First posted 1995
Last updated 22 August 2024

Website reconfiguration

From 17 July 2024, all websites associated with Yosha Bunko have been reconfigured to operate without reference to the domains that previously defined their Internet presence and URLs -- namely "yoshabunko.com", "nishikie.com", "steamyeast.com", "konketsuji.com", and "wetherall.org". At some point in the future, when I am no longer able to manage my Internet affairs, and their management falls to my children, all these domains -- with the exception of "wetherall.org" -- will be retired.

Reconfigured links

All Yosha Bunko URLs, which previously began with one of the Yosha Bunko domains, now begin with "wetherall.sakura.ne.jp" -- the rental server that presently hosts all Yosha Bunko websites -- plus the name of the directory that the domain previously referred to. Two examples are as follows.

Japan's Nationality Law:
A primer and guide to other articles
Formerly   http://www.yoshabunko.com/nationality/Nationality_primer.html
    Now   http://wetherall.sakura.ne.jp/yoshabunko/nationality/Nationality_primer.html

Kishine Barracks and the 106th General Hospital:
Life and death in the Vietnam War medical communications zone in Japan
Formerly   http://www.wetherall.org/kishine/Wetherall_2015_Kishine_Barracks.html
    Now   http://wetherall.sakura.ne.jp/wetherall/kishine/Wetherall_2015_Kishine_Barracks.html

So long as the domains continue to be registered, and continue to point to their respective directories on Sakura Internet , URLs with the domains will continue to work. However, while the linked articles will open in your browser, and though links within the article to other articles within the domain's directory will work, you will not be able to navigate to, much less within or between, other domain directories. Why? Because all internal links between directories have been disengaged from the domains that previously defined them -- in order to (1) facilitate direct, domain-free linking, and (2) make the entire website transferable to and operable on any medium, on or off line.

New domain-free access links

The following domain-free links are direct entries to the principle pages of the reconfigured Yosha Bunko websites. Once inside, you can can freely -- and more smoothly -- navigate within and between all Yosha Bunko websites without the mediation of any domain.

Gateway http://www.wetherall.sakura.ne.jp/gateway.html
    Gateway to websites affiliated with Yosha Bunko
Yosha Bunko http://www.wetherall.sakura.ne.jp/yoshabunko/ybnav.html
    Japan as just another country
    Minorities, suicide, anthropology, history, literature, and other vital issues and topics
News Nishikie http://www.wetherall.sakura.ne.jp/nishikie/nnnav.html
    Japan in the 1870s
    Amazing stories new and old, shown and retold by early Meiji woodblock drawers and writers
The Steamy East http://www.wetherall.sakura.ne.jp/steamyeast/senav.html">
    The Orient was never like this
    China, Korea, Japan, India, and other Asian countries as seen in English fiction
Konketsuji http://www.wetherall.sakura.ne.jp/konketsuji/kknav.html
    Migration and mixture
    The blending of people in the changing territories of the land of mixed-blood gods
Wetherall http://www.wetherall.sakura.ne.jp/wetherall/wwnav.html
    William Wetherall
    Fiction, essays, columns, translations, college reports, poetry, photography, local, family, and personal history
Publications http://www.wetherall.sakura.ne.jp/wetherall/publications.html
    Publications by William Wetherall
    In dusty and musty but trusty print media, 1963-2019
About http://www.wetherall.sakura.ne.jp/aboutsites.html
    About Yosha Bunko and affiliated websites
Contact http://www.wetherall.sakura.ne.jp/contact.html
    Yosha Bunko Contact Form

When the time comes, my children will continue to maintain an account on a rental server, if possible the present server at Sakura Internet. All domains will be retired, except wetherall.org, which is linked to the rental server. If necessary, the websites and the wetherall.org domain will be moved to another server.

The reconfigured Yosha Bunko websites are defined by about 1,300 html files and thousands of image files, divided into several directories. The set of directories and files be uploaded in bulk to any server in the world -- or downloaded in bulk to any memory device. All content can be freely navigated through a browser linked to the server, or through a browser linked with the memory device -- without the mediation of a domain. If navigating the websites on the server, of course you will be on-line. But if you download the directories and files to a local hard drive or thumb drive, they may be navigated off line without an Internet connection.

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Personal background

I was born in San Francisco and raised there for 14 years. In 1955, while in the 8th grade, I moved to Grass Valley, where I completed the 8th grade, then the 9th grade and high school. I then commuted Sierra College, then in Auburn, where I completed a 2-year engineering program that prepared me for transferring to the 3rd year of a 4-year college or university.

I returned to the Bay Area to work, as an an engineering aid at the U.S. Navy Shipyard at Hunters Point in San francisco, and in 1962 I continued my electrical engineering studies at the University of California at Berkeley. From 1963-1966, I served as a medic and clinical laboratory technician in the U.S. Army, and from 1967-1969 I completed a BA in Japanese studies at Berkeley.

From 1970, I resided in Japan for a couple of years, during which time I taught English, lived with a family, and married, while continuing to study the Japanese language, mass media, and social issues by myself. From 1972-1975, I returned to Berkeley on a fellowship, completed an MA in Asian Studies, and fulfilled all requirements for a PhD in Northeast Asian Studies except for a dissertation on suicide in Japan.

In 1975, I returned to Japan to begin back-to-back doctoral research grants that enabled me to study suicide in Japan as a research fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health, then at Kōnōdai in Ichikawa. I completed the dissertation, and filed it at Berkeley, in 1982, but remained a visiting researcher at NIMH until 1995.

On a personal level, I became the father of a daughter in 1978 and a son in 1982. Representing my children as a parent-guardian, I was a co-plaintiff in their separate lawsuits against the government of Japan, claiming that they had a constitutional right to acquire Japanese nationality through their mother. The law was revised in 1985, and they became Japanese in 1987.

I became a permanent resident in 1983, and I've been a Japanese national since 2012. My daughter and son continue to reside in Japan, and two grandchildren live within a few minutes on bicycle.

Occupationally, I have had numerous part-time jobs in many fields since I was 12 years old in San Francisco. Until I stepped down from my last part-time editing and translation work in Japan in 2011, I always had at least one job.

In Japan, I taught English, including reading and writing, and Japanese-English translation, for 26 years at a vocational language school in Tokyo. While teaching, most years two days a week, I held a number of part-time editing jobs, conducted and published research as an independent scholar, wrote many newspaper and magazine articles as a free-lance journalist, translated and wrote short stories, and co-translated a novel.

I am partly a product of the following schools and majors.

Year of completion or graduation, left.
Grade or degree, middle.
Years enrolled, right.

Kindergarten and grade school
1947  k1-k2  Notre Dame des Victoires, San Francisco, 1945-1947
1949    1-2  Notre Dame des Victoires, San Francisco, 1947-1949
1953    3-6  Lawton Elementary School, San Francisco, 1949-1953
1954      7  Marina Junior High School, San Francisco, 1953-1954
          8  A.P. Giannini Junior High School, San Francisco, 1954-1955
1955      8  Union Hill Elementary School, Union Hill, 1955
1957      9  Nevada Union Junior High School, Nevada City, 1955-1956
1959  10-12  Nevada Union High School, Grass Valley, 1956-1959

College and graduate school
1961     AA  Engineering, Sierra College, Auburn, 1959-1961
             Electrical Engineering, UC Berkeley, 1962-1963
             Oriental Languages, UC Berkeley, 1967-1969
1969     BA  Japanese Studies, UC Berkeley, 1969
1973     MA  Asian Studies (Japan), UC Berkeley, 1972-1973
1975    abd  Asian Studies (Northeast Asia), UC Berkeley, 1974-1975
1982    PhD  Asian Studies (Northeast Asia), UC Berkeley, 1982

Over the decades since I left these schools, my own experiences and observations led me to question the quality of some of the knowledge and understandings my mentors tried to impart to me. If to question received wisdom is the purpose of education, then my education appears to have effective.

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Yosha Bunko

"Yōsha" (羊舎) -- a Sino-Japanese translation of my family name -- means "sheepshed". "Wetherall" comes from "wether + stall", a stall or shed for wether, or castrated male sheep. It probably originated as an occupational name for a sheepherder who tended to shelters for wether. I adopted the name "Yō Kabuto" (羊舎兜) while living with a family in Japan in 1970-1971. I dubbed "William" into "Kabuto", as it is the name for the helmut worn by warriors in early times, and represents the "helm" of German "Wilhelm", anglicized as "William". The father of the home gave me a miniature metal kabuto on boys day, and the mother of the home gave me a boxwood seal with 羊舎, which I used to open a bank account, and continue to use as my personal seal over half a century later.

"Yō Bunko" (羊舎文庫) refers to both the Yosha Bunko website (formerly linked to www.yoshabunko.com) -- and to the collection of websites which are affiliated with Yosha Bunko, as I call my personal library and office. All websites are linked toegther, and may be accessed directly, or through the Gateway page on the root of my rental server account at Sakura Internet, which presently hosts the websites.

Yosha Bunko -- which I stylize without the macron -- began as Yōsha Kenkyūjo (羊舎研究所), the name on an "ex libris" seal I had made in 1970. The seal appears in some of the earliest books I bought in the course of building the library now known as Yosha Bunko -- "Bunko" meaning an archive of documents and books -- i.e., a library. I no longer use the seal, except in nostalgic moments, and to impress my grandchildren.

The original website was constructed in 1995, the year I first had a connection to the Internet through an Internet service provider (ISP). Prior to that, I could connect to a mail server through a dial-up modem, for the purpose of exchanging email the original way, through a command-line interface, rather than through a mail client with a graphic user interface. Early incarnations of Yosha Kenkyujo posted not only my own articles, but articles by writer and researcher frield, including Mark Schreiber, Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu, John Maher, Tei Taikin, and Karel van Wolferen. The website also hosted the works of students in computer and writing courses I taught at Nichibei Kaiwa Gakuin, a vocational language school at the International Education Center in Yotsuya.

The Yoshia site underwent several metamorphoses as I changed ISPs, adopted more recent html scripting methods, and acquired several domains to that represented my various interest. In the course of these revisions, and subsequent to my retirement as a teacher and move to my present residence in 2001, I dropped all contributed content, except for a few articles by Mark Schreiber, which I had integrated into "The Steamy East" and "New Nishikie" websites.

Everything, warts and all

Yosha Bunko now includes web versions of many articles that I have had published over the years in books, journals, magazines, and newspapers. However, practically all of the most recent articles, which constitute the bulk of the content, have been published only on this site.

My thinking related to some subjects has radically changed over the decades. Earlier articles that no longer reflect my thinking are clearly marked. Others have been partly revised to reflect my current thinking. When revising articles that have been published in paper media, I have left the original phrasing readable through overstriking, in order to document my stumbling travels through the world of thought.

Toward this end, I have also posted many manuscripts of school reports I saw fit to save, from my undergraduate college days in the late 1960s and my graduate school days in the mid 1970s. I have no idea what became of the reports I wrote for high school and my first years of college in the late 1950s and early 1960s. However, I kept all the course reports I wrote during my later undergraduate studies and as a graduate student, and of course the dissertation I completed in 1982.

Today I read many of my earlier writings with frowns and even gasps, at the ignorance and innocence that (mis)informed a number of attitudes, including romantic delusions that bordered on moral arrogance.

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News Nishikie

I acquired the "nishikie.com" domain on 21 July 2004 to accommondate the News Nishikie (formerly www.nishikie.com) website. "News Nishikie" is a translation of ニュース錦絵 (nyuusu nishikie), an expression I coined to bridge two understandings about such prints, and to side more with one than the other. The more common terms are "shinbun nishikie" (新聞錦絵) and "nishikie shinbun" (錦絵新聞). "Nyuusu" (ニュース) stresses the most essential meaning of "shinbun" (新聞) -- "news" rather than "newspaper", which at the time was "shinbunshi" (新聞紙) -- sheets of "paper" (shi 紙) with "new tidings" (shinbun 新聞).

The older 新聞錦絵 (shinbun nishikie) or "news nishikie" school treats the prints as "nishikie based on news", while the more recent and fashionable 錦絵新聞 (nishikie shinbun) or "nishikie news" school contends that they were "news conveyed by nishikie". The former stresses the qualities of "nishikie" as woodblock picture commodities, while the latter emphasizes the characteristics of "news" as fresh and timely information.

While not denying that some such prints did convey news in lieu of newspapers, most were based on reports that originally appeared in papers, printed well after their newspaper sources, and marketed like other nishikie. In others words, they were sold like souvenir prints, books, and other such printed matter, and reprinted as long as there was demand.

My interest and collection began from a print that Mark Schreiber introduced to me through a dealer he knew and from whom he himself had bought some prints. A couple of months before I launched the News Nishikie site, Mark had published an article about such prints. He later contributed a few articles and reviews to the website, and some paragraphs to a coauthored article.

The News Nishikie site is dedicated to all the sources of information introduced in the Bibliography and Web Sources, especially the collections of Kanbara Jinzō (1884-1954) and Nishigaki Buichi (1901-1967), the collection and studies of Ono Hideo (1885-1977), and more recently the studies of Kinoshita Naoyuki, Takahashi Katsuhiko, Tsuchiya Reiko, and Yoshimi Shun'ya. Such published giants pioneered much of the current research on what I have called "news nishikie". But I stand even more on the shoulders of Obata Mamoru (小畑護), an unpublished giant, who amassed the world's largest collection of news nishikie. I was fortunate to make Obata's aquaintance and correspond with him the old fashioned way, by phone and snail mail. I would meet him twice, the second time when he invited me to attend, and personally guided me through, the exhibition of the "Tōkyō nichinichi shinbun" (TNS) and #Yūbin hōchi shinbun" (YHS) parts of his "Rikken Collection" at Chiba City Museum of Art in 2008.

Images

The vast majority of the images on the New Nishikie site are scans I have made myself of prints in my own collection. However, because arguments about news nishikie can only be advanced through visual evidence, I have taken liberties with images from Kanbara Bunko, Nishigaki Bunko, the Ono Collection, the Bunsei Shoin CD-ROM compiled by Tsuchiya Reiko, and a number of other sources, including the Chiba City Museum of Art catalog of the TNS and YHS prints in Obata's "Rikken Collection".

All images obtained from other sources have been acknowledge as such. Most have been used without express permission because I regard the nishikie works themselves to be in the public domain. In the same spirit, I offer all images of copies in my own collection, as shown on this site, to the world at large.

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The Steamy East

The namesake of The Steamy East website is the title of a series of articles written in the late 1980s by Mark Schreiber, who contributed a few reviews of related fiction to the site. The domain name "steamyeast.com" was acquired on 14 January 2001.

What you see is what you get

Mark and I have collected, between us, over 5,000 novels written in English, either set somewhere in greater Asia or involving something putatively "Oriental" or "Asian" elsewhere on earth or beyond. Our personal tastes in such fiction, and our views of its meaning in the social history of literature, are different. And our tastes and views have changed over the years and continue to shift.

Do not, therefore, expect to find on this website the sort of consistency that is likely to be seen in a monograph written and edited by a single mind in a single state of delusion. The states of confusion on this site are rivaled only by the extent and boundaries of the Steamy East itself -- vast, warped, full of black holes and singularities -- and otherwise the sort of space no manner of matrix math magic could map into the flat, uniform world one often encounters in writing that dwells on faulting Steamy East fiction for its tendency to portray Asia and Asians as strange, exotic, mysterious, inscrutable, sexist, cruel, or not quite human, if not mystical, otherworldly, or superhuman.

From a certain critical point of view, much of what I am here calling Steamy East fiction is inevitably stereotypical if not also highly and hideously discriminatory. However, ignorance and prejudice are facts of life. Even the worst Steamy East stories need to be understood, and appreciated, for what they were meant to be when written, rather than be merely despised or dismissed through ideological eyes that are apt to be, in their own ways, as biased and misinformed as were those of some of the authors they disparage as dead white neo-colonialist male chauvinist pigs -- or whatever.

If ignorance and prejudice do not warrant tolerance, neither do they deserve intolerance. Yet intolerance is the growing response to literature, past and present, that some people find offensive. The fashionable solution is to ban, deface, censor, and otherwise figuratively burn any books that do not suit ones religious or philosophical taste. This is a particularly worrisome trend in the United States. The land of the free and home of the brave is becoming a country of censors, who now get jobs in publishing companies, libraries, and even universities -- policing language, thought, and behavior deemed ideologically unacceptable.

The situation is not much brighter in Japan, where I have lived most of my life, continuously since 1975, and am now Japanese. As a writer, I know how complex and fragile the truth can be in a publishing world that is vulnerable to fashions of correctness and sensitivity -- resulting in editorial standards that put economic and political bottom-lines before discomforting sensitive readers with inconvenient facts.

What one learns in a classroom and from mainstream media is a highly filtered, sanitized, romanticized, and otherwise distorted fraction of the information one needs to understand the human condition past and present. This website has no bottom-line. What you see here will be what is out there -- "red in tooth and claw" in the words made famous by Tennyson's poem -- the natural world of Steamy East fiction -- with no apologies for the blunt and tasteless titles, cover art, and stories one sometimes encounters in the literary jungle.

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Konketsuji

The "konketsuji.com" domain was acquired on 27 August 2016. The index page of the Konketsuji website was uploaded on 23 March 2017. About 150 articles have been created for eventual uploading to the website. Most have been completed, but because many depend on linking with other articles, their uploading will not begin until the fall of 2024, and will probably take a couple of years to finish.

The Konketsuji site originated in 2008 as the "Blending in Japan" section on the Yosha Research site, the original name of Yosha Bunko website. The tag line of the "Blending in Japan" feature was "Fruits of migration and war". The feature was prominently listed at the top of the "Race" section of Yosha Research as "100-million hybrids" subtitled "Racial blending in Japan: Fruits of migration and war".

At the time "Blending in Japan" was revamped as "Konketsuji" under its own domain, it was mostly a shell with only 25 pages. Its introduction and table of contents remain posted as 100-million hybrids: Racial blending in Japan: Fruits of migration and war from its original link at the top of the menu of the Race section of Yosha Bunko.

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William Wetherall

I acquired the "wetherall.org" domain on 17 January 2001, shortly before I moved from my former home in Abiko to my present home across town. After opening an account on rental server, I began using the domain for my email, through the server's email handler, a well as for the Wetherall section of Yosha Bunko. The section became a place to present all writings not directly related to the subjects of the other sections -- namely, my short stories and other creative writings, translations, college reports, poetry, blogs, and local, family, and personal histories, and even photographs.

The "Wetherall" component of Yosha Bunko was originally "Yosha Press", which started as a dream a few years before the ground for its construction was broken in January 2007 in the form of a domain called "yoshapress.com". The blueprints called for the publication conventionally printed and bound books, self-published in the true sense of this word, as Yosha Press imprints produced by a local printer with my own ISBN numbers.

The first book, a collection of short stories already written but undergoing revision, was supposed to have come out later that year. However, more urgent matters pushed Yosha Press to the bottom of my list of priorities. By 2009, I had concluded that the goal of sharing my stories with others would be better served by publishing them on line. Electronic stocks would go up. Loggers, ink makers, and mailmen would have less work. Spiritually, though, I remain addicted to paper. So I retired released my claim to the "yoshapress.com" domain and focussed on web publishing.

In 2018, however, I created the imprint "Soseki Books" for a friend, Kunioki Yanagishita, which he then registered for the purpose of publishing his novel Catch 51 in both Japanese and English. I helped him translate the English edition, and designed the covers for both editions. I also registered the sosekibooks.com domain, created a website to publicize the book, and hosted the through this domain on the same Sakura Internet rental server that hosts the Yosha Bunko websites.

At the same time, I registered "Yosha Press" as an imprint and purchased a set of ISBN numbers I may eventually use for publishing POD editions of collections of my stories.

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Fair use

The images and articles on all Yosha Bunko websites straddle public and private domains. To facilitate their non-commercial use by the widest possible audience, the contents of these websites are protected under the provisions of a Creative Commons License (CCL).

See the section on Creative Commons for further information and links. See the sections on Permissions and Attributions for further qualifications regarding how CCL applies to content on Yosha Bunko websites.

In the belief that the World Wide Web is an open and public forum, some articles on Yosha Bunko websites refer to an external website through a link which has been included without the owner's explicit permission. In the same spirit, other websites are free to post links to any content on a Yosha Bunko site without my permission.

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Creative Commons

There are different kinds of Creative Commons licenses. The license under which this website is protected is called an Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike (by-nc-sa) agreement. Clicking the following links will display the license agreement in either English or Japanese.

Creative Commons License Icon

English version of Creative Commons License

This website is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Japanese version of Creative Commons License

このウェブサイトは、クリエイティブ・コモンズ・ライセンスの下でライセンスされています。

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Permissions

All materials featured on Yosha Bunko websites are the properties of their signed contributors, or of their attributed or unattributed sources. They may be copied and used for personal but not commercial use, and for educational but not political or religious purposes.

All articles on Yosha Bunko websites, with the exception of drafts in progress, may be quoted or cited with proper attribution. Please do not quote or cite articles clearly marked as drafts in progress without permission from their authors.

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Attributions

Attributions to articles on Yosha Bunko websites may be made in any manner so long as the authorship and source of the quoted or otherwise cited article is clear. All citation styles can be adapted to website sources.

Bear in mind that the physical locations of Yosha Bunko websites changed in 2015. Until the summer of 2015, the websites resided on different J:Com servers in Japan, accessed through domains registered through Tera Byte Dot Com in Canada. Beginning 25 July 2015, I began transferring all domains, and all the websites, to a single Sakura Internet rental server in Japan. Older URLs are therefore mostly dead, though some may retrieve an out-of-date page from one or another Internet archive.

The Yosha Bunko domain names are also stable as I own them, and they and the latest versions of the websites will be maintained by my children in the event I am no longer able to manage them. File and directory names are also generally stable but are subject to change.

Example citations

Here are two recommended citation styles, depending on whether the article was originally published on a Yosha Bunko website or elsewhere. Again, keep in mind that, when shortening citations for the sake of brevity, the site name (shown in bold) and the domain name (shown in parentheses) should be given more priority than the physical URL (shown in italics).

Articles originally published by Yosha Bunko

When citing an article that has been published only on a Yosha Bunko website, please refer to the article as you would an article in a book or journal.

Articles originally published elsewhere

Articles first published elsewhere, and republished by Yosha Bunko, may be cited as follows.

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Romanization

C, J, K, and V are used in parentheses to mark Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese (CJKV) readings of personal names, place names, and other expressions written in Chinese characters, e.g., Mutan (牡丹 J. Botan).

When the reading of a CJKV character expression is shown in more than one language, the romanization will be marked as required, e.g., Bootang (牡丹 C Mutan, J Botan).

When citing, for example, a Chinese, Korean, or Vietnamese personal or place name in a Japanese source, the Japanese reading will come first. Similar, when citing a Japanese name expressed in another language, that language's rendering of the name will come first.

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Chinese

Chinese related to the People's Republic of China (PRC) is generally romanized in pinyin (PY). Chinese related to the Ch'ing (Qing) Dynasty or the Republic of China (ROC) is generally romanized in Wade-Giles (WG). Sometimes one is shown after the other in parentheses. When both are shown, Pinyin will precede Wade Giles, e.g. Shin (清 Qīng Ch'ing)

Proper nouns and other expressions usually pronounced in a local dialect will be romanized in customary spellings (Chiang K'ai-shek, Hongkong).

Tones are not always marked. In Pinyin they will usually be shown diacritically (三民主义 sānmín zhŭyì). In Wade-Giles they are usually not shown (三民主義 san-min chu-i), but at times they may be shown by numbers (三民主義 san1min2 chu3i4).

When transliterating from Japanese sources, the received or implied Sino-Japanese readings are shown first. For example, 北京 will be shown as Pekin (ペキン) unless otherwise marked Beijin (べいじん), with the understanding that terminal "-n" in Japanese is pronounced "-ng" unless otherwise constrained.

Hokkyō would be the reading of 北京 when used to mean the "northern capital" of the Northern Court in Kyoto as opposed to the "southern capital" (南京 Nankyō) of the Southern Court in Yoshino in the south of present-day Nara prefecture, in times past.

As the municipality known for having at times been the southern capital of China, 南京 will be Nanking, Nanching, or Nanjing, according to the preferences or implications of the received text. Similarly, in reference to the dynasty and its government, 清 will be Ching, Ch'ing, or Qing -- but Shin when transliterated from Japanese texts.

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Japanese

Japanese has generally been transliterated according to the New Hepburn system of romanization (shinbun) rather than the older and more popular Hepburn system (shimbun) or Kunreishiki (sinbun). However, other romanizations are shown as required.

Historical kana orthography has been romanized as received, i.e., literally. Romanizations reflecting present-day kana orthography may be shown in parentheses or brackets when necessary for clarification, e.g., iro ha nihoheto . . . wehi mo sesu (iro wa nihoeto . . . ei mo sezu).

Vowel lengthening is not always marked, especially in older articles. In more recent articles, lengthening is shown by a macron or by doubling as required (aa ii uu ū ee oo ou ō). Note that "ō" will always represent "ou" and not "oo".

A final "-e" (mine, Fuse) will not be marked with an acute accent unless received that way (miné, Fusé).

"e" and "ga"

When two or more characters are used to represent the same sounds and meanings in linguistically (phonologically and semantically) identical expressions, the graphic (scriptual, calligraphic) differences may be represented in the romanization.

A good example, which frequents the News Nishikie site, is the use of both 絵 and 画 to represent "e". Because these two graphs contrast in many otherwise identical expressions, including titles of prints, 絵 will be shown as "e" and 画 will be shown as "ga" in such expressions, with the understanding that both are read "e" and mean "picture".

nishikie (錦絵)
nishikiga (錦画)

In other words, "nishikie" and "nishikiga" are intended as graphic and not linguistic distinctions. In these cases, both 絵 and 画 are graphic synonyms of "e", and hence both 錦絵 and 錦画 would be pronounced "nishikie".

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Korean

Korean is generally romanized in McCune-Reischauer (MR). However, other romanizations are shown as received, including those based on the system introduced in 2000 by ROK's Ministry of Culture and Tourism (MCT). For example, where MR would have Kim Il Sŏng for 김일성 (金日成), MCT would have Gim Il Seong.

Place and personal names better known in other spellings are usually shown as such, e.g., Seoul rather than Sŏul (MR) for 서울, and Kim Il Song or Kim Il Sung for Kim Il Sŏng (MT). The breve used in MR to differentiate some vowels is sometimes omitted, especially in common words like hangul (한글 MR hangŭl, MCT hangeul).

When romanized from Japanese texts, Korean place and personal names will be shown first in Sino-Japanese, hence Keijyau (けいじゃう in older kana orthography) or Keijō (けいじょう in present kana orthography) for 京城 (경성 MR Kyŏngsŏng, MCT Gyeongseong), and Kin Nissei (金日成) or Kimu Iruson (キム・イルソン).

The personal names of Koreans in Japan, or of Japanese or others who prefer the Sino-Japanese or mixed Sino-Japanese and Japanese readings of their putatively Korean names, will be shown as such. For example, Tei Taikin (鄭大均 てい・たいきん Tei Taikin), except when Tei himself used Chung Daekyun or another spelling, and Cho Yoshinori or Yoshinori Cho (張賢徳 ちょう・よしのり Chō Yoshinori).

Vietnamese

Only a few Vietnamese expressions appear on this site. Most are personal and place names with linguistic roots in Chinese. The Chinese characters historically used to write them have at times been shown.

When transliterating from Japanese sources, the received or implied Sino-Japanese readings are shown first. For example, from 761 to 767, Abe no Nakamaro (阿倍仲麻呂 698-770), who went to China in 717 and became an official of the Tang court, was posted for six years to the city in Annam that was later called Tonkin (東京 C. Tongking, Tonking, V. Dong Kinh, Đông Kinh), and still later Hanoi (河内 C. Hanoi, V. Ha Noi, Hà Nội).

As the Annamese city was still referred to as 東京 in 1868 when Edo become Tōkyō, written with the same characters, which mean "eastern capital", some writers and publishers apparently used 東亰, a graphic variation of 東京, to differentiate Japan's new capital from Tonkin (see Tonichi mastheads: The character of calligraphy in the Articles section of News Nishikie.

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Translations

Unless otherwise indicated, all translations in an article are mine. A word, though, about the bulk of the translations.

Some of the translations on Yosha Bunko have been polished for publication in general magazines, journals, or books. Most, however, are presented as close structural translations -- as my intent is to show, in English, the construction of the original texts in terms of their wording (terminology, usage) and phrasing (grammar, syntax).

Most structural translations can easily polished by deleting the construction marks, removing the scaffolding, bridging or annotating metaphors that might not travel in English without commentary, and anglicizing some of the syntax while respecting the stylistic features of the original.

Structural fidelity

Structural fidelity is important, especially in translations of literature, but also of legal texts. Structure means story presentation -- wording and phrasing -- semantic details and their syntactic flow -- the stuff of narrative style -- the warp, woof, and texture of a story, law, or court decision.

What can be lost

What is lost when translators play loose with structure? Very simply and essentially, the quality of a narrative -- whether of a work of literature or a legal text.

In literature, narrative quality means how an author chooses to tell a story -- short dramatic sentences like a Hemingway or longer, explanatory prose like a Faulkner -- rhythm and metaphor -- voice.

In legal texts, narrative quality means how a law stipulates its provisions, or how a court decision argues the finer distinctions of laws and precedents -- using the resources of the language in which they are written.

Representation, interpretation, explanation

Structural translation aim to reflect, as closely as possible in English, the phrasing and usage of the original. Elements of the original text are first represented in what I consider to be their basic English equivalents. Original text and/or romanization may be shown in (parentheses).

national
national (国民)
national (国民 kokumin)
national (kokumin)

Contextual interpretations are shown in [brackets]. Such interpretations will be limited to precise paraphrasing within the semantic range of the basic representation. Parallel expressions cited from other English versions will be enclosed in quotes.

national [an affiliate of a nation]
nationals [some nationals as individuals]
nationals [all nationals comprising the nation, "the people"]

Explanations and comments that exceed the parameters of a precise contextual paraphrase will be appended as annotations rather than shown in-line.

Omissions

Most translations are complete. Omissions of parts that are not germane are shown with ellipses ( . . . ) or, additionally, specifically marked ( . . . omitted . . .) without further comment. Omissions due to missing or problematic (corrupted, illegible, unreadable, undecipherable) text are specifically marked as such. Where possible I have shown and discussed problematic text.

Sources

In principle, when citing a source, original titles and spellings will be respected. Translated titles will be shown in [brackets] following original titles. When an English title has been provided with a Japanese source, I will first show my translation in [square brackets] and the provided title in <angle brackets>.

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Terminology

Terminology has become a major issue for me as I revise my thinking about how best to represent Japan and its history in English, based on Japanese sources. Words and expressions I used in my student days with some frequency -- culture, the West, the Japanese, modern, citizen, minority group -- I no longer use or restrict to very specific contexts.

Many of the problems arise in the various ways key Japanese terms, for example, have been represented in English. My own approach to translating legal texts and other materials across the decades has been to tag terms with English equivalents that best match the received text, and not mix metaphors for the sake of simplifying the text in order to accommodate an imagined reader's expecations.

Examples of terminology standards

Here are some examples of problems of usage I frequently encounter in both my own writing and translation, and the standards I have adopted as partial solutions. See the Glossaries section of the Yosha Bunko site, and the Glossary part of the Almanacs section of the News Nishikie site, for more detailed discussions of all keywords

Japanese and Korean

I use words like "Japanese" and "Korean" to mean a national of Japan or of one or another Korea, or Japanese or Koreans collectively as nationals of Japan or Korea, always with reference to civil status, never putative race or ethnicity. When racializing individuals, I will always qualify their nationality with a suitable racioethnic term, such as "black Korean" or "white American" or "yellow Japanese" or whatever.

Similarly, a term like "Korean Japanese" in my usage will always refer to a Japanese national of some degree of self-styled Korean national ancestry, again regardless of race or ethnicity. In other words, ancestry through lineal descent or adoption is not to be automatically linked with either race or ethnicity.

When appearing in cited material, or when used in translations, however, such terms will acquire the nuances, often racialist, implied by their users.

Chosen and Chosenese

There are many reasons to differentiate Chosen and Chosenese from Korea and Koreans. In my usage, Chosen and Chosenese will reflect 朝鮮 (Chōsen) and 朝鮮人 (Chōsenjin) in Japanese, referring to the entity Korea became when it was annexed as a part of Japan in 1910, which when its territorial affiliates -- regardless of their race or ethnicity -- became Japanese. Their legal status as Japanese -- i.e., people who possessed Japan's nationality -- continued until 1952.

Chosen ceased to be part of "Japan" as an Occupied state on 2 September 1945. However, Japan did not formally lose Chosen until 28 April 1952. Yet Chosen continues to be legally used in Japan, as the affiliation of aliens in Japan who remain in legacy Chosen registers, in court actions concerning legacy statuses, and in international treaties concerning legacy matters, such as the 1965 ROK-Japan normalization treaty. In all such cases, it is important to differentiate "Chosen" from the entity of "Korea" that became Chosen, and from the entity of "Korea" that Chosen again became when "liberated" in 1945.

All Chosenese lost their Japanese nationality from 28 April 1952, but today, in Japan, there is a still a residual population of Chosenese -- persons affiliated with Chosen who have been in Japan's prefectures since the end of World War II, and their Japan-born descendants. Such people remain Chosenese because they have yet to acquire a nationality that Japan recognizes.

Kokumin, kokuseki, and kika

The term 国民 (kokumin) is always "national" (individuals) or "nation" (collectively), and 国籍 (kokuseki) is always "nationality" in my usage. Like many people, I used to confuse nationality and citizenship, mainly because I grew up in the United States, where domestic law defines US citizenship as nationality with rights of Federal suffrage, and speaks of citizens. The basic US law, though, is a law of nationality. And Japanese laws do not define, or speak of, citizens or citizenship.

Some terms are rendered according to practices in specific periods. Accordingly, 帰化 (kika) is "allegiance change" before enforcement of the Nationality Law in 1899, and "naturalization" after this law enabled aliens to petition for permission to acquire nationality.

Minzoku and jinshu

Both 民族 (minzoku) and 人種 (jinshu) are "race" when used metaphorically to refer to a population that is thought of primarily in terms of "blood" (biological, genetic) descent. However, 民族 is sometimes used to mean "nation" or "nationality" in the ethnic or racioethnic sense of these terms, while 人種 is used to refer to "race" in its narrower biological sense.

To reserve the terms "nation" and "nationality" for their proper use as legal terms that define the populations of civil states as non-racial, not-ethnic entities, I will always qualify 民族 as "race" in the sense of "ethnorace" or "racioethnic nation", while 人種 (jinshu) will be qualified as "race" in the sense of "biorace" or "biological race". Such qualifications will be made with the understanding that, in practically all instances, "minzoku" (民族) metaphorically conflates with "jinshu" (人種) as an essentially genetic quality.

Such as surely, particularly but not exclusively in American English, "nationality" and "national origin" -- and to some extent even "culture" and "heritage" in fashionable "multiculturalist" and "multiracialist" idiom today -- are similarly imbued with nuances of racioethnic determinism, hence the continued use of terms like African, Asian, European, Japanese, French, ad infinitum as labels for putative geographical racial ancestry.

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Dates

When citing lunar calendar dates from older Japanese, Korean, and Chinese sources, I have generally shown the reign name plus year-month-day lunar calendar date first, followed by the equivalent Christian-era solar calendar date, either in-line or in (parentheses). When citing secondary sources that appear to have mixed lunar calendar months and days with Christian-era years, I will show corrections in [brackets].

On this website, all dates expressed in the form 29 March 1872, or 1872-3-29, are solar dates. All dates before Meiji 6, when expressed as reign names followed by year-month-day dates, will be lunar dates. All dates from Meiji 6 will be solar dates.

Meiji 6

The Meiji government used the lunar calendar through Meiji 5-12-2 (31 December 1872). From the following day, the government officially adopted the solar calendar. Hence Meiji 5-12-3 (lunar) became Meiji 6-1-1 (solar), or New Year's Day 1873 (solar).

When citing older materials, lunar dates will always be shown first, and their Christian-era solar calendar equivalents will be shown in parentheses. For example, the 30th day of the 5th month of the 4th year of Keiō will be shown like this.

Keiō 4-5-30 (19 July 1868)

Julian and Gregorian dates

When presenting dates from early historical sources, I have sometimes shown the Julian date in [brackets] following the Gregorian date -- mostly to facilitate checking dates obtained by using conventional conversion tables with dates obtained with on-line calendar converters.

Nihon shoki 19, Kinmei 17 Winter 10, 556-11/12
[Month 10 lunar straddles months 11 and 12 Gregorian]

Nihon kōki 24, Saga, Kōnin 6 Winter 10-15, 815-11-23 [19]
[10-15 lunar corresponds to 11-23 Gregorian and 11-19 Julian]

In the above examples, the bracketed [Julian date] would apply since the Gregorian calendar did not replace the Julian calendar until Tenshō 10-9-19, when [5 October 1582] Julian was declared to be 15 October 1582 Gregorian.

Tenshō 10-9-18, 1582-10-14 [4] (last Julian date)
Tenshō 10-9-19, 1582-10-15 [5] (first Gregorian date)

Impact of shift from lunar to solar calendars

While Meiji 6 marked the end of the lunar calendar officially, the lunar calendar continued to be used in some quarters of life and is alive and well today in some circles. Moreover, many lunar dates that marked famous historical events and popular seasonal observations before the adoption of the solar calendar survive numerically on the solar calendar, thus throwing them out of kilter with their historical contexts.

Topknots and swords

Here is an example of the effects of the calendar change from Meiji 6 on the dates of contemporary proclamations.

On 23 September 1871 (Meiji 4-8-9 lunar calendar), a Great Council of State proclamation required shizoku (legal title of members of former warrior caste) to cut the topknots (散髪 sanpatsu), which had been a trademark of their status, but permitted them to brandish their swords (脱刀 dattō) -- whereas heimin (legal title of commoners), who had begun to wear swords, were prohibited from doing so.

Then on 28 March 1876 (Meiji 9-3-28 solar calendar), another Great Council of State proclamation (No. 38) forbid all wearing of swords (帯刀 taitō) -- "other than use with court dress [taireifuku] or uniforms of military personnel and police" (大禮服竝ニ軍人警察官吏等制服著用ノ外帶刀禁止).

Ako rōnin

A good example of how lunar dates were transposed (rather than converted) to solar dates is the assassination of Kira by the Ako rōnin of Chūshingura fame, and their punishment by self-execution for what was deemed to have been an illegal vendetta.

The raid (uchiri) took place on the night of the 14th and 15th of the 12th month of the 15th year of Genroku. This happens to be the night of the 30th and 31st of January 1703. However, today it is remembered as occurring on the night of the 14th and 15th of December -- never mind that some sources will say 1703, which would post-date the event by over ten months.

The attack on Kira's residence was planned for the middle of the lunar month because the moon would be full -- something which a solar date would not predict. The guard was further relaxed that night because it happened to snow. The attackers may not have planned on the snow, but they knew it would be cold. And it is far more likely to be cold enough for snow on 12-14/15 lunar than on 12-14/15 solar.

Forty-six of the rōnin executed themselves on the 4th day of the 2nd month of the 16th year of Genroku -- which corresponds to to 20 March 1703 on the solar calendar. But today they are mourned on 4 February. While the absolute seasonality of their deaths is thus entirely lost, the seasonality of their deaths relative to the end of one year and the start of the next -- irrespective of calendar -- is preserved, as people continue to remember their act half a month before the end of the year and mourn their deaths a month into the new year.

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Technical

All files on Yosha Bunko have been compiled on a text editor. I do not use an html editor or webpage builder. Though I continue to use some tags that most webpage designers have long since abandoned, the script is simple and organized and will be recognized by all browsers capable of handling legacy script.

Most large tables of statistics were first created as Excel spreadsheets then converted to html using Excel's html converter. The table components of the converted files were then cut and pasted into my own article templates and sometimes otherwise modified.

Cascading style sheets (css)

The earliest versions of the original Yosha Research webite used frames. The next designs used frames with cascading style sheets. The present design uses only flat files controlled by a single cascading style sheet. Some of the files appear to have frames, but they are really flat files made to appear like frames.

All html files on Yosha Bunko websites are controlled by a single css style sheet on the root directory of the website. An article served as an html file will properly display only it is properly associated with this style sheet.

Image files

An image related to an html file will display with the file only if it is in an "images" folder properly associated with folder containing the html file.

Pdf files

In principle I do not serve pdf or other self-contained files from Yosha Bunko websites. However, a pdf files of scans of pages from newspapers have been provided as downloaded from other, attributed sources. These files require only an Adobe Reader to view.

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Scripting, validation, and styling

Scripting

All Yosha Bunko webpages have been written using UltraEdit, a plain text editor. The designs are mine. All html scripting, except for a few tables, charts, or graphs created by Excel, is mine.

The page that serves as the entry to each website includes a JavaScript mouse-over image changer. The documentation on these pages attributes the JavaScript to its author and notes that I have modified the script for my own purposes,

Validation

All pages with the following icon at the bottom have been validated through W3C's Markup Validation Service for HTML 4.01 Transitional.

Note, however, that Excel-generated script does not validate at this lower level. Moreover, a few pages have html elements that do not validate, or non-Shift JIS characters that prevent the page from being validated.

Currently, I validate pages as follows.

1. Copy the URL of the page into cache.
2. Click the WC3 icon.
3. Paste the URL into the "Address" box.
4. Click "Check".
5. Manually edit the page in UltraEdit
   to fix problems found by the validator.

Styling

All pages are styled by the same CSS style sheet, which has been validated by W3C's CSS Validation Service at Level 3. Most of the classes are of my own design. A few are modifications of classes copped from other style sheets.

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Languages and coding

Most articles on Yosha Bunko websites are in English. The default script for all Yosha Bunko web files, however, is Shift JIS (Japan Industrial Standard).

Characters not included in Shift JIS -- including older Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese characters; simplified Chinese graphs, Korean hangŭl, and Vietnamese romanization; Thai and Myanmar scripts; alphabetic letters with diacritics; and various non-linguistic symbols -- are embedded in html files using the following kinds of script.

Sequences like &#name; where "name" is a group of letters representing a symbol or graph. For example, the string &#amp; generates an "ampersand" (&).

Unicode numeric character references (NCRs) like &#N; where N is a number -- written N when a decimal number but xN when a hexadecimal number. I have generally converted hexadecimal Unicode formulations like U+N to decimal. For example, since Shift JIS does not include the second-person pronoun 你, the graph U+4F60 (你) could be produced with an NCR string written &#x4F60; (hexadecimal), but I have generally used the formulation &#20320; (decimal).

If characters do not appear on your browser, go to the Encoding submenu on the View menu and look for either Japanese Auto-Select or Japanese Shift-JIS. If such options do not appear, or do not seem to work, then you may need to download and/or install appropriate multilingual add-on features.

Myanmar

The standard Japanese version of Firefox which I use includes fonts for all of the above East and Southeast Asian languages except Myanmar. For Myanmar I installed the Myanmar TrueType font set provided by Myanmar Unicode & NLP Research Center [dead link]. Whereas strings of complex Thai script properly render on my browser, for some reason Myanmar graphs -- such as ေ (-e) သ (th-) ွ (-w-) း (first tone), representing "thwe" (thway) and meaning "blood" -- remain discrete.

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Browsers and monitors

The visual appearance of all Yosha Bunko webpages has been confirmed using Firefox and a wide-screen monitor. I have personally confirmed some content through Internet Explorer but not Safari.

A few files include JavaScript slide shows and other dynamic features. Since these are client-side programs, you must enable your browser to run JavaScript in order to view their effects.

All Yosha Bunko webpages are designed to stretch or shrink to fit a screen. Most tables, too, will flow, but some are fixed-width. Some older pages are best viewed on a monitor set to 800 x 600 pixels. More recent pages are best viewed at 1600 x 900.

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Disclaimers

All Yosha Bunko websites are publicly accessible sites. By entering and exploring any Yosha Bunko site, visitors understand and accept the following principles.

(1) Anyone who visits a publicly accessible website assumes all responsibility for personal intellectual and emotional consequences of viewing the content.

(2) Providing a link to an external website (a) does not certify the legality of the website in the visitor's local community, (b) does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information found on the website, and (c) does not imply endorsement or approval of the viewpoints, products, or services reflected or offered by the website.

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Contact

Critiques, corrections, suggestions and other feedback, and queries concerning any of the Yosha Bunko websites, are always welcome.

Please use the following form mail to contact Yosha Bunko.

Yosha Bunko Contact Form

Thank you for your attention.

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