Medicine/Life


We went to Meiji Mura and Ghibli Park while we were in the Nagoya area. Both were very interesting and so much fun to experience! It was really cool how they set things up so that you could feel like you were actually visiting the time period or the films. I was so busy enjoying them that I had a bit of a hard time focusing on something that reflects the shifts in Japan’s view of technology during the 20th century, but I did find some things!


It was very apparent at Meiji Mura how Japan was becoming more modern with many blends of western and Japanese elements in the architecture and technology. One thing I found particularly interesting was the exhibit about advancements in medicine around the Meiji restoration time period. I love learning about science and medicine, and it was really inspiring to see the contributions that Japanese people made to the field as well as the collaboration between scientists of different countries. There were displays of the development of various scientific instruments, such as microscopes, and of discoveries contributing to eradication of infectious diseases. I think that this reflects a view of modernizing for the purpose of extending healthy life.

The night before Meiji Mura, some of us had watched Princess Mononoke, and it was featured in Ghibli Park. I did not like the movie the first time I watched it because I was not watching very closely and it was very scary to me. This time though, I was actually paying attention to the story and thought it was really interesting. In Princess Mononoke, there is conflict between humans and animals of the forest, and it is thought provoking how there are multiple sides in the story and multiple sides are doing shady things and honorable things. Also, the animals were gods, reflecting traditional Japanese Shinto values. Specifically, there was a Deer God that could give and take away life. One thing I noticed was that there were some people and animals who gracefully accepted life or death, whatever happened, instead of trying to fight it. I thought this is kind of a contrast of modernization of trying to find ways to extend life such as by fighting diseases. I would not necessarily say that one is better than the other, but maybe the idea of trying to advance and have healthy bodies for longer is starting to combine with the idea of also being at peace with things working to extend life or with death.


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