For three days Michihito Watanabe, three other Lewis & Clark students, and myself trekked through the rain and blistering heat of the Motosukōgen and Nojirisōgen grasslands in order to collect data concerning the population of endangered butterflies within satoyama environments. Satoyama, which translates as “upland countryside,” consists “largely of second-growth environments such as grasslands, cultivated […]
Out with the Old, in with the Robots!
“Aging population is a concern for the workforce and the local economy.” That statement was drilled into my head over and over again during my high school years in Singapore. Having the third highest life expectancy in the world (CIA, 2016) and a constantly declining birth rate, Singapore has always been extremely concerned with its […]
Getting Off the Black Ship
Tourism can be, and has been, seen as one of the black ships in the armada of globalization “spreading cultural homogeneity and consent” (Raz, 12). This conception feeds on the perceived inequity between the visitor and the visited, the watcher and the watched. This perceived inequality is reinforced by the commodification of the spaces and […]
Japanese Attitudes Towards Nature
Before I came to Japan I had the perception that the country had an intimate relationship with nature due to films and anime I had seen during my childhood. Our assignments and site visits, however, changed this view soon after I arrived. What really caught me off guard was when one of our speakers, Seiichi […]
Mt. Fuji in Process
There’s something electric about Japan. Amid our ceaseless moving, the endless influx of sensation and the hyper speed of modernity, almost nothing seems constant or steady about the culture. But having left Tokyo and settled in at the base of Mt. Fuji, the focus of our study, I can’t help looking each day in awe […]