The second area studies workshop of the semester involved another art form using ink ground into liquid from solid blocks in the meditative manner that is quintessential sumi-e. Led by resident Kyoto artist Michael Hofmann, the workshop allowed each student to work with the traditional and well known forms of bamboo paintings as well as of that Indian Bodhidharma, known in Japan as Daruma.

Recently a group of EAC students, led by EAC senior Brian Cloud, paid a visit to Osaka’s Kamagasaki district, one of Japan’s most economically depressed communities, where homelessness, poverty, drugs, and prostitution are a constant problem. Kyle had this to say:

Attending an East Asian Studies field trip in this community consisted of traveling from one social help organization to another while passing rickety venders, trash, offensive scents of urine, homely old men lingering in the street, and many other sights unthought-of in Japan. The guides, Mami-san and Brian Cloud, asked that the students not take pictures, or stare at the residents, but even after living in India for nine months where poverty, suffering, and deformities were prevalent it was a difficult task not to gawk. Read more…

Every year Transitions Abroad hosts a writing contest for graduate and undergraduate students. The theme is ‘transitions’, which suggests the change in perception and understanding that results from cultural immersion, something all students here at the East Asia Center are currently experiencing. There is a prize of $150.00 and the winning essay will be published in the March/April 2006 edition of the Transitions Abroad magazine.

The Institute of International Education is a nice resource for scholarship, global development, the Fullbright program, and other corporate and foundation programs.

Former EAC student, Adrian Almquist, who has moved on to Costa Rica, has fired up his weblog again with a bold post on organic farming and sustainable development:

I believe that as we press on into this millenium, global environmental and social problems will be exaxerbated by the corporate-libertarian economy, and soon people will realize that what has been called “development” in the past has really been just a shift toward export economies, and dependence on the global economy and international finacial institutions. This is not development, but suicide, given the dependence on fossil fuels to achieve stability for the “global economy”, and given that the age of cheap oil has begun to fall. Read more…

The Junior Research Seminar began today at the East Asia Center led by Steve Wolfe, a long term resident of Kyoto and associate professor at Ryukoku University in Shiga Prefecture, Japan. Steve has worked as a journalist in various Asian countries including Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, and Japan. He has written extensively on economics, politics, culture and business and has taught in universities in Nepal, Taiwan, Japan and the U.S. including a brief stint at the East Asia Center over ten years ago. He has also done research in cross cultural Japanese and Chinese studies, has written and translated haiku, conducted haiku workshops and has numerous academic publications related to Japanese and Chinese poetry, Taoism and Zen.

The Hunger Site is a useful online resource for getting news and information related to hunger in the world today. According to the site, 24,000 people a day die of hunger or hunger-related causes, three-fourths of whom are children under the age of 5. Learning more about the problem of hunger is a necessary first step toward finding ways to eradicate it.

One of the best things about the site, though, is the big yellow ‘Give Free Food’ button that, when clicked, funds food for the hungry. This is funded by the sponsors whose ads appear on the page after clicking.

Stop by The Hunger Site and start clicking away.

photo by Kyle Weaner

The EAC students got their brushes wet with an East Asian study in shodo - traditional Japanese calligraphy. Using black charcoal ink, a slate grinding stone, a bamboo brush, and some plain white paper, each student practiced painting kanji, or traditional Japanese characters. Breath, posture, and frame of mind are all important factors in the creative process. It is said by looking at someone’s shodo, you can tell the quality of his or her mind. Kyle took a few more photos of the study.

Update (9/15): James has just posted more thoughts on his shodo experience.

One of the first courses we offer to students new to the Japanese language when they arrive at the East Asia Center is Survival Japanese - a two-week intensive language study designed to get them speaking right away. In addition to three hours of daily classwork with quizzes and lots of homework, students are expected to master reading and writing hiragana and katakana, while learning to conduct themselves in common situations, such as meeting people for the first time, shopping, ordering food, giving directions, and talking about dates, times, weather, numbers, etc. It’s hard work, but students end up using Japanese in a confident way in just two weeks.

EAC student, Kyle Weaner, recently started a blog called Weanermobile, about which he writes:

This blog is a story about Kyle’s trip to Kyoto, and study abroad. It consists of travel occurances, funny anecdotes, and anything else I can think of.