Mountaineering based on mountain worship has long been practiced in Japan. For example, in 1751 through 1763, approximately 200,000 people visited Mount Oyama every year with both religious and recreational purposes. Mountaineering in the Edo period was conducted through the continuous involvement religious groups called 'Ko'. Small shrines (Yashiro) are placed at the summits of some mountains in Japan. In addition, some mountains have temples and shrines at their foot. Mountains are not just a place to enjoy the scenery. After the Meiji Restoration, the Wonder Vogel culture was introduced to Japan from Germany. It was active in Europe before World War II, but in Japan it spread after the War. This is one of the reasons why many university students from the 1960s to the 1980s were mountaineering enthusiasts. Mountaineering in Edo period and mountaineering in the Wonder Vogel culture after the World War II were ideologically different. In Japan, however, they have been consumed as the same purpose.From this perspective, this paper examines mountaineering tourism, using the case studies of climbing Mt Takao and Mt Tsukuba as examples.

View full abstract

This article tries to examine global weapons trade between the United States and Japan in the late 1860s. The first half of it, Chapter 1, introduces Japanese recent studies and explains the kinds and numbers of western style rifles brought into Japan in the Meiji Restoration. The second half, Chapter 2, considers a German recent Japanology (Japanologie), “The Global Weapons Trade and the Meiji Restoration: Dispersion of Means of Violence in a World of Emerging Nation-States” written by Harald Fuess. As a result of it, Chap. 2 unravels a part of the flow of western arms within Japan at that time. The remaining subject is to unravel the whole picture of global arms transfer flows and to bridge the gap between global history and national histories.

View full abstract

The purpose of this study is to clarify the functions of the Japanese language based on formal classifications, including parts of speech, and then present these functions to native speakers and foreign learners of Japanese. The results show that Japanese expressions of consideration exist across each form. Furthermore, as multiple functions can be identified for a single form, they have complex features. This paper presents a list of functions for each form category, which can be helpful for native speakers of Japanese and foreign learners of Japanese to systematically understand the features of expressions of consideration.

View full abstract

This paper presents the analysis of a survey used a questionnaire about Japanese pronunciation for foreign students. The results show that the problems with pronunciation among students are alveolar “consonant sounds” In phonetics.

View full abstract

This paper proposed the advantages of using online tools in Japanese language classes through a report on a practical class using Google Jamboard, followed by an analysis of the results of a survey. First, we asked 32 intermediate- to advanced-level learners of Japanese to write a self-introduction on Google Jamboard called “Self-introduction using the SWOT analysis” (a written sheet). After one week, we requested that they present their self-introduction in class. Following this, we conducted a survey on a 6-point Likert scale to use two analyses methods. One was a t-test conducted on the six questions asked in the survey, and the other was an F-test, for each question, based on the learners’ attributes of two native languages, Chinese and Korean. The results of these analyses indicated that the sheets provided proved to be more useful for understanding the presentations of others than for understanding one’s own since the mean evaluation value was higher for all questions and the variance in the responses was relatively small. Finally, we maintained that adopting online tools was helpful for supporting learning processes and improving mutual understanding of each other because those learners who had difficulty listening to the self-introduction presentations (auditory information) made use of the sheets provided (visual information) to supplement what they did not understand well when listening.

View full abstract

This study aims to clarify the characteristics of self-promotion among Chinese students. The results showed that the content was distracting or had nothing to do with self-promotion. Additionally, no significant deviation was observed even if I did not instruct the structure of self-promotion. Further, a higher Japanese language level among students did not mean less misuse.

View full abstract