Day 4: Withstand calamity

Previously

You are assaulted on a bike ride (3 Start). You still study how Japan industrialized (3A), but also skepticism about that material growth (3B, 3C, 3D).

You find a smaller library and pick up writings by Fukuzawa, a educational reformer who welcomed the world in (3E, 3F).

But you are confronted, interrogated, and attacked by guards (3 End), but do not yield. You pass out injured, but remember old poetry in your dreams (3G).

Story

The librarian revives you and gives you microfilm. No more library (4 Start).

In your room, you study the more sensitive materials: how consent of the governed is central to a democracy (4A), how to assess previous regimes (4B), and what events lead to downfall (4C).

You review how people reacted to Japan’s rapid change (4D). And self-administer a Quiz.

You hear bullets and tear gas outside. And wonder what is the point of art? You open up the next spool and study Akutagawa (4E, 4F, 4G), Hagiwara (4H), and Sei Shonagon (4I).

Your boss comes to your room and invites you back to work (4 End). You worry about tomorrow.

A ruin of a brick building and a wireframe dome
Atomic Dome in Hiroshima, a ruin from the atomic bomb detonation there

Skills to Hone

  • 1.3. Connect the Japanese autobiographical novel (shishosetsu) to other genres, such as the novel, personal writing (zuihitsu), and poetic forms (haiku, tanka).
  • 1.4. Explain how Akutagawa Ryunosuke and Hagiwara Sakutarou’s sometimes experimental literature subverted and re-imagined genres and even charted a path between old and new.
  • 4: Determine three principles to assess a regime on its progress towards a democratic government.
  • 5: Identify how democratic governments fail.

Day 4 Commence