Thursday, March 31, 2011
Japan -A Strange Country
Kenichi Tanaka‘s excellent motion infographic about Japan....
The graduation work of Japanese designer, Kenichi Tanaka（田中健一),born in 1987 at Nagoya, Japan. It revealed in comic form the national character of Japan and Tokyo.
Somebody commented: Kenichi Tanaka made this thesis piece to show his countrymen that things that take place in Japan, ‘isn’t that normal’. So the tale was told from a foreigner’s viewpoint rather than a Japanese’s, but he begs ‘please don’t call me racist, because I am one of short, small eyes Japanese ;P’. This is a smart and insightful piece because of the cultural self-awareness of its maker. Definitely a significant contribution to the world of visual essays(source: Lilian Darmono,ttp://motionographer.com/2010/04/09/kenichi-tanaka-japan-a-strange-country/)
His personal blog is at http://kenichi-design.blogspot.com/2010/03/yahoo-my-video-is-now-on-yahoo-japan.html
The graduation work of Japanese designer, Kenichi Tanaka（田中健一),born in 1987 at Nagoya, Japan. It revealed in comic form the national character of Japan and Tokyo.
Somebody commented: Kenichi Tanaka made this thesis piece to show his countrymen that things that take place in Japan, ‘isn’t that normal’. So the tale was told from a foreigner’s viewpoint rather than a Japanese’s, but he begs ‘please don’t call me racist, because I am one of short, small eyes Japanese ;P’. This is a smart and insightful piece because of the cultural self-awareness of its maker. Definitely a significant contribution to the world of visual essays(source: Lilian Darmono,ttp://motionographer.com/2010/04/09/kenichi-tanaka-japan-a-strange-country/)
His personal blog is at http://kenichi-design.blogspot.com/2010/03/yahoo-my-video-is-now-on-yahoo-japan.html
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Irish Step-dance : St Patricks Day 2011 Flashmob. Central Station, Sydney, Australia.
Awesome Irish Dancing including members of Riverdance and school children in spectacular Central Station Sydney. Over 100 dancers spread St Patricks Day cheer in Sydney. Organised and coordinated by Tourism Ireland & Jason Oremus, Chris Naish and the Sneaky Steppers crew
Hey, this is Irish step dance. I remembered I was introduced to the Irish step dance by my friend in UK while I was staying with him, Father Paddy from Walsale, near Birmingham. Father Paddy is Scottish, his wife is Irish. Pastor Paddy and his wife Betty has a granddaughter who can dance very nice Irish step dance. She personally danced for us, and it was beautiful. Thanks for the introduction, Pastor Paddy; and now I can really enjoy viewing the dance.
I remember Father Paddy and Betty.....and step-dance....and Riverdance. And I love it.
Irish step-dance is a type of performance dance originating in Ireland from traditional Irish dance. Irish step-dancing has been recently popularized by the world-famous show "Riverdance" and its followers. Irish step dance is performed in most places with large Irish populations, though most step-dancers are not of Irish ancestry. Aside from public dance performances, there are also step-dance competitions all over the world. Most competitive step-dances are solo dances, though many step-dancers also perform and compete using traditional set and céilí dances. When performed as a solo dance, it is generally characterized by a stiff upper body and the quick and precise movements of the feet.
Riverdance is a theatrical show consisting of traditional Irish stepdancing, notable for its rapid leg movements while body and arms are kept largely stationary. It originated as an interval performance during the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest, a moment that is still considered a significant watershed in Irish culture. Riverdance is, in essential, the story of the Irish culture and of the Irish immigration to America.
Riverdance was first performed during the 7-minute interval of the Eurovision Song Contest at the Point Theatre, Dublin on 30 April 1994. It received a standing ovation. At Congratulations: 50 Years of the Eurovision Song Contest it was voted the most popular interval act in the history of the contest.This first performance featured Irish Dancing Champions Jean Butler and Michael Flatley, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and the Celtic choral group Anuna with a score written by Bill Whelan. Whelan had also composed "Timedance" – an early version of "Riverdance" – for the 1981 Eurovision Song Contest, performed by Planxty. Most of the show's choreography was done by Flatley.
An audio recording of "Riverdance" entered the Irish singles charts at #1 on 5 May 1994, and remained there throughout the summer (keeping Wet Wet Wet's phenomenally successful "Love Is All Around" off the top), eventually totalling a record 18 weeks at #1.
Riverdance is produced and directed by husband and wife team John McColgan and Moya Doherty, controlled through their production company Abhann Productions, based in Dublin
After successful runs in other cities in Europe, Riverdance travelled to New York City to perform at the legendary Radio City Music Hall in March 1996. This was the first time the show had been performed in America. To the relief of the producers, the show was a success. Anuna left the show in September of that year.
In 2000 the show moved to Broadway for a year at the Gershwin Theatre with an all-new show, featuring dance leads Pat Roddy and Eileen Martin and singers Brian Kennedy and Tsidii Le Loka. Michael Flatley left the show reportedly over creative differences with the producers before the show's second run in London. Irish dancer Colin Dunne stepped into the role of lead dancer and went on to perform in subsequent productions before leaving the show in 1998.
In June 1998, the show's executive producer created further controversy by revealing that in some of the synchronized group dances, the footstep sounds were pre-recorded to enhance the impression of unified choreography.[4]
Riverdance began a farewell tour after fifteen years of performing and touring the world.[5] During the tour the show played in Bradford, Ipswich, Southend-on-Sea, Blackpool, Bristol, Manchester, Oxford, London, Southampton, Nottingham and Derry[6] as well as other venues in Europe and the Far East and as of 2011 continues in Australia.
(source: wikipedia)
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Kakyo - Famous Chinese in Pre War Japan
The earliest ancient record of mass Chinese immigration to Japan was the legend of Xu Fu, a Qin Dynasty court sorcerer, who was sent by Qin Shi Huang to Penglai Mountain (Mount Fuji) in 219 BC to retrieve an elixir of life. Unwilling to return without the elixir, the myth asserts that Xu instead chose to settle in Japan.
Documentary recorded mass Chinese immigration to Japan started from 1858, when the Edo Shogunate concluded a treaty with the USA and Europe agreeing to the opening of its ports and markets, which had long been closed. Most Westerners arrived in Japan together with their Chinese employees with whom they were already working in Chinese ports (Nishikawa and Ito 2002). The other major event leading to an increase in the number of Chinese in Japan was the opening of shipping lines between Yokohama and Shanghai. After Japan defeated China in the Sino-Japanese War in 1895, in order to know how Japan was able to won the war and become strong. In 1896, the first group of 13 Chinese students was sent by Manchu government under Qing Dynasty to Japan. In 1901, there were more than 600 Chinese students in Japan. In the peak year of 1906, after Japan won the Russo-Japanese war(日俄战争)in 1905, the number of students in Tokyo alone amounted to over eight thousands(Linqing Yao,2004).
Most Chinese residents in Japan live in major urban areas, such as Tokyo, Yokohama, and Osaka, the latter two of which have a recognized Chinatown as well as schools which use Chinese as the medium of instruction. They are called Kakyo(華僑)literally means "Chinese sojourners" or Zainichi Chūgokujin(在日中国人), which means "Chinese people resident in Japan".
Official classification based on law
Officially Chinese in Japan can be classified into two groups based on nationality or citizenship. Chinese nationality here refers not only to the People’s Republic of China (mainland China), but also to the Republic of China (Taiwan). All ethnic Chinese who are not naturalized in their country of residence are called kakyo(華僑. They are registered as Chinese, according to the Japanese alien registration (gaikokujin toroku)system. The second group consists of those Chinese who have naturalized and obtained Japanese nationality. These are called kajin (華人). Japanese Family Law(戸籍法, こせきほう) requires all Japanese households to report births, acknowledgments of paternity, adoptions, disruptions of adoptions, deaths, marriages and divorces of Japanese citizens to their local authority, which compiles such records encompassing all Japanese citizens within their jurisdiction. This Japanese family registry is called koseki(戸籍, こせき). Only Japanese citizens can be registered in a Koseki, because Koseki serve as certificates of citizenship. Another registry, jūminhyō (住民票じゅうみんひょう) is a registry of current residential addresses maintained by local governments, (市町村（しちょうそん)と特別区（とくべつく) in Japan. Japanese law requires each citizen to report his or her current address(現住所) to the local authorities who compile the information for tax, national health insurance and census purposes. They are not categorized by ethnicity in any Japanese official identification. Officially they are Japanese. So naturalized Chinese or Kajin, because they have Japanese nationality(日本国民), are registered both in Japanese family registers (koseki,戸籍)and residence registers (juminhyo, 住民票). Once a Chinese have naturalized, only their ethnic background and personal identity distinguish them as kajin, otherwise they are like other Japanese citizen.
Social classification based on time
Before the war during 20th century, many famous Chinese intellectuals have studied in Japan, among them Sun Yat-sen, Lu Xun, and Zhou Enlai. It was estimated that in 1906, more than six thousand Chinese students lived in Japan; many of them resided in Tokyo's Kanda district. The Chinese population has grown every year since 1858, except for 1931 (the 918 Incident or Mukden Incident) and 1937 (the Marco Polo Bridge Incident), when military conflicts occurred between Japan and China. They are the Kakyo, many returned to China and become historical figure in modern China. Kakyo from the period after Meiji restoration to World War 2 period are the main source of intellectuals for late Manchu Dynasty and early Republic of China era, some even continue to have play major role in People Republic of China.....this is the era of significance for modern Chinese history.
During the war, many Taiwanese and its natives, being ruled by Japan, were recruited for fighting along with Imperial Japanese Army in WW2, served in the Japanese army. Some Chinese (together with Korean)were forced laborers or comfort women in Japan or Japanese occupied territories. This was the sad chapter of history for Chinese as well as Japan, which ruins the established historical close relationship between the two countries.
After Post-World War II Chinese immigrants to Japan, typically referred to as shin-kakyō(新華僑) or new kakyo. A term setting them apart from earlier generations of Chinese citizens who came to Japan before them. They have come to Japan from both Taiwan and mainland China. Many are students or economic immigrants. The era for rebuilding of nation after the war, strong economic development in Japan attracted many shin-kakyo who were seeking new knowledge or economic improvement, as China or Taiwan still economically developing and under political instability. Some historian classified shin-kakyo as Chinese who came directly from mainland China after the start of its Open Door Policy in 1978(the era of 80's), wikipedia however classified it as post WW2 Chinese immigrants to Japan. The pre 1978 period were mainly from Taiwan or other oversea Chinese, as China under the communist ruled since 1-10-1949 was having political isolation, and going through difficult time, immigration was highly regulated by the state. The period of post 1978, the immigration from mainland China become dominant.
Those in Yan's generation shinkakyo, Chinese who went to Japan in the 80s, are Shin-kakyo; Japanese who leave Japan to work in rapidly developing China, are collectively referred to as "wakyo". As of the end of 2009 some 250,000 Chinese had settled in Japan, nearly double the figure of 10 years earlier. Many young people are seeking to start businesses in areas including the IT sector.
Kakyo during the Pre-War Japan
The most remarkable group are the group from early 20th century; many of them are famous personalities or hero in the modern history of China. Many Chinese went to Japan during the period, it increased to 20,000. Many of the students among them later became prominent back in their mother countries, including Chiang Kai-shek, Wang Jingwei, and many other Chinese senior/working-level government officials. Among the members of the first Chinese parliament convened in 1913, 67 out of 596 members of the Chinese House of Representatives (11%) and 165 out of 274 members of the Chinese Senate (an astounding 60%) had experience studying in or visiting Japan for research. The chairmen of both houses of Parliament were alumni of Japanese schools. Out of the 30 members from each legislative branch selected for a committee to draft the Constitution, 20 of the House of Representatives members and 26 of the Senate members had experience studying in Japan.(source: (source:JAPAN'S ASIANISM, 1868-1945,http://www.sais-jhu.edu/bin/a/n/Asianism.pdf)
Some of them are reformers/revolutionists like Kang U Wei, Dr Sun Yat-sen who fight for reform and found Republic of China; others are communists like Li Dazhao, Chen Duxiu who go on to found Chinese Communist Party; others are students from military academy who become generals of Chinese army, and later fight against Japanese Imperial Army during the Sino-Japanese War; many are writers who are involved with May Forth Movement. No matter what happen in their life after graduation or leaving Japan, they learn greatly from Japan. Dr Sun Yat-sen have supports from many Japanese friends and oversea Chinese in Japan, which make his dream of new Republic of China into reality. Many of them become actively involved in War of Resistance Against Japan (抗日战争), which is also known as the Eight Years' War of Resistance(八年抗战/八年抗戰),either in military uniform or by using their pen. They were all have been to Japan, and sorry to face Japan militarism. They are all great man/woman in history, and were the cream of modern China. Japan should be proud of these people, who obtained education and training, even support the Chinese revolution from Japan ..... They are having close relationship with Japan, some even married Japanese wife. If not because of the war, Japanese militarism, the relationship will be cherish and blossom into closer and better relationship.....
Chinese residents in Japan, if not involved in the Chinese Revolution, were critical of Japanese imperialism and conscious of anti-Japanese sentiments and Chinese nationalism in China. A Chinese student who came to Japan after the Russo-Japanese War to study criticized Japan as “a common enemy of Asia” and wrote: “In order to protect peace in Asia and to achieve the independence of weak Asian races, it is needless to say that white authoritarianism should be eliminated; however, Japan should also stop despising Asia with its own authoritarianism.”. The protégés of Compassionate Asianists and foreign students in Japan also voiced their opposition. For example, Bose wrote in 1926 that “what we regret the most is that Japanese intellectuals who cry for free Asia and an alliance among colored people, despise China, insist on invading China, and even think that colored people are inferior to whites by nature, like the whites.
Among the China experts in Japan, only a few really know themselves and understand Asia.” The number of foreign students studying in Japan plummeted from more than 7,000 in 1906 to less than 1,500 a decade later,partly due to Tokyo’s joining the ranks of the colonial Powers.
(source:JAPAN'S ASIANISM, 1868-1945,http://www.sais-jhu.edu/bin/a/n/Asianism.pdf)
Japan became political hub for Chinese intellectuals; a political based for Reform Movement and Chinese Revolution during the period....
List of some prominent Kakyo
The following are some of famous Chinese in Japan during Early 20th century, the list may not be exhaustive;
1.Chen Kenmin, chef regarded as the "father of Sichuan cuisine" in Japan and father of Chen Kenichi
2.Go Seigen, professional Go player
3.Sun Yat-sen(孫文/孫中山/孫逸仙), politician, founding father of China. Sun Yat-sen (b 12 November 1866 – d 12 March 1925) was a Chinese doctor, revolutionary and political leader. As the foremost pioneer of Nationalist China, Sun is frequently referred to as the Founding Father of Republican China, a view agreed upon by both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan). Sun played an instrumental role in inspiring the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty, the last imperial dynasty of China. Sun was the first provisional president when the Republic of China (ROC) was founded in 1912 and later co-founded the Chinese National People's Party or Kuomintang (KMT) where he served as its first leader. Sun was a uniting figure in post-Imperial China, and remains unique among 20th-century Chinese politicians for being widely revered amongst the people from both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
4. Lu Xun(鲁迅), famous Chinese writer, was the pen name of Zhou Shuren(周树人) (b September 25, 1881 – d October 19, 1936) is one of the major Chinese writers of the 20th century. Considered by many to be the founder of modern Chinese literature, he wrote in baihua (白話) (the vernacular) as well as classical Chinese. Lu Xun was a short story writer, editor, translator, critic, essayist and poet. In the 1930s he became the titular head of the Chinese League of the Left-Wing Writers in Shanghai.
On a Qing government scholarship, Lu Xun left for Japan in 1902. He first attended the Kobun Gakuin (Kobun Institute) (Hongwen xueyuan, 弘文學院), a preparatory language school for Chinese students attending Japanese universities. His earliest essays, written in Classical Chinese, date from here. Lu also practised some jujutsu. Lu Xun returned home briefly in 1903, complied to an arranged marriage with a local gentry girl, Zhu An(朱安).
Lu Xun left for Sendai Medical Academy in 1904 and gained a minor reputation there as the first foreign student of the college. At the school he struck up a close student-mentor relationship with lecturer Fujino Genkurou (藤野厳九郎); Lu Xun would recall his mentor respectfully and affectionately in an essay "Mr Fujino" in the memoirs in Dawn Blossoms Plucked at Dusk. (Incidentally, Fujino would repay the respect with an obituary essay on Lu Xun's death, in 1937.) However, in March 1906, Lu Xun abruptly terminated his pursuit of the degree and left the college.
Lu Xun, in his well-known Preface to Nahan (Call to Arms), the first collection of his short stories, tells the story of why he gave up completing his medical education at Sendai. One day after class, one of his Japanese instructors screened a lantern slide documenting the imminent execution of an alleged Chinese spy during the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05). Lu Xun was shocked by the complete apathy of the Chinese onlookers; he decided it was more important to cure his compatriots' spiritual ills rather than their physical diseases.
"At the time, I hadn't seen any of my fellow Chinese in a long time, but one day some of them showed up in a slide. One, with his hands tied behind him, was in the middle of the picture; the others were gathered around him. Physically, they were as strong and healthy as anyone could ask, but their expressions revealed all too clearly that spiritually they were calloused and numb. According to the caption, the Chinese whose hands were bound had been spying on the Japanese military for the Russians. He was about to be decapitated as a 'public example.' The other Chinese gathered around him had come to enjoy the spectacle." (Lyell , pp 23).
Moving to Tokyo in spring 1906, he came under the influence of scholar and philologist Zhang Taiyan and with his brother Zuoren, also on scholarship, published a translation of some East European and Russian Slavic short stories, including the works of a Polish Nobel laureate, Henryk Sienkiewicz. He spent the next three years in Tokyo writing a series of essays in classical Chinese on the history of science, Chinese and comparative literature, European literature and intellectual history, Chinese society, reform and religion, as well as translating the literature of various countries into Chinese.
Lu Xun's works exerted a very substantial influence after the May Fourth Movement to such a point that he was highly acclaimed by the Communist regime after 1949. Mao Zedong himself was a lifelong admirer of Lu Xun's works. Though sympathetic to the ideals of the Left, Lu Xun never actually joined the Chinese Communist Party - like fellow leaders of the May Fourth Movement, he was primarily a liberal. Lu Xun's works became known to English readers through numerous translations, beginning in 1960 with Selected Stories of Lu Hsun translated by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, and more recently in 2009 when Penguin Classics published a complete anthology of his fiction titled The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China: The Complete Fiction of Lu Xun, of which Jeffrey Wasserstrom said "could be considered the most significant Penguin Classic ever published.
5.Qiu Jin (秋瑾), (b November 8, 1875 - d July 15, 1907) was a Chinese anti-Qing Empire revolutionary, feminist and writer. She was executed after a failed uprising and today is considered an hero in China.
Born in Xiamen, Fujian Province, Qiu grew up in her ancestral home, Shānyīn Village, Shaoxing Subprefecture, Zhejiang Province. Married, Qiu found herself in contact with new ideas. In 1904 she decided to travel overseas and study in Japan, leaving her two children behind. She was known by her acquaintances for wearing Western male dress and for her left-wing ideology. She joined the Triads, who at the time advocated the overthrow of the Qing dynasty and return of Chinese government to the Chinese people. She joined the anti-Qing societies Guangfuhui, led by Cai Yuanpei, and the Tokyo-based Tongmenghui led by Sun Yat-sen. She returned to China in 1905.
After returning to China, Qiu Jin started publishing a women's magazine in which she encouraged women to gain financial independence through education and training in various professions. She encouraged women to resist oppression by their families and by the government. At the time it was still customary for women in China to have their feet bound at the age of five. The result of this practice was that the feet were small but crippled. Women's freedom of movement was severely restricted and left them dependent on other people. Such helpless women were, however, more desired as wives, so their families continued the practice to protect their daughters' future security.
Qiu Jin felt that a better future for women lay under a Western-type government instead of the corrupt Manchu government that was in power at the time. She joined forces with her male cousin Hsu Hsi-lin and together they worked to unite many secret revolutionary societies to work together for the overthrow of the Manchu government. On July 6, 1907 Hsu Hsi-lin was caught by the authorities before a scheduled uprising. He confessed his involvement under interrogation and was executed. Immediately after, on July 12, the government troops arrested Qiu Jin at the school for girls where she was a principal. She refused to admit her involvement in the plot, but they found incriminating documents and she was beheaded. Qiu Jin was acknowledged immediately as a heroine and a martyr who died fighting enemies of the Chinese people and she became a symbol of women's independence.
6.Shosei Go, professional baseball player
7.Chiang Kai-shek(蔣中正 / 蔣介石)(b October 31, 1887 – d April 5, 1975) was a political and military leader of 20th century China. He is known as Jiǎng Jièshí or Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng in Mandarin. Chiang grew up in a time period in which military defeats and civil wars among warlords had left China destabilized and in debt, and he decided to pursue a military career. He began his military education at the Baoding Military Academy, in 1906. He left for a preparatory school for Chinese students, the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in Japan, in 1907. There he was influenced by his compatriots to support the revolutionary movement to overthrow the Qing Dynasty and to set up a Chinese republic. He befriended fellow Zhejiang native Chen Qimei, and, in 1908, Chen brought Chiang into the Tongmenghui, a precursor of the Kuomintang (KMT) organization. Chiang served in the Imperial Japanese Army from 1909 to 1911.
8.Song Jiaoren(宋教仁), revolutionary and political figure, founder of Tongmenghui. President of the Kuomintang 1912–1913 He was assassinated in 1913 after leading his Kuomintang party to victory in China's first democratic elections. Evidence strongly implied that China's provisional president, Yuan Shikai, was responsible for his assassination.
9.Jiang Baili(蒋百里), general . Jiang was married to a Japanese nurse, Satô Yato (佐藤屋子). His third daughter Jiang Ying蒋英became a musician, and married Tsien Hsue-shen钱学森, the father of Chinese rocketry.
10.Guo Moruo(郭沫若), poet and political figure. Following his elder brothers, Guo left China in December 1913, reaching Japan in early January 1914. After a year of preparatory study in Tokyo, he entered Sixth Higher School in Okayama.[1] When visiting a friend of his hospitalized in Sain Luke's Hospital in Tokyo, in the summer of 1916, Guo fell in love with Sato Tomiko, a Japanese woman from a Christian family, who worked at the hospital as a student nurse. Sato would become his common-law wife. They were to stay together for 20 years, until the outbreak of the war, and to have five children together.[3] In the summer of 1937, soon after the Marco Polo Bridge incident, Guo returned to China to join the anti-Japanese resistance. His attempt to arrange for Sato Tomiko and their children to join him in China were frustrated by the Japanese authorities,[3] and in 1939 he remarried to Yu Liqun (于立群; 1916–1979), a Shanghai actress.[3][5] After the war, Sato went to reunite with him but was disappointed to know that he had already formed a new family. Guo and Sato Tomiko's house in Ichikawa, Japan, where they lived in 1927-37, is a museum as well.[14] Due to the Guo Moruo connection, Ichikawa chose to establish sister city relations with Leshan乐山in 1981 Ichikawa (市川市 Ichikawa-shi?) is a city located in northwest Chiba, Japan, approximately 20 kilometers from the center of Tokyo.After graduation from the Okayama school, Guo entered in 1918 the Medical School of Kyushyu Imperial University in Fukuoka.[1] He was more interested in literature than medicine, however. His studies at this time focused on foreign language and literature, namely the works of: Spinoza, Goethe, Walt Whitman, and the Bengali poet Tagore. Along with numerous translations, he published his first anthology of poems, entitled The Goddesses (女神 - nǚ shén) (1921). He co-founded the Ch'uang-tsao she ("Creation Society") in Shanghai, which promoted modern and vernacular literature.
11. He Yingqin(何应钦), general. In August 1945, when Japan announced its unconditional surrender, He was appointed as representative of both the Chinese Government and the Southeast Asia Ally Forces to host the surrender of Japanese troops in China. On Sept 9th, He accepted the statement of surrender submitted by Yasuji Okamura, who was General Commander of Japanese troops in China at that time. This historic moment put He under the spotlight of the world, and was the peak of his career. Commander-in-chief of the China Expeditionary Army Yasuji Okamura presenting the Japanese Instrument of Surrender to He Yingqin in Nanjing on 9 September 1945.
12. Wang Jingwei(汪精衛), revolutionary and political figure . He was initially known as a member of the left wing of the Kuomintang (KMT), but later became increasingly anti-Communist after his efforts to collaborate with the CCP ended in political failure. His politics veered sharply to the right later in his career, after he joined the Japanese. Wang went to Japan as an international student sponsored by the Qing government in 1903, and joined the Tongmenghui in 1905. As a young man, Wang came to blame the Qing dynasty for holding China back, and making it too weak to fight off exploitation by Western Imperialist powers. While in Japan, Wang became a close confidant of Sun Yat-Sen, and would later go on to become one of the most important members of the early Kuomintang.[1] He was considered one of the main contenders to replace Sun as leader of the Kuomintang, but eventually lost control of the party and army to Chiang Kai-shek.[3]. Wang had clearly lost control of the KMT by 1926, when, following the Zhongshan Warship Incident, Chiang successfully sent Wang and his family to vacation in Europe.[4] The Zhongshan Warship Incident (Chinese: 中山舰事件; pinyin: Zhōngshān Jiàn Shìjiàn), or "March 20th Incident", on March 20, 1926, involved a suspected plot by Captain Li Zhilong of the warship Chung Shan to kidnap Chiang Kai-shek. It triggered a political struggle between the Communist Party of China and Kuomintang. Left wing led by Wang Jingwei against Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang Right wing faction resulting in Chiang becoming the head of the Kuomintang party and commander-in-chief of all the armies for the Northern Expedition. During the Northern Expedition, Wang was the leading figure in the left-leaning faction of the KMT that called for continued cooperation with the Communist Party of China. It should be noted however, that Wang was personally opposed to Communism and regarded the KMT’s Comintern advisors with suspicion.[5] He did not believe that Communists could be true patriots or true Chinese nationalists.[6] Wang's faction, which had set up a new KMT capital at Wuhan in early 1927, was opposed by Chiang Kai-shek, who was in the midst of a bloody purge of Communists in Shanghai and was calling for a push north. The separation between these two sides was known as the Ninghan Separation (simplified Chinese: 宁汉分裂; traditional Chinese: 寧漢分裂; pinyin: Nínghàn Fenlìe). While attempting to direct the government from Wuhan, Wang was notable for his close collaboration with leading Communist figures, including Mao Zedong, Chen Duxiu, and Borodin, and for his faction's provocative land-reform policies. He later blamed the failure of his Wuhan government on its excessive adoption of Communist agendas.[7] Wang's faction was militarily weak, and he was ousted by a local warlord the same year. Lacking the military or financial resources to resist the increasingly powerful Chiang, his faction was forced to rejoin Chiang Kai-shek at Nanjing in September, 1927.
Between 1929 and 1930, Wang collaborated with Feng Yuxiang and Yan Xishan to form a central government in opposition to the one headed by Chiang. Wang took part in a conference hosted by Yan to draft a new constitution, and was to serve as the Prime Minister under Yan, who would be President. Wang's attempts to aid Yan's government ended when Chiang defeated the alliance in the Central Plains War[8][9]
In 1931, Wang joined another anti-Chiang government in Guangzhou. After Chiang defeated this regime, Wang reconciled with Chiang's Nanjing government and held prominent posts for most of the decade. Wang was appointed premier just as the Battle of Shanghai (1932) began. He had frequent disputes with Chiang and would resign in protest several times only to have his resignation rescinded. As a result of these power struggles within the KMT, Wang was forced to spend much of his time in exile. He traveled to Germany, and maintained some contact with Adolf Hitler. The effectiveness of the KMT was constantly hindered by leadership and personal struggles, such as that between Wang and Chiang. In December 1935, Wang permanently left the premiership after being seriously wounded during an assassination attempt a month earlier.
During the 1936 Xian Incident, in which Chiang was taken prisoner by his own general, Zhang Xueliang, Wang favored sending a "punitive expedition" to attack Zhang. He was apparently ready to march on Zhang, but Chiang's wife, Soong Meiling, and brother, T.V. Soong, feared that such an action would lead to Chiang's death and his replacement by Wang, so they successfully opposed this action.[10]
Wang Jingwei accompanied the government on its retreat to Chongqing during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). During this time, he organized some right-wing groups under European fascist lines inside the KMT. Wang was originally part of the pro-war group; but, after the Japanese were successful in occupying large areas of coastal China, Wang became known for his pessimistic view on China's chances in the war against Japan.[11]. He often voiced defeatist opinions in KMT staff meetings, and continued to express his view that Western Imperialism was the greater danger to China, much to the chagrin of his associates. Wang believed that China needed to reach a negotiated settlement with Japan so that Asia could resist Western Powers.
In late 1938, Wang left Chongqing for Hanoi, French Indochina, where he stayed for three months and announced his support for a negotiated settlement with the Japanese.[11] During this time, he was wounded in an assassination attempt by KMT agents. Wang then flew to Shanghai, where he entered negotiations with Japanese authorities. The Japanese invasion had given him the opportunity he had long sought to establish a new government outside of Chiang Kai-shek’s control.
On March 30, 1940, Wang became the head of state of what came to be known as the Wang Jingwei regime based in Nanjing, serving as the President of the Executive Yuan and Chairman of the National Government (行政院長兼國民政府主席). In November, 1940, Wang's government signed the "Sino-Japanese Treaty" with the Japanese, a document that has been compared with Japan's Twenty-one Demands for its broad political, military, and economic concessions.[11] In June, 1941, Wang gave a public radio address from Tokyo in which he praised Japan, affirmed China's submission to it, criticized the Kuomintang government, and pledged to work with the Empire of Japan to resist Communism and Western imperialism.[12]. Wang continued to orchestrate politics within his regime in concert with Chiang's international relationship with foreign powers, seizing the French Concession and the International Settlement of Shanghai in 1943, after Western nations agreed by consensus to abolish extraterritoriality.[13].
A close associate of Sun Yat-sen, Wang is most noted for disagreements with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and his formation of a Japanese-supported collaborationist government in Nanjing. In March 1940 a puppet government led by Wang Jingwei was established in the Republic of China under the protection of Empire of Japan. The regime officially called itself the Republic of China (中華民國, Zhōnghuá Mínguó). Another official name used by the regime was the Reorganized National Government of China.[1 . For this role he has often been labeled as a Hanjian. His name in China is also now a term used to refer to a traitor
The Government of National Salvation of the collaborationist "Republic of China", which Wang headed, was established on the Three Principles of Pan-Asianism, anti-Communism, and opposition to Chiang Kai-shek. Wang continued to maintain his contacts with German Nazis and Italian fascists he had established while in exile. In March 1944, Wang left for Japan to undergo medical treatment for the wound left by an assassination attempt in 1939.[14][15] He died in Nagoya on November 10, 1944, less than a year before Japan's surrender to the Allies, thus avoiding a trial for treason. Many of his senior followers who lived to see the end of the war were executed. Wang was buried in Nanjing near the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, in an elaborately-constructed tomb. Soon after Japan's defeat, the Kuomintang government under Chiang Kai-shek moved its capital back to Nanjing, destroyed Wang's tomb, and burned the body. Today the site is commemorated with a small pavilion that notes Wang as a traitor.
13. Tai Chi-tao(戴季陶), political figure Tai was born Dai Liangbi (戴良弼; Wades-Giles: Tai Liang-pi) in Guanghan, Sichuan to a family of potters. He went to Japan in 1905 to study in a normal school and entered Nihon University's law program in 1907. He graduated and returned to China in 1909. Tai started to write for the Shanghaiese China Foreign Daily (中外日報) and Tianduo Newspaper (天鐸報) at 19. At this time, his sobriquet for himself was Dai Tianchou (天仇), or Heaven-Revenge Dai, to signify his dissatisfaction for the Qing Empire. The Manchus threatened him with imprisonment for his writings, so in 1911 he fled to Japan, and then to Penang, where he joined Tongmenghui (同盟會) and wrote for its Guanghua Newspaper (光華報). Later that year, he returned to Shanghai after the Wuchang Uprising and founded the Democracy Newspaper (民權報). In 1926, he served as principal of the Sun Yat-sen University, and the chief of politics at Whampoa Academy, with Zhou Enlai as his deputy. From 1928 until 1948, he served as head of the Examination Yuan考試院. He was Minister of Information (宣傳部長) in 1924
14. Chen Duxiu(陈独秀), co-founder of Chinese Communist Party. He was its first General Secretary. Chen was an educator, philosopher, and politician. His ancestral home was in Anqing (安慶), Anhui, where he established the influential vernacular Chinese periodical La Jeunesse. He moved to Nanjing in 1902, after he was reported to have given speeches attacking the Qing government, and then to Japan the same year. It was in Japan where Chen became influenced by socialism and the growing Chinese dissident movement. While studying in China, Chen helped to found two radical political parties, but refused to join Sun Yat-sen's Revolutionary Alliance (Tomngmenghui), which he regarded as narrowly racist.[1] In 1907, Chen left Japan to visit France, before returning to Anhui to teach in a high school later that year. In 1908, he visited Manchuria before accepting a position at the the Army Elementary School in Hangzhou.[2] Chen fled to Japan again in 1913 following the short-lived "Second Revolution" against Yuan Shikai (袁世凱), but returned to China soon afterwards.[2] Chen joined the faculty of Peking University in 1917 as the university's dean, at the invitation of Cai Yuanpei.[1] A Marxist study group at the university, led by Li Dazhao, attracted his attention in 1919. At the time, New Youth was highly popular, and Chen decided to run a special edition on Marxism with Li Dazhao as the edition's general editor. The edition of this magazine was the most detailed analysis of Marxism then published in China, and achieved wide readership due to the journal's popularity. Chen's decision to run this edition, and his activies in the May Fourth Movement that same year, motivated conservative opponents within the university to force his resignation in the fall of 1919.[4] Around the time that he was forced out of Peking University, he was jailed for three months for distributing literatue that Peking authorities considered inflammatory, demanding that all pro-Japanese ministers resign, and that the government guarantee and freedom of speech and assembly. After his release, Chen moved to Shanghai and became more interested in Marxism and the promotion of rapid social change.[5] His settlement in the French Concession[6] allowed him to pursue his intellectual and scholarly interests free from official persecution. In 1920, Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao, Hu Shi, and other prominent revolutionary leaders founded the Communist Party of China (中国共产党/中國共産黨). It has been generally asserted that Chen, Li and the other Chinese radicals of the time (including future chairman Mao Zedong) formed the CCP out of diligent study of Marxist theories, inspired by the Russian Revolution of 1917.[2] However, many historians now believe that, for this generation of Chinese radicals, Chen included, the road to Marxism was a long one, with numerous prominent members initially attracted to anarchism or anarcho-communism. Many of the prominent members of the party in 1920 had a very poor understanding of Marxist theory. Over time, the more prominent revolutionaries attracted to the early Chinese Communist Party eventually adopted a more orthodox interpretation of Communism, and were organized through the influence of a Comintern advisor, Grigori Voitinsky, who made a tour of China during 1920-21. Chen was elected (in absentia) as the party's first General Secretary; and, with the assistance of Li Dazhao. After the collaboration between the Communists and Nationalists collapsed in 1927, the Comintern blamed Chen, and systematically removed him from all positions of leadership. In 1929, he was expelled. Afterwards, Chen became associated with the International Left Opposition of Leon Trotsky. Like Chen, Trotsky opposed many of the policies of the Comintern, and publicly criticized the Comintern's effort to collaborate with the Nationalists. Chen eventually became the voice of the Trotskyists in China, attempting to regain support and influence within the party, but failed.[2] Chen continued to oppose measures like "New Democracy" and the "Bloc of Four Classes" advocated by Mao Zedong. In 1932, Chen was arrested by the government of the Shanghai International Settlement, where he had been living since 1927, and extradited to Nanjing. Chen was then tried and sentenced to fifteen years in prison by the Nationalist government. Chen was released on parole in 1937, after the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War. After his release, Chen travelled from place to place until the summer of 1938, when he arrived at the wartime capital of Chongqing and took a position teaching at a junior high school. In poor health and with few remaining friends, Chen Duxiu later retired to Jiangjing, a small town west of Chongqing, where he died in 1942 at the age of 62. Today, he is today buried at his birthplace of Anqing.
15. Li Dazhao(李大钊),co-founder of Chinese Communist Party . From 1913 to 1917 Li studied political economy at Waseda University in Japan before returning to China in 1918. As head librarian at the Peking University Library, he was among the first of the Chinese intellectuals who supported the Bolshevik government in the Soviet Union. He also wrote in Chen's New Youth and his works had a major influence on other Chinese as well. Mao Zedong was an assistant librarian during Li's tenure at the library, and Li was one of Mao's earliest and most prominent influences. Tensions between the Comintern, the KMT, and the CPC presented opportunities for political intrigue and opportunism. With the collapse of the United Front in 1927, Li was captured during a Fengtian ordered raid on the Soviet embassy in Peking (Beijing). Along with nineteen others arrested in the raid, he was executed on the orders of the warlord Zhang Zuolin on April 28, 1927.
16. Zhou Zuoren(周作人), writer. He was the younger brother of Lu Xun (Zhou Shuren), the second of three brothers. Following the steps of his brother Lu Xun, he left for Japan to pursue his studies in 1906. During his stint in Japan, he began studying Ancient Greek, with the aim of translating the Gospels into Classical Chinese, and attended lectures on Chinese philology by scholar-revolutionary Zhang Binglin at Rikkyo University. , although he was supposed to study civil engineering there. He returned to China in 1911, with his Japanese wife, and began to teach in different institutions. Zhou was a key figure in the May Fourth Movement. In 1945, after the Second Sino-Japanese War, Zhou was arrested for treason by the Nationalist government of Chang Kai-shek, stemming from his alleged collaboration with the Wang Jingwei government during the Japanese occupation of north China. Zhou was sentenced to 14 years in Nanjing Prison, but was released in 1949 by the Communist government after a pardon. Later that year he returned to Beijing. He continued to write and translate, but published his works under pseudonyms. He died during the Cultural Revolution.
17. Huang Fu (黃郛), general and politician Huang studied at Zhejiang Military College and Qiushi Academy (current Zhejiang University), later went to Japan.[1] Huang came in contact with the Revolutionary Alliance while studying in a military academy in the Empire of Japan. During the Xinhai Revolution, he and Chen Qimei declared Shanghai independent and became blood brothers of Chiang Kaishek. After the fall of Cao Kun in the 1924 Beijing coup, he became acting president of the Republic of China on the request of Feng Yuxiang. He declared Cao's term illegal because it was obtained through bribery and also repudiated the agreement which allowed Puyi to live in the Forbidden City.
18. Chen Qimei(陈其美), revolutionary a Chinese revolutionary activist, close political ally of Sun Yat-sen, and early mentor of Chiang Kai-shek. He was as one of the founders of the Republic of China, and the uncle of Chen Guofu and Chen Lifu.
Born in Wuxing, Zhejiang, China, he went to Japan for studies in 1906, and there joined the Chinese Tongmenghui. Befriended by fellow Zhejiang native Chiang Kai-shek, in 1908, Chen brought Chiang into the Tongmenghui.
In 1911, after the Wuchang Uprising, Chen's forces occupied Shanghai. He was then made military governor of the region. He fled to Japan with Sun Yat-sen upon the failure of the revolution against Yuan Shikai's dictatorship. They subsequently formed the Chinese Revolutionary Party, later became the Kuomintang, or the Chinese Nationalist Party. Returning to Shanghai for another round of revolution, Yuan had him assassinated on May 18, 1916. The assassination was believed to have been carried out by Zhang Zongchang, a general loyal to Yuan.
Chen is perceived as one of the early revolutionary heroes and one of the founding fathers of the Republic of China. He was also the eldest member of which later came to known as the Chen Family, one of the four most powerful and influential families at the time. The university which had originally named after him had become a part of today's Fudan University and Zhejiang University after the Chinese Civil War. A monument of him is located in Huzhou, Zhejiang, China.
19. Yen Hsi-shan (閻錫山) (1883 - 1960) was a China|Chinese politician who served in the Republic of China government. Yen received his formal military training first in China and later at Japan's Imperial Military Academy. In Japan he became a member of Sun Yat-sen's Tongmenghui|Revolutionary Alliance and following the Xinhai Revolution|1911 uprisings he seized power in Shanxi Province.
Yen ruled the province until the Communist Party of China|Communists ousted him in 1949. Although Yen was known as the "Model Governor" for his enlightened policies, he was nonetheless a military dictator. In 1926, Yen pledged his loyalty to Chiang Kai-shek's new government, but in 1929 he joined Feng Y?-hsiang and Wang Ching-wei in their attempt to overthrow the Generallisimo. After a brief retirement in the early 1930s, Yen returned to power in Shanxi and undertook social and military reforms to counteract the spread of Communism in the province. He also supported Chang Hs?eh-liang's seizure of Chiang Kai-shek in 1936 (see Xian Incident). During WWII, Yen effectively resisted Japanese attempts to seize Shanxi, and his troops (including thousands of Japanese) held out against the Communists during the Chinese Civil War until the fortress city of T'ai-yüan fell in April 1949. Yen fled (with the provincial treasury) to Taiwan along with the rest of the ROC government.
From June 3, 1949 to March 7, 1950 he served as Premier of the ROC.
20. Zhou Enlai or Chou En-lai(周恩来); b 5 March 1898 – d 8 January 1976 was the first Premier of the People's Republic of China, serving from October 1949 until his death in January 1976. Zhou was instrumental in the Communist Party's rise to power, and subsequently in the development of the Chinese economy and the restructuring of Chinese society. Zhou went to Japan in July 1917 for further studies. During his two years in Japan, Zhou spent most of his time in the East Asian Higher Preparatory School, a language school for Chinese students. Zhou's studies were supported by his uncles, and apparently Nankai founder Yan Xiu as well, but their funds were limited and during this period Japan suffered from severe inflation. Zhou originally planned on winning one of the scholarships offered by the Chinese government; these scholarships, however, required Chinese students to pass entrance examinations in Japanese universities. Zhou took entrance examinations for at least two schools, but failed to gain admission. Zhou's reported anxieties were compounded by the death of his uncle, Zhou Yikui, an inability to master Japanese, and an acute Japanese cultural chauvinism that discriminated against Chinese. By the time that Zhou returned to China in the spring of 1919, he had become deeply disenchanted with Japanese culture, rejecting the idea that the Japanese political model was relevant to China and disdaining the values of elitism and militarism that he observed. Zhou returned to Tianjin sometime in the spring of 1919.
(source: mainly extracted from wikipedia)
Suggested articles/books/websites:
1. Japanese, Chinese entrepreneurs paving roads of success overseas, The Mainichi Daily News, http://mdn.mainichi.jp/features/archive/news/2011/02/20110216p2a00m0na003000c.html
2.The Increasing Presence of Chinese Migrants in Japan(2008), by Tien-shi Chen, National Museum of Ethnology, http://ir.minpaku.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/10502/2041/1/SER77_004.pdf
3. The Chinese overseas students: An overview of the flows change(2004), by Linqing Yao, The Australian National University, http://www.apa.org.au/upload/2004-6C_Yao.pdf
Documentary recorded mass Chinese immigration to Japan started from 1858, when the Edo Shogunate concluded a treaty with the USA and Europe agreeing to the opening of its ports and markets, which had long been closed. Most Westerners arrived in Japan together with their Chinese employees with whom they were already working in Chinese ports (Nishikawa and Ito 2002). The other major event leading to an increase in the number of Chinese in Japan was the opening of shipping lines between Yokohama and Shanghai. After Japan defeated China in the Sino-Japanese War in 1895, in order to know how Japan was able to won the war and become strong. In 1896, the first group of 13 Chinese students was sent by Manchu government under Qing Dynasty to Japan. In 1901, there were more than 600 Chinese students in Japan. In the peak year of 1906, after Japan won the Russo-Japanese war(日俄战争)in 1905, the number of students in Tokyo alone amounted to over eight thousands(Linqing Yao,2004).
Most Chinese residents in Japan live in major urban areas, such as Tokyo, Yokohama, and Osaka, the latter two of which have a recognized Chinatown as well as schools which use Chinese as the medium of instruction. They are called Kakyo(華僑)literally means "Chinese sojourners" or Zainichi Chūgokujin(在日中国人), which means "Chinese people resident in Japan".
Official classification based on law
Officially Chinese in Japan can be classified into two groups based on nationality or citizenship. Chinese nationality here refers not only to the People’s Republic of China (mainland China), but also to the Republic of China (Taiwan). All ethnic Chinese who are not naturalized in their country of residence are called kakyo(華僑. They are registered as Chinese, according to the Japanese alien registration (gaikokujin toroku)system. The second group consists of those Chinese who have naturalized and obtained Japanese nationality. These are called kajin (華人). Japanese Family Law(戸籍法, こせきほう) requires all Japanese households to report births, acknowledgments of paternity, adoptions, disruptions of adoptions, deaths, marriages and divorces of Japanese citizens to their local authority, which compiles such records encompassing all Japanese citizens within their jurisdiction. This Japanese family registry is called koseki(戸籍, こせき). Only Japanese citizens can be registered in a Koseki, because Koseki serve as certificates of citizenship. Another registry, jūminhyō (住民票じゅうみんひょう) is a registry of current residential addresses maintained by local governments, (市町村（しちょうそん)と特別区（とくべつく) in Japan. Japanese law requires each citizen to report his or her current address(現住所) to the local authorities who compile the information for tax, national health insurance and census purposes. They are not categorized by ethnicity in any Japanese official identification. Officially they are Japanese. So naturalized Chinese or Kajin, because they have Japanese nationality(日本国民), are registered both in Japanese family registers (koseki,戸籍)and residence registers (juminhyo, 住民票). Once a Chinese have naturalized, only their ethnic background and personal identity distinguish them as kajin, otherwise they are like other Japanese citizen.
Social classification based on time
Before the war during 20th century, many famous Chinese intellectuals have studied in Japan, among them Sun Yat-sen, Lu Xun, and Zhou Enlai. It was estimated that in 1906, more than six thousand Chinese students lived in Japan; many of them resided in Tokyo's Kanda district. The Chinese population has grown every year since 1858, except for 1931 (the 918 Incident or Mukden Incident) and 1937 (the Marco Polo Bridge Incident), when military conflicts occurred between Japan and China. They are the Kakyo, many returned to China and become historical figure in modern China. Kakyo from the period after Meiji restoration to World War 2 period are the main source of intellectuals for late Manchu Dynasty and early Republic of China era, some even continue to have play major role in People Republic of China.....this is the era of significance for modern Chinese history.
During the war, many Taiwanese and its natives, being ruled by Japan, were recruited for fighting along with Imperial Japanese Army in WW2, served in the Japanese army. Some Chinese (together with Korean)were forced laborers or comfort women in Japan or Japanese occupied territories. This was the sad chapter of history for Chinese as well as Japan, which ruins the established historical close relationship between the two countries.
After Post-World War II Chinese immigrants to Japan, typically referred to as shin-kakyō(新華僑) or new kakyo. A term setting them apart from earlier generations of Chinese citizens who came to Japan before them. They have come to Japan from both Taiwan and mainland China. Many are students or economic immigrants. The era for rebuilding of nation after the war, strong economic development in Japan attracted many shin-kakyo who were seeking new knowledge or economic improvement, as China or Taiwan still economically developing and under political instability. Some historian classified shin-kakyo as Chinese who came directly from mainland China after the start of its Open Door Policy in 1978(the era of 80's), wikipedia however classified it as post WW2 Chinese immigrants to Japan. The pre 1978 period were mainly from Taiwan or other oversea Chinese, as China under the communist ruled since 1-10-1949 was having political isolation, and going through difficult time, immigration was highly regulated by the state. The period of post 1978, the immigration from mainland China become dominant.
Those in Yan's generation shinkakyo, Chinese who went to Japan in the 80s, are Shin-kakyo; Japanese who leave Japan to work in rapidly developing China, are collectively referred to as "wakyo". As of the end of 2009 some 250,000 Chinese had settled in Japan, nearly double the figure of 10 years earlier. Many young people are seeking to start businesses in areas including the IT sector.
Kakyo during the Pre-War Japan
The most remarkable group are the group from early 20th century; many of them are famous personalities or hero in the modern history of China. Many Chinese went to Japan during the period, it increased to 20,000. Many of the students among them later became prominent back in their mother countries, including Chiang Kai-shek, Wang Jingwei, and many other Chinese senior/working-level government officials. Among the members of the first Chinese parliament convened in 1913, 67 out of 596 members of the Chinese House of Representatives (11%) and 165 out of 274 members of the Chinese Senate (an astounding 60%) had experience studying in or visiting Japan for research. The chairmen of both houses of Parliament were alumni of Japanese schools. Out of the 30 members from each legislative branch selected for a committee to draft the Constitution, 20 of the House of Representatives members and 26 of the Senate members had experience studying in Japan.(source: (source:JAPAN'S ASIANISM, 1868-1945,http://www.sais-jhu.edu/bin/a/n/Asianism.pdf)
Some of them are reformers/revolutionists like Kang U Wei, Dr Sun Yat-sen who fight for reform and found Republic of China; others are communists like Li Dazhao, Chen Duxiu who go on to found Chinese Communist Party; others are students from military academy who become generals of Chinese army, and later fight against Japanese Imperial Army during the Sino-Japanese War; many are writers who are involved with May Forth Movement. No matter what happen in their life after graduation or leaving Japan, they learn greatly from Japan. Dr Sun Yat-sen have supports from many Japanese friends and oversea Chinese in Japan, which make his dream of new Republic of China into reality. Many of them become actively involved in War of Resistance Against Japan (抗日战争), which is also known as the Eight Years' War of Resistance(八年抗战/八年抗戰),either in military uniform or by using their pen. They were all have been to Japan, and sorry to face Japan militarism. They are all great man/woman in history, and were the cream of modern China. Japan should be proud of these people, who obtained education and training, even support the Chinese revolution from Japan ..... They are having close relationship with Japan, some even married Japanese wife. If not because of the war, Japanese militarism, the relationship will be cherish and blossom into closer and better relationship.....
Chinese residents in Japan, if not involved in the Chinese Revolution, were critical of Japanese imperialism and conscious of anti-Japanese sentiments and Chinese nationalism in China. A Chinese student who came to Japan after the Russo-Japanese War to study criticized Japan as “a common enemy of Asia” and wrote: “In order to protect peace in Asia and to achieve the independence of weak Asian races, it is needless to say that white authoritarianism should be eliminated; however, Japan should also stop despising Asia with its own authoritarianism.”. The protégés of Compassionate Asianists and foreign students in Japan also voiced their opposition. For example, Bose wrote in 1926 that “what we regret the most is that Japanese intellectuals who cry for free Asia and an alliance among colored people, despise China, insist on invading China, and even think that colored people are inferior to whites by nature, like the whites.
Among the China experts in Japan, only a few really know themselves and understand Asia.” The number of foreign students studying in Japan plummeted from more than 7,000 in 1906 to less than 1,500 a decade later,partly due to Tokyo’s joining the ranks of the colonial Powers.
(source:JAPAN'S ASIANISM, 1868-1945,http://www.sais-jhu.edu/bin/a/n/Asianism.pdf)
Japan became political hub for Chinese intellectuals; a political based for Reform Movement and Chinese Revolution during the period....
List of some prominent Kakyo
The following are some of famous Chinese in Japan during Early 20th century, the list may not be exhaustive;
1.Chen Kenmin, chef regarded as the "father of Sichuan cuisine" in Japan and father of Chen Kenichi
2.Go Seigen, professional Go player
3.Sun Yat-sen(孫文/孫中山/孫逸仙), politician, founding father of China. Sun Yat-sen (b 12 November 1866 – d 12 March 1925) was a Chinese doctor, revolutionary and political leader. As the foremost pioneer of Nationalist China, Sun is frequently referred to as the Founding Father of Republican China, a view agreed upon by both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan). Sun played an instrumental role in inspiring the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty, the last imperial dynasty of China. Sun was the first provisional president when the Republic of China (ROC) was founded in 1912 and later co-founded the Chinese National People's Party or Kuomintang (KMT) where he served as its first leader. Sun was a uniting figure in post-Imperial China, and remains unique among 20th-century Chinese politicians for being widely revered amongst the people from both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
4. Lu Xun(鲁迅), famous Chinese writer, was the pen name of Zhou Shuren(周树人) (b September 25, 1881 – d October 19, 1936) is one of the major Chinese writers of the 20th century. Considered by many to be the founder of modern Chinese literature, he wrote in baihua (白話) (the vernacular) as well as classical Chinese. Lu Xun was a short story writer, editor, translator, critic, essayist and poet. In the 1930s he became the titular head of the Chinese League of the Left-Wing Writers in Shanghai.
On a Qing government scholarship, Lu Xun left for Japan in 1902. He first attended the Kobun Gakuin (Kobun Institute) (Hongwen xueyuan, 弘文學院), a preparatory language school for Chinese students attending Japanese universities. His earliest essays, written in Classical Chinese, date from here. Lu also practised some jujutsu. Lu Xun returned home briefly in 1903, complied to an arranged marriage with a local gentry girl, Zhu An(朱安).
Lu Xun left for Sendai Medical Academy in 1904 and gained a minor reputation there as the first foreign student of the college. At the school he struck up a close student-mentor relationship with lecturer Fujino Genkurou (藤野厳九郎); Lu Xun would recall his mentor respectfully and affectionately in an essay "Mr Fujino" in the memoirs in Dawn Blossoms Plucked at Dusk. (Incidentally, Fujino would repay the respect with an obituary essay on Lu Xun's death, in 1937.) However, in March 1906, Lu Xun abruptly terminated his pursuit of the degree and left the college.
Lu Xun, in his well-known Preface to Nahan (Call to Arms), the first collection of his short stories, tells the story of why he gave up completing his medical education at Sendai. One day after class, one of his Japanese instructors screened a lantern slide documenting the imminent execution of an alleged Chinese spy during the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05). Lu Xun was shocked by the complete apathy of the Chinese onlookers; he decided it was more important to cure his compatriots' spiritual ills rather than their physical diseases.
"At the time, I hadn't seen any of my fellow Chinese in a long time, but one day some of them showed up in a slide. One, with his hands tied behind him, was in the middle of the picture; the others were gathered around him. Physically, they were as strong and healthy as anyone could ask, but their expressions revealed all too clearly that spiritually they were calloused and numb. According to the caption, the Chinese whose hands were bound had been spying on the Japanese military for the Russians. He was about to be decapitated as a 'public example.' The other Chinese gathered around him had come to enjoy the spectacle." (Lyell , pp 23).
Moving to Tokyo in spring 1906, he came under the influence of scholar and philologist Zhang Taiyan and with his brother Zuoren, also on scholarship, published a translation of some East European and Russian Slavic short stories, including the works of a Polish Nobel laureate, Henryk Sienkiewicz. He spent the next three years in Tokyo writing a series of essays in classical Chinese on the history of science, Chinese and comparative literature, European literature and intellectual history, Chinese society, reform and religion, as well as translating the literature of various countries into Chinese.
Lu Xun's works exerted a very substantial influence after the May Fourth Movement to such a point that he was highly acclaimed by the Communist regime after 1949. Mao Zedong himself was a lifelong admirer of Lu Xun's works. Though sympathetic to the ideals of the Left, Lu Xun never actually joined the Chinese Communist Party - like fellow leaders of the May Fourth Movement, he was primarily a liberal. Lu Xun's works became known to English readers through numerous translations, beginning in 1960 with Selected Stories of Lu Hsun translated by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, and more recently in 2009 when Penguin Classics published a complete anthology of his fiction titled The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China: The Complete Fiction of Lu Xun, of which Jeffrey Wasserstrom said "could be considered the most significant Penguin Classic ever published.
5.Qiu Jin (秋瑾), (b November 8, 1875 - d July 15, 1907) was a Chinese anti-Qing Empire revolutionary, feminist and writer. She was executed after a failed uprising and today is considered an hero in China.
Born in Xiamen, Fujian Province, Qiu grew up in her ancestral home, Shānyīn Village, Shaoxing Subprefecture, Zhejiang Province. Married, Qiu found herself in contact with new ideas. In 1904 she decided to travel overseas and study in Japan, leaving her two children behind. She was known by her acquaintances for wearing Western male dress and for her left-wing ideology. She joined the Triads, who at the time advocated the overthrow of the Qing dynasty and return of Chinese government to the Chinese people. She joined the anti-Qing societies Guangfuhui, led by Cai Yuanpei, and the Tokyo-based Tongmenghui led by Sun Yat-sen. She returned to China in 1905.
After returning to China, Qiu Jin started publishing a women's magazine in which she encouraged women to gain financial independence through education and training in various professions. She encouraged women to resist oppression by their families and by the government. At the time it was still customary for women in China to have their feet bound at the age of five. The result of this practice was that the feet were small but crippled. Women's freedom of movement was severely restricted and left them dependent on other people. Such helpless women were, however, more desired as wives, so their families continued the practice to protect their daughters' future security.
Qiu Jin felt that a better future for women lay under a Western-type government instead of the corrupt Manchu government that was in power at the time. She joined forces with her male cousin Hsu Hsi-lin and together they worked to unite many secret revolutionary societies to work together for the overthrow of the Manchu government. On July 6, 1907 Hsu Hsi-lin was caught by the authorities before a scheduled uprising. He confessed his involvement under interrogation and was executed. Immediately after, on July 12, the government troops arrested Qiu Jin at the school for girls where she was a principal. She refused to admit her involvement in the plot, but they found incriminating documents and she was beheaded. Qiu Jin was acknowledged immediately as a heroine and a martyr who died fighting enemies of the Chinese people and she became a symbol of women's independence.
6.Shosei Go, professional baseball player
7.Chiang Kai-shek(蔣中正 / 蔣介石)(b October 31, 1887 – d April 5, 1975) was a political and military leader of 20th century China. He is known as Jiǎng Jièshí or Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng in Mandarin. Chiang grew up in a time period in which military defeats and civil wars among warlords had left China destabilized and in debt, and he decided to pursue a military career. He began his military education at the Baoding Military Academy, in 1906. He left for a preparatory school for Chinese students, the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in Japan, in 1907. There he was influenced by his compatriots to support the revolutionary movement to overthrow the Qing Dynasty and to set up a Chinese republic. He befriended fellow Zhejiang native Chen Qimei, and, in 1908, Chen brought Chiang into the Tongmenghui, a precursor of the Kuomintang (KMT) organization. Chiang served in the Imperial Japanese Army from 1909 to 1911.
8.Song Jiaoren(宋教仁), revolutionary and political figure, founder of Tongmenghui. President of the Kuomintang 1912–1913 He was assassinated in 1913 after leading his Kuomintang party to victory in China's first democratic elections. Evidence strongly implied that China's provisional president, Yuan Shikai, was responsible for his assassination.
9.Jiang Baili(蒋百里), general . Jiang was married to a Japanese nurse, Satô Yato (佐藤屋子). His third daughter Jiang Ying蒋英became a musician, and married Tsien Hsue-shen钱学森, the father of Chinese rocketry.
10.Guo Moruo(郭沫若), poet and political figure. Following his elder brothers, Guo left China in December 1913, reaching Japan in early January 1914. After a year of preparatory study in Tokyo, he entered Sixth Higher School in Okayama.[1] When visiting a friend of his hospitalized in Sain Luke's Hospital in Tokyo, in the summer of 1916, Guo fell in love with Sato Tomiko, a Japanese woman from a Christian family, who worked at the hospital as a student nurse. Sato would become his common-law wife. They were to stay together for 20 years, until the outbreak of the war, and to have five children together.[3] In the summer of 1937, soon after the Marco Polo Bridge incident, Guo returned to China to join the anti-Japanese resistance. His attempt to arrange for Sato Tomiko and their children to join him in China were frustrated by the Japanese authorities,[3] and in 1939 he remarried to Yu Liqun (于立群; 1916–1979), a Shanghai actress.[3][5] After the war, Sato went to reunite with him but was disappointed to know that he had already formed a new family. Guo and Sato Tomiko's house in Ichikawa, Japan, where they lived in 1927-37, is a museum as well.[14] Due to the Guo Moruo connection, Ichikawa chose to establish sister city relations with Leshan乐山in 1981 Ichikawa (市川市 Ichikawa-shi?) is a city located in northwest Chiba, Japan, approximately 20 kilometers from the center of Tokyo.After graduation from the Okayama school, Guo entered in 1918 the Medical School of Kyushyu Imperial University in Fukuoka.[1] He was more interested in literature than medicine, however. His studies at this time focused on foreign language and literature, namely the works of: Spinoza, Goethe, Walt Whitman, and the Bengali poet Tagore. Along with numerous translations, he published his first anthology of poems, entitled The Goddesses (女神 - nǚ shén) (1921). He co-founded the Ch'uang-tsao she ("Creation Society") in Shanghai, which promoted modern and vernacular literature.
11. He Yingqin(何应钦), general. In August 1945, when Japan announced its unconditional surrender, He was appointed as representative of both the Chinese Government and the Southeast Asia Ally Forces to host the surrender of Japanese troops in China. On Sept 9th, He accepted the statement of surrender submitted by Yasuji Okamura, who was General Commander of Japanese troops in China at that time. This historic moment put He under the spotlight of the world, and was the peak of his career. Commander-in-chief of the China Expeditionary Army Yasuji Okamura presenting the Japanese Instrument of Surrender to He Yingqin in Nanjing on 9 September 1945.
12. Wang Jingwei(汪精衛), revolutionary and political figure . He was initially known as a member of the left wing of the Kuomintang (KMT), but later became increasingly anti-Communist after his efforts to collaborate with the CCP ended in political failure. His politics veered sharply to the right later in his career, after he joined the Japanese. Wang went to Japan as an international student sponsored by the Qing government in 1903, and joined the Tongmenghui in 1905. As a young man, Wang came to blame the Qing dynasty for holding China back, and making it too weak to fight off exploitation by Western Imperialist powers. While in Japan, Wang became a close confidant of Sun Yat-Sen, and would later go on to become one of the most important members of the early Kuomintang.[1] He was considered one of the main contenders to replace Sun as leader of the Kuomintang, but eventually lost control of the party and army to Chiang Kai-shek.[3]. Wang had clearly lost control of the KMT by 1926, when, following the Zhongshan Warship Incident, Chiang successfully sent Wang and his family to vacation in Europe.[4] The Zhongshan Warship Incident (Chinese: 中山舰事件; pinyin: Zhōngshān Jiàn Shìjiàn), or "March 20th Incident", on March 20, 1926, involved a suspected plot by Captain Li Zhilong of the warship Chung Shan to kidnap Chiang Kai-shek. It triggered a political struggle between the Communist Party of China and Kuomintang. Left wing led by Wang Jingwei against Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang Right wing faction resulting in Chiang becoming the head of the Kuomintang party and commander-in-chief of all the armies for the Northern Expedition. During the Northern Expedition, Wang was the leading figure in the left-leaning faction of the KMT that called for continued cooperation with the Communist Party of China. It should be noted however, that Wang was personally opposed to Communism and regarded the KMT’s Comintern advisors with suspicion.[5] He did not believe that Communists could be true patriots or true Chinese nationalists.[6] Wang's faction, which had set up a new KMT capital at Wuhan in early 1927, was opposed by Chiang Kai-shek, who was in the midst of a bloody purge of Communists in Shanghai and was calling for a push north. The separation between these two sides was known as the Ninghan Separation (simplified Chinese: 宁汉分裂; traditional Chinese: 寧漢分裂; pinyin: Nínghàn Fenlìe). While attempting to direct the government from Wuhan, Wang was notable for his close collaboration with leading Communist figures, including Mao Zedong, Chen Duxiu, and Borodin, and for his faction's provocative land-reform policies. He later blamed the failure of his Wuhan government on its excessive adoption of Communist agendas.[7] Wang's faction was militarily weak, and he was ousted by a local warlord the same year. Lacking the military or financial resources to resist the increasingly powerful Chiang, his faction was forced to rejoin Chiang Kai-shek at Nanjing in September, 1927.
Between 1929 and 1930, Wang collaborated with Feng Yuxiang and Yan Xishan to form a central government in opposition to the one headed by Chiang. Wang took part in a conference hosted by Yan to draft a new constitution, and was to serve as the Prime Minister under Yan, who would be President. Wang's attempts to aid Yan's government ended when Chiang defeated the alliance in the Central Plains War[8][9]
In 1931, Wang joined another anti-Chiang government in Guangzhou. After Chiang defeated this regime, Wang reconciled with Chiang's Nanjing government and held prominent posts for most of the decade. Wang was appointed premier just as the Battle of Shanghai (1932) began. He had frequent disputes with Chiang and would resign in protest several times only to have his resignation rescinded. As a result of these power struggles within the KMT, Wang was forced to spend much of his time in exile. He traveled to Germany, and maintained some contact with Adolf Hitler. The effectiveness of the KMT was constantly hindered by leadership and personal struggles, such as that between Wang and Chiang. In December 1935, Wang permanently left the premiership after being seriously wounded during an assassination attempt a month earlier.
During the 1936 Xian Incident, in which Chiang was taken prisoner by his own general, Zhang Xueliang, Wang favored sending a "punitive expedition" to attack Zhang. He was apparently ready to march on Zhang, but Chiang's wife, Soong Meiling, and brother, T.V. Soong, feared that such an action would lead to Chiang's death and his replacement by Wang, so they successfully opposed this action.[10]
Wang Jingwei accompanied the government on its retreat to Chongqing during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). During this time, he organized some right-wing groups under European fascist lines inside the KMT. Wang was originally part of the pro-war group; but, after the Japanese were successful in occupying large areas of coastal China, Wang became known for his pessimistic view on China's chances in the war against Japan.[11]. He often voiced defeatist opinions in KMT staff meetings, and continued to express his view that Western Imperialism was the greater danger to China, much to the chagrin of his associates. Wang believed that China needed to reach a negotiated settlement with Japan so that Asia could resist Western Powers.
In late 1938, Wang left Chongqing for Hanoi, French Indochina, where he stayed for three months and announced his support for a negotiated settlement with the Japanese.[11] During this time, he was wounded in an assassination attempt by KMT agents. Wang then flew to Shanghai, where he entered negotiations with Japanese authorities. The Japanese invasion had given him the opportunity he had long sought to establish a new government outside of Chiang Kai-shek’s control.
On March 30, 1940, Wang became the head of state of what came to be known as the Wang Jingwei regime based in Nanjing, serving as the President of the Executive Yuan and Chairman of the National Government (行政院長兼國民政府主席). In November, 1940, Wang's government signed the "Sino-Japanese Treaty" with the Japanese, a document that has been compared with Japan's Twenty-one Demands for its broad political, military, and economic concessions.[11] In June, 1941, Wang gave a public radio address from Tokyo in which he praised Japan, affirmed China's submission to it, criticized the Kuomintang government, and pledged to work with the Empire of Japan to resist Communism and Western imperialism.[12]. Wang continued to orchestrate politics within his regime in concert with Chiang's international relationship with foreign powers, seizing the French Concession and the International Settlement of Shanghai in 1943, after Western nations agreed by consensus to abolish extraterritoriality.[13].
A close associate of Sun Yat-sen, Wang is most noted for disagreements with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and his formation of a Japanese-supported collaborationist government in Nanjing. In March 1940 a puppet government led by Wang Jingwei was established in the Republic of China under the protection of Empire of Japan. The regime officially called itself the Republic of China (中華民國, Zhōnghuá Mínguó). Another official name used by the regime was the Reorganized National Government of China.[1 . For this role he has often been labeled as a Hanjian. His name in China is also now a term used to refer to a traitor
The Government of National Salvation of the collaborationist "Republic of China", which Wang headed, was established on the Three Principles of Pan-Asianism, anti-Communism, and opposition to Chiang Kai-shek. Wang continued to maintain his contacts with German Nazis and Italian fascists he had established while in exile. In March 1944, Wang left for Japan to undergo medical treatment for the wound left by an assassination attempt in 1939.[14][15] He died in Nagoya on November 10, 1944, less than a year before Japan's surrender to the Allies, thus avoiding a trial for treason. Many of his senior followers who lived to see the end of the war were executed. Wang was buried in Nanjing near the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, in an elaborately-constructed tomb. Soon after Japan's defeat, the Kuomintang government under Chiang Kai-shek moved its capital back to Nanjing, destroyed Wang's tomb, and burned the body. Today the site is commemorated with a small pavilion that notes Wang as a traitor.
13. Tai Chi-tao(戴季陶), political figure Tai was born Dai Liangbi (戴良弼; Wades-Giles: Tai Liang-pi) in Guanghan, Sichuan to a family of potters. He went to Japan in 1905 to study in a normal school and entered Nihon University's law program in 1907. He graduated and returned to China in 1909. Tai started to write for the Shanghaiese China Foreign Daily (中外日報) and Tianduo Newspaper (天鐸報) at 19. At this time, his sobriquet for himself was Dai Tianchou (天仇), or Heaven-Revenge Dai, to signify his dissatisfaction for the Qing Empire. The Manchus threatened him with imprisonment for his writings, so in 1911 he fled to Japan, and then to Penang, where he joined Tongmenghui (同盟會) and wrote for its Guanghua Newspaper (光華報). Later that year, he returned to Shanghai after the Wuchang Uprising and founded the Democracy Newspaper (民權報). In 1926, he served as principal of the Sun Yat-sen University, and the chief of politics at Whampoa Academy, with Zhou Enlai as his deputy. From 1928 until 1948, he served as head of the Examination Yuan考試院. He was Minister of Information (宣傳部長) in 1924
14. Chen Duxiu(陈独秀), co-founder of Chinese Communist Party. He was its first General Secretary. Chen was an educator, philosopher, and politician. His ancestral home was in Anqing (安慶), Anhui, where he established the influential vernacular Chinese periodical La Jeunesse. He moved to Nanjing in 1902, after he was reported to have given speeches attacking the Qing government, and then to Japan the same year. It was in Japan where Chen became influenced by socialism and the growing Chinese dissident movement. While studying in China, Chen helped to found two radical political parties, but refused to join Sun Yat-sen's Revolutionary Alliance (Tomngmenghui), which he regarded as narrowly racist.[1] In 1907, Chen left Japan to visit France, before returning to Anhui to teach in a high school later that year. In 1908, he visited Manchuria before accepting a position at the the Army Elementary School in Hangzhou.[2] Chen fled to Japan again in 1913 following the short-lived "Second Revolution" against Yuan Shikai (袁世凱), but returned to China soon afterwards.[2] Chen joined the faculty of Peking University in 1917 as the university's dean, at the invitation of Cai Yuanpei.[1] A Marxist study group at the university, led by Li Dazhao, attracted his attention in 1919. At the time, New Youth was highly popular, and Chen decided to run a special edition on Marxism with Li Dazhao as the edition's general editor. The edition of this magazine was the most detailed analysis of Marxism then published in China, and achieved wide readership due to the journal's popularity. Chen's decision to run this edition, and his activies in the May Fourth Movement that same year, motivated conservative opponents within the university to force his resignation in the fall of 1919.[4] Around the time that he was forced out of Peking University, he was jailed for three months for distributing literatue that Peking authorities considered inflammatory, demanding that all pro-Japanese ministers resign, and that the government guarantee and freedom of speech and assembly. After his release, Chen moved to Shanghai and became more interested in Marxism and the promotion of rapid social change.[5] His settlement in the French Concession[6] allowed him to pursue his intellectual and scholarly interests free from official persecution. In 1920, Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao, Hu Shi, and other prominent revolutionary leaders founded the Communist Party of China (中国共产党/中國共産黨). It has been generally asserted that Chen, Li and the other Chinese radicals of the time (including future chairman Mao Zedong) formed the CCP out of diligent study of Marxist theories, inspired by the Russian Revolution of 1917.[2] However, many historians now believe that, for this generation of Chinese radicals, Chen included, the road to Marxism was a long one, with numerous prominent members initially attracted to anarchism or anarcho-communism. Many of the prominent members of the party in 1920 had a very poor understanding of Marxist theory. Over time, the more prominent revolutionaries attracted to the early Chinese Communist Party eventually adopted a more orthodox interpretation of Communism, and were organized through the influence of a Comintern advisor, Grigori Voitinsky, who made a tour of China during 1920-21. Chen was elected (in absentia) as the party's first General Secretary; and, with the assistance of Li Dazhao. After the collaboration between the Communists and Nationalists collapsed in 1927, the Comintern blamed Chen, and systematically removed him from all positions of leadership. In 1929, he was expelled. Afterwards, Chen became associated with the International Left Opposition of Leon Trotsky. Like Chen, Trotsky opposed many of the policies of the Comintern, and publicly criticized the Comintern's effort to collaborate with the Nationalists. Chen eventually became the voice of the Trotskyists in China, attempting to regain support and influence within the party, but failed.[2] Chen continued to oppose measures like "New Democracy" and the "Bloc of Four Classes" advocated by Mao Zedong. In 1932, Chen was arrested by the government of the Shanghai International Settlement, where he had been living since 1927, and extradited to Nanjing. Chen was then tried and sentenced to fifteen years in prison by the Nationalist government. Chen was released on parole in 1937, after the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War. After his release, Chen travelled from place to place until the summer of 1938, when he arrived at the wartime capital of Chongqing and took a position teaching at a junior high school. In poor health and with few remaining friends, Chen Duxiu later retired to Jiangjing, a small town west of Chongqing, where he died in 1942 at the age of 62. Today, he is today buried at his birthplace of Anqing.
15. Li Dazhao(李大钊),co-founder of Chinese Communist Party . From 1913 to 1917 Li studied political economy at Waseda University in Japan before returning to China in 1918. As head librarian at the Peking University Library, he was among the first of the Chinese intellectuals who supported the Bolshevik government in the Soviet Union. He also wrote in Chen's New Youth and his works had a major influence on other Chinese as well. Mao Zedong was an assistant librarian during Li's tenure at the library, and Li was one of Mao's earliest and most prominent influences. Tensions between the Comintern, the KMT, and the CPC presented opportunities for political intrigue and opportunism. With the collapse of the United Front in 1927, Li was captured during a Fengtian ordered raid on the Soviet embassy in Peking (Beijing). Along with nineteen others arrested in the raid, he was executed on the orders of the warlord Zhang Zuolin on April 28, 1927.
16. Zhou Zuoren(周作人), writer. He was the younger brother of Lu Xun (Zhou Shuren), the second of three brothers. Following the steps of his brother Lu Xun, he left for Japan to pursue his studies in 1906. During his stint in Japan, he began studying Ancient Greek, with the aim of translating the Gospels into Classical Chinese, and attended lectures on Chinese philology by scholar-revolutionary Zhang Binglin at Rikkyo University. , although he was supposed to study civil engineering there. He returned to China in 1911, with his Japanese wife, and began to teach in different institutions. Zhou was a key figure in the May Fourth Movement. In 1945, after the Second Sino-Japanese War, Zhou was arrested for treason by the Nationalist government of Chang Kai-shek, stemming from his alleged collaboration with the Wang Jingwei government during the Japanese occupation of north China. Zhou was sentenced to 14 years in Nanjing Prison, but was released in 1949 by the Communist government after a pardon. Later that year he returned to Beijing. He continued to write and translate, but published his works under pseudonyms. He died during the Cultural Revolution.
17. Huang Fu (黃郛), general and politician Huang studied at Zhejiang Military College and Qiushi Academy (current Zhejiang University), later went to Japan.[1] Huang came in contact with the Revolutionary Alliance while studying in a military academy in the Empire of Japan. During the Xinhai Revolution, he and Chen Qimei declared Shanghai independent and became blood brothers of Chiang Kaishek. After the fall of Cao Kun in the 1924 Beijing coup, he became acting president of the Republic of China on the request of Feng Yuxiang. He declared Cao's term illegal because it was obtained through bribery and also repudiated the agreement which allowed Puyi to live in the Forbidden City.
18. Chen Qimei(陈其美), revolutionary a Chinese revolutionary activist, close political ally of Sun Yat-sen, and early mentor of Chiang Kai-shek. He was as one of the founders of the Republic of China, and the uncle of Chen Guofu and Chen Lifu.
Born in Wuxing, Zhejiang, China, he went to Japan for studies in 1906, and there joined the Chinese Tongmenghui. Befriended by fellow Zhejiang native Chiang Kai-shek, in 1908, Chen brought Chiang into the Tongmenghui.
In 1911, after the Wuchang Uprising, Chen's forces occupied Shanghai. He was then made military governor of the region. He fled to Japan with Sun Yat-sen upon the failure of the revolution against Yuan Shikai's dictatorship. They subsequently formed the Chinese Revolutionary Party, later became the Kuomintang, or the Chinese Nationalist Party. Returning to Shanghai for another round of revolution, Yuan had him assassinated on May 18, 1916. The assassination was believed to have been carried out by Zhang Zongchang, a general loyal to Yuan.
Chen is perceived as one of the early revolutionary heroes and one of the founding fathers of the Republic of China. He was also the eldest member of which later came to known as the Chen Family, one of the four most powerful and influential families at the time. The university which had originally named after him had become a part of today's Fudan University and Zhejiang University after the Chinese Civil War. A monument of him is located in Huzhou, Zhejiang, China.
19. Yen Hsi-shan (閻錫山) (1883 - 1960) was a China|Chinese politician who served in the Republic of China government. Yen received his formal military training first in China and later at Japan's Imperial Military Academy. In Japan he became a member of Sun Yat-sen's Tongmenghui|Revolutionary Alliance and following the Xinhai Revolution|1911 uprisings he seized power in Shanxi Province.
Yen ruled the province until the Communist Party of China|Communists ousted him in 1949. Although Yen was known as the "Model Governor" for his enlightened policies, he was nonetheless a military dictator. In 1926, Yen pledged his loyalty to Chiang Kai-shek's new government, but in 1929 he joined Feng Y?-hsiang and Wang Ching-wei in their attempt to overthrow the Generallisimo. After a brief retirement in the early 1930s, Yen returned to power in Shanxi and undertook social and military reforms to counteract the spread of Communism in the province. He also supported Chang Hs?eh-liang's seizure of Chiang Kai-shek in 1936 (see Xian Incident). During WWII, Yen effectively resisted Japanese attempts to seize Shanxi, and his troops (including thousands of Japanese) held out against the Communists during the Chinese Civil War until the fortress city of T'ai-yüan fell in April 1949. Yen fled (with the provincial treasury) to Taiwan along with the rest of the ROC government.
From June 3, 1949 to March 7, 1950 he served as Premier of the ROC.
20. Zhou Enlai or Chou En-lai(周恩来); b 5 March 1898 – d 8 January 1976 was the first Premier of the People's Republic of China, serving from October 1949 until his death in January 1976. Zhou was instrumental in the Communist Party's rise to power, and subsequently in the development of the Chinese economy and the restructuring of Chinese society. Zhou went to Japan in July 1917 for further studies. During his two years in Japan, Zhou spent most of his time in the East Asian Higher Preparatory School, a language school for Chinese students. Zhou's studies were supported by his uncles, and apparently Nankai founder Yan Xiu as well, but their funds were limited and during this period Japan suffered from severe inflation. Zhou originally planned on winning one of the scholarships offered by the Chinese government; these scholarships, however, required Chinese students to pass entrance examinations in Japanese universities. Zhou took entrance examinations for at least two schools, but failed to gain admission. Zhou's reported anxieties were compounded by the death of his uncle, Zhou Yikui, an inability to master Japanese, and an acute Japanese cultural chauvinism that discriminated against Chinese. By the time that Zhou returned to China in the spring of 1919, he had become deeply disenchanted with Japanese culture, rejecting the idea that the Japanese political model was relevant to China and disdaining the values of elitism and militarism that he observed. Zhou returned to Tianjin sometime in the spring of 1919.
(source: mainly extracted from wikipedia)
Suggested articles/books/websites:
1. Japanese, Chinese entrepreneurs paving roads of success overseas, The Mainichi Daily News, http://mdn.mainichi.jp/features/archive/news/2011/02/20110216p2a00m0na003000c.html
2.The Increasing Presence of Chinese Migrants in Japan(2008), by Tien-shi Chen, National Museum of Ethnology, http://ir.minpaku.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/10502/2041/1/SER77_004.pdf
3. The Chinese overseas students: An overview of the flows change(2004), by Linqing Yao, The Australian National University, http://www.apa.org.au/upload/2004-6C_Yao.pdf
Monday, March 28, 2011
Japan and Xu Fu(徐福)
The earliest documentary record of contact between Japan and China was a Qin navigator, Xu Fu(徐福). A Chinese legend of uncertain provenance states that Xu Fu(徐福), a Qin Dynasty court sorcerer, was sent by Qin Shi Huang(秦始皇) to Penglai Mountain (Mount Fuji) in 219 BC to retrieve an elixir of life. Unwilling to return without the elixir, the myth asserts that Xu instead chose to settle in Japan. It was believed that the fleet included 60 barques and around 5,000 crew members, 3,000 boys and girls, and craftsmen of different fields.
Xu Fu from China
Xu Fu was from the state of Qi(齊/齐). Qi was a state during Spring and Autumn Period(春秋时代)and Period of the Warring States(战国时代)in ancient China. In 221 BC, Qi was the last state of pre-Imperial China to be conquered by the State of Qin, the final obstacle which allowed the Qin Dynasty(under Qin Shi Huang)to consolidate the 6 kingdoms and found the first centralized and imperial empire over China. Xu Fu become people of Qin, with personal humiliation of destruction of his own home state by Qin.
His hometown is from Longkou city(龍口市),formerly Huang County (黄县). Longkou literally means dragon(龍)'s mouth(口). It is a port city in northeastern Shandong Province(山东省), on the eastern coast of the People's Republic of China. Longkou, now a county-level city, is administered by the prefecture-level city of Yantai(烟台市). The total population of Longkou is 620,000. However there are other theory stated that he was born and growth up in Xu Fu village(徐福村,原名叫徐阜村),JinShan Zhen(金山镇),Ganyu County (赣榆县),a county of Jiangsu Province(江苏省), China, now under the administration of Lianyungang(连云港)city. This was also the port he departed to the east. The third opinion is that he was from Langya(琅琊), Jiaonan (胶南)which is now a county-level city of Qingdao sub-provincial city, Shandong Province, China. All these three places were in Qi state in ancient time. Ganyu county was under Langya Prefecture during Qin Dynasty period, that caused the confusion in history.
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Mission to find Mount Penglai and Long-life Elixir
Upon summoning and inquiries made by Emperor Qin, Xu Fu replied that, in-order to get the Long-life Elixir, oneself will needed to travel to the various Immortal Islands that are far from China. According to the records of Spiritual Master Gui Gu (鬼谷先師), there are 3 Immortal Mountains, which are known as Peng Lai, Fang Zhan & Ying Zhou (蓬萊,方丈,瀛洲). Penglai shan was inhabited by immortals, tortoises, cranes, stags and auspicious plants including the pine, peach, plum and mushrooms all symbols of longevity. On these 3 Mountains, there are plenty of Immortal Plants that are able to made into Elixir for consuming to gain Long-life. Xu Fu requested for 3,000 virgin boys and girls to accompany him for the expedition.
The expedition was much earlier than the famous Admiral Cheng Ho or Zheng He(郑和)'s voyages from 1405 to 1433. Xu Fu should be the early great ancient navigator of China, or the first navigator of sea silk route. In Japan he was called Jofuku, he come to Japan during Jomon Era in the 3rd century B.C. Xu Fu never return to China, he and other people of Qin, remained in Japan, and they changed their surnames in order to escape detection by Qing Shi Huang. Their surnames used included 「佃」、Fukuda(福田),Hata(秦,羽田,波多,鈿),「福台」、Fukuyama(福山), Saitou(斉藤/斎藤). Some said Xu Fu actually planned the great escape from Qin(秦国), the conqueror of his own country state, Qi(齊国). The story of Xu Fu, should ended as" They happily settled down in the new land, and lived there forever" as part of modern Japanese....
Is it a myth or history?
On the other hand, there are as many as twenty or more legendary landing places of Jofuku in Japan, including Northern Kyushu. In the central part of Japan, among others, there are three representative of Mt. Horai(蓬莱山)or Mount Penglai, such as Mt. Fuji(富士山, Fuji-san), Mt Kumano(熊野岳)in Kumano, and Atsuta(熱田), the legendary landing places of Jofuku who came over in the third century B.C. And there is Hata family(秦,Qin), who can be observed by the existence in the Kinki region, in the fifth century A.D. They are both called Hata family in Japan and it is presumed that their roots go back to Shi-Ko-Tei.(Shih-huang-ti), the First Chinese Emperor.
The descendant of Xu Fu, former Prime Minister Tsutomu Hata(徐福后代的日本首相羽田孜)
Tsutomu Hata (羽田孜, Hata Tsutomu(はたつとむ, b. August 24, 1935) is a Japanese politician and was the 80th Prime Minister of Japan for 9 weeks in 1994.
He was born in Tokyo, a son of the Liberal Democratic Party Member of Parliament Bushiro Hata. Hata graduated from Seijo University and was employed by the Odakyu bus company from 1958 to 1969. In 1969, he entered the House of Representatives of Japan, representing Nagano Prefecture as a member of the Liberal Democratic Party. He rose to become a top lieutenant in the Tanaka/Takeshita faction in the 1980s.
In 1991, he served as Minister of Finance under Kiichi Miyazawa. He left the LDP in 1993 to found the Japan Renewal Party with longtime LDP ally Ichirō Ozawa, which became part of Morihiro Hosokawa's anti-LDP coalition government later that year. Hata served as foreign minister in the Hosokawa cabinet.
On April 28, 1994, Hosokawa resigned and Hata became prime minister. However, the Japan Socialist Party had recently left the coalition, destroying its majority in the Diet. Rather than face a vote of no confidence, Hata elected to resign in June, allowing SDP leader Tomiichi Murayama to take over the position on June 30.
After the Shinseito merged into the Shinshinto in 1996, Hata contested the leadership against Ichiro Ozawa. After losing this contest, he and twelve other Diet members formed the splinter Sun Party (太陽党 Taiyōtō). The Sun Party in January 1998 became a part of the Good Governance Party which itself was subsumed by the Democratic Party of Japan in April 1998. Hata remains with the DPJ where he is currently "supreme advisor" to chairman Ichirō Ozawa.
Hata's son, Yuichiro, is a member of the House of Councillors of Japan.
(source: wikipedia)
Hata family
The Hata clan (秦氏) was an immigrant clan active in Japan since the Kofun period 古墳時代,(an era in the history of Japan from around 250 to 538. It follows the Yayoi period 弥生時代), according to the epic history Nihonshoki(日本書紀).The Kofun period is characterized by a Shinto culture which existed prior to the introduction of Buddhism. Hata is the Japanese reading of the Chinese (state and dynasty) name 秦 given to the Qin Dynasty (the real family name was Ying), and given to their descendants established in Japan. The Nihonshoki presents the Hata as a clan or house, and not as a tribe; also only the members of the head family had the right to use the name of Hata. The Hata are said to have been adept at financial matters, and to have introduced silk raising and weaving to Japan.
www.ancestry.com reported that:
An ancient clan descended from the family and followers of Yuzuki no Kimi, a Korean prince who claimed descent from Qin Shihuangdi, the first Emperor of China (259–210 bc). According to the Nihon shoki, Yuzuki no Kimi migrated to Japan during the reign of Emperor Ojin (late 4th century) with thousands of followers, many of whom were skilled silk producers and weavers; they were therefore given the name Hata meaning ‘loom’. They settled in the Yamato-Yamashiro heartland, especially in the region of present-day Kyoto. The family later enjoyed very close relations with Prince Regent Shotoku (564–622), a statesman and Sinophile known as the ‘father of Japanese civilization’. Listed in the Shinsen shojiroku, the name is related etymologically to Hattori. Actually, the character qin (or ch’in) has nothing to do with weaving; it means ‘flourishing rice plants’. As the name of the first clan to conquer and unify the rest of China, it is the source of the name China. It is most likely that the reading hata was arbitrarily applied by the newly literate Japanese to the character qin because the newly arrived weavers claimed Qin clan connections, or at least were ‘Chinese’. Be that as it may, it is possible for some Qin refugees to have escaped to Korea after their empire fell in 206 bc, and for their descendants to have moved on to Japan during the 4th century, when the growing might of the Korean Shilla kingdom made life precarious for some in that peninsula. Other immigrant groups were also arriving in Japan at this time.(source: www.ancestry.com)
Tsutomu Hata told the reporters that he is the descendant of Jofuku or Xu Fu(徐福). He is the President of Japan Xufu Association.
Xu Fu or Seobol in Korea
From the port of departure at Ganyu County (赣榆县),a county of Jiangsu Province(江苏省), China, now under the administration of Lianyungang(连云港)city. Xu Fu stopped in Korea, Cheju island on his way to Japan...
Cheju Island has a legend of Jofuku (Hsufu). Jofuku came to Cheju Island to seek medicinal herbs on Mt. Harura. However he couldn't find any and so he left for Japan. The legend says that he later realized that he had left three men on Cheju Island and he subsequently sent three women over to Cheju to marry the men. To this day, there are three holes that are said to represent the three demi-gods which show this legend of the father and the place names handed down from the visit made by Jofuku in the island. Xu Fu is also called Seobok or Seobol in Korea. Other said Xu Fu visited Jeju and found the elixir plant on Mt. Halla. Jeongbangpokpo waterfall on Jeju Island is said to be the only waterfall in Asia that falls directly into the ocean. On rocks beside the waterfall, there is an inscription written “Seobulgwacha,” or "Xu Fu Visited Jeju Island" on a rock. The name Seogwipo was reported given to the city based on this story.
The Jeolmul Recreation Forest on Jeju Island in South Korea has a road called the Jangsaeng Woodland Road. Jangsaeng is a Korean word that originated from ancient Korean Sundo culture. It means “longevity”. This famous walking trail is easy enough even for the older adult. It is said that if you walk this road frequently you will have a Jangsaeng life. Samhap Bigyeong Ravine, which is said to be the last place Xu Fu went in search of the Elixir of Life.
Jofuku Park, Cheju Island , Korea(韩国济州徐福公园)
Xu Fu or Jofuku in Japan
復元した徐福塚（赤神神社）
It is reported that Jofuku landed near Shingu and brought with him Chinese culture and technology. Shingu(新宮)in Japanese language means new shrine. The name may refer to the following places in Japan:
•Shingū ((新宮市,Shingū-shi), Wakayama(和歌山県, Wakayama-ken),a city
•Shingū(新宮村 Shingū-mura), Ehime (新宮村), a village, now part of the city of Shikokuchūō
•Shingū( Shingū-machi), Fukuoka (新宮町), town
•Shingū (Shingū-chō), Hyōgo (新宮町), a town, now part of the city of Tatsuno
Both Shingu at Wakayama and Fukuoka reported the arrival of Jofuku. These places are all named Shin-gu(新宮), which means new shrine. The names indicated new arrival as culturally whenever the Chinese arrived at a new settlement, they will built a new shrine. Jofuku shrine are found in Wakayama and Fukuoka, there may be also new shrines in Shikoku and Hyogo...
Xu Fu landed in Fukuoka
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Xu Fu was reported landed in Shingu, Fukuoka. Looking at the map of Kyushu island,Shingu is located at the North-west tip of Kyushu island, facing the Korea Strait. Jeju Island(now Korea) on the west and Tsushima island(now Japan)is between Busan, Korea and Shingu,Japan. So geographically it is seaworthy that Xu Fu landed in Shingu, Fukuoka.
Fukuoka ,the largest city in Kyushu Island and where Xu Fu was reported to have landed, was named after two places, Fuku（福）and Oka(岡).One could perhaps guess that the place Fuku was name after Xu Fu, whose name in Japanese was jou-fuku. Fukuoka (福岡市, Fukuoka-shi) is the capital city of Fukuoka Prefecture and is situated on the northern shore of the island of Kyūshū in Japan. Fukuoka (the area of Kashii, Hakata, Sawara and Imazu) is said to be the oldest city in Japan, because it is the nearest city to China and Korea.
Ancient texts, such as the Kojiki(古事記) or "Record of Ancient Matters",the oldest extant chronicle in Japan, dating from the early 8th century 711-2. The Kojiki is divided into three parts: Kamitsumaki (lit. "upper roll"), Nakatsumaki (lit. "middle roll") and Shimotsumaki (lit. "lower roll"). The "Nakatsumaki" begins with the story of Emperor Jimmu, the first Emperor, and his conquest of Japan, and ends with the 15th Emperor, Emperor Ōjin. Many of the stories it contains are mythological, and the allegedly historical information in them is highly suspect. For unknown reasons, the 2nd to 9th Emperors are listed but their achievements are largely missing. Recent studies support the view that these emperors were invented to push Jimmu's reign further back to the year 660 BC.
Archaeology confirm this was a very critical place in the founding of Japan. Some scholars even go as far as to claim it was the first place outsiders and the Imperial Family set foot, but like many early Japan origin theories, it remains contested.
Being closest to Korea and Japan, it was highly probably that Xu Fu landed here after sailing from Cheju Ialand, Korea. Today there are still ferry service between Fukuoka and Busan. JR Kyushu's Beetle hydrofoils from Busan to Fukuoka run five times a day and take just under 3 hrs.
From Fukuoka, Xu Fu and his people were relocated to elsewhere in Japan...
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From Fukuoka, northern Kyushu island, crossing the Kamon Street between Shimonoseki of Yamaguchi and Mojiko of Kitakyushu, it is able to land in the coastal part of Honshu island, the nearest being Yamaguchi-ken. Hiroshima-ken and Shikoku island is nearby. The sea voyage is protected by the 3 islands(Kyushu, Honshu and Shikoku), surrounding the Inland Sea, which facilitated the sea voyage to other places in the larger Honshu island of Japan. Geographically, it is sound and possible.
Xu Fu died in Kumano
However his tomb is only reported found in Kumano(熊野市). Kumano area is considered the concentration of Xu Fu influence. Both Kumano city and Shingū city((新宮市,Shingū-shi), Wakayama(和歌山県, Wakayama-ken),are within Kumano area. Please do not confuse Kumano area with Kumano city, Kumano area is larger area included Wakayama-ken and Mie-ken Prefectures, Kumano city is only refereed to Kumano of Mie Prefectures.
The Kumano area is located around the southern tip of the Kii Peninsula, about 100 kilometers south of Osaka. It spans Wakayama and Mie Prefectures, though most of the attractions and religious sites are in Wakayama.
Kumano is centered around three shrines, Hongu Taisha, Nachi Taisha and Hayatama Taisha, collectively known as the Kumano Sanzan. Pilgrims have traveled to the Kumano Sanzan via walking trails, called Kumano Kodo, for over 1000 years. The shrines are even older, with mention in Japan's founding mythology.
The region is infused with religious and historical value that emanates from the three shrines. The Shinto sun goddess' great grandson, Jimmu, came to Kumano to unify the country as Japan's first Emperor. To further add to the area's sanctity, Kumano is often called "The Land of the Dead", in reference to the belief that Shinto spirits and family ancestors dwell here after they die.
In 2004, Kumano's religious treasures and pilgrimage routes were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Named "The Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range", the designation also includes neighboring Koyasan, Yoshino and Ominesan.
(source: http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e4950.html)
Jofuku Shrine
However his tomb is only reported found in Kumano(熊野市).The tombstone was built by order of Tokugawa Yorinobu, the lord of Kishu. Next to it, under the shade of a Tendai Uyaku plant and a big camphor tree, lies a monument of the 'seven disciples' which honours Jofuku's seven senior retainers. Recently, this site has been designated as 'Jofuku Memorial Park' complete with a Chinese style gate, where a memorial festival is now held every August.
Jofuku no Miya
In the city of Kumano (熊野市) in the small town of Hadasu-chō (波田須町). “Hadasu (波田須)” was originally written as “秦住” to depict the meaning, “A place where people from the Qin Dynasty of China have settled.” Also, the Jofuku Shrine (徐福の宮, jofuku no miya) and Jofuku’s grave have been built there in memory of the agricultural, medical and handicraft techniques he passed on after he arrived in Japan.
The Jofuku Nomiya Shrine is where Jofuku is enshrined. He was instructed by Emperor Qin Shi Huang to find the secret of eternal life, so he gathered groups of large boats and crossed the ocean. When he learned of Emperor Qin Shi Huang`s death, Jofuku gave up on returning to China and spread Chinese culture such as public works and agriculture in Japan. The Angelica keiseki herb and Japanese evergreen spicebushes are considered to be the panacea of eternal life, and they are planted in this area.
Location - A 15 minute walk from JR Hadasu Station (ＪＲ波田須駅, JR hadasu-eki). 2) A 20 minute bus ride on the Shiokaze Kahoru Kumano Kodō Line (潮風かほる熊野古道線) to the Jofuku Chaya-mae bus stop (徐福茶屋前バス停, jofuku chaya-mae basutei), and then a 5 minute walk from that point. 3) From JR Kumanoshi Station (熊野市駅, kumanoshi-eki), take Route 42 going towards Ōdomari (大泊) or take Route 311 going towards Hadasu (波田須). Either way takes approximately 20 minutes.
Tendai Uyaku
This plant which is called 'Tendai Uyaku' is said to be the plant which Jofuku succeeded in gathering after searching in the Horai Mountain area. This plant is of the camphor family and naturally grows in the mountains of Kumano. It does not guarantee eternal life, but its root is used as a potent medicine for kidney disease and rheumatism. This plant is now made into 'Jofuku tea' and 'Jofuku wine'
Kumano City, Mie Prefecture, Japan,several ancient coins of China were dug out. They are believed to belong to the age of the Qin Dynasty. It is said that seven or eight Chinese coins were discovered but Kumano City Historical Museum keeps only one.
It was reported that at least 30% of Japanese today are descendant of Xufu, as from the early 3,000 pairs of male and female, and some hundreds craftsmen, with the multiplier effect after generations, it is not impossible.......
There are many temples and shrines in Japan that were built to remember Xufu or Jofuku; and there are Xufu festivals in Japan that celebrated by Japanese to remember Xu Fu.
Other than Kumono city, Wakayama-ken(和歌山県), Kanagawa-ken(神奈川県), Saga ken(佐賀県),Kagoshima-ken(鹿儿岛县),Yamaguchi-ken(山口県), Hiroshima ken( 広島県),Kōchi-ken(高知県),Kyoto-fu(京都府), Mie ken(三重県), Aichi-ken(愛知県), Yamanashi-ken(山梨県),Nagano-ken(長野県),Akita-ken(秋田県),Aomori-ken(青森県) etc were reported arrival of Xufu. Many places in Japan , even Korea , have formed their Xufu Association in Japan to promote friendship among the descendants in the three countries of China, Korea and Japan;together with research and study on the life of Xufu.
Xufu had been the early Chinese that provide the symbol of good relationship between China, Korea and Japan in ancient time. The places where the descendants of Xu Fu are found, are the ancient cultural circle of Xu Fu, are now the circle of friendship among the three countries of China, Korea and Japan. As the traditional saying in China, "Within the four seas, all man are brothers".
Note:
In DNA analysis conducted it was in conclusion that, approximately 43% modern Japanese men carry a Y-chromosome of Jomon origin. Jomon are associated with the original natives of Japan. The highest proportions of Y-DNA haplogroup C and D is found in northern Japan (over 60%) and the lowest in Western Japan (25%). This is concordant with the history of Japan; the Yayoi people of Sino-Korean origins having settled first and most heavily in Kyushu and Chūgoku, in Western Japan.The Yayoi originally came from Central Asia but passed through China, Manuchuria, and Korea. The Yayoi are described as "elements of the Northeast Asian, Chinese and Korean civilizations".. "introduced to the Japanese Archipelago in waves of migration."
It is now believed that the modern Japanese descend mostly from the interbreeding of the Jomon Era people (15,000-500 BCE), composed of the above Ice Age settlers, and a later arrival from China and/or Korea. Around 500 BCE, the Yayoi people crossed the sea from Korea to Kyushu, bringing with them a brand new culture, based on wet rice cultivation and horses
The Yamato are associated with the so-called HATA family. The Hata were descendants of the Chinese Han dynasty who found refuge in Japan and served the ruling Yamato clan. The Yayoi (Yamato) were originally a group amongst the northerners but in modern terminology the name is applied to the dominant Japanese element in general as distinct from the Jomon. Yamato included people developed from the assimilation and intermarriage of ancient Jomon; Yayoi who come from other places in China and Korea(which included Xu Fu and his group), from ancient time which developed into the modern Nihonjin or Japanese today......
Jimmu, in full Jimmu Tennō, original name Kow-yamato-iware-hiko No Mikoto, Jimmu, woodblock print by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi.legendary first emperor of Japan and founder of the imperial Yamato dynasty. Japanese chronicles record Jimmu’s expedition eastward from Hyuga in 607 bc along Japan’s Inland Sea, subduing tribes as he went and ending in Yamato, where he established his centre of power. Although modern historians do not accept such details as a 7th century bc date, preferring a date in the Early Christian era, they affirm the tradition of an aggressive movement of peoples from the west.
Yamato people (大和民族, Yamato-minzoku) is a name for the dominant native ethnic group of modern Japan. It is a term that came to be used around the late 19th century to distinguish the residents of the mainland Japan from other minority ethnic groups who have resided in the peripheral areas of Japan such as Ainu, Ryukyuan, Nivkh, Ulta, as well as Koreans, Taiwanese, and Taiwanese aborigines who were incorporated into the Empire of Japan in the early 20th century. The name "Yamato" comes from the Yamato Court that existed in Japan in the 4th century. It was originally the name of the region where the Yamato people first settled in Nara Prefecture.
Japan is after all, not actually ethnically homogeneous, it is probably more accurate to describe it as a multiethnic society.....Yamato people or Japanese (Nihonjin) is actually a national identity rather than racial or ethnic identity.
From the above, you can ponder about the relationship of Xu Fu, with Yayoi, Yamato, and Hata family.....Xu Fu may not be the name of a person in racial development of Japanese, it may be the representative of "Xu Fu and his group" from Qin. Can you get the clue?....
Recommended websites/books/articles:
1. Zou Jin Xu Fu(走近徐福), http://www.wansongpu.cn/xufu/xf_list.asp
2. 徐福友好塾, From a Legend to a History, http://www15.ocn.ne.jp/~nestplan/jyj/2008
3. 新宮徐福協会, http://www.jofuku.or.jp/index.htm
4. Chinese Xufu Association(中国徐福会), http://www.qi86.com/display.asp?id=3209
5. Shingu(新宮, しんぐう)http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/location/regional/wakayama/shingu.html
6. The stories of Kumano - Jofuku, http://kumano-world.org/english/jofuku.html
7. 徐福公園, http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/徐福公園(in Chinese), http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/徐福公園(in Japanese)
8. 阿須賀神社（あすかじんじゃ）, http://f1.aaa.livedoor.jp/~megalith/singu4asuka.html(in Japanese)
8.熊野発祥の地、阿須賀神社, http://www.mikumano.net/meguri/asuka.html(in Japanese)
9.Seobul was here, http://www.surfbreak.com/2009/07/seobul-was-here/(Seobul is Korean name for Xu Fu)
Xu Fu from China
Xu Fu was from the state of Qi(齊/齐). Qi was a state during Spring and Autumn Period(春秋时代)and Period of the Warring States(战国时代)in ancient China. In 221 BC, Qi was the last state of pre-Imperial China to be conquered by the State of Qin, the final obstacle which allowed the Qin Dynasty(under Qin Shi Huang)to consolidate the 6 kingdoms and found the first centralized and imperial empire over China. Xu Fu become people of Qin, with personal humiliation of destruction of his own home state by Qin.
His hometown is from Longkou city(龍口市),formerly Huang County (黄县). Longkou literally means dragon(龍)'s mouth(口). It is a port city in northeastern Shandong Province(山东省), on the eastern coast of the People's Republic of China. Longkou, now a county-level city, is administered by the prefecture-level city of Yantai(烟台市). The total population of Longkou is 620,000. However there are other theory stated that he was born and growth up in Xu Fu village(徐福村,原名叫徐阜村),JinShan Zhen(金山镇),Ganyu County (赣榆县),a county of Jiangsu Province(江苏省), China, now under the administration of Lianyungang(连云港)city. This was also the port he departed to the east. The third opinion is that he was from Langya(琅琊), Jiaonan (胶南)which is now a county-level city of Qingdao sub-provincial city, Shandong Province, China. All these three places were in Qi state in ancient time. Ganyu county was under Langya Prefecture during Qin Dynasty period, that caused the confusion in history.
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Mission to find Mount Penglai and Long-life Elixir
Upon summoning and inquiries made by Emperor Qin, Xu Fu replied that, in-order to get the Long-life Elixir, oneself will needed to travel to the various Immortal Islands that are far from China. According to the records of Spiritual Master Gui Gu (鬼谷先師), there are 3 Immortal Mountains, which are known as Peng Lai, Fang Zhan & Ying Zhou (蓬萊,方丈,瀛洲). Penglai shan was inhabited by immortals, tortoises, cranes, stags and auspicious plants including the pine, peach, plum and mushrooms all symbols of longevity. On these 3 Mountains, there are plenty of Immortal Plants that are able to made into Elixir for consuming to gain Long-life. Xu Fu requested for 3,000 virgin boys and girls to accompany him for the expedition.
The expedition was much earlier than the famous Admiral Cheng Ho or Zheng He(郑和)'s voyages from 1405 to 1433. Xu Fu should be the early great ancient navigator of China, or the first navigator of sea silk route. In Japan he was called Jofuku, he come to Japan during Jomon Era in the 3rd century B.C. Xu Fu never return to China, he and other people of Qin, remained in Japan, and they changed their surnames in order to escape detection by Qing Shi Huang. Their surnames used included 「佃」、Fukuda(福田),Hata(秦,羽田,波多,鈿),「福台」、Fukuyama(福山), Saitou(斉藤/斎藤). Some said Xu Fu actually planned the great escape from Qin(秦国), the conqueror of his own country state, Qi(齊国). The story of Xu Fu, should ended as" They happily settled down in the new land, and lived there forever" as part of modern Japanese....
Is it a myth or history?
On the other hand, there are as many as twenty or more legendary landing places of Jofuku in Japan, including Northern Kyushu. In the central part of Japan, among others, there are three representative of Mt. Horai(蓬莱山)or Mount Penglai, such as Mt. Fuji(富士山, Fuji-san), Mt Kumano(熊野岳)in Kumano, and Atsuta(熱田), the legendary landing places of Jofuku who came over in the third century B.C. And there is Hata family(秦,Qin), who can be observed by the existence in the Kinki region, in the fifth century A.D. They are both called Hata family in Japan and it is presumed that their roots go back to Shi-Ko-Tei.(Shih-huang-ti), the First Chinese Emperor.
The descendant of Xu Fu, former Prime Minister Tsutomu Hata(徐福后代的日本首相羽田孜)
Tsutomu Hata (羽田孜, Hata Tsutomu(はたつとむ, b. August 24, 1935) is a Japanese politician and was the 80th Prime Minister of Japan for 9 weeks in 1994.
He was born in Tokyo, a son of the Liberal Democratic Party Member of Parliament Bushiro Hata. Hata graduated from Seijo University and was employed by the Odakyu bus company from 1958 to 1969. In 1969, he entered the House of Representatives of Japan, representing Nagano Prefecture as a member of the Liberal Democratic Party. He rose to become a top lieutenant in the Tanaka/Takeshita faction in the 1980s.
In 1991, he served as Minister of Finance under Kiichi Miyazawa. He left the LDP in 1993 to found the Japan Renewal Party with longtime LDP ally Ichirō Ozawa, which became part of Morihiro Hosokawa's anti-LDP coalition government later that year. Hata served as foreign minister in the Hosokawa cabinet.
On April 28, 1994, Hosokawa resigned and Hata became prime minister. However, the Japan Socialist Party had recently left the coalition, destroying its majority in the Diet. Rather than face a vote of no confidence, Hata elected to resign in June, allowing SDP leader Tomiichi Murayama to take over the position on June 30.
After the Shinseito merged into the Shinshinto in 1996, Hata contested the leadership against Ichiro Ozawa. After losing this contest, he and twelve other Diet members formed the splinter Sun Party (太陽党 Taiyōtō). The Sun Party in January 1998 became a part of the Good Governance Party which itself was subsumed by the Democratic Party of Japan in April 1998. Hata remains with the DPJ where he is currently "supreme advisor" to chairman Ichirō Ozawa.
Hata's son, Yuichiro, is a member of the House of Councillors of Japan.
(source: wikipedia)
Hata family
The Hata clan (秦氏) was an immigrant clan active in Japan since the Kofun period 古墳時代,(an era in the history of Japan from around 250 to 538. It follows the Yayoi period 弥生時代), according to the epic history Nihonshoki(日本書紀).The Kofun period is characterized by a Shinto culture which existed prior to the introduction of Buddhism. Hata is the Japanese reading of the Chinese (state and dynasty) name 秦 given to the Qin Dynasty (the real family name was Ying), and given to their descendants established in Japan. The Nihonshoki presents the Hata as a clan or house, and not as a tribe; also only the members of the head family had the right to use the name of Hata. The Hata are said to have been adept at financial matters, and to have introduced silk raising and weaving to Japan.
www.ancestry.com reported that:
An ancient clan descended from the family and followers of Yuzuki no Kimi, a Korean prince who claimed descent from Qin Shihuangdi, the first Emperor of China (259–210 bc). According to the Nihon shoki, Yuzuki no Kimi migrated to Japan during the reign of Emperor Ojin (late 4th century) with thousands of followers, many of whom were skilled silk producers and weavers; they were therefore given the name Hata meaning ‘loom’. They settled in the Yamato-Yamashiro heartland, especially in the region of present-day Kyoto. The family later enjoyed very close relations with Prince Regent Shotoku (564–622), a statesman and Sinophile known as the ‘father of Japanese civilization’. Listed in the Shinsen shojiroku, the name is related etymologically to Hattori. Actually, the character qin (or ch’in) has nothing to do with weaving; it means ‘flourishing rice plants’. As the name of the first clan to conquer and unify the rest of China, it is the source of the name China. It is most likely that the reading hata was arbitrarily applied by the newly literate Japanese to the character qin because the newly arrived weavers claimed Qin clan connections, or at least were ‘Chinese’. Be that as it may, it is possible for some Qin refugees to have escaped to Korea after their empire fell in 206 bc, and for their descendants to have moved on to Japan during the 4th century, when the growing might of the Korean Shilla kingdom made life precarious for some in that peninsula. Other immigrant groups were also arriving in Japan at this time.(source: www.ancestry.com)
Tsutomu Hata told the reporters that he is the descendant of Jofuku or Xu Fu(徐福). He is the President of Japan Xufu Association.
Xu Fu or Seobol in Korea
From the port of departure at Ganyu County (赣榆县),a county of Jiangsu Province(江苏省), China, now under the administration of Lianyungang(连云港)city. Xu Fu stopped in Korea, Cheju island on his way to Japan...
Cheju Island has a legend of Jofuku (Hsufu). Jofuku came to Cheju Island to seek medicinal herbs on Mt. Harura. However he couldn't find any and so he left for Japan. The legend says that he later realized that he had left three men on Cheju Island and he subsequently sent three women over to Cheju to marry the men. To this day, there are three holes that are said to represent the three demi-gods which show this legend of the father and the place names handed down from the visit made by Jofuku in the island. Xu Fu is also called Seobok or Seobol in Korea. Other said Xu Fu visited Jeju and found the elixir plant on Mt. Halla. Jeongbangpokpo waterfall on Jeju Island is said to be the only waterfall in Asia that falls directly into the ocean. On rocks beside the waterfall, there is an inscription written “Seobulgwacha,” or "Xu Fu Visited Jeju Island" on a rock. The name Seogwipo was reported given to the city based on this story.
The Jeolmul Recreation Forest on Jeju Island in South Korea has a road called the Jangsaeng Woodland Road. Jangsaeng is a Korean word that originated from ancient Korean Sundo culture. It means “longevity”. This famous walking trail is easy enough even for the older adult. It is said that if you walk this road frequently you will have a Jangsaeng life. Samhap Bigyeong Ravine, which is said to be the last place Xu Fu went in search of the Elixir of Life.
Jofuku Park, Cheju Island , Korea(韩国济州徐福公园)
Xu Fu or Jofuku in Japan
復元した徐福塚（赤神神社）
It is reported that Jofuku landed near Shingu and brought with him Chinese culture and technology. Shingu(新宮)in Japanese language means new shrine. The name may refer to the following places in Japan:
•Shingū ((新宮市,Shingū-shi), Wakayama(和歌山県, Wakayama-ken),a city
•Shingū(新宮村 Shingū-mura), Ehime (新宮村), a village, now part of the city of Shikokuchūō
•Shingū( Shingū-machi), Fukuoka (新宮町), town
•Shingū (Shingū-chō), Hyōgo (新宮町), a town, now part of the city of Tatsuno
Both Shingu at Wakayama and Fukuoka reported the arrival of Jofuku. These places are all named Shin-gu(新宮), which means new shrine. The names indicated new arrival as culturally whenever the Chinese arrived at a new settlement, they will built a new shrine. Jofuku shrine are found in Wakayama and Fukuoka, there may be also new shrines in Shikoku and Hyogo...
Xu Fu landed in Fukuoka
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Xu Fu was reported landed in Shingu, Fukuoka. Looking at the map of Kyushu island,Shingu is located at the North-west tip of Kyushu island, facing the Korea Strait. Jeju Island(now Korea) on the west and Tsushima island(now Japan)is between Busan, Korea and Shingu,Japan. So geographically it is seaworthy that Xu Fu landed in Shingu, Fukuoka.
Fukuoka ,the largest city in Kyushu Island and where Xu Fu was reported to have landed, was named after two places, Fuku（福）and Oka(岡).One could perhaps guess that the place Fuku was name after Xu Fu, whose name in Japanese was jou-fuku. Fukuoka (福岡市, Fukuoka-shi) is the capital city of Fukuoka Prefecture and is situated on the northern shore of the island of Kyūshū in Japan. Fukuoka (the area of Kashii, Hakata, Sawara and Imazu) is said to be the oldest city in Japan, because it is the nearest city to China and Korea.
Ancient texts, such as the Kojiki(古事記) or "Record of Ancient Matters",the oldest extant chronicle in Japan, dating from the early 8th century 711-2. The Kojiki is divided into three parts: Kamitsumaki (lit. "upper roll"), Nakatsumaki (lit. "middle roll") and Shimotsumaki (lit. "lower roll"). The "Nakatsumaki" begins with the story of Emperor Jimmu, the first Emperor, and his conquest of Japan, and ends with the 15th Emperor, Emperor Ōjin. Many of the stories it contains are mythological, and the allegedly historical information in them is highly suspect. For unknown reasons, the 2nd to 9th Emperors are listed but their achievements are largely missing. Recent studies support the view that these emperors were invented to push Jimmu's reign further back to the year 660 BC.
Archaeology confirm this was a very critical place in the founding of Japan. Some scholars even go as far as to claim it was the first place outsiders and the Imperial Family set foot, but like many early Japan origin theories, it remains contested.
Being closest to Korea and Japan, it was highly probably that Xu Fu landed here after sailing from Cheju Ialand, Korea. Today there are still ferry service between Fukuoka and Busan. JR Kyushu's Beetle hydrofoils from Busan to Fukuoka run five times a day and take just under 3 hrs.
From Fukuoka, Xu Fu and his people were relocated to elsewhere in Japan...
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From Fukuoka, northern Kyushu island, crossing the Kamon Street between Shimonoseki of Yamaguchi and Mojiko of Kitakyushu, it is able to land in the coastal part of Honshu island, the nearest being Yamaguchi-ken. Hiroshima-ken and Shikoku island is nearby. The sea voyage is protected by the 3 islands(Kyushu, Honshu and Shikoku), surrounding the Inland Sea, which facilitated the sea voyage to other places in the larger Honshu island of Japan. Geographically, it is sound and possible.
Xu Fu died in Kumano
However his tomb is only reported found in Kumano(熊野市). Kumano area is considered the concentration of Xu Fu influence. Both Kumano city and Shingū city((新宮市,Shingū-shi), Wakayama(和歌山県, Wakayama-ken),are within Kumano area. Please do not confuse Kumano area with Kumano city, Kumano area is larger area included Wakayama-ken and Mie-ken Prefectures, Kumano city is only refereed to Kumano of Mie Prefectures.
The Kumano area is located around the southern tip of the Kii Peninsula, about 100 kilometers south of Osaka. It spans Wakayama and Mie Prefectures, though most of the attractions and religious sites are in Wakayama.
Kumano is centered around three shrines, Hongu Taisha, Nachi Taisha and Hayatama Taisha, collectively known as the Kumano Sanzan. Pilgrims have traveled to the Kumano Sanzan via walking trails, called Kumano Kodo, for over 1000 years. The shrines are even older, with mention in Japan's founding mythology.
The region is infused with religious and historical value that emanates from the three shrines. The Shinto sun goddess' great grandson, Jimmu, came to Kumano to unify the country as Japan's first Emperor. To further add to the area's sanctity, Kumano is often called "The Land of the Dead", in reference to the belief that Shinto spirits and family ancestors dwell here after they die.
In 2004, Kumano's religious treasures and pilgrimage routes were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Named "The Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range", the designation also includes neighboring Koyasan, Yoshino and Ominesan.
(source: http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e4950.html)
Jofuku Shrine
However his tomb is only reported found in Kumano(熊野市).The tombstone was built by order of Tokugawa Yorinobu, the lord of Kishu. Next to it, under the shade of a Tendai Uyaku plant and a big camphor tree, lies a monument of the 'seven disciples' which honours Jofuku's seven senior retainers. Recently, this site has been designated as 'Jofuku Memorial Park' complete with a Chinese style gate, where a memorial festival is now held every August.
Jofuku no Miya
In the city of Kumano (熊野市) in the small town of Hadasu-chō (波田須町). “Hadasu (波田須)” was originally written as “秦住” to depict the meaning, “A place where people from the Qin Dynasty of China have settled.” Also, the Jofuku Shrine (徐福の宮, jofuku no miya) and Jofuku’s grave have been built there in memory of the agricultural, medical and handicraft techniques he passed on after he arrived in Japan.
The Jofuku Nomiya Shrine is where Jofuku is enshrined. He was instructed by Emperor Qin Shi Huang to find the secret of eternal life, so he gathered groups of large boats and crossed the ocean. When he learned of Emperor Qin Shi Huang`s death, Jofuku gave up on returning to China and spread Chinese culture such as public works and agriculture in Japan. The Angelica keiseki herb and Japanese evergreen spicebushes are considered to be the panacea of eternal life, and they are planted in this area.
Location - A 15 minute walk from JR Hadasu Station (ＪＲ波田須駅, JR hadasu-eki). 2) A 20 minute bus ride on the Shiokaze Kahoru Kumano Kodō Line (潮風かほる熊野古道線) to the Jofuku Chaya-mae bus stop (徐福茶屋前バス停, jofuku chaya-mae basutei), and then a 5 minute walk from that point. 3) From JR Kumanoshi Station (熊野市駅, kumanoshi-eki), take Route 42 going towards Ōdomari (大泊) or take Route 311 going towards Hadasu (波田須). Either way takes approximately 20 minutes.
Tendai Uyaku
This plant which is called 'Tendai Uyaku' is said to be the plant which Jofuku succeeded in gathering after searching in the Horai Mountain area. This plant is of the camphor family and naturally grows in the mountains of Kumano. It does not guarantee eternal life, but its root is used as a potent medicine for kidney disease and rheumatism. This plant is now made into 'Jofuku tea' and 'Jofuku wine'
Kumano City, Mie Prefecture, Japan,several ancient coins of China were dug out. They are believed to belong to the age of the Qin Dynasty. It is said that seven or eight Chinese coins were discovered but Kumano City Historical Museum keeps only one.
It was reported that at least 30% of Japanese today are descendant of Xufu, as from the early 3,000 pairs of male and female, and some hundreds craftsmen, with the multiplier effect after generations, it is not impossible.......
There are many temples and shrines in Japan that were built to remember Xufu or Jofuku; and there are Xufu festivals in Japan that celebrated by Japanese to remember Xu Fu.
Other than Kumono city, Wakayama-ken(和歌山県), Kanagawa-ken(神奈川県), Saga ken(佐賀県),Kagoshima-ken(鹿儿岛县),Yamaguchi-ken(山口県), Hiroshima ken( 広島県),Kōchi-ken(高知県),Kyoto-fu(京都府), Mie ken(三重県), Aichi-ken(愛知県), Yamanashi-ken(山梨県),Nagano-ken(長野県),Akita-ken(秋田県),Aomori-ken(青森県) etc were reported arrival of Xufu. Many places in Japan , even Korea , have formed their Xufu Association in Japan to promote friendship among the descendants in the three countries of China, Korea and Japan;together with research and study on the life of Xufu.
Xufu had been the early Chinese that provide the symbol of good relationship between China, Korea and Japan in ancient time. The places where the descendants of Xu Fu are found, are the ancient cultural circle of Xu Fu, are now the circle of friendship among the three countries of China, Korea and Japan. As the traditional saying in China, "Within the four seas, all man are brothers".
Note:
In DNA analysis conducted it was in conclusion that, approximately 43% modern Japanese men carry a Y-chromosome of Jomon origin. Jomon are associated with the original natives of Japan. The highest proportions of Y-DNA haplogroup C and D is found in northern Japan (over 60%) and the lowest in Western Japan (25%). This is concordant with the history of Japan; the Yayoi people of Sino-Korean origins having settled first and most heavily in Kyushu and Chūgoku, in Western Japan.The Yayoi originally came from Central Asia but passed through China, Manuchuria, and Korea. The Yayoi are described as "elements of the Northeast Asian, Chinese and Korean civilizations".. "introduced to the Japanese Archipelago in waves of migration."
It is now believed that the modern Japanese descend mostly from the interbreeding of the Jomon Era people (15,000-500 BCE), composed of the above Ice Age settlers, and a later arrival from China and/or Korea. Around 500 BCE, the Yayoi people crossed the sea from Korea to Kyushu, bringing with them a brand new culture, based on wet rice cultivation and horses
The Yamato are associated with the so-called HATA family. The Hata were descendants of the Chinese Han dynasty who found refuge in Japan and served the ruling Yamato clan. The Yayoi (Yamato) were originally a group amongst the northerners but in modern terminology the name is applied to the dominant Japanese element in general as distinct from the Jomon. Yamato included people developed from the assimilation and intermarriage of ancient Jomon; Yayoi who come from other places in China and Korea(which included Xu Fu and his group), from ancient time which developed into the modern Nihonjin or Japanese today......
Jimmu, in full Jimmu Tennō, original name Kow-yamato-iware-hiko No Mikoto, Jimmu, woodblock print by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi.legendary first emperor of Japan and founder of the imperial Yamato dynasty. Japanese chronicles record Jimmu’s expedition eastward from Hyuga in 607 bc along Japan’s Inland Sea, subduing tribes as he went and ending in Yamato, where he established his centre of power. Although modern historians do not accept such details as a 7th century bc date, preferring a date in the Early Christian era, they affirm the tradition of an aggressive movement of peoples from the west.
Yamato people (大和民族, Yamato-minzoku) is a name for the dominant native ethnic group of modern Japan. It is a term that came to be used around the late 19th century to distinguish the residents of the mainland Japan from other minority ethnic groups who have resided in the peripheral areas of Japan such as Ainu, Ryukyuan, Nivkh, Ulta, as well as Koreans, Taiwanese, and Taiwanese aborigines who were incorporated into the Empire of Japan in the early 20th century. The name "Yamato" comes from the Yamato Court that existed in Japan in the 4th century. It was originally the name of the region where the Yamato people first settled in Nara Prefecture.
Japan is after all, not actually ethnically homogeneous, it is probably more accurate to describe it as a multiethnic society.....Yamato people or Japanese (Nihonjin) is actually a national identity rather than racial or ethnic identity.
From the above, you can ponder about the relationship of Xu Fu, with Yayoi, Yamato, and Hata family.....Xu Fu may not be the name of a person in racial development of Japanese, it may be the representative of "Xu Fu and his group" from Qin. Can you get the clue?....
Recommended websites/books/articles:
1. Zou Jin Xu Fu(走近徐福), http://www.wansongpu.cn/xufu/xf_list.asp
2. 徐福友好塾, From a Legend to a History, http://www15.ocn.ne.jp/~nestplan/jyj/2008
3. 新宮徐福協会, http://www.jofuku.or.jp/index.htm
4. Chinese Xufu Association(中国徐福会), http://www.qi86.com/display.asp?id=3209
5. Shingu(新宮, しんぐう)http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/location/regional/wakayama/shingu.html
6. The stories of Kumano - Jofuku, http://kumano-world.org/english/jofuku.html
7. 徐福公園, http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/徐福公園(in Chinese), http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/徐福公園(in Japanese)
8. 阿須賀神社（あすかじんじゃ）, http://f1.aaa.livedoor.jp/~megalith/singu4asuka.html(in Japanese)
8.熊野発祥の地、阿須賀神社, http://www.mikumano.net/meguri/asuka.html(in Japanese)
9.Seobul was here, http://www.surfbreak.com/2009/07/seobul-was-here/(Seobul is Korean name for Xu Fu)
Kuantan rare Earth or good earth?
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Kuantan is such a nice place to start a family, that is where I stay for a long time, the first choice for staying in Kuantan, is its environment, a clean city located beside a river mouth near the South China Sea. It is a place of good earth.
It was until the set up of heavy chemical industry in Gabeng, that the environment hazard become apparent. The potential for acid rain and chemical plant accident hazards was my concern, at the time no body will buy the idea of that happen. I still have likeness for Kuantan, after living there for nearly 20 years, a city which is no very urbane, and near to the greenery and sea. I just do not understand why Kuantan need to take the path of heavy chemical industrialization?.....
Why built a rare earth processing in Kuantan, after the experience in Perak some years ago? the good earth become a rare earth..... and may be one day a bad earth.....
There is a similar case in Australia, at Whyalla, a city with location quite similar to Kuantan. A seaport, located in South Australia, like state of Pahang, with greenery surrounding the city, and facing the similar economic dilemma, as a tourist location starting industrialization.....
The Australian Greens party voiced out its concerns that the South Australian government may be rushing too much on the proposed rare earths processing plant in Whyalla following the state's move of giving major project status to the planned $1 billion rare earths facility by Arafura Resources Ltd (ASX: ARU).SA Greens head Mark Parnell said that the state government should also consider the possibility of radiation threats from the proposed rare earth processing plant in Whyalla as he added that Arafura and SA authorities need to furnish them detailed of the project's supposed environmental impacts. Mr Parnell said that the Greens are sounding the alarm so everyone in the state and more so the state government would be duly guided by the seemingly exciting economic prospect for South Australia.
Whyalla is the third most populous city in South Australia after Adelaide and Mount Gambier. It is a seaport located on the east coast of the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia.
There are always two opposing opinions, there are always request for Environment Impact Analysis, and the chances are official barriers will be easily overcome. There are already sign of good positive economic and employment news...
Ironically, why all the way from Australia to Kuantan? where Whyalla is able to provide economic benefit to the owner of the future rare earth processing plant in Australia; and where Australia has vast area of unoccupied desert land. Is it merely commercial justification of cost? or opportunity cost of future environmental cost? or just merely dumping?....
Another question is why the plant in Kuantan, when we still having the plant in Perak still under cleaning process, why take the risk?
It is still dilemma, of economic benefits or environment/health risks. But economic benefits for who?... what is the future opportunity cost? is it worth it?.....
But the ultimate answer of the decision will only be known after many years; the only picture that we can derived for the future impacts can only obtained from the happening of Chinese rare earth processing plants, the environment impact on the rare earth processing waste, the health hazards to the people....
According to an article published by the Chinese Society of Rare Earths, “Every ton of rare earth produced generates approximately 8.5 kilograms (18.7 lbs) of fluorine and 13 kilograms (28.7 lbs) of dust; and using concentrated sulfuric acid high temperature calcination techniques to produce approximately one ton of calcined rare earth ore generates 9,600 to 12,000 cubic meters (339,021 to 423,776 cubic feet) of waste gas containing dust concentrate, hydrofluoric acid, sulfur dioxide, and sulfuric acid, approximately 75 cubic meters (2,649 cubic feet) of acidic wastewater plus about one ton of radioactive waste residue (containing water).” Furthermore, according to statistics conducted within Baotou, where China’s primary rare earth production occurs, “all the rare earth enterprises in the Baotou region produce approximately ten million tons of all varieties of wastewater every year” and most of that waste water is “discharged without being effectively treated, which not only contaminates potable water for daily living, but also contaminates the surrounding water environment and irrigated farmlands.”
The disposal of tailings also contributes to the problem. Tailings are the ground up materials left behind once the rare earth has been extracted from the ore. Often, these tailings contain thorium, which is radioactive. Generally, tailings are placed into a large land impoundment and stored. In the United States strict controls are put into place and permits are required to store tailings. According to Wang Caifeng, China’s Deputy Director-General of the Materials Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, producing one ton of REEs creates 2,000 tons of mine tailings. Wang said that China has sacrificed greatly in its extraction of rare earths.
May be when the time come, someone, just like Dr M on Bukit Merah issue, will not remember, all have forgotten....
The people have to decide on the fate of their city; when Japan decided to built nuclear plants in Fukushima, there was no opposition views, now the people are regret over their earlier decision to support the building of nuclear plants in their area. But it is too late....it is similar to the Chinese farmers near the rare earth processing plants, it is too late.....
If you are still in dilemma, please read the article " In China, the true cost of Britain's clean, green wind power experiment: Pollution on a disastrous scale", (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.htmluopu). You will understand what is the consequence of the rare earth processing, the biggest world rare earth producer is now facing the effect of environmental destruction, that will be the same story for Kuantan, or even Wyalla....The cost is too great to bear for the future .....
The issue is still political issue......a global political issue; and the engagement of the locals into the global shortage of rare earth outside China. China has almost total monopoly of the rare earth market, and recent embargo of their rare earth export raised the alarm of global users. The global supplies chain become greatly affected. China is now facing environmental problem due to excessive illegal rare earth mining and treatment of the mining waste. In fact, rare earths are relatively abundant. But why many want rare earth, but few are mining them? it seems only China is mining them. It is because rare earth are very difficult to extract, and processing them can cause environmental damage. The process involves toxic acids, and rare earths are often found in deposits containing the radioactive elements uranium and thorium. That is the reason why few country want to mine them due to environmental reasons, and opposition from home countries.
A New York Times (NYT) report said today Australian mining company Lynas's refinery in Kuantan could break China's monopoly and their embargo on rare earth. Is it for the benefits of people or "for others" ......is it wise or worth it?...
The people of Kuantan and Whyalla has to decide......
Note: Lynas Corporation's (ASX: LYC, OTC: LYSDY) proposed transaction with Forge Resources (ASX: FRG) to grant Forge subleases over designated areas within the Mount Weld rare earth mining leases has been deemed acceptable by an independent expert.Lynas owns the richest known deposit of rare earths in the world at Mount Weld, near Laverton in Western Australia. These leases contain the Crown and Swan deposits that hold tantalum/niobium and phosphate deposits, and are considered non-core assets of Lynas.
Lynas will receive a consideration of $20.7 million cash plus an option to acquire up to 7 million ordinary shares in Forge as well as ongoing royalty payments, should Forge successfully develop the Crown deposit or the Swan deposit. Lynas will have the right to purchase any rare earths that are produced as a by-product from the Crown/Swan deposits at international market prices, with no associated development costs to Lynas, should the deposits be developed. In the agreement Forge is required use its best endeavours to produce intermediate rare earths by products from any development of the Crown and Swan deposits. Forge will grant Lynas a right of first refusal to take delivery of any rare earths from any other mineral deposits that any member of the Forge Group acquires.
(extract from Lynas Corporation official website, dated 28-3-2011, http://www.proactiveinvestors.com.au/companies/news/14972/lynas-corporation-given-green-light-for-sale-of-mount-weld-rare-earth-deposits--14972.html)
Recommended books/articles/websites:
1. Personal website of Pang Tsu Ming (彭子明)State Assemblyman for Semambu, Pahang, http://pangtsuming.blogspot.com/2009/01/rare-earth-processing-plant-at-gebeng.html
2. Kuantan MP pledges to send mining firm back Down Under, The Malaysia Insider, http://my.news.yahoo.com/kuantan-mp-pledges-to-send-mining-firm-back-20110315-045346-063.html
3.Anwar calls for movement against Pahang rare earth plant. The Malaysia Insider, http://my.news.yahoo.com/anwar-calls-for-movement-against-pahang-rare-earth-20110311-183242-669.html
4. Dr M took 26 yrs to admit Bt Merah dangerous, why build another in Kuantan? Written by Mariam Mokhtar, Malaysia Chronicle, http://www.malaysia-chronicle.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=8960:dr-m-took-26-yrs-to-admit-bt-merah-dangerous-why-build-another-in-kuantan?&Itemid=2
5. Taking a Risk for Rare Earths, by KEITH BRADSHER, The New York Times, published on March 8, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/business/energy-environment/09rare.html?pagewanted=all
6. Lynas Advanced Materials Plant, http://www.lynascorp.com/page.asp?category_id=2&page_id=41
7. Mitsubishi Quietly Cleans Up Its Former Refinery, by KEITH BRADSHER, The New York Times, published on March 8, 2011
8. Rare earth element, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earth_element
9. Malaysia pledges to strictly regulate Aussie rare earth plant amid pollution risks,by Eileen Ng, The Associated Press/The Canadian Press on Thu, 10 Mar, 2011 4:34 AM EST, http://ca.news.yahoo.com/malaysia-pledges-strictly-regulate-aussie-rare-earth-plant-20110310-013447-310.html
10. Warning on radiation hazard of Whyalla rare earths processing, http://antinuclear.net/2010/09/28/warning-on-radiation-hazard-of-whyalla-rare-earths-processing/(There are concern in Whyalla, Australia)
11. The Politics of Rare Earth,by Patrick Chovanec, http://blogs.forbes.com/china/2010/10/04/the-politics-of-rare-earth/
12. SA government to declare Arafura Whyalla processing site as major project, http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/63688/20100920/sa-government-to-declare-arafura-whyalla-processing-site-as-major-project.htm
13. Curse of the rare earths, http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/menuitem.1d923702d0f3d4b2b5326b10cba0a0a0/?vgnextoid=316c9f1a78a9e210VgnVCM100000360a0a0aRCRD&vgnextfmt=mag&issue=20110313&ss=Post+Magazine&s=Magazines
14. In China, the true cost of Britain's clean, green wind power experiment: Pollution on a disastrous scale, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html
Radiation fear, another global politic contagion?
The contagion of Japan Radiation fear has spread globally,
Fears over the Japan nuclear crisis triggered a crushing defeat for Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives in their German heartland Sunday, as the ecologist Greens roared to a historic triumph.
Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) have ruled wealthy Baden-Wuerttemberg, home to industrial giants Daimler and Bosch, for 58 years, but her on-again, off-again support for nuclear power spooked voters ahead of the crucial poll.
The anti-nuclear Greens won a record 24 percent of the vote -- more than 12 points higher than in 2006 -- and were likely for the first time to lead a coalition with the Social Democrats, who garnered about 23 percent.
The opposition edged out Merkel's party and the Free Democrats (FDP), their junior partners in the state and at the national level, who claimed a dismal 44 percent between them.
Forty-five percent of voters called nuclear power a key issue in light of the disaster in Japan, and Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, the FDP leader, pledged another rethink in Berlin.
"The dreadful events in Japan, the nuclear accident in Fukushima and the consequences for us in Germany: these were the most decisive topics in this state election," Westerwelle said.
"It was a referendum on the future of atomic energy."
Social Democrats leader Sigmar Gabriel declared: "Today the final decision on the end of nuclear power in Germany was made."
(source: extract from German nuclear fears trigger Merkel party poll debacle, By Deborah Cole | AFP News, http://my.news.yahoo.com/merkel-alliance-braces-german-state-poll-disaster-20110327-002904-762.html )
Coming back to country closer to Japan, the radiation fear is also spread to Kuantan Pahang state, Malaysia.
The massive earthquake in Japan and the resulting tsunami has also added fears about the plant in Malaysia’s east coast which faces the Pacific Rim’s ring of fire, the world’s active volcanic region. The 8.9 magnitude earthquake in Japan and the 10-metre high tsunami it sent surging into cities and villages, sweeping away everything in its path.
Australian mining company Lynas Corporation has begun construction of the rare earth refinery in Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s home state, raising fears of a repeat of the radiation pollution in Bukit Merah, Perak that has been linked to at least eight leukemia cases in the local community there.
The Asian Rare Earth plant is now the subject of a quiet US$100 million (RM303 million) cleanup exercise by Mitsubishi Chemical which shut down the facility nearly two decades ago.
The New York Times reported this week that the refinery in Gebeng, just 70 kilometres north of Najib’s Pekan constituency, will be the first such plant outside China in nearly three decades.
Environmental hazards have made other countries wary of rare earth processing, leaving China to control 95 per cent of global supply of rare earth metals.
The metals are crucial to high technology products such as the Apple iPhone, Toyota Prius and Boeing’s smart bombs.
The newspaper said that if prices of the metals stayed at current levels, the Lynas plant would generate over RM5 billion a year in exports for Malaysia, or nearly one per cent of its entire economy.
However, Lynas corporate and business development vice president Matthew James has denied that the plant will be dangerous and told The Malaysian Insider that radiation will be minimal as the raw material used has only 2 per cent of the thorium found in the material processed in Bukit Merah.
Thorium is the radioactive element found in nearly all rare earth deposits.
The RM700 million rare earth refinery being built near Kuantan is set to be a major election issue with Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim now calling for a campaign to alert residents there about the dangers of radiation pollution.
(aource: Extract from The Malaysian Insider – Sat, Mar 12, 2011 2:18 PM MYT, http://my.news.yahoo.com/anwar-calls-for-movement-against-pahang-rare-earth-20110311-183242-669.html)
Will the Japan radiation plant event cause a chain of reactions as geopolitics contagion effect like the recent Jasmine uprising, causing political changes to countries having political dispute on nuclear energy issue? . Germany is clearly on the way for a change, will Malaysia and other countries followed?........
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Microwave radiation dangers in your home
Reading about the radiaiton risk of Japan each day; and a reader from Perth, Australia sent me this from youtube. Just like smoking, believe or not, it is your decision....
Magda Havas demonstrates how WiFi connects your laptop, iPhone and iPad to the internet via microwave radiation. You will also learn how WiFi base stations, portable phones and baby monitors constantly radiate microwave radiation. The Swiss Government feels that all of these devices have the potential to do great harm if used incorrectly and warn their citizens.
This is a link to the web page that has additional information.
http://www.magdahavas.com/2010/10/20/free-internet-access-in-swiss-schools-no...
Download the patents and related studies in PDF that are mentioned in this video -
http://www.magdahavas.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/WiFi_Supportin...
While the rest of the world rushes onwards with the wireless revolution, Switzerland -- the country that invented the World Wide Web -- and the largest telecoms provider -- SWISSCOM which is owned (52%) by the Swiss government - have decided to light up the public school's wired networks using fiber optics FOR FREE!
But there is one catch -- the schools must use LAN -- local area networks. Specifically, the Swisscom application documentation states that the schools pay for the internal wiring and connect their devices (PC, printer) via an Ethernet LAN/10BaseT/RJ45 and then connect it to a Swisscom AG's CISCO router on site. Swisscom then brings the fiber optic connection to the school.
Most schools in North America are opting for a WiFI wireless local area network (WLAN) that allows computers and laptops to be connected to each other without wires. But the Swiss government prefers -- LAN -- wired networks that do not emit microwave radiation. For example, on their public health website, they specifically warn about the dangers of WiFi:
"Only switch your WLAN (WiFi) on when you need it. With laptops, in particular, it is a good idea to switch the WLAN (WiFi) off as otherwise the device will repeatedly try to connect to a network, leading to unnecessary radiation...and caution should be exercised primarily when using devices held close to the body, such as laptops, PDAs and Internet telephones".
(source: youtube)
QUOTE:
"What lies behind us, and what lies before us, are tiny matters compared to
what lies within us." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Magda Havas demonstrates how WiFi connects your laptop, iPhone and iPad to the internet via microwave radiation. You will also learn how WiFi base stations, portable phones and baby monitors constantly radiate microwave radiation. The Swiss Government feels that all of these devices have the potential to do great harm if used incorrectly and warn their citizens.
This is a link to the web page that has additional information.
http://www.magdahavas.com/2010/10/20/free-internet-access-in-swiss-schools-no...
Download the patents and related studies in PDF that are mentioned in this video -
http://www.magdahavas.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/WiFi_Supportin...
While the rest of the world rushes onwards with the wireless revolution, Switzerland -- the country that invented the World Wide Web -- and the largest telecoms provider -- SWISSCOM which is owned (52%) by the Swiss government - have decided to light up the public school's wired networks using fiber optics FOR FREE!
But there is one catch -- the schools must use LAN -- local area networks. Specifically, the Swisscom application documentation states that the schools pay for the internal wiring and connect their devices (PC, printer) via an Ethernet LAN/10BaseT/RJ45 and then connect it to a Swisscom AG's CISCO router on site. Swisscom then brings the fiber optic connection to the school.
Most schools in North America are opting for a WiFI wireless local area network (WLAN) that allows computers and laptops to be connected to each other without wires. But the Swiss government prefers -- LAN -- wired networks that do not emit microwave radiation. For example, on their public health website, they specifically warn about the dangers of WiFi:
"Only switch your WLAN (WiFi) on when you need it. With laptops, in particular, it is a good idea to switch the WLAN (WiFi) off as otherwise the device will repeatedly try to connect to a network, leading to unnecessary radiation...and caution should be exercised primarily when using devices held close to the body, such as laptops, PDAs and Internet telephones".
(source: youtube)
QUOTE:
"What lies behind us, and what lies before us, are tiny matters compared to
what lies within us." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
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