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The Impact of American Conductors on the Development of Japanese Wind Band Repertoire as Evidenced in the Programming of Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra, Musashino Academia Musicae, Showa Academia Musicae, Senzoku Gakuen School of Music, and Tokyo University of the Arts
The wind bands in Japan are considered by many scholars and wind band conductors to be among some of the finest ensembles in today's wind ensemble medium. The literature and repertoire of Japanese ensembles have evolved from orchestral transcriptions, patriotic music, and military marches to original compositions by European, American, and Japanese composers. British conductor Timothy Reynish states that Japanese wind band music has looked traditionally towards the United States and occasionally United Kingdom for inspiration and repertoire. This phenomenon can be attributed to the many collegiate American and the few English wind band conductors who traveled to Japan as guest conductors, and in some cases, became residents of Japan. The focus of this study is to closely examine this significant impact of American collegiate wind band conductors, their influence on Japanese programming and how that programming has affected the collegiate repertoire. This study includes surveys of repertoire, concert programs, discographies of recordings, and interviews with prominent American conductors currently conducting in Japan. This research documents the impact that American wind band conductors have had on the programming of Japanese wind bands and how their influence have altered the collegiate repertoire. Evidence of this impact is documented by Toshio Akiyama, who states that "The influence of visiting musicians from abroad must be measured as one of the most influential aspects affecting Japanese band growth. Although the effect of Japanese musicians traveling to the United States or Europe has been beneficial, the overall impact on large numbers of people has been more directly due to the visitors from abroad."
The Divine Coming of the Light
The Divine Coming of the Light is a memoir-in-essays that covers an experience, from 2007 to 2010, when I lived in Kosuge Village (population 900), nestled in the mountains of central Japan. I was the only foreigner there. My memoir uses these three years as a frame to investigate how landscape affects identity. The book profiles who I was before Japan (an evangelical and then wilderness guide), why I became obsessed with mountains, and the fall-out from mountain obsession to a humanistic outlook. The path my narrator takes is one of a mountain hike. I was born in tabletop-flat West Texas to conservative, Christian parents in the second most Republican county by votes in America. At 19, I made my first backpacking trip to the San Juan Mountains of western Colorado and was awed by their outer-planetary-like massiveness. However, two friends and I became lost in the wilderness for three days without cell phones. During this time, an obsession possessed me as we found our way back through the peaks to safety, a realization that I could die out there, yes, but amid previously unknown splendor. I developed an addiction to mountains that weakened my religious faith. Like the Romantic poets before me, God transferred from the sky to the immense landscape. I jettisoned my beliefs and became an outdoor wilderness instructor. On every peak I traveled up, I hoped to recreate that first conversion experience when I was lost in the woods. After college, while teaching English in Kosuge Village, I learned about the mountain-worshipping religion Shugendo: a mixture of Buddhism, Shintoism, and Shamanism. I climbed dozens of peaks, spending several days backpacking. However, while in Japan, I was nearly fatally injured on a solo, month-long hike. I saw the accident as a warning and turned my attention to …
Fence, Flavor, and Phantasm: Balancing Japanese Musical Elements and Western Influence within an Historical and Cultural Context
Given the diversity found in today's Japanese culture and the size of the country's population, it is easy to see why the understanding of Japanese wind band repertoire must be multi-faceted. Alongside Western elements, many Japanese composers have intentionally sought to maintain their cultural identity through the addition of Japanese musical elements or concepts. These added elements provide a historical and cultural context from which to frame a composition or, in some cases, a composer's compositional output. The employment of these elements serve as a means to categorize the Japanese wind band repertoire. In his studies on cultural identities found in Japanese music, Gordon Matthews suggests there are three genres found within Japanese culture. He explains these as "senses of 'Japaneseness' among Japanese musicians." They include Fence, Flavor, and Phantasm. Bringing a new perspective to the idea of Japanese influence, I trace the implementation of these facets of Japanese music through the wind band music of Japanese composers. I demonstrate that Japanese wind band genres are the result of a combination of Japanese musical elements and Western influence and argue that the varying levels of this combination, balanced with historical and cultural context, create three distinct genres within the Japanese wind band repertoire.
The Civic Roles of Neighborhood Associations in Seoul, Korea: Implications for Urban Governance
This dissertation answers three research questions: "What differences and similarities exist among neighborhood associations in the United States, Japan, and Seoul, South Korea?," "What are the civic roles of neighborhood associations in apartment complexes in Seoul, South Korea?," and "What factors promote neighborhood associations to play civic roles in urban governance?" To answer the first question, this research analyzes the purposes, governance structures, roles, and legal substance of neighborhood associations by reviewing previous studies, public and legal documents, court cases in the U.S., and by conducting interviews. To answer the second and the third questions, a 2016 survey, "Understanding the Roles of Neighborhood Associations in Urban Governance" was conducted with 154 representatives of neighborhood associations in Seoul. Social capital theory, government failure theory, and third party government theory were used to create hypotheses that test proposed relationships about neighborhood interactions, community characteristics, and the civic roles played by neighborhood associations. The findings show that neighborhood associations have adopted several roles including service provider, partner in public service delivery for local government, and advocate for residents in urban governance. The findings also show that social capital created by neighborhood interactions and community characteristics facilitates neighborhood associations to play civic roles in urban governance.
Development of an Intercultural Sensitizer for Cross-Cultural Training of American and Japanese Business Professionals
Increasing globalization and transnational trends in business have resulted in greater contact with people from different cultures. However, in any cross-cultural encounter, miscommunication and misunderstandings are likely to occur. In a workplace setting, these can seriously undermine job performance and employee relations. The Intercultural Sensitizer is a cross-cultural training tool that is designed to increase the likelihood that trained individuals will make accurate interpretations concerning behavior observed in individuals from other cultural groups (Albert, 1983) . The purpose of this study was two-fold: (1) to identify cultural differences between Americans and Japanese that can lead to misunderstandings in the workplace and hinder communication, and (2) to construct an intercultural sensitizer that will enable the two cultural groups to interact more effectively with each other. The study's five-phase research design was based on Albert's (1983) delineation of the construction of an intercultural sensitizer. Twenty-four episodes were constructed and statistically analyzed to determine if there was a difference in the way the two cultural groups responded to a given situation. Nine episodes yielded critical values significant at the .05 level. The study concluded that there while there are differences in the cultural perspectives of American and Japanese business professionals, the two groups also share common cultural assumptions. The study's findings have numerous implications for cross-cultural corporate training and higher education.
A Study on U.S. Japanese Foreign Trade
This research presents an in depth discussion and analysis on U.S. Japanese foreign trade. It is divided into two parts. The first hypothesis states that the appreciation of the dollar in the early eighties is positively correlated with the U.S. trade deficit, especially with Japan. The second hypothesis states that Friedrich Von Hayek's Theory of Social Order applies to the development of capitalism in that country. This can also be divided into two parts, a) this generation of Japanese consumes, saves, and invests differently than previous generations, and b) Japanese consumption and investment patterns follow U.S. consumption and investment patterns with a lag.
US-Japan Relations during the Korean War
During the Korean War, US-Japan relations changed dramatically from the occupation status into one of a security partnership in Asia. When North Korea invaded South Korea, Washington perceived Japan as the ultimate target. Washington immediately intervened in the Korean peninsula to protect the South on behalf of Japanese security. Japanese security was the most important objective of American policy regarding the Korean War, a reality to which historians have not given legitimate attention. While fighting in Korea, Washington decided to conclude an early peace treaty with Japan to initiate Japanese rearmament. The issue of Japanese rearmament was a focal point in the Japanese peace negotiation. Washington pressed Japan to rearm rapidly, but Tokyo stubbornly opposed. Under pressure from Washington, the Japanese government established the National Police Reserve and had to expand its military forces during the war. When the Korean War ceased in July 1953, Japanese armed forces numbered about 180,000 men. The Korean War also brought a fundamental change to Japanese economic and diplomatic relations in Asia. With a trade embargo on China following the unexpected Chinese intervention in Korea, Washington wanted to forbid Sino-Japanese trade completely. In addition, Washington pressed Tokyo to recognize the Nationalist regime in Taiwan as the representative government of the whole Chinese people. Japan unsuccessfully resisted both policies. Japan wanted to maintain Sino-Japanese trade and recognize the Chinese Communists. The Korean War brought an economic boom to Japan. As a logistical and service supporter for United States war efforts in Korea, Japan received a substantial amount of military procurement orders from Washington, which supplied dollars, technology, and markets for Japan. The Korean War was an economic opportunity for Japan while it was a military opportunity for the United States. The Korean War was the beginning of a new era of American-Japanese military and economic …
The Relationships of Text Structure and Signaling in the Foreign Language Reading of Female Junior College Students in Japan
The effects of top-level text structure and signaling on the reading recall of Japanese female junior college students studying English as a foreign language were investigated in this study. One hundred thirty-two subjects were selected from a private female junior college in Tokyo. The students were divided into three groups—high, average, and low reading comprehension levels—based on the results of the Test of Reading Comprehension. The instrument used to measure students' recall ability was developed from expository passages taken from a biology textbook. The passages were rearranged to show identifiable top-level structure, collection of description, causation, problem/solution, or comparison. Each passage was divided into two versions: a with-signaling version, in which top-level structure was explicitly stated by signaling words or phrases, and a without-signaling version, where signaling words or phrases were omitted. After the students were stratified on reading comprehension, they were assigned to eight different versions of text—two of each of the four top-level text structures, one with- and one without-signaling. In the recall test, students were instructed to read the text and to remember as much as they could.
Political Economy of Industrial Keiretsu Groups in Japan and their Impact on Foreign Trade with the United States
The postwar transformation of the international environment has caused economic issues to become a main source of contention among industrial states. The trade imbalance between Japan and its trading partners became a major source of conflict. Reciprocity of access and opening the market of Japan became the main point of debate and the major issue affecting relations between Japan and the United States. While the distinction between the domain of domestic and international politics increasingly is blurred, different domestic political economies create bilateral political and economic conflict. The structure and politics of intercorporate groups or vertical keiretsu are a major feature of Japan's industrial structure and political economy. This case study examines how vertical keiretsu in the automobile and home electric appliance industries affect the Japanese political economy and international trade. A political economy approach focuses on the political context of economic phenomena by analyzing both political and economic variables. Case studies of keiretsu were used in order to gain an understanding of Japan's political economy. A number of propositions or assumptions about the political economy and the dynamics of keiretsu were examined in these studies. It was found that vertical keiretsu influences the industrial sector, trade, and foreign policies in Japan. Japan's industrial policies cannot fully be understood without taking keiretsu into consideration. Scholars have not yet fully considered vertical keiretsu as major actors in the Japanese political process. Their political influence on industrial policies has largely been overlooked. Vertical keiretsu in the automobile and home electric appliance industries were found in the case studies to have been shaping industrial policies since the early post war years. Findings about the nature of Japan's political economy help to explain the conflictive bilateral relationships between Japan and the United States. The findings also show that understanding political economies of nations is …
Influence of Computer Use on Attitudes Toward Computers, Motivation to Study, Empathy, and Creativity Among Japanese First- and Second-Grade Children
This study investigated the changes in attitudes of Japanese first and second grade children who were exposed to microcomputers in school. Eight hundred and three first-and second-grade children were selected from six Japanese public schools. Approximately half of the subjects were selected from urban, suburban, and rural schools using computers, while the remaining subjects were from schools not using computers. The Young Children's Computer Inventory was the instrument used for this study. It was derived from a questionnaire originally developed at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, and contained four subscales: Attitudes Toward Computers, Motivation to Study, Empathy, and Creativity. A Japanese language version of the questionnaire was mailed to the principal of each school, where teachers distributed the questionnaires.for the subjects to complete with their parents at home. Ninety-one percent of the students returned completed questionnaires. Demographic information was also collected for each classroom.
Japanese Attitudes Toward Prisoners of War: Feudal Resurgence in Kokutai No Hongi
During World War II, the Japanese earned the reputation for cruelty toward their prisoners which surpassed the treatment accorded to POWs held by Germany and Italy. The conduct exhibited by the Japanese soldier was the result of a combination of ancient social and religious traditions made manifest by twentieth century documents. Through constant inculcation of ancient myths nurtured by a national religion, the Japanese believed that their holy mission was world domination. Believing themselves to be of divine origin, they treated all other races as inferior; therefore, the POWs suffered cruelties as sub-humans. The Japanese inflicted punishment and torture in the name of their emperor, believing that they did so through divine instruction. This study reveals how they arrived at this conviction.
An Exploratory Investigation of Socio-Economic Phenomena that May Influence Accounting Differences in Three Diverse Countries
This dissertation attempts to provide an exploratory structure to respond to, and tries to resolve, an existing void in international accounting research. The void is a lack of coherently structured, nation-specific, descriptive research to investigate socio-economic phenomena which may influence financial accounting. This dissertation's salient features include a political economy theory, an exploratory, sociological method, and a case study format. The political economy of accounting, introduced by Tinker [1980] and refined by Cooper and Sherer [1984], emphasizes a persuasive social relations dimension. This theory motivates selection of three countries (the United States, France, and Japan) that appear to have divergent socio-cultural environments. An exploratory and analytical approach of modified (enlarged) exogenism, developed by Smith [1973, 1976] and adapted to accounting by McKinnon [1986], provides an analytic structure for this exploratory investigation. Modified exogenism focuses upon an open, dynamic social system (the process of financial accounting), and provides analysis reflecting four major areas (the environment, intrusive events, intra-system activity, and trans-system activity). After examining the nation-specific financial accounting (socio-economic) structures for each country, an analysis of selected financial disclosures attempts to gain a better understanding of how socio-economic factors have influenced the development of financial accounting. My primary objective is to attempt to provide some insight about ,how diverse socio-political factors have impacted the development of financial accounting in three countries. Library research of nation-specific literature attempts to extract a relatively accurate picture of social, political, and economic institutions and policies, and relates such findings to financial accounting processes for each nation. This dissertation attempts to provide a necessary foundation for future theoretical international accounting harmonization studies.
A Study of the Interdependence of Four Major Stock Markets Using a Vector Autoregression
The question for this thesis is whether the four major stock markets--the United States, Great Britain, West Germany, and Japan are interdependent or segmented. The study period runs from February 1979 to June 1987, with the Wall Street Journal as a source of data. The Granger causality test is used to test for relationships among the four major stock markets. The thesis is divided into five chapters-- 1) statement of the problem; 2) survey of literature; 3) methodology; 4) results and 5) conclusions. The overall findings of this thesis indicate that there are few or no comovement similarities among all the four stock markets. However, the findings do point out the significant influence of the United States stock market on the other three stock markets.
Purchasing Power Parity and the Efficient Markets: the Recent Empirical Evidence
The purpose of the study is to empirically determine the relevance of PPP theory under the traditional arbitrage and the efficient markets (EPPP) frameworks during the recent floating period of the 1980s. Monthly data was collected for fifteen industrial nations from January 1980 to December 1986. The models tested included the short-run PPP, the long-run PPP, the EPPP, the EPPP with deviations from expectations, the forward rates as unbiased estimators of future spot rates, the EPPP and the forward rates, and the EPPP with forward rates and lagged values. A generalized regression method called Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) was employed to test the models. The results support the efficient markets approach to PPP but fail to support the traditional PPP in both the short term and the long term. Moreover, the forward rates are poor and biased predictors of the future spot rates. The random walk hypothesis is generally supported.
Energy Policy in the Republic of China and Japan, 1970-1985: A Comparative Examination of Energy Politics and Policies
The impact of the energy crises in the 1970s hit all oil-importing countries much harder than it hit countries endowed with domestic supplies of energy. Energy politics and policies for the oil-importing countries have become vital issues that need to be examined. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine and compare the energy politics and policy processes in the Republic of China (ROC) and Japan during the period of 1970-1985. The study focuses on the politics of energy policies, using a policy analysis or systems framework for examining the policy processes in the two countries. A comparison is made of energy environments, the political actors, the institutions, and finally the substance of energy policy. An assessment is then made of the effects or consequences of energy policies on these two countries. In attempting to study energy politics and policies in these two Asian countries, the researcher began with a policy model or conceptual schema of energy politics from which the researcher raised a number of research questions. These questions were used to guide the direction of the study. A comparison was first made of energy systems, and then the major actors in the energy resources field were identified by comparing the political systems. Comparison of the political systems in energy politics helped to explain the differences in the political outcomes of energy policy. An assessment was made by using a series of multiple regression models to assess and compare the consequences of energy policies in these two countries. The final purpose of this dissertation is to develop a conceptual model or framework, for understanding the complexity, uncertainty, and interrelatedness of energy policies. The researcher concludes that comparative policy studies are useful and provide insights which otherwise would be missed.
Community in Japanese Political Organization
The most important long-term political forces operative in the Japanese political system are the interplay of decentralized community authority and the consolidation of that authority toward the top. The mura kyodotai (village community) concept is representative of both types of authority, neither of which has defined boundaries. An examination of the nature of indigenous community authority may provide the broad context for a valid understanding of Japanese decision making. Under the ideal of this order, Japanese political organization has valued the structure of Shinto: polytheistic local authority, plus conflated authority of church and state. Buddhism and Confucianism have provided direction and moral force to preserve traditional order.
Prisoners of War in Texas During World War II
This study analyzes the prisoner of war program in Texas and evaluates the Army's role in carrying out this assignment. Additional questions were, how were POWs treated? What problems did they create? How did civilians react to the presence of 50,000 prisoners?
Western Influences on Japanese Use of Interior Space
This study is concerned with describing the changing concepts of space utilization in Japanese house design and the cultural forces producing the changes. Sources of information include literature spanning approximately one hundred years, a Japanese student of interior design, and-the Japanese Trade Commission in Dallas, Texas. A description of concepts of space design that were very stable for centuries in the Japanese house. The changes in architecture following World War II, and a contemporary house design by a noted Japanese architect are related to concurrent religious, philosophical, and economic forces. The influence of western culture upon Japanese life-style and design solutions to space problems is either indicated or inferred.
The German Submarine Cables and United States Diplomacy, 1914-1927
Immediately after the outbreak of the World War, Great Britain, France and Japan cut the German submarine cables which were situated in the different oceans of the world. The study of the submarine cables during the World War and its aftermath is a complex problem. To understand the post-war negotiations, previous international agreements, treaties and the ownership, operation and financing of the cables must be understood.
Japan's Aggression Prior to Pearl Harbor
This thesis examines the Japanese military conquests leading up to their attack on Pearl Harbor, including aggression towards Korea, China, and the Pacific islands.
Politics and Militarism in Japan
This study is a treatment of the conflicts between politics and militarism in Japan from the promulgation of the Constitution in 1889 to December 7, 1941, in four major divisions: (1) organization of the government; (2) the Elder Statesmen in power, 1889-1918; (3) the party politicians in power, 1918-1932; and (4) the militarists in power, 1932-1941.
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