A weird warning siren, which announced that the ICBM by North Korea has overflown Hokkaido (the most northern part of Japan), blared out in the archipelago in the early morning on September 15 (Fri.) 2017.Listening to this news, we, sixteen SGRA Fukushima Study Tour members left Tokyo Station by Shinkansen for Iitate-village in Fukushima Prefecture. The SGRA Fukushima Tour, sponsored by the Atsumi International Foundation, started in the year 2012 for the purpose of inspection and studying the situation of the revival there after the disaster. Recall that on March 11, 2011, a big “Tsunami” hit Tohoku (North-Eastern)-area in Japan and radioactive contamination by the Fukushima Nuclear Power Accident caused by Tsunami became an extraordinary accident in world history. Our tour has been focusing on Iitate village where people were forced to take refuge and we have made site inspections  every year for these six years. It was the third time for me. Tour members this time came not only Japan but also from Indonesia, South Korea, China, Ghana, Italy, Sweden, Canada, Nepal and the United States. In Iitate, a provision for the evacuation zone was lifted this April and people were returning to build a new village. We, tour members, wanted  to understand how these people are tackling the difficult problem of building a new village. We have been watching the actual change of Iitate through communication with villagers. This was the most important purpose of our tour. I vividly remember a scene of Iitate when I visited last time in 2015.  At that time, the provision for evacuation was not lifted yet and we saw only decontamination workers. It was very miserable to see houses which were left as vacant houses and exposed to the wind and rain. Many houses were still vacant and we saw only a lot of flexible container bags of decontamination soil around houses and on fields. When I entered the village this time, I could see different sceneries. Some crumbling houses which belong to the people who are allowed to return are being newly built and I could see vinyl farming houses here and there. We could see also field of rice (for making Japanese “sake”. Such changes of sceneries made me feel strongly that the people have already started to build their new village. A gloomy image of the disaster-stricken area has already changed. We met Mr. Muneo Kanno, a villager of Iitate and Vice-President of the “Association of Resurrection of Fukushima”, and came to know that building a new village is not simple.He said “though the village was removed from the evacuation area category and the villagers have been allowed to return, we are faced with a lot of difficulties. I like you to see with your own eyes and feel by yourself what problems or difficulties we have. ”It was really our purpose of the SGRA Fukushima Tour. According to the Manager, General Affairs Section, Iitate, “there were about 6,000 villagers before the disaster.  And only 400, out of those 6,000, came back now but almost all are the aged. Many people come on village daytime every day from outside of Iitate. We have to overcome a lot of difficulties to restore to original condition and we have to improve the  present environments for the return of villagers.”We visited many facilities and got the opinions of people who endeavor to build a new village.  I like to report here some of these opinions.. Nursing home for the agedThey can use, even now, a nursing home for the aged which was built before the disaster and was not damaged. However, there are not enough nurses or care workers to maintain or operate such a home. Mega-solar panel：In the western area of Iitate, we saw large-sized mega-solar panels which are manufactured by a big company in Tokyo. The fields were not for farm use. The solar panels may be a trial for building a new village, but I had a feeling that something is out of place and not in harmony with nature. I hope the solar panels would not become another trouble for the life of the people in Iitate. Flower gardening：We visited Mr. Takahashi’s vinyl house. He is a farmer and growing flowers there and got his powerful opinion.  I got a strong feeling that the efforts for their future by the people who returned to the village are the basis for their development. Takahashi-san’s energy or power which try to overcome such difficulties impressed me a lot. Roadside station：”House of MADAY LIFE”：House (station) of “MADAY” Life was built as an overriding policy by the government as a symbol of the revival of Iitate.  As there is no shop in Iitate yet, such shops, convenient shops, direct sales of farm products from farmers and light meal corners in “House of MADAY”, are being completed for the improvement of villagers’ life and interchange of villagers themselves.  I hope people from other area also come to House of MADAY.＊Maday ：Dialect of Iitate area in Fukushima Flower Garden in Meadow：We visited the flower garden of Mr. Kin-ichi Okubo (aged 76 years) who is called as a “wizard of flower”. It is not the same as Takahashi-san’s flower garden mentioned above. Mr. Okubo has a dream and is trying to build a large scale flower garden for narcissuses or cherry trees utilizing the mountainside or paddy field, both of which are polluted by radioactivity. Young fellows are also working together as volunteers. I was surprised at his energy which does not look his age of 76.I am sure this flower garden would become a famous spot in Iitate  in the near future. Religious facilities：We visited “Yamatumi-shrine”. We met the village chief by chance and we were able to get his opinion about the present situation of the village. I think religion plays a big role in the revival of the village. Especially in Japan, traditional habits or festivals are deeply connected with the local shrines or temples. I am an Indonesian and a Muslim. In Indonesia, religion also plays an important role for the revival from disasters. We could make a heart-warming interchange with the people in Iitate in this SGRA Fukushima tour and learned a lot. We appreciate people who cooperated with us this time. I believe the lifting of the evacuation area would be a starting point for their restoration.And I like to keep my strong interest in Iitate hereafter believing in a brilliant future of Iitate. Photos SGRA Report of The 6th Fukushima Study Tour in Japanese (Original)  （Visiting Researcher of Kokusikan University）  Translated by Kazuo KawamuraEnglish checked by Max Maquito 

      …. Another reason why I moved to Minami-Soma City was the “compassion”. After the Great East Japan Earthquake, the words “kizuna” (bonds), “ganbarou” (let’s struggle together!), or “yorisou” (to get close) were everywhere. Such words were based on pity and goodwill, but those feelings come from the outside. The pain that people who are suffering feel is their own; for the others, like me, it is impossible to feel the same pain. However, I can open myself toward that pain.(Yū Miri, There are Unnecessary Things in our Lives) We can say that after the Great East Japan Earthquake Japanese literature has changed in various ways. After March 21st, 2011 the category “post 3.11” appeared, with many literary works focusing on issues such as the nuclear power plants, the criticism toward the government, the effects of radiation on living creatures, as well as the problems of restoration and reconstruction. A lot of books have analyzed “post 3.11 literature”, and have been translated in many languages. Thus, it is no exaggeration to say that modern Japanese literature has moved toward a new direction after the Great East Japan Earthquake.Moreover, we can see such changes in the connections between literature and various actions and groups. I will introduce three examples. In April 2012, Waseda Bungaku (Waseda Literature) was published as an extra issue with the title “Ruptured Fiction(s) of the Earthquake”: it includes short stories written especially for this charity program, as well as essays and roundtable discussions on the place of writing after a disaster like the Tōhoku earthquake. It has been translated into English, Chinese, Korean and Italian, and the proceeds of the book as well as the translations are being donated to the Red Cross. In October 2012, the “Association of writers for a society without nuclear power” was created. This association emphasized the role of fiction after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and the necessity to talk about the problems associated with nuclear power. Furthermore, in 2015 Nobel-winner Kenzaburō Ōe spoke at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan, saying that “we have no choice but to achieve a world without nuclear power. Keeping raising my voice: that may be the last job I can do.” His words had a big impact all over the world. There is one more way we can look at the relation between the Great East Japan Earthquake and the “movement” within Japanese literature. That is, writers have “moved”. Evacuation problems after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster arose not only in Fukushima Pref., but also in other regions. Starting with the Akutagawa Prize novelist Hitomi Kanehara, many writers, worried about the radioactive contamination, decided to move from Tokyo to Kansai area. Yū Miri was one of them. In her interview, Yū Miri said that her decision to move from Kamakura to Osaka on March 16, 2011 was based on her feelings as a mother: “I wanted my son to evacuate as far as possible for his own safety”. On the other hand, as a writer she felt the need to go immediately to Fukushima. In April, 2011 she returned to Kamakura, and began to visit Fukushima regularly in order to listen to the stories of people living there. She finally moved to Soma-City in Fukushima Pref. in April, 2015. What are the reasons behind her decision? “We cannot live there, although we want to.” “We have to live there, although we do not want to”. The nuclear disaster, and the problem of radioactive contamination are closely linked to the issue of “living”. Yū Miri has stressed that every person has a different bond with his/her birthplace: in order to understand that pain, we have to listen to each individual story. However, as she was listening to those painful stories while living in another place, Yū Miri felt that something was wrong: she realized that real empathy toward the pain suffered by the local people might be attained only by stepping on the same soil, breathing the same air with them. In her words, “compassion” (that is, “to suffer together”), was necessary. What would be the result of this “compassion”? A lot of “post 3.11” literary works have focused on a subject unable to write, powerless. On the other hand, Yū Miri has tried to narrate Fukushima from a different perspective. Until December, 2016 she has gathered the voices of nearly 450 people through a special FM radio program, “Two persons, one person”, held by Minami-Soma (southern part of Soma-City) special broadcasting station. About those stories she has written as follows: “Those are voices that I have heard from the outside, but they entered my body, and after a few days they suddenly changed to my own voice. His or her pain rises from my body, and the images of what he or she has lived spread through my mind as if they were my own memories.” Although Yū Miri has talked about the life in Soma-City in her essays and interviews, she has not written any fictional work about the people in Fukushima Pref. However, she has chosen to “suffer together” with those people, removing feelings based on pity and goodwill, which come from the outside. We can expect that such a writer would keep writing about the pain of people affected by Fukushima nuclear disaster, as well as about their hopes and smiles, and spread those stories around the world.  SGRA Kawaraban 551 in Japanese (Original)  (PhD candidate in Literature, Ochanomizu University) Translated by Kazuo KawamuraEnglish checked by Mac/Max Maquito

We had the forum “The Mongol Invasions of Japan and the Globalization of the Mongol Empire in the 13th Century” in the city of Kita-Kyushu in the early part of August 2017, sponsored by the Atsumi International Foundation. It was the second forum of the series “Possibilities of Conversations among National Historians”. Historians from Japan, China, Korea and Mongolia got together and discussed about the history of the Mongol Empire, especially about its impact on East Asia.  As, I, a researcher of histories, participated in the planning of this project, I had a lot of impressions which cover various things. Taking this opportunity of writing this essay, I like to briefly organize my impressions. First of all, the forum, this time, was not merely an international conference based on a key topic “The Mongol Invasions of Japan”. I would like to emphasize again the following points. We like to describe a history of mankind, first, from a viewpoint different from the historical description of the nation state. Next, we would like to correct mistaken perceptions of histories, which dominate through the influence of national history view, so as to improve relations among countries or people, which have been hindered by the problem of politicized historical recognitions which come from political confusion of means and objects.  Actually, there have been various recent conversations of histories among those three or two countries, Japan, China and Korea, as several participants of the forum referred.Some conversations were well known being led by government. Or some show high specialties in methods of researches or themes or the way of usage of historical records.Each direction or goal is not always the same. As Prof. Hiroshi Mitani pointed out, if we think of relationship, after the conversations, becoming friendly or unfriendly, we have to say that conversation based on private interaction is easier to proceed. On the other hand, private-based conversations are easy to result in deepening discussion on individual theme or technical knowledge. However, as those researchers have their own “habits” or proceed by force of habit, they are completely absorbed in discussing their interesting theme. As a result, they tend to neglect important points such as how to promote common recognition of histories from their technical discussion without thinking of social meanings of the theme. There are quite a few “conversations” which ended halfway because the participants could not continue their researches due to financial difficulties, though they got subsidy for their researches. Concerning such problems, there is a key concept: “Common Space for Wisdom” or “Platform of Wisdom”, which Prof. Liu Jie proposed as an object of the forum. The meaning of the word “Wisdom” is very broad and we can say it contains the meaning of “Knowledge” also. Through technical researches, it creates reliable historical “Knowledge” and also creates “Wisdom” which benefits to overcome adverse effects of the national historical perspective. .I dare to add this point here because we tend to forget when we proceed with our technical discussion.    I like to add my impression based on the point in dispute. One is an evaluation of the so-called “Impact of Mongolia”. Prof. Yasuhoro Yokkaichi reported an invasion to East Asia by Mongolia in perspective.  A Mongolian element, as part of the impact of the advance of Mongolia, spread to whole of East Asia including China. But, as Mongolia has ruled China and extended their influence throughout China, we can say that some areas have been affected also by Chinese culture. I was very interested in the three-dimensional report about “Mongol Impact”. In the discussion of the history of the Qing Dynasty (1616–1912), we could get a historical image that a ruler of the Dynasty had various faces besides being an emperor of China. He has built various ways of dominance depending on areas or races under his rule. Comparing the history of Qing Dynasty with that of Mongol Empire, historical documents written in Mongolian language were very limited. Especially, the history of East Asia was written mainly by classical Chinese and most of the existing historical documents are written by classical Chinese.Due to this, an image of the Yuan Dynasty, one of the Chinese dynasties, is easy to establish. But, on the contrary, we cannot distinguish an identity or independence of Mongol or plurality of Mongolian Dynasty. Recently, an image of a rich Mongol Empire became distinct by an effort of Prof. Masaaki Sugiyama.  Listening to the reports of this forum, a historical image of Mongol Empire became clearer in my mind and I was very impressed. Having related to the above, there is a problem to be solved. As Prof. Liu Jie pointed out when he summarized the whole discussion, there are double meanings in China under rule of Mongolia and China, a part of Mongol Empire. How to handle this problem when we discuss as “Common Knowledge” or “Common Wisdom”?  There are many opinions. We can take up “Yuan Dynasty” as a part of Chinese history as in the past. But, as  Prof. Ge Zhaogung pointed out, there is a way of multiple layered description, in the context of the histories of East Asia or of Eurasia.  Now, the so-called “Nation-state” has a lot of problems, which have no sign of being solved soon. But, it is not realistic to neglect their historical views about such “Nation-states”. Or rather, through such multi-layered descriptions about histories, if we can integrate various historical images, which we could not see until now, into text books, it would be useful to build “Common Knowledge” and “Common Wisdom” in the long run. I was also interested in how researchers of Mongolian histories made conversations with “the past” despite of the situations that the first historical sources were scarce. Through various reports, this time, I could understand well that reporters have strived for their creative and original studies by criticizing compiled historical books, using an approach that is not based on written datand by inference based on “common sense” in human societies and their historical background. Through the conversations of historians who handle different eras and areas, they stimulated each other in their methodology. But, I thought such conversations, in another sense, make a connection with an approach to “Common Wisdom”. SGRA Kawaraban 550 in Japanese (Original)  ( Associate professor, Graduate School of Economics, Osaka City University )  English： Translated by Kazuo Kawamura Checked by Max Maquito