.

[morgan...@gmail.com]

Epipkin

Question 1 - You are correct in your information about Japanese colonial Korea and their treatment of Koreans.  Although I'm not sure how that relates to how the Japanese in the rural areas bullying the Japanese from Hiroshima.  Could you elaborate a bit more?

Question 4 - That's an interesting reading of marrying/woman.  So you are saying that at the time all men were married to Japan and the Emperor first and that that marriage trumped all others.  But that the soldier is telling Gen's brother to build a world where your loyalty/marriage is not necessarily to the state first but to whomever you decide to marry.  That's a direction I had not considered before.    

[Lori Stubben]

1. As for the rural kids targeting evacuees I think this is general othering that occurs everywhere and is the base level of bullying. I think this would easily lead to a discussion about bullying and how it is always going on and is unnecessary. More poignant to me is the cruelty of the teachers in the countryside and how in wartime even young children (is Akira about 12?) were working every day at school and not learning or having a childhood.  Was the same thing going on in Germany and Italy? I would be shocked if that was the case.

2/6. I was struck by the complexity of the kamikaze pilot section with Akira volunteering for flight school.  That it drove a kamikaze pilot mad, that he was basicly being forced to "volunteer" his life for the war, was surprising as I thought every Japanese went along with nationalism -especially if they were already in flight school by 1945. In my school we have manditory community service - volunteering -graduation requirement. I think this would be a good classroom discussion about service to a community- and if any of my 8th graders complain at least I'm not asking them to volunteer their lives for the school.

[mgbl...@gmail.com]

QUESTION 2: 

To begin with, pressure appears in our story in the context of the family: Koji, the older son of Gen’s family, is pressured to join the air corps since he feels that in this way he will salvage his family’s name from the stamp of dishonor that is attached to the name of a traitor. Koji respects his father and family, at large, and his personal sacrifice, is treated thus as small compared to the larger benefit of his family’s honor. Such an attitude reflects Japanese culture and the way each family raises their children. Moreover, Gen and Sinji experience pressure, when they have to pretend they are orphans in the streets of the city and sing, while begging for money, fooling some people passing by. Both children sacrifice their own needs and will for the sake of something larger, as is their family and the needs they have for money and food. (p. 140) The pressure described above is indirect.

            More direct pressure exists in the context of the Buddhist temple, the military, and society, in general. At the temple, that is, students are pressured to conform to the expectation that they bow their heads every morning to the emperor’s palace at a particular direction in the horizon, because the emperor is treated as a god that protects Japan. (p. 126) That is ironic, though, and some students are critically refuting this reality of the emperor as the protector, because of the incessant bombings that plague Japan, but they are forced to obey. Students, who have been escorted to rural areas for their protection, are ordered by adults to endure hunger and any kind of suffering for the sake of their country, all the soldiers that are fighting for their sake, and the honor of the emperor. Students have no other option but to suffer, otherwise they get kicked in their body, or punched in the face (p. 129). I am unsure how truthful can the latter scene be, but if true, the coercion is obvious. Along the same lines, lieutenant Kumai is pressured to enlist in the military, as are numerous other young men from 77 universities. (p. 147) If they don’t, they suffer psychological bullying, as members of society, which expresses itself in an array of dehumanizing insults, such as when Kumai was called “a stinking coward,” “an idiot,” committing an act that is “disgusting” to all of society. (pp. 150, 159) Lieutenant Kumai submits his will, at first, from all this pressure, but he still refuses to commit himself wholeheartedly to the cause. He goes against the tide, and he suffers the fate of the outcast.

            Finally, relating pressure in the story to pressure in the classroom, there is a thread of connection that can be woven in-between. There are all sorts of pressures in the life of a student, particularly, in low socio-economic school settings, where students who do well can be bullied, or students who behave well could be treated as the teacher’s pet, to the extent that such a pressure can lead the student who fails to conform at first, to do so, eventually. Students can face the pressure of smoking, or doing drugs, also, because their friends are doing it, or are pushing them to do so they can show how cool they can be, or courageous, disregarding individual moral choice and moral standards of right and wrong taught by school and parents. Making comparisons to the story, then, will benefit students towards giving them a context to reflect upon the role of individual choice and action in complex and pressuring social contexts, where students might act contrary to their will, and without thinking responsibly and critically. 

Question 3:  

Based off the sequence of scenes on p. 159, my impression is that Kumai is referring to just the conditions of war that do not leave space for love and other human affairs to prosper, because the latter could only flourish in the conditions of peace. It is only through peace that humanity can build a more happy and prosperous society and world. War just destroys and brings everything to nothingness. War annihilates life and the respect for life and happiness. Kumai wishes he could live a life as a happily married man with a woman he loves and build a family. He has already found a woman he loves and intends to marry, but war most possibly interfered with his plans, and he is afraid that this reality will never actualize itself because his role as lieutenant is burdening him with a suicidal mission.  Any other considerations, such as whether, and to what degree, societal biases had any influence on the choices of young people in marriage, would play a secondary role, in my view.  They could probably have existed before the war broke out, but the message Kumai communicates, seems to me to be more about the devastating impact of war on all aspects of life, given that one of the most typical aspects of life consists in marriage that is based on true love.

[gla...@gmail.com]

GLASIER DISCUSSION:

Why would the country kids pick on the city kids? As we know here in the United States, there is a divide in social upbringing between urban and rural living. During war time, where resources are scarce, the divide can be even greater. I think that the rural kids were seeing the urban evacuees as competition for these resources, especially food. Starvation can be an ugly motivator.

2. The idea of a whole country being peer pressured to continue the war effort, even as defeat was imminent is pretty astounding. Japan, being an island nation, has a limited amount of resources, especially towards the end of the war, as we see in the food rationing. This of course was happening in the United States also, with food rationing, victory gardens, etc… With the end of the war, however, and the lack of food, the only way the population could survive is through a well organized effort. The community & national pressure was great to adhere to the rules and support the war effort. To go against the effort was to bring great shame to the family, as the Nakaoka family found out through the community ostracization

[step...@brpsk12.org]

page 159--Although the idea of marrying the one you love is such a small part of the conversation it says a lot about the society. There are still, today, cultures where you have a husband or wife chosen for you; love is not an option initially.  Even in  the US today,  there are couples that are looked down on for going against the norm--whether it is religion, race, or social status.  I think the students would understand the desire for the freedom of choice, and to live a long life not worrying about war.  Students can see how people on both sides of a war have the same feelings, families, and needs as we do.  

There are so many conflicting feelings in this section it is hard to keep the characters straight.  Honor, hunger, pride, fear, selfishness, lying, begging... and more.  How to sort out needs, and why there are so many contradictions would be a challenge for students I would like to see.  

I don't understand why the evacuees are targeted..is it because they are from the city, or that they are taking a portion of the rural kids food?  The relationship between the rural and city kids is unclear to me.  

[nahow...@gmail.com]

Topic 1: Like mentioned already, there are several reasons that the rural kids targeted the evacuees. There may be jealousy as seeing people fleeing their problems and making it now the rural people’s problem or that they had somewhere to run to. Also, resources were surely limited, so they may see them as an extra burden in an already troublesome time. These kids may be hearing their parents complaining about their negative feelings, and therefore are going with what their parents think and fell by bullying these kids.

Topic 2: The ideas of pressure influencing action can be taken in several ways for the kids to make a connection. I would ask them if they can think of a time when they were pressured by others (peers, family, society, etc.) to do something due to their expectations. Then have them think about if they followed with the expectation, or if they did the opposite, and if either choice was the right decision in their mind. Then we can connect to the expectations that Kumai felt the pressure to do, and the consequences of his actions. They could then also connect Kumai’s experiences with what Koji is experiencing, and his own fears.

[mdz...@gmail.com]

Question 1. I believe that the Nakazawa is highlighting that the ages-old division between city and country is no different in Japan, and that the war has given those from the country the opportunity to get their own back on these newcomers. Even looking at the language used between the two groups (‘dirty evacuees from the city’, ‘[y]ou think you can come and go as you please’, ‘city punk’, ‘[d]amn farmers’, ‘country bumpkins’), it is clear that these very basic stereotypes are very much alive and well in wartime Japan.

I believe that it also highlights that, for all the talk (and it is talk) of unity, that there are far more divisions within Japan than anyone would give a genuine voice to – at least not in the company of outsiders. What Akira has discovered is a very hard truth that he seemed to be unaware of before leaving for the refugee camp. That truth is this: there is no escape from wars within and without. And that truth is only further hit home when he returns to his family and their own difficulties, both within and without.

Question 3. I think that throughout the book, in fact, there are some interesting discussions about (or at least comments on) the status quo in Japan. Some accept it explicitly; some accept it implicitly; while others are not so convinced. It’s clear that these disagreements predate the war, and that the war has, perhaps, only served to bring them into clearer focus. When Mr. Kumai reflects on his past disgraces, which in many ways have a parallel, at least as they are perceived by others, with Gen’s family’s predicament, he is reflecting, in some ways, on a past that never was – or a past that might have been. Either way, it is an impossible past, which makes it all the more traumatic for the characters.

In our India unit, we discuss marriage and the caste system, so the students are passingly familiar with the notion of arranged marriages.  In this case, Mr. Kumai, and Gen and his family, are going up against a rule of law, but a long-held tradition, which, in many ways, is even more unbreakable.

[morgan...@gmail.com]

Lori

The brother is in 3rd grade when he gets evacuated, so that should help answer your question about his age.  The evacuations, according to the author, were from 3rd grade on up.

The forced labor is something taken to the extreme by the Japanese here, but there was something less severe in both Germany and America.  In Germany Hitler had his youth program (kind of like his special version of the Boy Scouts) and they did do jobs. During WW2 it was also common for young children who weren't old enough to fight to still try and provide for the family in many countries.  This might be working on a farm, this might be digging for scrap metal, this might be looking for enemy airplanes or people to report...  One of my grandfather's was too young for WW2, but in elementary school he was forced to get his first job (by his family not the government), he went into sewers and did work on pipes.  Apparently this was one of many popular child employers since kids were small enough to get into places in the sewers that older people couldn't.  Everyone in just about any of the involved countries had certain expectations which might include working.  I've even come across a few Western European accounts of people who were sent to live with family far away who were treated as little more than slaves.  But like I said what we see here in the book is a far extreme of what we'd see in most other countries at the time.  

[morgan...@gmail.com]

Mgblake

Some great points about the different types of pressure we see in the book and the common types of pressure students face.  You bring up the bullying of teacher's pet for students who get high grades.  One issue we've had in Minnesota in some of our more affluent areas is a reversal of this.  Not only are there students who have been bullied by peers because they didn't score well on things, but there have been a large number of parents who bully their kids for not performing well.  We've had several news stories over the last decade about groups of parents in districts procuring illicit drugs for students to help them study more or work harder to give them an edge over other students.  Some people are starting to call this Tiger parenting after Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.  And as we've known for years, children who are abused by parents often express abusive behavior in schools.

[morgan...@gmail.com]

Glasier

You are right about a certain level of divide between rural and urban people.  Based on my experiences it was, and still seems to be, a bigger thing in Japan than we may see here in the US.  My first Japanese language teacher was from a rural area of Japan, she mentioned this a few times but I didn't make anything of it.  A few years back my wife wanted to learn some Japanese so we took an introductory course together.  The first day I was talking to the teacher and spoke some Japanese.  He laughed very loud and told me I pronounce things like a hillbilly from the rural areas.  After discussing it a bit I found out that he grew up with a very specific view of rural people that was less than positive.  

[morgan...@gmail.com]

Stephensm

I think one of the best things in the world when teaching a book is to find something that you don't fully understand.  This opens up the door to such wonderful discussions with kids.  Personally I don't know if you can lock in on one specific answer.  Certain the level of fear and anger plays a part into it (fear over the war, fear over lack of resources, fear or differences, anger over the war, built up to explode against the enemy but there's no enemy there yet, so you make one) and then there's this outsider or differentness to the evacuees and that has always been a universal target for bullying.  Then there's the fact that the bullies appear to be bigger and older (at least to me).  Perhaps the bullying is  because they can.  Perhaps it's more of an animalistic reasoning, this country side is the bullies territory, these new people are encroaching on that, so like a member of the animal kingdom the kids feel the need to establish dominance.  Who knows, but I bet your students could come up with some great ideas, journal entries and/or discussions.

[morgan...@gmail.com]

Nahoward

That sounds like a great connection for the kids.  Getting them to connect with the characters can be tough, so I think this would be good for that but also it would lead to some great discussions that you could build on the rest of the year.  There's also the added bonus of increasing their reactions to the end of the story if you can help them connect with the story.  

[morgan...@gmail.com]

Mdzanko

I mentioned this above in another reply to a post so I'll try to add new things here - you are right that there is a strong separation (historically and still today) between the rural and the urban in Japan.  Even when you look back at the Shogun, what was his job, to conquer the barbarians.  Who were the barbarians, certainly not those living in the city centers and definitely not those living near the shogun or the Emperor; it was those living out in the rural areas.  Even today if you watch documentaries on people who have moved from one to the other very closely you can pick up on some of it.  There is a great BBC documentary about a young girl from a rural area who decided that she wanted to become a Geisha.  The series follows her as she goes through the apprenticeship.  It is not obvious but even in that series you can gleam some of that downview of rural people.  

[morgan...@gmail.com]

From Elizabeth Arias (she's having some tech gremlins this week)

 

1.       “There’s a wide variety of possible answers, but why do you think the rural kids would target the evacuees?”

      It is true that there are so many answers to this question which depend on one’s background knowledge in culture, loss, and place.  I would imagine that culture played a large role, as Japan was a society very moored to tradition and the culture of place and belonging.  The fact that children who did not belong were being forced upon the households and temples in the rural areas was a shock to which many children and adults would not have been previously exposed.  While rural children may have been somewhat accustomed to shortages of food depending upon annual yields, they were not most likely to relish the idea of having to share their limited resources with an abundant number of newcomers who had not taken the pains to participate in the hard work required to be able to eat.  In addition, the stresses of war and loss of family members who would have played a major role in food production, who may have been conscripted, could have influenced the behavior of children and adults alike.  We teach so much about anti-bullying here and now, to the point where many students may not understand at all how such targeting could occur, so their background knowledge on this issue could be very limited.  It would be important to explain that historically, in most countries, (our own included) people had specific “places” to which they were relegated based upon their birth or the birth of their forebears.  In such situations, members of society were less transitory, so those who had to travel to live outside of their relegated place were not generally accepted.  If children were involved, bullying like this would likely have happened.  It relates as well to how the children were treated at school in the city, based on their father’s words and actions.  I think my students would have a difficult time understanding that as well, without my trying to build their background knowledge a bit.

2.      “Throughout this book, but especially in this section, you see pressure to volunteer (for example see page 150).  Would you use this idea of peer pressure, community pressure, national pressure, Confucian pressure…in your use of the book?  Explain what that might look like.

For middle school students, since this will be a book that we will use as a foundation for a project, I would certainly capitalize on the pressures seen and felt in this book.   Because this demographic of students feels some of the most severe pressure, I would have a conversation about what pressures that they might be having and whether they feel as “up to” dealing with them as the family and community in the book did.  One of the project options will be to create either a PSA against such pressures (those in the book) OR a persuasive commercial or advertisement for the “cause”.  Forgive the simplicity of this answer, but this is only one of the myriad ideas that are floating around in my head which, if put to paper, would take up pages and pages to explain!

[crenn...@gmail.com]

4. I read through the two interviews that were available. With a class, it might be interesting to look at Nakazawa's thoughts about his audience. In the TCJ interview, for instance, Nakazawa mentions that his publishers were initially concerned that pro-American interests might protest. Elsewhere, he mentions his reputation in Japan as a left-leaning graphic novelist. One thing he mentions is his opposition to the "emperor system," especially in the Asia-Pacific journal interview.

            With this week's reading in particular, it could be interesting to look at that section of the interview with the scene Nakazawa depicts on 125-126. We are seeing Akira's experiences as an evacuee in the countryside. In particular, we see the students sitting in rows and chanting a Buddhist prayer. Later, the children are shown to be bowing to the emperor as the sun rises. In both cases, the children are being asked to conform to a system by adults who are drawn in particularly cartoonish and caricatured ways. For students who aren't familiar with the emperor system or criticisms of it, the interview could provide background.

 

6. As I was looking closely at the section I mention in my other response (125-6), I noticed a few interesting panels with birds. In particular, as the students bow to the emperor, two birds, pigeons or doves, are shown watching the students from the top of the building. As their chanting ends, the leader of the group yells, "Dismissed!" At that point, one of the birds flies off.

            I don't know whether the birds have a special cultural meaning, but I think it could be interesting for students to think about why Nakazawa includes the birds to frame these panels. Does the freedom of the bird to fly off emphasize the lack of freedom among the children? Or is it important that one of the birds follows the order and flies off when he is dismissed? In the west, doves are symbolic of peace. It may be that the birds contrast the students with their symbolism of peace and freedom and nature. 

[Geoffrey Smith]

1.  Rural kids would target the evacuees for a variety of reasons, possibly including effects from (a) bullying (the “new kids,” the “outsiders/invaders”), (b) insecurity over the scarcity of resources (food, etc.), and (c) fears that the targeted areas of bombing might “follow” the evacuees to the rural areas.

 

2.  Yes, I would use the topic of “volunteerism” in my course, including discussions on “military recruitment” on page 150, box 6, “You won’t give your life for your country?  That’s disgusting!” Is this scene unique or universal?  Are pressures to “volunteer” for national service found disproportionately in some cultures (including non-Western traditions, fascist or militarist societies, etc.)?  What kinds of pressures were at play in the United States (or elsewhere) during this (or another) time?

[semba...@gmail.com]

Week 4 - Laura Semba

#1) I think the rural kids would target the evacuees because they're "different".  Also, possibly competition for scarce resources?  Probably though it was mostly just having "the other" come into the village. A "nail that sticks up gets hammered down" situation exacerbated by city/village differences.  Japanese children who live in the United States for an extended time and then return to Japan often have trouble due to bullying and difficulty integrating into "the group".  Outsiders have difficulty making it "in" to Japanese society (the word for foreigner literally means "outside country person").  Many foreigners remark that no matter how well they speak Japanese and understand the culture, they will never be accepted as "Japanese".

#2)  The pressure to volunteer is another form of propaganda and "group think" that seems to pop up during wars and in cults.  The idea of everyone contributing to the group and working for a cause is a powerful one.  It was present in the United States during WWII as well, but due to the strong group mentality in Japan there was more pressure to join in and strong censure if one did not.  I just finished reading "Wild Swans" which chronicles 3 generations of women in China before and during the Communist takeover.  People were expected to join in all kinds of "work" that was often nonsensical and ultimately detrimental, such as ignoring the harvest to produce steel or kill sparrows because Mao disliked them.  Everyone was kept busy contributing to the group and therefore they really had no time to think dangerous thoughts.  I also just read "1984" again for the first time since high school.  Orwell includes the characters being kept busy with various group activities and being forced to participate in such things as the daily "two minutes of hate".  Wanting to be alone was considered suspicious.

I would ask my students to discuss the positive and negative role of volunteering/group activities.  Something that is usually so postitive can be twisted into something negative in the right circumstances.

[nike.n...@gmail.com]

Sorry we are on family vacation. Question 1 is an interesting one. Maybe the rural kids targeted the evacuees because they feel that these particular people are taking away from the very little they already have. Since they can't take their angers out on the emperor/ government they must likely resent, they tOok it out on the kids who won't be able to fight back.

Question 2: I'll definitely use this particular section to discuss what societal expectations are and what happens to individuals who cannot conform and comply with these expectations. I'll probably have my kids pull out examples of what those societal expectations are while they are reading the book. I'll also have them pull out examples of what happens to people who do not conform. Our protagonist's father definitely fits the example of someone who does not conform and comply with these expectations. They kids will be able to see what happened to him and his family in the book.

[aethe...@kapaun.org]

#6: This section offers a great discussion piece and maybe even a self-reflection question. I would begin class with the following: Would you take a stand towards a certain policy knowing that your opinion would ostracize you and your family from your community or would you comply with a policy knowing that you would die from your actions but gain eternal respect from your community and honor for your family? I would be interested to see the different levels of decisions made by my students. Would some look at themselves and decide about self-respect? Would some look at their families and decide if treatment of the family trumped personal conviction? Would the discussion turn to the reason that compels the person to pick either side?

After this discussion, I would have the students re-read the section with the pilot and family to apply their answers. I would think that the opinion would split---some would feel compassion for the pilot who does not want to die but brings dishonor to the family for his actions; some would feel contempt for the pilot. Since not all my classes have students from Asian cultures, this would be time to reiterate the "duty/honor" concept to the discussion. Then, I would have the students look at these pages with that cultural lens and ask: How does that lens change this scene?

[aethe...@kapaun.org]

#1 I agree with many of my colleagues ideas about the treatment of the evacuees. In one way, it is no different then a foreign entity occupying an area--you have an outside group taking up your resources such as food, shelter, schools. This does strain the availability of already scarce items and would be a center stone for resentment. In addition to that, you have large groups of children who are not as supervised and /or protected by parents and other family. The lack of authority opens the door for bullies to do as they will without much reprecussions.

Also, you may have other issues at hand such as dialect, mannerisms, dress that another group may find odd and attack. Even today, society finds the differences and pokes fun at them instead of celebrating them and use the to enrich culture.

[aethe...@kapaun.org]

I never looked at the birds in this section and really found the idea of freedom subtly given with them an intriguing concept. We see that motif use in western literature--the play Trifles where a dead bird is seen as a clue by women characters as a motive to a husband's murder; Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and a myriad of other titles and authors. I am curious to know if birds used this way as well in Eastern Literature?

[morgan...@gmail.com]

Crennertmay

I'm no expert on bird symbols, but I did do some searching and I found something interesting about the dove.  There's a very important Kami (god) in Japanese tradition whose symbol is the dove.  This god is named Hachiman and supposedly only one other individual has more shrines in Japan than Hachiman.  There are two reasons why I think this is interesting.  First, Hachiman is the warrior god who is the protector of Japan/Japanese people (some sources say the people but some say Japan).  Second, he is credited with sending the Kamikazi to protect Japan from the Mongolians.  I think it would be easy to talk about possible meanings of one of his birds leaving especially while the other one looks to the sky, no longer looking at the people.  The relationship with a powerful god-like disaster ending a war (mongolian invasion 1 and 2) does hold certain parallels to the atomic bombs too.  

When I have looked at these pages all I've ever thought with the birds is that they represented nature and peace, which makes sense given the location.  But now I think there might be a deeper meaning here.  Thank you for bringing this up.

[morgan...@gmail.com]

Geoffrey 

You bring up an interesting idea about is the pressure to join universal?  I've read several WW2 memoirs over the years and many of them talk about the pressure to join (usually indirectly).  A few of the US memoirs talked about people in their hometowns committing suicide when they couldn't join.  Then there's the way some of them described those who stayed behind (not very positively to put it mildly) and then you add on top of that the way that draftees were looked at versus volunteers.  I believe it was in With the Old Breed that the author couldn't believe that there was a draftee in the marine corps and he then goes on to say some disparaging things about a lady picking that man over a volunteer.  

Today I think the pressure is far lighter, but I do recall there being a lot of pressure to join the military after 9/11 in the US and not from the government (at least not directly).  Around the world I would imagine there is still a fair bit of pressure.  Nationalism and supranationalism are still running strong.  Add to that the groups of people who want freedom or are being cleansed or persecuted and I think we'll find there is still a strong pressure out there to join the military movement.  One could argue that gang pressure and other organized crime pressure is a more modern version of this too.    

One thing that is interesting is how the US and other countries are targeting this.  I work with a lot of refugee families and I've conducted some interviews for a book I'm working on .  One of the things you have to prove is that none of your family applying for immigration has been a soldier.  In the countries where children are forced into the army and other countries where people pick up weapons to attempt to defend their family from genocide/cleansing this becomes a hard thing.

[morgan...@gmail.com]

Sembasensei

Some interesting points about group think and turning positives into negatives.  I also think that you make a good point about outsiders.  While Japan is very welcoming of outside influences/fads and even of tourists, there is still a bit of a closed countryness to it.  Just this past year there was an article in a Japanese newspaper blasting the government's immigration policy.  The number they quoted for the previous year would have been dismal for a small town, but it was for the entire country.  It is a strange dichotomy.

[morgan...@gmail.com]

Nike

One thing that might be interesting to go along with that pulling out of anti-cultural norms would be to look at the others in our culture or the subcultures of American Teen culture.  In the 90s there were very visually distinctive groups (the Goths, the Grungers, the Gangbangers...) in the mid 2000s there was a visually distinctive group often referred to as emo.  Back in the day there were the Greasers and the Hippies.  I'm a bit out of touch today, but I'm sure your kids could easily pick up on the modern day subculture groups.  This could lead to some interesting discussions when talking about the family in Barefoot Gen and Lieutenant Kumiai.  If you wanted to get political I think you could certainly talk about our current government and certain subcultures, although that might be a bit of a Pandora's box that you might want to avoid.

[morgan...@gmail.com]

Aetheredge

One thing that could also be interesting to bring up based on what you mentioned would be immigrants (legal and illegal).  In many ways the evacuees are both legal (government sanctioned) and illegal (locals obviously don't want them and as you mentioned the support systems aren't there).  In addition to you great discussion about taking a stand, this could lead to some powerful discussions.  

As for your comment about birds, I replied to Crennertmay's post about doves specifically.  I had not paid much attention to the the birds before.  In Japanese the word for pigeon and dove is the same - Hato.  The dove's relationship to the Kami Hachiman is very interesting given this story/history.

[mgbl...@gmail.com]

Laura--

It is really interesting the observations you make about the divisions that emerge in Gen's society, that can be suggestive of Japanese temperament, although in my view such biases can happen in other cultures, as well. I am reminded of how a fellow-colleague of mine suggested that Italy is in the same way divided between those who are born in the north, and those who are born in the south, the north bearing more an aura of prestige and cultivated existence than the latter, which bears more vestiges of a rural and uncultivated society. There is, also, the story of Destiny Between Two Worlds by Fuqua, which reminiscences about the biases that were held(and perhaps are still held) towards Japanese originating in Okinawa, a precinct of Japan, and Japanese who came from mainland Japan during the WWII. 

[epi...@apps.homewood.k12.al.us]

Corrected response to question one Liz Pipkin

The rural areas of Japan did not have the same opportunities for the youth, as did the more urban schools. The Japanese farmers were looked down on in the class structures. At this point everyone was tired from all the sacrifice for the war effort. Hunger was rampant. So the rural Japanese may have been resentful that they were having to share the minimal food supplies with the children from the urban areas. The bullying was a result of a large number of unsupervised students from different class stratas in dire situations in the countryside.  The other cultural phenomena .is for young people to work things out, but the circumstances were stretching logically reasoning.  Young people were put in precarious circumstances with their immaturity of the grave situations they were put in.