SPECIAL NEWS PRESENTATION Witness to war

SPECIAL NEWS PRESENTATION Witness to war To mark the 62nd anniversary of the end of the war, The Japan Times is publishing a series of interviews with firsthand witnesses of the country's march to war and crushing defeat. Each of our subjects — speaking with the authority that only those in the evening of life can command — testifies to the destruction humanity can inflict upon itself. But each has also shared their view of how younger generations can avoid the same tragic path. Demons still haunt Christian soldier By SETSUKO KAMIYA Before and during the war, Japanese believed the Emperor was a living god. They also believed they were fighting for him and dying on the battlefield was honorable. Read the article >> Ex-army cadet, 81, recalls war mind-set By NATSUKO FUKUE For Kotaro Kaneko, 81, entering the elite Imperial Japanese Army Academy during the war was merely a way to a better life and pay, just as students today go to university to get a better job. Read the article >> Imperial army war vet haunted by horrors in China By NATSUKO FUKUE Ichiro Koyama's schedule is filled with lectures, talks and interviews. The 88-year-old, a former soldier in the Imperial Japanese Army stationed in Jinan, Shandong Province in China, believes he has a duty to pass on his war experiences to younger generations. Read the article >> Recalling Nagasaki's fateful day By JUN HONGO The city has long been rebuilt and moved on, but Hiroshi Ito still can't come to grips with Nagasaki's obliteration by the United States 63 years ago. Read the article >> Veteran sheds hatred, finds Japan now like second home By TAKAHIRO FUKADA On April 7, 1945, Jerry Yellin and his fellow P-51 pilots of fighter squadron 78 took off from Iwojima to escort B-29 bombers en route to Tokyo. Read the article >> Finding Papua war dead a vet's life By DAVID McNEILL The lone survivor of an infantry unit on Papua New Guinea in World War II, Kokichi Nishimura swore to his comrades he would bring their bodies back to Japan. Sixty years later, he is still trying to fulfill his promise in a story of indomitable will and determination. Read the article >> Richie offers history lesson By TAKAHIRO FUKADA On Dec. 7, 1941, a 17-year-old high school student named Donald Richie was fixing the fence at his house in Lima, Ohio, when his mother ran out on the porch to tell him and his father that she just heard over the radio that Japanese forces had attacked Pearl Harbor. Read the article >> War trauma leads to efforts to reconcile By JUN HONGO Free-falling from approximately 27,000 feet after his B-29 was critically damaged while flying over the Kanto region, Raymond "Hap" Halloran was all but certain his fate had been sealed. Read the article >> War exacts top toll on bottom echelons: vet By TAI KAWABATA In his childhood, war and militarism surrounded Tota Kaneko, a well-known haiku poet and retiree from the Bank of Japan. When he was a sixth-grader, Japan invaded Manchuria. By the time he was a student at Mito High School, Japan was waging total war against China. Read the article >> Aug. 13 field draftee fast-tracked to Soviet gulag By JUN HONGO For Yoshiro Yazawa, the misfortune of being drafted just two days before Japan's 1945 surrender ended up costing him three years in a Soviet concentration camp. Read the article >> Student nurse recalls horror of Okinawa fighting By SETSUKO KAMIYA Hideko Yoshimura was 19 and in high school in Okinawa when she was drafted as a student nurse in March 1945. She had no doubt that serving her country was the right thing to do. Read the article >> A long life of peace that sprung from war By SAYURI DAIMON Tenkoko Sonoda recalls that when the war ended on Aug. 15, 1945, she was left with an unanswered question: Why had she survived when so many of her close friends and neighbors had died? Read the article >> Vivisectionist recalls his day of reckoning By JUN HONGO Donning the crisp, Imperial Japanese Army khakis gave Ken Yuasa a sense of power, as a superior being on a mission to liberate China from Western colonialism. Read the article >> 'IT'S PLAIN MADNESS' The horror of war cannot be forgotten By KAHO SHIMIZU Shuichi Maeda worries about what will happen to society when elderly people who know firsthand the fear of war are gone. Read the article >> Hellcat bent for leather — a navy flyboy's tale By ERIC L. DUE From 26,000 feet he punched through a hole in the overcast over Tokyo early on a freezing Feb. 12, 1945, rolled into a roaring 60-degree dive and fired his rockets at a Mitsubishi engine plant. Read the article >> Veteran navy officer keeps an open mind By JUN HONGO As the public still debates the Imperial navy's activities during the war, many veteran sailors say that at the time, at least, they saw their objective as liberating Asia from Western colonial rule. Read the article >> Nemuro raid survivor longs for homeland By KANAKO TAKAHARA Shohei Yamamoto still has to choke back tears when he talks about the day he was expelled from his village of Shibetoro on Etorofu Island off northern Hokkaido, two years after Japan was defeated in World War II. Read the article >> Vet blames those on high for war's sins, delusions By JUN HONGO Beyond the torment of World War II and his postwar incarceration on Java and at Tokyo's Sugamo Prison, one of Susumu Iida's earliest recollections of the war is meeting an Imperial Japanese Army general in fall 1942. Gen. Iwane Matsui was a "frank man who looked like any other grandfather in the neighborhood," Iida recalled, although Matsui, then 64, had already commanded the Shanghai Expeditionary Forces in Nanjing. Read the article >> Censors unable to hide defeat: China escapee By SETSUKO KAMIYA In April 1945, Yukika Sohma and her four small children boarded a packed train in Mudanjiang in Manchuria bound for the port of Rajin in what is today North Korea. From there, the family took a crowded ship to Niigata Prefecture, then another train to Fukushima Prefecture to join relatives. During their journey, the 33-year-old Sohma and her children, aged 5, 4, 2 and 6 months, had a hard time finding food and places to sleep. But with the help of people along the way, the family safely reached their destination after 10 days. Read the article >> Spared Korean war criminal pursues redress By AKEMI NAKAMURA Lee Hak Rae was stunned on March 20, 1947, when he stood in an Australian military court in Singapore and was sentenced to hang as a war criminal for the brutal treatment he was accused of inflicting on ailing Allied prisoners of war who were forced to build the infamous Death Railway to their last breath. Lee had been specifically accused by nine ex-POWs of collaborating with the Japanese military in forcing sick prisoners to build the Thai-Burma railway until many died. Read the article >> Journalism in the service of war authority By SETSUKO KAMIYA Kanji Murakami began his reporting career in January 1941, joining the Asahi Shimbun's bureau in Seoul, or Keijo as it was then known, when the Korean Peninsula was under Japanese colonial rule. At that time media censorship was strong. A 1909 law imposed many restrictions and curbed freedom of speech. Every newspaper was loyal to the Imperial government, which urged the nation to sacrifice for victory. Read the article >> 'War orphan' recounts feeling of abandonment By AKEMI NAKAMURA It was a rainy day in mid-August 1945. World War II was about to draw to a close, but nobody in the tiny Chinese village knew it. All they knew was that chaos was breaking out, and that the Russian military was approaching from the north. Noriko Suzuki was among some 600 Japanese sent to northeast China, in the region historically known as Manchuria, under a colonial government program for settling the region. That plan was clearly falling apart. Read the article >> Surrender spared a young, doubting kamikaze By ERIC PRIDEAUX If Masamichi Shida, 80, had known a bit more about the world back in 1942, he might never have become a kamikaze. But Shida was just an impressionable junior high school kid when he took the first step toward becoming a warrior for the Emperor. Read the article >>

Friday, Nov. 12, 2010

ART BRIEF

'"Home Sweet Home" by Invader'

By JEFF MICHAEL HAMMOND

Gallery Target

Closes Nov. 19

"Retinal Invasion" INVADER

Since its origin in 1970s New York, when youths started "bombing" buildings and subway trains with stylized graffiti of their names and other messages, street art has morphed to encompass various media and subject matter. It has also become hot property in the global contemporary art scene.

The artist known simply as Invader started his career with work based on the iconic "Space Invaders" video game characters, from which he takes his nom de guerre. He began by sticking up images of invaders, made with tiles, around his native Paris, where the small mosaics can now be found in around 1,000 locations. He has also gone on to "invade" 40 different cities around the world — including Tokyo on a previous trip. He is currently holding an exhibition at Tokyo's Gallery Target.

"I was interested in digital and started to use tiles as a way to make a bridge between digital pixels and analog," says Invader, who actually has a background in fine art. "I began by fixing some tiles to canvas and then thought they would be the perfect medium to put up outside, as they are very resistant."

A half dozen or so of these works line the wall of Target, ranging from a silver figure on a black background to those in multiple colors. The pixel/tile analogy led Invader to experiment with Rubik's Cubes too, stacking them together and manipulating their colored blocks to create images. From his "Rubik Cubism" series, a small selection based on classic album covers from his childhood are on show.

Lacking certain key colors, the cubes create somewhat deteriorated versions of the covers but are nonetheless recognizable. Get too close and the images dissolve into a blur of square dots. Yet, look at them from a distance or, as suggested, miniaturized on your mobile phone viewfinder, and the images instantly gain more clarity.

Gallery Target is in Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, a 10-minute walk from Harajuku Station on the JR Yamanote Line; admission is free; open daily 12 p.m. - 7 p.m., closed Sundays and holidays. For more information, call (03) 3402-4575 or visit www.gallery-target.com.

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Friday, Nov. 12, 2010

Edo beauties: "The Cultivation of Polychrome Prints, a Famous Edo Period Product" (1803, left) by Kitagawa Utamaro. MKG HAMBURG

Ephemeral beauty in the lives of Edo women

By YOKO HARUHARA

Special to The Japan Times

The Ota Memorial Museum of Art, Tokyo, is currently hosting an exhibition of Edo Period (1603-1867) ukiyo-e woodblock prints from the Museum for Art and Craft Hamburg, Germany. The museum houses one of the finest ukiyo-e collections in Europe, and has lent 237 pieces from its 5,000 piece collection, including wood- block prints, drawings and illustrated woodcuts by master artists. The collection reflects the vision of the museum's founder, Justus Brinckmann (1843-1915), who established the space to provide the German public the opportunity to study the craftsmanship of ukiyo-e artists.

"Rice Paddies in Asakusa and the Torinomachi Festival" (1857) by Utagawa Hiroshige. MKG HAMBURG

The term "ukiyo-e," which literally means "art of the floating world," reflects the transformation of the Buddhist belief that the world of human existence is both transitory and fleeting. What started as a religious ideology was transformed by the citizens of Edo (old Tokyo) into an aesthetic code that reveled in demonstrations of ephemeral beauty. The setting for ukiyo-e art is the world of Edoites' indulgences, including kabuki theaters, tea houses and the entertainment district.

Perhaps one of the best ways to learn about the world of ukiyo-e is to explore the women depicted in this art form. Two of the master artists appearing in this exhibition, Kitagawa Utamaro (ca.1753-1806) and Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) — usually known simply as Hiroshige — have widely varying approaches to portraying the floating world.

Utamaro is perhaps best known for his portraiture of beautiful women. The triptych woodblock print titled "The Cultivation of Polychrome Prints, a Famous Edo Period Product" (1803, pictured) is an amazing example of his work . The three panels create a narrative composition that is viewed from right to left. In each panel, three beautiful women are portrayed in different poses, wearing a variety of garments and hair styles. The artwork depicts the process of printmaking in an atelier. What made the print amusing, novel, and highly eye-catching for the viewer of the time is the fact that women were never engaged in this practice, since printmaking was a man's occupation.

Utamaro teases viewers, providing an alluring scenario that encourages them to imagine a room filled with a bevy of beauties. In contrast to the seemingly expressionless and stereotypically idealized depictions of women by his predecessors, Utamaro developed a style that reveals the individual characteristics of each of his subjects; some reflective and playful, and others hard at work.

In this print, he provides variety by showing different types of women working side by side. In the right panel, the wealthy publisher, dressed in an expensive, chic, black kimono with a pink cherry blossom pattern is viewing a painting, while the artist, wearing a striped casual vest over her kimono, leans suggestively over the table with her right elbow exposed; in the middle panel, the women are engaged in transferring the print pattern to the woodblock, sharpening the chisel and chiseling the design onto the block. In the scene on the left panel, three other women size paper sheets and hang them to dry.

In contrast to Utamaro's style, Hiroshige's approach can clearly be seen in "Rice Paddies in Asakusa and the Torinomachi Festival" (1857, pictured) from the renowned series "One Hundred Famous Views of Edo."

Unlike Utamaro's titillating scene that peeks into a fantasy world filled with women, Hiroshige deliberately chooses to hide his subject. The scene is set in a bright, cheerful room of a courtesan in the Yoshiwara pleasure quarters on the day of the Torinoichi Festival, yet the courtesan is coyly out of sight. In leaving us with the scantest of clues, Hiroshige hopes to pique our interest and force us to speculate: "Where is this woman? Why are her quarters in slight disarray, with hair accessories lying on the floor and a towel casually placed on the window sill? What kind of woman keeps this precocious, white cat? How attractive she must be!"

Each artist has taken a unique approach to depicting the beautiful women of the floating world. Utamaro's skill lies in the casual nature of the subjects he depicts, almost as if the viewers have accidently witnessed something they shouldn't have. Hiroshige is voyeuristic too, but cleverly forces the viewers to use their imagination. Both are masters of their art, but this not-to-be- missed collection includes many other highlights, including the work of Suzuki Haronobu, Toshusai Sharaku, and Katsushika Hokusai.

"Masterpieces of the Ukiyo-e Collection from the Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg" takes place at the Ota Memorial Museum of Art in Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, until Nov. 28. Admission ¥1,000; open 10:30 a.m.- 5:30 p.m., closed Mon. For more information, visit www.ukiyoe-ota-muse.jp.

Solucionan un problema matemático

Solucionan un problema matemático Un grupo de investigación en Teoría de los Números del Departamento de Matemáticas de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM), con la colaboración del matemático húngaro Imre Ruzsa, han resuelto un problema que llevaba casi un siglo planteado y que había resistido el ataque de todos los matemáticos que se enfrentaron a él. FUENTE | UAM - mi+d 15/11/2010

Seleccionemos los números 1, 3, 4, 6. Al realizar todas las posibles sumas de dos elementos, podemos ver que algunas de ellas se repiten, por ejemplo 1 + 6 = 3 + 4. Es fácil entender que cuanto más denso y numeroso sea nuestro conjunto, más difícil será evitar que haya sumas que se repitan muchas veces. Los matemáticos están interesados en desvelar los misterios de los números naturales, algo en apariencia muy inocente pero de gran profundidad y dificultad. Uno de los problemas más relevantes en esta teoría consiste en encontrar conjuntos con el mayor número posible de elementos, todos ellos menores que una cantidad dada, y en los que cada suma no se repita más de, digamos, 1.000 veces. El problema se remonta a 1932, cuando Simon Sidon se lo planteó al joven estudiante Paul Erdös que quedó fascinado con la belleza del mismo y trabajó en él y en problemas relacionados durante mucho tiempo. Erdös fue uno de los matemáticos más prolíficos del siglo pasado y trabajó con cientos de colaboradores, hasta el punto de que en honor a él los matemáticos han establecido el "número de Erdös": si alguien escribió un artículo con Erdös tiene número 1, si escribió un artículo con alguien que trabajó con Erdös tiene número 2, y así sucesivamente. Sorprendentemente, la mayoría de matemáticos tiene un número de Erdös muy bajito, casi todos tienen un número inferior a 8. En un artículo próximo a publicarse en Journal of Mathematical Analysis and Applications, el grupo de investigación en Teoría de los Números del Departamento de Matemáticas de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM), con la colaboración del matemático húngaro Imre Ruzsa, ha resuelto este problema que llevaba casi un siglo planteado y que había resistido el ataque de todos los matemáticos que se enfrentaron a él. Este tipo de conjuntos, además de un gran interés teórico, tiene aplicaciones en el radar, el sonar y las comunicaciones. Los estudios y resultados anteriores se enmarcan dentro de una disciplina de gran actualidad en el mundo matemático, la "Combinatoria Aditiva", campo en el que trabajan algunos de los mejores matemáticos del mundo, como Terence Tao, "niño prodigio de los números" que recibió en 2006 la Medalla Fields, considerada el Premio Nobel de las Matemáticas.

David K. Levine: Copiar es bueno: donde primero había una idea, después hay dos

David K. Levine: Copiar es bueno: donde primero había una idea, después hay dos Entrevista a David K. Levine profesor de Economía en la Universidad de Washington en San Luis (Misuri) y economista liberal que cree que la innovación crece más rápidamente sin propiedad intelectual e industrial. FUENTE | Público 15/11/2010

De hecho, Levine aplica modelos matemáticos para diseñar teorías sobre propiedad intelectual y su papel en el retorno de la inversión. El también experto en la Teoría de juegos pronunció una conferencia en el reciente Foro de la Cultura Libre, en Barcelona. Desde la racionalidad económica, Levine critica que las grandes empresas y conglomerados mantengan derechos del pasado bajo el manto de la propiedad intelectual. "Es que no creo que tengan ningún derecho", explica. "Es natural que si estos dinosaurios han tenido privilegios durante mucho tiempo, crean que los tienen que perpetuar", añade. Levine, que colabora con frecuencia con la española Fundación de Estudios de Economía Aplicada, unthink tank de economía liberal, cree esencial diferenciar entre la propiedad física, de un objeto, y la intelectual. "Si te robo el coche, no tienes coche; si te robo una idea, sigues teniéndola". Puede sonar provocador, pero sobre esta diferencia construye el principal argumento que arroja contra la industria cultural y sus sociedades de gestión: "Copiar es bueno, porque donde primero había una idea, después tenemos dos. La mía es una copia, pero la puedo usar". Y se pone a sí mismo de ejemplo del efecto positivo de la copia: "Los alumnos me pagan por enseñarles mis ideas. Después, ellos podrán utilizarlas para convertirse en profesores". MONOPOLIO INTELECTUAL Levine lleva años sosteniendo que los derechos de propiedad intelectual, nacidos para proteger la creación cultural y la innovación, hoy han perdido esa misión. Junto a su colega de universidad Michele Boldrin pusieron en el libro Against Intellectual Monopoly (Contra el Monopolio Intelectual, editado porCambridge University Press) decenas de ejemplos de cómo el proteccionismo sobre las ideas frena el desarrollo y, por contra, la copia genera negocio. El mayor y más reciente ejemplo es Internet. Pero, ¿cómo se puede sacar partido económico de Internet ahora que los usuarios se han acostumbrado a tenerlo todo gratis? "Preguntémosle a Google, o a la industria de la televisión, que se hizo millonaria entregando su producto gratis y hacía dinero con la publicidad. El 80% de lo que ganan los músicos viene del directo; el 20% de los royaltiese_SDRq. Los avances tecnológicos están detrás del trastoque generalizado que vive la propiedad intelectual. "La gente ya sacó toda la música y películas que quiso. Es tarde para detener eso", recuerda. "¿Cuántos millones de personas infringen la ley todos los días descargando? Algún día las leyes se van a tener que adecuar a la realidad". Para él, la solución a largo plazo es abolir las patentes y el copyright. Autor:   Toni Polo

Los embriones de dinosaurio más antiguos jamás descubiertos

Los embriones de dinosaurio más antiguos jamás descubiertos Nunca llegaron a nacer, les faltó poco, pero han llegado hasta nuestros días como algo extraordinario. Paleontólogos han descubierto los embriones de dinosaurio más antiguos conocidos, unos pequeños nonatos de la familia de los Massospondylus, una especie de prosaurópodo antepasado de los herbívoros gigantes, que estuvieron a punto de ver la luz en el Jurásico, hace 190 millones de años. FUENTE | ABC Periódico Electrónico S.A. 15/11/2010

Los frágiles embriones fueron descubiertos dentro de su huevo, muy bien conservado, por investigadores que clasificaban fósiles africanos en la Universidad de Toronto Mississauga en Canadá. La investigación aparece publicada en la revista Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. El profesor Robert Reisz y sus colegas analizaban huevos fosilizados de dinosaurio provenientes del sur de África cuando se llevaron una gran sorpresa. Dentro de varios de ellos, se encontraban los embriones de Massospondylus. Los científicos creen que estos embriones estaban a punto de eclosionar, por el estado de osificación de sus esqueletos. El aspecto de estos embriones es muy diferente del de los adultos de la misma especie. Tienen grandes cabezas desproporcionadas, cuatro patas y largas extremidades anteriores, y miden unos 20 centímetros de longitud. Los adultos, por el contrario, tienen cabezas relativamente pequeñas y cuellos largos, y es más probable que caminaran solo sobre dos patas. Este extraño aspecto sugiere que cuando los dinosaurios maduraban, su cuello y sus extremidades traseras crecían mucho más rápido que su cabeza y sus patas delanteras. Debido a su fragilidad y a que aún no les han salido los dientes, los investigadores creen que las crías de dinosaurio necesitaban cuidados maternos durante algún tiempo. Si esto es así, los fósiles también suponen el registro más antiguo de cuidados parentales.