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Nearly
every inch of Japan is marked by its past and its spirits,
they seep up from the land into the culture and become
part of the language itself. Most open patches of ground
are mapped by shrines, temples, family headstones and
historical markers of all size and description, and
most commercial land has reserved space for spiritual,
political and personal recognitions of the past (Addiss).
The countryside is similarly spotted with markers of
the history that has passed across it. The ghosts of
a community’s ancestors and past institutions
drift through every conversation and influence nearly
every personal interaction (Heinrich, Matsumoto).
Because the Japanese
sense of place and sense of responsibility for personal
and family history is so distinctly different from how
modern American culture deals with its past and sense
of place, ghosts stories and family history became the
center of many of the discussions with my students;
ghosts of all kinds floated through many of our classroom
exchanges. Ghosts, and the stories that accompanied
them, became the medium I used for teaching about English
syntax and grammar. Ghosts were the starting point for
many of my classes about English literature, and ghosts
played a prominent role in our discussions about modern
American culture.
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