| Budget Amount *help |
¥1,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,300,000)
Fiscal Year 1995: ¥500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000)
Fiscal Year 1994: ¥800,000 (Direct Cost: ¥800,000)
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| Research Abstract |
Technical improvements in plow design in Fukuoka Prefecture during the early modern period
A certain foreigner employed as an instructor after the first decade of the Meiji period admired the traditional plow characteristic of the north of Fukuoka prefecture.
The fact that a foreign teacher praised a traditional agricultural implement when Japan was obsessed with imitating Western civilization exerted a disproportionate influence over Japanese agricultural policy. In a misplaced recognition of his serious demeanor and passion for teaching, the national government decided to assist the spread of this unique tool developed for Fukuoka's relatively temperate conditions throughout Japan, including the deep snow country of the Tohoku region.
Unfortunately this German man naturally knew little about the techniques of cultivating rice in paddies but he nonetheless followed the directives issued by the national government. He had the full support of his Japanese staff, all excellent students, who
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adapted the cold soil cultivation techniques of Germany for the wet rice methods demanded by the monsoon season. This combination of factors all contributed to his untoward influence on Japanese agricultural history.
This transmission of scientific techniques between these geographically separated countries is an example of cultural translation. Just as human beings occasionally have amusing incidents caused by miscommunication, there are many comic episodes in this transmission of agricultural technology. For example, recommending the use of this Fukuoka plow, designed to cultivate barley after the rice harvest, for use in areas that receive two meters of snow is almost laughable. Local police officers were sometimes mobilized to enforce these recommendations.
This all might suggest how Japanese, in their earnestness, sometimes tend to lose sight of the connection between and relative significance of theory and the meaning of its content. This is compounded by putting too much attention on the slavish copying of language and gestures, the means of achieving change.
This preparatory project does not encompass the overall pattern of Japanese modernisation. At this preliminary stage, I have interviewed participants from both sides of this question and have confirmed those accounts with archival research. Less
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