Visiting the 4th-Year Class II: Sustainability and Azby Brown's "Just Enough"

Following from my previous post, I'm going to talk with the fourth-year Japanese language students about sustainability in the Edo period. This is such a huge topic, and it's difficult to know what to do with it in a single class session, but I will try to get three or four major ideas across and be happy with that. So, in addition to the Edo shigusa stuff about avoiding waste and "nature is master, humans are followers," I'll take a couple of ideas from Azby Brown's Just Enough: Lessons in Living Green from Traditional Japan (Kodansha, 2009). I picked up the Japanese version in Tokyo this summer, 「江戸に学ぶエコ生活術」阪急コミュニケーションズ (2011).

The book is magnificently illustrated with line drawings and handwritten text. I hope the illustrations will be useful in ensuring students get the points quickly, to maximize the time that we can spend in discussion. 

1. Main theme:

吾唯足知 = ware tada taru o shiru: "I know what's just enough" is the phrase that gives the book its title, and I guess that's what I can start with. Brown's book has a nice illustration here to make the point graphically.

2. What is the Edo period?

a. Timeline of Japanese history - A chart (年表 nenpyô) will be useful. (I found a potentially interesting website here that I'd like to explore further, and there's a very nice site for beginners (even college students!) here, but for now I'll just use something like this:

Timeline 年表
縄文時代 じょうもんじだい 14000-300 BCE
弥生時代 やよいじだい 300 BCE-250 CE
奈良時代 ならじだい 710-794
平安時代 へいあんじだい 794-1183
鎌倉時代 かまくらじだい 1185-1333
室町時代 むろまちじだい 1336-1573
安土桃山時代 あづちももやまじだい 1573-1603

江戸時代 えどじだい 1603-1868

.........
明治時代 めいじじだい 1868-1912
大正時代 たいしょうじだい 1912-1926
昭和時代 しょうわじだい 1926-1989
平成時代 へいせいじだい 1989-

b. Map of Japan during the Edo period. Brown's book has a nice one. I will also show some pages from Nihon no kaidô 日本の街道 (Japan's historical highways ), And here's a list of links to a sampling of Edo-period maps from the University of British Columbia's library also.

World map, 1809
Map of Japan, pattern on porcelain vessel, 1826
Tourist map, 1818
Map of Edo, 1696
Kaizan chôriku zu, 1691

c. Social structure. Just Enough has some really good graphics to support this discussion, so I'll use those.

3. Commoners and elites - We'll look at the illustrations from different status groups.

a. Farmers: The discussion of the water cycle is particularly interesting.
b. Townspeople: The section on daily life in an urban neighborhood is great.
c. Samurai: Use of interior space - fascinating

4. We'll read through the assignment I mentioned in my previous post on Edo shigusa. 

5. Students' responses.

6. Followup:

i. Invite students to take my class, "Nature and Culture in Japan."
ii. Mention this fabulous museum all about life in Edo that Wangwang and I visited last summer: The Fukagawa Edo Shiryôkan that students should really try to visit the next time they're in Tokyo. This is a small museum with a gorgeous recreation of an Edo neighborhood, lovingly and perfectly put together. The guide we met there offered us a learned, lavish and patient explanation of everything we saw. I can't recommended it enough.
iii. The Japan for Sustainability website.