Education About Asia: Online Archives

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Feature Article

The Essentials: Seven Samurai

by Yasuko Sato

Kurosawa Akira’s Seven Samurai is a timeless masterpiece that has been widely recognized as the greatest foreign-language film ever made. The plot concerns a humble village hiring a band of samurai and protecting itself from pillage in war-ravaged sixteenth-century Japan. Since the wretchedness inflicted on the peasantry is evocative of all forms of human suffering, the honorable service conducted by the seven samurai takes on universal significance.

Book Review Essay, Feature Article

The Sorrow of the Things They Carried: The American War in Việt Nam and Stories Told by Combat Soldiers from Both Sides

by Yasuko Sato

Bao Ninh’s (b. 1952) The Sorrow of War: A Novel of North Vietnam (1990) and Tim O’Brien’s (b. 1946) The Things They Carried (1990) are Việt Nam classics that depict traumatic memories of war veterans. These two novels bring the reader into communion with the enormous weight of sorrow that resulted from fighting in a devastating war. The Things They Carried, a semi-autobiographical novel that reads like a collection of short stories, is one of the finest and most widely read books about t...

Resources, Teaching Resources Essay

Pacific Heart of Darkness: Remembering World War II Combat Experiences

by Yasuko Sato

Author’s Note: All the teaching materials recommended in this essay are available in English at reasonable prices. The Japanese books are translated into English, and the Japanese films come with English subtitles. While the complete series of The War (PBS) and The Pacific (HBO) are released in DVD box sets, this article concerns only selected episodes, which are reasonably priced and can be purchased from Amazon Instant Video. The focus is also primarily on the scenes available in YouTube vid...

New to EAA?

Before viewing the full archives, view Editor’s Choice Articles, handpicked by EAA Editor, Lucien Ellington, which provide a good overview of EAA and introduction for new readers.