[Fukushima's Choice] 1873: Asaka Irrigation Project - an early Meiji national project

This post was moved to http://futaba-nuke-park.blogspot.com/2011/07/fukushima-history-1873-asaka-irrigation.html.

[Fukushima's Choice] Fukushima's Nuclear Coast - Japan's version of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)

Moved to http://futaba-nuke-park.blogspot.com/2011/07/fukushima-history-fukushimas-nuclear.html.

[Fukushima's Choice] An exploration of why Fukushima Prefecture chose to host nuclear power and what its choices are after nuclear power

Moved to http://futaba-nuke-park.blogspot.com/2011/07/exploration-of-why-fukushima-prefecture.html.

Japan’s strength from Tohoku's outlaw past

The Economist's recent outstanding article, about the strength of Japan's regions nicely focuses on the pressure points for change.

While the article states that Tohoku's tight-knit, independent streak dates back centuries, one can add Tohoku's outlaw status stemming out of Japan's Sengoku Period of the 16th and 17th centuries.

Ibaraki and Tohoku

One day last Summer, my Kansai-raised wife, 11-year-old son and I bicycled past a road crew in Tsukuba. My wife could not understand their conversation; my son did. Why? The crew was speaking Tohoku dialect, which my son heard spoken daily by classmates and teachers, but which my wife and I did not normally encounter.

While Ibaraki Prefecture is administratively part of Kanto, most of it is linguistically and culturally part of Tohoku. For a linguistic comparison of Ibaraki and its surroundings, see http://www1.tmtv.ne.jp/~kadoya-sogo/ibaraki15-map.html.