In this project we got to pick a contry somewhere in the world and a certain decade from the 20th century. My partner and I chose Japan in the 1970s! So we got to research and learn about the economical, political, social/cultural side of Japan. It was very interesting to see how Japan was different from other countries in the 1970s. With this information we got to create four artifacts and design them according to ur research.
At the end of this project we made a presentation about how our artifacts related to our decade and country. We got to create a diorama, a zine, a painting and lastly have an interview with a Japanese person who lived in Japan in the 1970s. I learned so much about Japan through this project. The most interesting thing I learned about my decade from this project was the economical growth, I had no idea my city was so involved in the oil crisis but more importantly how they managed to get through it.
In this presentation we talked about each of our artifacts.
1. Painting 2. Zine 3. Diorama 4. Interview with a real Japanese person that lived through the 1970s 5. Choose your own Adventure Story 6. Death in Midsummer by Yukio Mishima, the book we read. |
Here's a button to lead to our presentation.
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I learned multiple things about Japan in the 1970s through this project. I learned so much about the economical. political, and social side of it. It's very interesting to learn about how the US was way different than Japan at that time and how thei culture is so different. It never ceases to amaze me how similar we can be yet how different we actually are. I learned so much about the respect people have for others, I never knew that there's a certain way to greet others, like there's an assigned way to talk to people who are older and a different way to talk to the younger ones. I learned a lot about how Japan managed to pass through a major crisis and still manage to be in the top three GNP per capita. I was able to learn about the music like J-pop and how it was highly influenced by western culture. Also, there was a security treaty between the US and Japan and majority of the Japanese population was opposed to this action, of course as I am living in the US I would think it was an advantage, however the people in Japan thought it was the worst thing the government could've done.
While researching I found some things that were carried on until this day. I think that the culture is still the same, and well some things aren't. The politeness and manners are still present til this day. The social and physical communication is still constant and seems to still remain as important as it was before. Of course the country is now more westernized and is highly influenced in music and holidays. One of the holidays that was created in 1978 is white day, which seems to grow even popular even now. It's interesting to see how as social pressure has grown this has become more intense in sense of you're accepted if you receive your gift back. It is now more of a popular holiday because now the younger generations are taking over the trends. The city grew, lots of people have abandoned the country side and joined living in the city. It's a lot more technology based, and more modernized. Japan is still doing good economically and are part of companies known world wide.
Personally, I think that the painting was my favorite artifact. I had lots of fun making this one because I felt like I had more freedom to express my perspective through Japan's eyes and research. We wanted to include all the different aspects of Japan and try to include popular things and major topics that also covered the political,economical, and social side of that decade. We included other things like new discoveries and the city life.
I think one of the major and most interesting things was the economical side of Japan. One of the major event that I learned about was the oil crisis of 1973. That really brought my attention regarding to the major econimic growth in Japan at that time. Japan's GNP grew to be the third largest worldwide, but how were they able to manage that after dealing with such impacting oil crisis? Well, Japan decided to go pro-arab policy after discussing with the US, their major, and other details. Japan was being cut its oil suplly by 10% and that meant that they would be able to create oil based products or anything in that sort. But siding with the Arab countries relieved them a bit. Despite being seriously impacted by the two oil crises, Japan was able to withstand the impact and managed to transfer from a product-concentrating to a technology-concentrating production form.The biggest factor that invited industrial changes after the oil crises was the increase in energy prices including crude oil. As a result, Japan converted to a technology-concentrating program, ensuring the steady increase of its economy, and standing out beyond other capitalist countries that had been significantly wounded during the oil crisis.
One thing I would change about this project would be that if we had more time to do the artifacts. Didn’t only have to do the artifacts but we had to other assignments that come along with them like reading our book and writing our Choose Your Own Adventure. I believe that in order to make good artifacts we would have to have more time to do them, specially because we wanted to do our best in each of them.
The book that I read , with my partner, is called Death in Midsummer by Yukio Mishima. This book is a collection of short stories that portray Japan at that time, politically, socially, culturally, and economically. It really covers all of them in different ways, in different stories. It was very interesting to see how for example, people who spoke english were very rare, yet they had great jobs and would have houses near the beaches or not in the crowded city. One of the stories also explained how, in order to have a child, you have to have a assured and paid future for your child's life. Even if they have their jobs the crowded city was expensive and would do anything to receive money. A great example for that is one of the stories is called Three Million Yen, and it's about a couple who wants to have a child but they want to make sure they have enough money for that. The story is very descriptive on their wait for this unknown lady who is going to pay them. During their wait they are talking about having a child and the expenses. At the end you get a twist, when the woman shows up, and it is revealed that the couple is having sex in front of wealthy people to get money. It was very interesting to see how that worked. Also, there was this other story, the main story, Death in Midsummer. This one reveals more about the manners and culture. In this story a mother tells her sister-in-law to take her kids to the beach while she sleeps. two of her kids die, as well as the sister-in-law, except for one of the children. When the husband, who has a good job, finds out he quickly rushes over to the first aid room by the beach. When he found his wife and the only child that was left, he couldn't hug them or anything because they aren't supposed to show emotion in public.
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If you have more questions about this project below there's a button that will lead you to our project description.
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If you have more questions about our painting here's a button that will lead you to our Artist Statement
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