Nassrine Azimi

Este archivo solo abarca los artículos del autor incorporados a este sitio a partir del 1 de diciembre de 2006. Para fechas anteriores realice una búsqueda entrecomillando su nombre.

MundoAsia,

Itsukushima Shrine on Miyajima Island, built by the warlord Taira no Kiyomori around 1168, stands at the edge of an inlet of the Inland Sea, not far from Hiroshima. Long regarded as one of Japan’s three most beautiful places, it was registered in 1996 by Unesco as a World Heritage Site.

The shrine’s architecture is a masterpiece of the shinden style: Poised on vermilion pillars and facing the mainland across the Onoseto Strait, it appears at high tide to float on the sea.

Over almost 900 years Itsukushima has survived many disasters — typhoons, fires, earthquakes, landslides, not to mention pollution, blind development, political squabbles and wars.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia, , ,

Shigeru Yoshida, the suave, cigar-smoking former diplomat and one of Japan’s most prominent postwar prime ministers, has gained renewed popularity, thanks to a historical drama on national television and the talents of the actor Ken Watanabe.

In one scene, Yoshida points to the letters “GHQ” — the initials of the General Headquarters of the Allied Occupation of Japan — and renders them as “Go Home, Quickly.”’

Yet despite his desire to see the foreigners leave, Yoshida was able to work closely with Gen. Douglas MacArthur and a succession of former enemies. The “Yoshida Doctrine,” emphasizing economic growth and dependence on the United States for security, charted a realistic and ultimately successful course for his defeated and discredited nation.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia

Shinzo Hamai, who took over the helm of an atom-bombed and destitute Hiroshima in the spring of 1947 and who, over four terms as mayor, helped stir it back to life from the brink of hell, wrote in his memoirs that so utterly hopeless was Hiroshima’s predicament in those immediate postwar months that he and his friends started a “Dreamers Club.”

“Everywhere we looked stretched scorched rubble and the wreckage of war,” Hamai wrote shortly before his death in 1968. The Dreamers Club gave a space to this handful of young idealists, amidst the chaos of their broken city, to dream of a better future.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

In an emergency press conference a day after an 8.9 magnitude earthquake and massive tsunami wrought devastation across northern Japan, Prime Minister Naoto Kan, looking exhausted but calm, told his countrymen that they faced together an unprecedented challenge, and that while the immediate priority would be saving lives, the nation could one day look back at this time as a moment that helped create a new Japan.

It is difficult — as the earth still trembles with aftershocks, the numbers of victims keep rising, and the risk of meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power facilities becomes frighteningly plausible — to draw any conclusive lessons from one of the greatest natural disasters ever to hit this country.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia, ,

In A.D. 804, a 30-year-old monk named Kukai set sail for China as part of a Japanese government delegation, making his way to the capital Chang-an (present day Xian), one of the world’s most prosperous cities at the time. Over the next two years Kukai would study Esoteric Buddhism and Sanskrit with the great master Hui-kuo, excel in the Chinese writing system, and observe firsthand the achievements of science and engineering of Tang dynasty China.

The voyage was to transform Kukai into one of Japan’s most influential historical figures. His achievements are staggering: Upon returning home he established the Shingon (“True Word”) Buddhist school, worked on refining and spreading the Japanese syllabary, founded the first private school for commoners and instructed his countrymen on temple construction and public work projects such as those he had seen in China.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia

Watching Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s teary-eyed apology to fellow Democratic Party of Japan members in Tokyo last Wednesday, I was not thinking of the usual commentaries offered in the days before his resignation — squandering of the public mandate, indecisiveness, aloofness, political paralysis.

After all, a change of cabinet in Japan, where 33 prime ministers have served since the end of World War II, is routine. The only noteworthy element might have been that the last four prime ministers — Shinzo Abe, Yasuo Fukuda, Taro Aso and Yukio Hatoyama, each of whom resigned after barely a year in office, have been sons and grandsons of prime ministers.…  Seguir leyendo »