标题: Japan and the Past [打印本页] 作者: choi 时间: 3-7-2015 16:21 标题: Japan and the Past Japan and the past | Undigested History; Whether as victim or as aggressor, the country finds it hard to face up to the past. Economist, Mar 7, 2015 www.economist.com/news/asia/2164 ... -up-past-undigested
Note:
(a) "Katsumoto Saotome’s neighbourhood in Tokyo’s lower town 下町 was in flames. Canals were no escape, for the jellied paraffin in the bombs turned water into fire.
(i) Katsumoto SAOTOME 早乙女 勝元
An author, he was born (1932) and raised in 東京都 足立区 Adachi-ku, part of 下町.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adachi,_Tokyo
(ii) Japanese Japanese dictionary
* sa-otome 早乙女 【さおとめ】 (n): "young female rice planter"
* shitamachi 下町 【したまち】 (n): "low-lying part of a city (usu. containing shops, factories, etc)"
^ The ja.wikipedia.org defines, in Tokyo, 下町 as the lowlands near the sea or rivers. Its antonym in Japanese is
yama-no-te 山の手 【やまのて】 (n): "hilly section of a city (usu. residential)"
* yoko 横 【よこ】 (n): "horizontal (as opposed to vertical)"
* ami 網 【あみ】 (n): "(1) net; netting; (2) web"
(b) "Official attempts to document who died [in the single night of of March 9-10, 1945; Tokyo firebombing] began only in 2009 and remain incomplete, although a memorial in a corner of Yokoamicho park bears witness to the dead, next to a charnel house with the mixed ashes of thousands who died. (The park also commemorates those who died in Tokyo’s devastating earthquake and fire in 1923.)"
(i) Yokoamicho Park 横網町公園
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokoamicho_Park
is located at 東京都墨田区横網. The name of the neighborhood was originally 横綱 (the highest title in sumo) but sometime ago was errorneously written as 横網.
(ii) 横網町公園
ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%A8%AA%E7%B6%B2%E7%94%BA%E5%85%AC%E5%9C%92
translation: History: This park was originally a clothing factory for army, which in 1922 moved to 赤羽. What was then 東京市 [in 1943 東京市 and 東京府 merged to create the present-day 東京都] bought the lot, in preparation for a park. The work started in July 1923, in the height of which The Great Kantō earthquake struck on Sept 1. Immediately afterwards, many folks from the surrounding lowlands massed here, thinking the park-in-the-make was an excellent refuse. But around 4 pm, fires caused by the earthquakes brought about hot-air winds, and jumped to furniture and household goods placed in the park. Even more, a firestorm occurred, and people, luggage, horse carriages got sucked up and swallowed. The refugees of 38,000 ended up died there, who were cremated on the spot after the earthquake. The ashes, three meters high, were stored at a hastily built stopgap memorial hall. Soon revival of Tokyo was in progress, and these ashes together with those of victims from the Great Earthquake, contained in scores of vases, were taken in by the 3-story 納骨堂 and Memorial Hall (designed by architect Chūta ITŌ; completed in 1930). Also the park itself was open to the public pm Sept 1, 1030. The next year, 復興記念館 was completed. However, in 1945 Tokyo became scorched earth once more, due to World War II. Lots of people died, especially in the Mar 10 Bombing of Tokyo. Starting with this park, the deceased were temporarily buried in various parks of Tokyo. Afterwards, the no-name dead were also cremated and stored here, which changed the name to 東京都慰霊堂 in 1951. In addition, during the Great Kantō Earthquake Koreans living in Japan were said to loot; this information caused refugees in chaos to kill some Koreans, as well as Japanese mistaken for Koreans. They are all memorialized here by various stone monuments. 作者: choi 时间: 3-7-2015 16:23
(c)
(i) 東京大空襲
ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/東京大空襲
(空襲としては史上最大規模の大量虐殺とされる [translation: as far as air raids are concerned, this is the largest massacre in history]; 新型の集束焼夷弾E46 (M69) [translation: a new type of E46 cluster bomb called M69])
Just view photos, where photo 4 shows B-29 bombers lining up in an airbase in Saipan. (B-29 bombers in this air raid took off from airbases at Islands of Tinian and Saipan (which are next to each other), Northern Mariana.)
(ii) Bombing of Tokyo
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo
(often referred to as a series of firebombing raids; The Operation Meetinghouse air raid of March 9-10, 1945 was later estimated to be the single most destructive bombing raid in history; section 2 B-29 raids))
(d) The content of the incendiary bombs dropped over Tokyo that night was called “jellied paraffin” by The Economist; and “napalm” by en.wikipedia.org. But they mean the same.
(i) napalm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napalm
(a mixture of a gelling agent and petroleum or a similar fuel for use in an incendiary device; "Napalm" is a combination of the names of two of the constituents of the thickening/gelling agent: coprecipitated aluminium salts of naphthenic and palmitic acids)
(ii)
(A) paraffin
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraffin
(may refer to “kerosene, a fuel that is also known as paraffin” in UK)
(B) kerosene
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerosene
(Kerosene is usually called paraffin in the UK, Ireland, Southeast Asia and South Africa; "In 1846, Canadian geologist Abraham Gesner gave a public demonstration in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island of a new process he had discovered. He heated coal in a retort and distilled from it a clear, thin fluid which he showed made an excellent lamp fuel. He coined the name 'Kerosene' for his fuel, a contraction of keroselaion, meaning wax-oil [Greek: keros wax]”)