Gamblers worldwide have diverse prediction techniques when it comes to gambling, which is filled with uncertainty. However, to quantify and deal with this uncertainty, existing gambling research tends to favor the use of “modern science = probabilistic thinking.” Aligning with a “Western rationality” perspective, alternative prediction techniques not based on this approach are often dismissed as “superstition.”

However, rationality is not necessarily exclusive to modern science. Can prediction techniques labeled as “superstition” be reinterpreted as alternative “indigenous knowledge” that gamblers use, employing folk imagination to address the uncertainty of gambling? This paper examines Chinese gamblers’ gambling prediction techniques in the card game baccarat at Macau casinos, focusing on the concept of “roads,” and considers them as continually generated indigenous knowledge with their own rationality and validity.

This paper utilizes computer-based visualization techniques to explore the rhythms of local life in the Kokusai-Dori Street area of Okinawa Prefecture. Kokusai-Dori is a prominent tourist destination in the prefecture, attracting not only local residents but also numerous domestic and foreign tourists. Folklore studies have traditionally relied on narrative interviews with residents to understand the characteristics of urban life. However, this paper critiques the conventional method, deeming it potentially ineffective for this specific field. The reason lies in the method's inability to unveil the structures and patterns of the entire area, representing the cumulative actions of an unspecified number of people. Consequently, this paper proposes a research method focused on collecting and visualizing a substantial amount of data tailored explicitly for this purpose, advocating for its effectiveness.

This paper aims to reexamine the previous studies that have evaluated the “rationality” of people in tsunami affected areas returning to their homes near the sea, from the perspective of the history of micro-disasters in these areas.

Previous studies in folklore and environmental sociology have revealed that measures taken to separate people from “risks,” such as the construction of seawalls and the designation of disaster risk zones, are out of touch with the actual living conditions of the people living there. However, it is important to note that the question of why people return to areas near the sea is also a question that people living in tsunami affected areas themselves have been asking.

This paper examines the past 100 years of disaster history in the community of Tadaide, Otomo-machi, Rikuzentakata City, Iwate Prefecture, and reveals that the relationship between tsunami and community is not supported by a consistent rationality, but is a process based on situation-dependent judgments.

To understand Chinese folklore comprehensively, a new perspective is needed.

Therefore, this paper rereads the history of Chinese folklore from the perspective of objects and focuses on the former Museum of Oriental Ethnology (established in the 1940s) of Beijing Fu-Jen University, which followed a different process from the well-known collection of Peking University or Sun Yat-sen University.

This museum had a unique collection of ‘Minsu Wupin’, which included not only wedding or funerary and other ceremonial objects or artefacts but also archaeological excavations,including photographs, rolls pictures and models of buildings. In the exhibition, Chinese objects were classified according to ‘Religion’, ‘Annual Customs’, ‘Native Art’, ‘Children’s Toys’, and ‘Archaeology’. In contrast, the Japanese objects were not classified but were composed with an awareness of three aspects: ‘Mingu’, ‘Mingei’, and ‘Minka’.

By focusing on objects collected from both China and Japan up to 1942, this paper shows another aspect of Chinese folklore that has been basically neglected. It also mentions the director of this museum and the first editor-in-chief of Asian Ethnology, the missionary Matthias Eder, to call attention to the person who played a bridging role while writing the history of folklore.