Returning to the Myanmar VS Burma Issue
Plus the Japanese Breeding Visa Hoax, is "Confucianism" the naughty "C-Word" for lazy academics, and the truth about Ninjas and their funky Ninja Swords, and the evil Mayor Alice Guo denies hiding
Greetings from “Upper Nuyorkimania, “ -refference explained below ! Another week and we’re all back. Let’s all cheer.
This week we have a round up of several issues that interest me and hopefully will interest you. Feel free to leave some feedback, a comment, a like, or share with people you know or on social media. If it’s worth it to you, please feel free to upgrade to a paid subscription and thow some money my way. All of these things keep this thing going.
If you would like proof that I am “really a writer” and do writing outside of the “Mostly Asian History” substack, or just want to see what else I am up to, here is a completely unrelated piece published this week, written by yours truly for a website aimed at Emergency Medical Services providers such as EMTs and Paramedics : When Scorpions Sting and Spiders Bite (And, for those who wonder, that pays better than this and more people read it. On the other hand, they don’t let me write about things like ninjas and issues in East Asian history. )
Additionally, please consider purchasing or promoting my books, listed here at my Goodread's Author Profile, including my well rated book on Donald Trump, Scams from the Great Beyond --The Presidential Edition: A Skeptical Look at Our 45th President Using the Tools of a Paranormal Debunker and Historian
This week I have offered a lot. A bizarre hoax about Japan, a return to the issue of Burma/ Myanmar’s “proper” name, how academia is trying to make grad students think carefully before using the work “Confucianism",” and what Wikipedia can tell us about the history of the Ninjato, the Ninja Sword, and the Ninja in general and the on-going saga of the evil Mayor Alice Guo, aka Guo Huaping, of Bamban, Philipines who is now nowhere to be seeen but has issued public statements denying that she is in hiding despite the fact that no one is able to find her. (Heck, to be honest, I am wondering if it’s too much, but I enjoyed putting it all together. Please let me know what you think. Honestly, when I started, I was worried I might run out of topics. At this point, I do not fear that at all. There’s much, much more writings on “Mostly Asian History” that I am really looking forward to sharing with readers. Again, please share this work with others who might be interested.
Meanwhile, take care, please let us know what you think and please keep reading and tell your friends.
The Japanese Breeding Visa Hoax
First, let’s start with something light and silly. Recently a friend of mine shared this on facebook. I have no idea if he believed it or not. While I do get upset when my friends lie to me, it’s a different thing if long terms friends act in character and mindlessly pass along bizarre stuff that they heard and thought was true. I correct them when I can, but often do not have the opportunity.
Japan, seriously, has a problem with an aging and declining population. This is affecting the economy in serious ways and the subject of much discussion there. Proposals are being discussed such as increased financial aid for couples who have children and immigration reform or programs involving non-immigrant foreign labor.
And then came this:
Of course I had to dig deeper and get to the truth of the matter. I traced the whole thing back to here. Check out the date, April 1, 2018 —YES, that is APRIL FOOL’S DAY.
Of course, there have been some questions about its veracity ever since, with people repeating this and sharing “ the news” of this new Japanese breeding visa ever since or popping up in some forum or another and asking “Does Japan really have ‘breeding visas’?”, but it was definitely an April Fools Day Hoax. (For those of you not familiar with Amerian or Western Culture, on April 1, it is considered acceptable and funny to tell people crazy stories and try to get them to believe them. Then one yells “april Fools!” and laughs. The problem is that with the internet, many people don’t see these things until after April 1, and then beieve them.)
Here’s the end of the article. Note the source.
More evidence of an April Fools joke.
You can find the whole thing here: To combat declining birth rate, Japan to begin offering “Breeding Visas” to foreigners -Sora News 24
The Dangers of Attributing or Explaining Away Things Using the Word “Confucianism” or for that matter “Christianity.”
From time to time when people are discussing China or East Asia, they make references to Confucianism to explain things. For instance, in “Confucian culture, . . . blah blah blah . . .” or “Within the Confucian ethical system, a scholar should . . . blah blah blah . . .”
BUT SHOULD THEY???
Using an example closer to home (for most of us anyway), it’s a bit like how many people in the West or the USA tend to say things like “Christians believe . . . “ or “Due to the Judeo-Christian ethical system, Western people believe . . .” or “In the current election, Christians are voting for . . .” to which I say:
“NO! NO! NO! DON’T DO THIS! . . . DON’T DO EITHER OF THESE THINGS!!”
It’s intellectually lazy, shows your understanding of things is limited, and doesn’t really help clarify things to a knowing person, forcing them to ask follow up questions.
As most truly knowledgeable people know, Christianity is diverse. It comes in many shapes, sizes, and flavors. The Amish, the Roman Catholics, the Greek Orthodox, and the Presbyterians are all Christians as are the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Quakers, and countless others. Get a few representatives of each of these groups I named here in one room, and good luck getting them to agree on anything. Quite honestly you will probably have trouble seeing the representatives from within each of these groups agreeing on most subjects much less between the different groups. People who call themselves “Christians” fall all over the spectrum and hold almost every conceivable sort of belief imaginable with the five groups above not even being able to agree among themselves on the ethics of driving automobiles, enlisting in the military, swearing oaths, or on which day of the year Easter should be celebrated, much less so on things like the perceived strengths and weaknesses of the American Republican Party versus the American Democratic Party.
Same way, although to a lesser extent, much of this is true with Confucianism.
When I was earning my fancy master's degree in East Asian Studies (basically in Chinese history and language) from a fancy but very good school, we were carefully and continuously coached on this. And whenever any one of us Chinese history students in a graduate student discussion said something like "Confucians believe . . . " or "because of the influence of Confucian culture . . ." or "Due to Confucian ethics . . ." etc, we would immediately be reminded that Confucianism has existed for over two thousand years, has multiple versions and variants and scholars and advocates, and we must always be more specific and clarify more clearly what we meant by including what came to be referred to among us as "the C word." I wish more people would remember that Christianity is also quite varied in its pantheon of beliefs.
(See a few weeks ago when I provided a link to a detailed paper discussing how the Japanese of World War Two justified their actions and motivated their troops by teaching them an unusual version of Confucianism that helped justify their actions: see Scattered Thoughts, June 6, 2024 - by Peter Huston (substack.com) and please scroll down to the section on “Japan WW2 Confucianism.” )
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“Myanmar” VS “Burma,” -which name is better? No, really, which name is better? And why is this an issue again? Huh??
A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece on why and how Burma / Myanmar has two names and so many problems. Soon after, I showed it off on social media being proud of it, and, as is the way of the world, I was punished for my hubris when a genuine Burma scholar named Thomas Kingston looked it over and gave me some feedback. While nothing I said was exactly wrong, there were, it seems, important things that were left out. So, I wrote more on the subject (it’s all here for the next several paragraphs) and he says I did better this time, although he did say that due to the nature of the subject there are people who will still argue that I either left things out or had things slightly wrong but this will be the case no matter what I write or say as the people who truly care and feel strongly about this issue, do not agree with each other on this subject nor do they agree on what is truly important about the two names for this country issue. (see Burma and the little-known, root cause of many of its deep-seated problems for my first attempt at writing on this issue. )
As one of my goals here, really, is to provide authoritative well-informed pieces that people can rely on as a source of good information, I have returned to the subject today to improve upon what I wrote then.
A map of BURMA NO!! MYANMAR showing all the new names given by the junta.
Now the issue of “Burma VS Myanmar” and its twin questions of “Why are there two names for one place?” and “Which is the best one to use, and what are the implications of using one over the other?” is astonishingly complex and can be discussed for a long time without coming to any clear-cut conclusions. ( To get a sense of these controversies and the discussion, the Wikipedia page “Names of Myanmar” at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Myanmar . As an aside, when I began this publication, “Mostly Asian History,” my goal was to never use Wikipedia, considering it a lazy way to do research and not terribly reliable. However, for a surprising number of subjects, it often seems to be the only place to get information in English, and this is one of them. The key to using Wikipedia in a useful way is to be wary, try to confirm what it says elsewhere, and to check its sources often, considering them leads for further independent research. I definitely consider this Wikipedia page, accessed on July 18, 2024, more accurate than the brief pieces I have seen on this subject published by NPR and the Associated Press. For more on my thoughts on Wikipedia please see the piece below on the Ninjato or Ninja sword. )
But having acknowledged this endless complexity, there seem to be three major points that I did not mention or did not properly discuss. The first of these is the issue of the degree of formality or proper linguistic register of the two terms in the Burmese language. The second is the intended political implications of the name “Myanmar” versus “Burma” and what the military junta hoped the new name would come to signify that the older name for the nation did not. The third is an attempt to ensure that the English names of places in Burma sound close to the way Burmese people say them.
So, taking these in order, most languages, including English have what are known as “registers,” a term which basically refers to the way a type, style, or category of social interaction determines which words, expressions, or pieces of vocabulary are suitable for a given situation. For instance, in a formal setting we might choose to say “pardon me, sir” and in a less formal one, “hey, man” or “hey, bro.” Even though they fundamentally mean the exact same thing mixing these terms up could lead to serious or comical results. “Pardon me, sir” would be an example of proper language use using a “formal register,” and “hey, man” or “hey, bro” would be appropriate language use using an “informal register.” Same with “perturbed” versus “pissed off.” “Alcohol” or “liquor” versus “booze.” Other examples could be chosen.
In the Burmese language, there is often a strong distinction between formal or literary words and the common words used in regular, colloquial speech.
The informal name of the nation is Burma or in Burmese “Bama” which is written as “ဗမာ” in the Burmese script. (FYI, I did once try to learn the Burmese script and some of the language. I didn’t get too far, but I did learn a little.)
The formal name of the country in Burmese is “Myanmar Pyi” which is written in Burmese as မြန်မာပြည်). From this we get the new name, pronounced “Myanma,” မြန်မာ .
So by changing the name, the military junta was hoping to switch usage from a common term to a more respectful name with centuries old, literary connotations.
So that’s reason, number one, something I had not mentioned at all.
The second comes back to the intended political and societal implications of the name change. Aside from the idea of using a more respectful term to refer to the nation, there was also the issue of the traditional implications of the name “Burma” in an ethnically diverse and ethnically divided nation marked by ethnic strife and warfare.
Now here things get very complicated. First, be aware that in Burmese patriotic intellectual circles, the exact, best name for the nation has been a subject of long debate and discussion since about the time Burmese nationalist sentiment began to emerge in Burmese intellectual circles. According to Wikipedia, at least the Wikipedia of July 19, 2024, the first known stone inscriptions that refer to the nation by name stem from the period of approximately 1000-1300, AD, and they do not use a consistent single name but instead include a few different but similar names, “Mirma,” “Myanma,” and “Mranma.” So one cannot look back on tradition for a single precedent. To make things even more complex, since those long ago days, Burmese pronunciation has, like every language, had changes in pronunciation and many of those involve shifts in the pronunciation of “r” and “y.” On top of that, European, largely British and Portuguese diplomats, explorers, and map makers, from the 16th century on, have been highly inconsistent with the spelling and pronunciation of the nation’s name, sometimes even labelling it with names that originated in India and not Burma when describing the place to Europeans. (My personal favorite odd, old name for the nation sometimes known as “Burma” is “Burmania” which is an old and obscure Portuguese name that never really caught on. Don’t use it, please, as no one will know what you mean when you do. On the other hand, if you refer to my own homeland, upstate New York, as “Upper Nuyorkemania” then I will wholeheartedly approve. In fact, I will consider doing that myself from time to time.)
SO . . . there is no actual, 100 percent preferred name.
As stated, the dominant ethnic group of the nation often called “Burma” are the Burmese. They live primarily in the central portions of the nation, and dominate the military juntas that intermittently seize control of the nation and oppress the people who live there. While the nation is extraordinarily ethnically diverse, the junta has often been trying to impose Burmese culture and language upon the other ethnic, language, and religious groups, showing little respect for the other cultures and languages that exist within the marked borders of the troubled nation when they do, despite the actual name being “the Union of Burma.” This has undermined support for the regime both inside and outside the nation.
Some within the government recognized that a change in image might be helpful. Perhaps something that recognized the multi-ethnicity of the state and presented the image of a unified nation of many peoples could improve things. Although there is a logic to this and it does show self-awareness, nevertheless, in 1998 the military junta changed the English name of the nation to “the Union of Myanmar.” (pronounced with a silent “R” on the end, by the way). The intent was for this new name to indicate to the world that the nation was home to more than just the Burmese ethnic group.
While it’s probably safe to say that the new name did little to accomplish this goal, nevertheless, that was one stated intent of the change.
So, in conclusion, the issue of the proper English name for the nation normally known as “Burma,” but sometimes known as “Myanmar,” is a very confusing one,
Now, as for the third reason for all the changing of names by the junta, when the British attached English names to places in Burma, they often were not super careful about it and did not do so in systematic way. Therefore, some places wound up with names that were not very close to the way Burmese people who lived there or near to their pronounced the places’ names. Usually this had something to do with the fact that British who came to Burma usually came there from of via India while accompanied by Indian people, and thus many places in Burma wound up with place names that sounded like their name in various Indian languages (just FYI, India is a very linguistically complex place and I have been told that the Indian sub-continent has as many languages as the continent of Europe if not more), as opposed to their names in Burmese. Therefore, the junta has been trying hard to remove all these non-Burmese sounding names and replace them with names closer to their Burmese name, which sounds good except few people outside of Burma are terribly capably of recognizing the name of anything in that nation either before or after the name changes were deemed official by a government whose own officialness was questionable at best.
And would it be nice if that cleared everything up and made it clear and easy to remember?
BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTES
Good scholarship generally requires carefully noting what sources one used. However this article is kind of an outlier. As noted, Thomas Kingston, a scholar who has studied Burma / Myanmar extensively and is working on a PhD in the realm of Asian history and culture, responded with a polite comment to a post on the FB Sinologists list where I included a link to the previous article on the issue of two names (link above). Basically he said that I neglected the three things mentioned above. I began looking into it. While I did consult newspaper articles on the subject, they generally did not discuss the subject well or contained errors. (Yes, it’s that kind of subject) I did however find that the above-mentioned Wikipedia article had everything I needed. I also spoke with a Burmese neighbor who emphasized the second point in our conversation. So the big impetus here was a personal communication saying essentially “Write about these three things, please,” enough research to realize mainstream newspaper articles were not going to help much, and then a thorough scouring of the appropriate Wikipedia article and checking its sources enough to make sure it was correct. Obviously not an easy subject to research.
A Lesson from Wikipedia on Ninjas and Ninja Swords
A “Ninja Sword” advertisement that ran in the American magazine Black Belt in their November 1973 issue. This would be after the release of the James Bond film, You Only Live Twice but long before the big Ninja Boom that began around 1980. My guess is that the sword was originally created and aimed at the Asian market but then began being imported to see if Americans would but it. The highlighting on the word “ninja” is an artifact from the search process. Notice the long straight blade and the large, rectangular guard. Both are distinctly different from most Japanese swords and are said to be distinctive to the Ninjato, or ninja sword, assuming of course that this is a real, historical thing.
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As long time readers should know, one of my preferred topics here is arguing that almost everything written everywhere else about ninjas is false. While the facts are, I definitely believe, on my side, it’s a tough argument. But I continue the quixotic struggle, presenting additional arguments, additional evidence.
So here’s a good one. If we go to Wikipedia, and I gave some arguments as to the strengths of Wikipedia above, here we can see its weaknesses.
So if we access “Ninja at Wikipedia” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninja
We find a long and carefully cited page that seems to explain in great detail exactly who ninjas were (and they were, according to this page, exactly what most people think they were, black clad, highly skilled assassins, spies, and martial artists trained to a degree that their abilities were virtually superhuman). After looking it over, why would anyone without a deep background or motive ever question that any of this was not real history?
Clearly a lot of people have put a lot of time into creating this page and making sure that the public has access to all this information. Why is there any reason to be suspicious of any of it?
Well, I am suspicious and I am arguing that every single one of them is wrong, and I know I sound a little ranty, but if you wish you can read my many previous pieces on Ninja to see why. Or you can just read this now:
So having looked at the above page, let’s look at a second page, “Ninjato – Wikipedia” — let’s see if it provides evidence for my argument or if it provides evidence for the common argument about the history of ninas. See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninjat%C5%8D
This page focuses only on the subject of the Ninjato, the specialized sword that the ninja were said to have used and carried. It presents a very different picture of things than the previous page. (both pages were accessed on July 20, 2024 ) . The people who put this page together seem very interested in getting accurate information on the history of this sword and its use. For better or worse, their conclusions fit in better with my conclusions than with those of the authors of the Ninja Wikipedia page.
In short, they conclude that the weapon and its description seems to have first appeared in mid-twentieth century Japan in the vicinity of the ninja museums I have written about in the past. I would highly recommend people interested in pursuing the truth about ninjas and the real history of the concept and image of ninjas check out this page and do it quickly before it is altered. (and if it is, Wikipedia offers archived images of past changes so users can track changes.) Regardless, I took the liberty of sharing a section of the page below.
Wikipedia Excerpt ( accessed July 20, 2024)
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History[edit]
Because of the lack of any physical evidence or antique swords from the Sengoku to the Edo matching the description of the ninjatō,[1] the history of the weapon can only be reliably chronicled from the 20th century onwards.
· 1956: The first known photograph of a straight-blade ninjatō was featured in a 26-page Japanese booklet entitled Ninjutsu by Heishichirō Okuse.[13][14]
· 1964: The Ninja Museum of Igaryu in Japan, which houses replicas of the sword, is established.[9] That same year, the swords appeared in Shinobi no Mono Kirigakure Saizō (忍びの者 霧隠才蔵) and Shinobi no Mono Zoku Kirigakure Saizō (忍びの者 続・霧隠才蔵), the 4th and 5th entries in the Japanese jidaigeki movie series Shinobi no Mono, released in theaters in Japan.
· 1973: Ads selling newly manufactured and imported ninja swords appear in the American magazine Black Belt.[15]
· 1981: Books containing references to the sword written by Masaaki Hatsumi, the founder of the Bujinkan,[4] and Stephen K. Hayes,[5] an American who studied under Hatsumi in 1975,[16] are published.
· 1981: The first Hollywood film to feature the ninjatō, Enter the Ninja, was released in theaters.
· 1983: The next Hollywood film to feature the ninjatō, Revenge of the Ninja, was released in theaters in September 1983.
· 1984: The first American television production to feature these swords, The Master, was broadcast on NBC from January to August 1984.
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In conclusion, if the Ninjato or Ninja sword did not exist prior to the mid-twentieth century, this presents one more piece of evidence that the ninja themselves did not exist prior to the mid-twentieth century. Additionally , the first appearance of the ninjato sword can be traced straight back to their making their first documented appearance when they were presented to the public in a publication by Okuse Heishichirou 奥瀬平七郎 ( 1911-1997) the well known “ninja mayor,” who created much of the modern image of the ninja and used that concept and image to create fanciful “ninja museums” and promote “ninja tourism” in Edo Japan and help the economy of his home town. I have said several times in my ninja pieces that, although I am not done researching, it is my belief that all Western images of ninja that came from Japan, can be traced back to three people in mid-twentieth century Japan, and he is one of those three people.
(see
And
The History of the History of the Image of the Ninja, Part Two: Globalization (substack.com) )
My most recent full piece on Ninjas and Ninjutsu claims was this one and it includes a full list of all the full pieces I have written on this subject previously: Enter the American Ninja, Ashida Kim, a legend and name of renown in the realm of how to be a ninja book publishing.
The Evil Mayor Alice Guo AKA Guo HuaPing has gone into hiding, allegedly, of course, but denies being in hiding, people just aren’t able to find her
Ooops!! I almost forgot. The latest update on the evil Mayor Alice Guo, aka now confirmed by fingerprinting to be a Chinese citizen named Guo Huaping —although she denies it- has gone into hiding, although she denies being in hiding, too. (Let’s be fair now and let her tell her story, after all. We dont want to judge, after all. Perhaps after she is found, it will be possible to clear this whole thing up.)
At this point, really, you don’t need me to tell you what’s going on. Just google “Mayor Alice Guo” or go to bing or dogpile or whatever your favorite search engine is and see what comes up when you click on the news. Have fun, and if it’s something really exciting feel free to share it in the comments.
https://www.bing.com/news/search?q=Alice+Guo+Mayor&qpvt=alice+guo+mayor&FORM=EWRE