Industrial plants in Kinki region increase
Both the number and space of industrial plants and research institutes built in 2005 in the Kinki region increased for the third straight year, according to the Kansai Bureau of Economy, Trade and Industry.The bureau said the plants and research institutes built in the region's seven prefectures of Kyoto, Osaka, Hyogo, Nara, Shiga, Wakayama and Fukui in the year numbered 233, up 14.8% over the year before, and their land space totaled 2.74 million square meters, up 30.2%.
The number of research institutes was 11, and accounted for 45.8% of the national total, both the nation's largest.
The plants located on rented land numbered 76, also the nation's largest and far more than 56 in the Kyushu/Okinawa region, the nation's second largest. Such leased-land locations in the Kinki region increased as business corporations tried to reduce initial investment costs and operators of industrial complexes expanded the introduction of the land rent system.
For inquiries, please contact Kansai Bureau of Economy, Trade and Industry (Tel: 06-6966-6012) URL: http://www.kansai.meti.go.jp/
Virtual joint graduate school to be set up
Three universities in Kansai -Kyoto and Osaka universities, and the Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST) -will create a virtual joint graduate school in the spring of 2007 to exchange graduate school education in the field of information technology (IT).Four common courses, including robot technology research helpful for a ubiquitous Internet society, will be introduced to the three universities' information science schools to enable graduate students in master's and doctor's courses at each university to study at other universities.
Depending on cases, professors will also become members of other universities'degree-screening panels to look into dissertations as their visiting professors.
The three universities will also shortly conclude agreements with NTT Communications Science Laboratories, the National Institute of Communications Technology (NICT) and the Advanced Communications Research Institute International (ATR) at the Kansai Science City to enable their graduate students to use these institutions' facilities and receive study guidance.
For inquiries, please contact Graduate School of Information, Kyoto University (Tel: 075-753-3599) URL: http://www.kyoto-u.ac.jp/top.htm
Replica epitaph of envoy to Tang China donated
A replica of the epitaph of Ino Manari, an envoy sent to the Tang Dynasty of China during the Nara period (710-794), has been donated by China to a group of Japanese visitors from the Osaka prefectural government and Fujiidera City, said to be his birthplace. His epitaph was found in Xian in 2004.He went to Tang in 717 to study there at the age of 19 together with Abeno Nakamaro (698-770) and worked as an official at a central government agency but suddenly died in 734 just before returning home.
He was said to be a member of the Fujii clan living in the neighborhood of Fujiidera. The clan came over to Japan from abroad. The epitaph reads: "The remains will be buried in foreign soil, but we hope his soul will return home." The epitaph made a home visit at the end of 2005, and the city had asked the Chinese side to provide its replica.
Also imprinted in Chinese characters on the epitaph is "the country's name Japan," and it is regarded as the oldest existing characters meaning Japan.
For inquiries, please contact Secretariat and Public Relations Section , General Affairs Department, Fujiidera municipal government (Tel: 0729-39-1111) URL: http://www.city.fujiidera.osaka.jp/cgi-bin/odb-get.exe?WIT_template=AM02000
Three prefectures of Kansai exhibit gardening show
Kyoto, Osaka and Hyogo will exhibit the "Kansai Cultural Garden" at a Thai international horticulture exhibition to be held in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand, from November 1, 2006 to January 31, 2007 to appeal Japan's representative gardening culture of Kansai.Each prefecture will prepare its own unique garden. At a site 80 hectares wide, Kyoto will create a "living space" with a structure modeled on a traditional tradesman's house, Osaka will present a "shipping culture" of the water city and Hyogo will express "countryside landscape" as a motif, showing "elegance," "cheerfulness" and "tranquility" by each prefecture.
Like the 1990 Flower Exposition in Osaka, the Thai exhibition is the world's highest-level international gardening show approved by the International Association of Horticultural Producers.
For inquiries, please contact Parks Div., Dept. of Urban and public Works, Osaka prefectural government (Tel: 06-6941-0351) URL: http://www.pref.osaka.jp/
61st press tour features "blue rose"
The Kansai International Public Relations Office (KIPPO) sponsored the 61st press tour for foreign correspondents on May 11-12 to coincide with the Rose Show during the World Rose Convention held in Osaka for the first time in Asia.Seventeen correspondents from four countries and territories visited the show to see the world's first "blue rose" having blue-color gene and its inventor, Yoshikazu Tanaka, a researcher of Suntory Ltd. Tanaka told the reporters, "Next, I would like to produce blue-colored chrysanthemums and lilies." In the city of Sakai, they covered a place to produce Sakai cutting knives which 90% of Japanese cooks are said to be using. They also visited a bicycle museum where Shimano Inc. has its products on the show.
An exchange meeting held on the night of May 11 was attended by about 80 correspondents, and public relations officials from Kansai enterprises, economic organizations and local governments.
[Historic Kansai] Enjoy Japanese culture at sea-side temple
By Junzo TanakaKansai in early summer is splendid everywhere. Especially the scenery on the Sea of Japan side is beyond comparison. The sea is in the north and the land in the south. The sea surface that people see with the sun in their backs is deep blue-colored in the bright sunshine.
This writer, after seeing the sea, visited Daijyo-ji Temple in the seaside town of Kami in the Mikata district, Hyogo Prefecture, to see excellent paintings by Maruyama Ohkyo (1733-1795).
The writer visited the temple as it is said that all the great paintings at the temple have been replicated for complete preservation, and the real pictures are kept in a storage. But that was an unnecessary worry. The paintings have actually been replicated, but the real ones were shining in the hall of the temple.
Scores of years ago, this writer visited the temple and got an unforgettable impression in appreciating paintings in natural light in a room where the illumination was turned off.
Subtle and profound beauty and delicacy. Luxury and elegant simplicity. Ohkyo's paintings looked as if they were when painted in the 18th century. This time, the temple was full of international color with a group of visitors from Southeast Asia.
Unlike the House of Habsburg and the Medici family, there was no custom in Japan that powerful families kept artists to make them paint portraits of their members. Therefore, colossal collections of paintings have not been handed down from generation to generation.
But there was a good custom among charitable people to assist young talented artists. The Ohkyo paintings at Daijyo-ji Temple were thus born.
Ohkyo was born in a farming family, but as he liked painting, he went to Kyoto at the age of 15. Seeing the boy studying pictures by enduring a poor living, a priest at Daijyo-ji Temple asked him what his resolution was. "I want to study paintings in Edo (now Tokyo) if I have 3 kan of silver." A kan is 3.75 kilograms.
The priest gave him that amount of silver. In Edo, Ohkyo repeated training. To conventional painting, he added new techniques such as perspective representation and the shadow method. At a time when priority was given to the imitation of seniors' paintings, he tried to paint pictures from life with a stance of "Studying nature." Ohkyo became a great artist, and when he became 55, he heard Daijyo-ji was to be reconstructed. He visited the temple with his followers to return the favor he had got, and painted pictures on "fusuma"(sliding screens) and hanging scrolls on five occasions in eight years, and left them at the temple.
Visitors to Daijyo-ji Temple can now encounter with condensations of Japanese culture. One of them is the grace of Japanese-style paintings. There are as many as 165 important cultural assets alone. Another is a sense of gratitude in Japanese society -no reward sought by givers and as much reward as possible by recipients. The third is enthusiasm to protect important cultural assets. By these, paintings can be seen as they were when painted.
The preservation of all paintings at the temple in replication may be realized next spring. If you want to see the real ones, this is the time to do so.
Kansai in Focus: More information transmission from Kansai needed
Robert Eldridge, 38, an associate professor at the School of International Public Policy at Osaka University, is quite an eloquent speaker peculiar to an American making felicitous remarks in a logical manner."Not only in Japan but also in Kansai, there are many excellent researchers. Regrettably, however, their achievements are not reaching the world. This is because their presence is weak. I hope more information will be transmitted from Kansai."
"At any rate, don't you think that Kinki is too conscious of Tokyo? I would rather hope that Kinki leaders will give priority to fostering of personnel with a wide scope of views who can lead the next generation."
Studying at the school are 18 graduate students, half of them being Japanese and the other half foreigners. "The research theme is Japan-U.S. relations, including the history of Japan's politics and foreign policy, the theory of leadership, how to write articles and many others, all studies related to policies," Eldridge said.
Eldridge, who hails from the state of New Jersey, studied international relations at a U.S. university. In 1990, he was invited to Japan as a staff of the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) program in which non-Japanese foreign language teachers are sent to public schools throughout the country.
Japan's countryside splendid
Eldridge was sent to a junior high school in Taka Town, Hyogo Prefecture. "Japan's countryside is splendid." That attractiveness has kept him in Japan. In addition, there was a predestinate encounter for him. For five years from 1994, he studied under the guidance of Prof. Makoto Iokibe of the Graduate School of Law at Kobe University.
"I studied the history of politics and diplomacy. The professor is a precious person whose human nature, academic ability and everything else I have never seen and heard of before," he said.
Eldridge has been in the present position for the last five years. The spirit fostered is still alive. No easy compromise is allowed in his class, and only aggressive studies are allowed.
Meeting with ex-PM Mori
While studies were under way about successive Japanese prime ministers, a graduate student from a Southeast Asian country became interested in former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori.
"I proposed to him to have a direct meeting with him" as he thought that the student would have nothing to lose in the attempt. But "the proposal was successful," he said. Articles are written, modified and rewritten. When articles are finished, all students exchange opinions. "As for information transmission, it is better for you to study English," he said.
His book, titled the "Origin of the Bilateral Okinawa Problem 1945-1952," won him the Suntory Prize for Social Sciences and Humanities, and the Special Asia-Pacific Prize. He has written many other books, and the books he has translated into English include former Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa's "Secret Meetings Between Tokyo and Washington" published by Chuokoron Shinsha Inc.
He has a buzz-cut. Are you practicing Zen? "No. I like short hair. Twice a month, I cut my hair with a hair clipper."
His class is sending out promising international personnel. The achievements, although unspectacular, are shining like oxidized silver. (O)