5. Critique of modern education

　

 Yanagida criticized modern (post Meiji) school education as follows: The modern schools are thought to have ignored or neglected the educational methods of the previous eras (i.e. until Edo period). The school education system that started in Meiji period was focused only on incorporating the educational contents of Europe and America and carried out an education that singularly neglected the realities and culture of Japan. If we consider the school education after Meiji period as the only education, it would mean that no education existed before Meiji era but that's not true.

 While primary schools were built across the nation in accordance with the Education System Order that came into place in Meiji 5 (1872), education had existed even before that. We have the terakoyas, or temple schools, which are the predecessors of current schools. Moreover, the lifestyle of the common people also had functions of education built into it. Games involving riddles and proverbs provided spontaneous Japanese-language education.

 Shiritori word game was an education that improved the vocabulary skills. For example, the answer for the riddle "What is a Cyclop with one leg?" is a sewing needle and it's a metaphor. This is a dual-stage riddle. A three-stage riddle would ask "For X, the explanation is Y. Why is that?" For example, "What is for funeral ceremony?" "Funeral ceremony means a nightingale." And the answer is "because it sobs away into the grave," a play of words (in Japanese) on phonetically similar "it sings away for the plum tree." People honed their Japanese language skills through such games. There is a saying "it's a black bean even if it's crawling." After seeing a black thing, one kid said it was a bug while another said it was a black bean. This saying is a moral education that points out the irrationality of the second kid in insisting it was a black bean even after the black thing began to move after some time. There are also proverbs that convey the precise information helpful in agriculture. The saying "Sharpen the sickle in autumn sunset" tells you to sharpen your sickle and prepare for harvesting of rice next day, as the afterglow of sunset in autumn is the harbinger of fine weather on the following day. In the case of vocational education, one used to learn by watching the adults at work and helping them. Yanagida called this the "observation-style education," and he used the term in the sense that children learn while observing what adults do and therefore is an education that obviates devious explanations. In those days, it sometimes proved to be even harmful for the common people to make too much use of the language. The issue was how to make a judgment when in a particular "situation" and what action to take, and knowledge of how to explain something to another person was rather not necessary. Unlike the present age, when one has to use characters and explanations to report what's happening "on site," the importance was rather given to action "on site" in olden days. Agriculture was literally of the observation style and this was the original form of education. Japanese cartoonists had this "observation-style education" where they learn the skills by helping out their seniors.

 The contents of manga are also similarly based on what's happening on site. All genres, be it sports, love story or drama, are basically portraying something that is happening under a particular situation. In the sense that it does not convey anything through letters or explanations, it could be termed as "directly connected to the site" and therefore it could also be said that manga never draws anything other than what's on site. In today's Japanese culture, the media comes in between in double or multiple layers. Under such circumstances, manga, without riding on such a media structure, is first and foremost drawing the raw images of the site as they are. And that is the essence of manga. Recently "legitimate peripheral participation theory" has been gaining attention in my field of specialization. The theory's assertion is that learning is something that is carried out within a certain "situation" and not something a teacher explains by using a textbook inside a classroom. This was originally conceived by the British and essentially advocates focusing once again on an education system inside occupational life based on apprentice system. This concept is something that was already there in Japanese culture and corresponds to the educational theory of the previous generation described by Yanagida. On the other hand, manga culture, which has progressed so much in the 20^th century, still unmistakably retains the education system based on what's happening on site. In a sense, we could say manga culture makes up for what is lacking in the modern school education and has been an important part of education.

　

6. Study of place names and realism

　

 Right now, what I'm focusing on is the connection between research of place names and manga theory. It's interesting to link together what, at first glance, seem like having no connection. My geographical name research has been influenced by the works of Kunio Yanagida and, from the post-war era, Kenichi Tanigawa, and what I have been consistently pursuing is research through visiting the actual sites. The essence of a place name cannot be learned just by looking up documents. Of the information contained in a place name, what the documents state doesn't go beyond a very small portion. You have to go to the place, listen to the sounds there and feel the wind to understand it. Yanagida outlined three areas as subjects for folklore research. The first one is through the eyes. Or in other words, it's something visible and this includes tangible culture and various aspects of life. When you enter a place, you grasp information related to tangible culture such as a palace, a temple or a Buddha sculpture in stone, or it could be aspects of life such as what is being cultivated. The second area is through the ears. This involves listening to vocal arts, chirping of birds, sound of a river or the villagers' talks. The third one is through the heart and deals with grasping of the spiritual phenomenon, which is the most difficult one. You can't see, touch or hear it but this is the most important one for folklore research. We could call it a "belief." It is not a specific religion but belief in mountain, sea, etc. and could be interpreted as people's "feelings." The most important thing is with what feelings the people of the area are living there. My reporting also is developed based on the same line of theory. Since I'm not good at drawing, I make do with photographs. At a manga symposium held at the Tokyo Foundation two year ago, the difference between landscape painting and manga had become an issue. The debate was on the difference between a painting of a mountain and a single panel manga and we learned that a landscape is painted based on the reality while a manga is drawn based on the strong assertion of its creator. What it means is that a manga won't come into being without strong assertion. One can't create a manga just by following the reality. I believe writing is also something similar in essence. The key is what you elicit and bring from the information on site. So, all I can write based on my reporting of the site is what I felt there. I only write what I felt about that place and what questions I have in my mind and I do have no intention of writing anything objectively about that place. I feel there is something similar to a cartoonist's drawing in what I do. There are several layers in culture, and folklore lies at the bottom of Japanese culture. What appears in Tono Monogatari is something that is close to the Japanese heart. Whether the tales are based on facts or not, we don't know. But these facts were created by human heart. The same spirit could be at the base of Japan's manga culture. That completes my hypothesis.