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Japanese Interest in the Amish Spurs Visit to Japan The Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College Fall 2009 Japanese interest in the Amish spurs visit to Japan n 1998, Chiho Oyabu and Toshihara Sugihara trav- children’s toys; a few months later, Oyabu invited Ieled from Japan to the United States to study Amish him to lecture at Gifu and the museum after the economics at the Young Center. A decade later, the exhibit opened. two Gifu University professors invited their Young The Young Center welcomed another Japanese Center “teachers” to travel to Japan to present their visitor in November 2008. Nanami Suzuki of the knowledge to a wider Japanese audience. National Museum of Ethnology at Osaka came to the Oyabu became a Young Center Fellow in the sum- Center and interviewed Scott about the Amish. A mer of 1998, and was especially interested in Amish friend of Oyabu’s, Suzuki knew that Scott was trav- school curriculum and other Amish literature. Steve eling to Japan in June 2009, and so she too invited Scott helped arrange for her to live with an Amish him to present a lecture. family and to collect Amish printed material. Oyabu Meanwhile, the Gifu University professors, who returned to Pennsylvania on several occasions for fur- had collaborated on translating two of Donald B. ther Amish studies and to attend Young Center con- Kraybill’s books into Japanese, extended an invita- ferences on the Amish. In June 2008, she asked Scott tion to him to lecture on Amish culture and society in if he could obtain Amish items for an exhibit she was conjunction with the exhibit. Yujin Yaguchi, a pro- developing at the Shibunkaku Art Museum in Kyoto fessor of American studies at the University of the following summer. Scott collected and sent a Tokyo, invited Kraybill to speak to his graduate stu- number of artifacts including Amish clothing and dents about the international media and the Nickel Mines tragedy. Kraybill travelled to Japan at the end of May. In addition to presenting lectures, he spent a fascinating two and a half hours being interviewed by Kunio Yanagida, a prominent nonfiction writer and columnist for The Asahi Shimbun, Japan’s leading newspaper (circu- lation: 8.3 million) and the Japanese pub- lisher of Amish Grace. Yanagida had written a favorable review of the book’s Japanese translation, and he wanted to discuss the Amish forgiveness story as it related to capi- tal punishment, and punitive responses to crime, both of which are lively topics of debate in Japan. The extensive interview appeared in the July 8 issue of the paper. Steve Scott’s visit to Japan followed Kray- bill’s return to the States. He too lectured at Gifu University and the Shibunkaku Museum; his presentations focused on Amish clothing. His talk, “The Amish Way of Life in Modern Donald B. Kraybill and Chiho Oyabu outside the Shibunkaku Art Museum in Kyoto. American Society,” at the (continued on p. 2) 1 FROM THE DIRECTOR Jeff Bach his summer I have been dealing with countries. Musa Mambula (Fellow in in places and languages that we might Tsome English ivy in my flower garden Spring 2007) published Are There Limits not imagine. The scholarship of the that is spreading to areas where I did not to Pacifism?, which explores Brethren Young Center staff reaches around the imagine it would go. I am amazed at how pacifism and religious tensions in north- world through print and other media. those vines travel! ern Nigeria. Andy Borella, our doctoral Thanks to financial backing for the Cen- At the Young Center, we are amazed at fellow from Italy last spring, released Gli ter, we can welcome scholars from other how our scholarly work is traveling, liter- Amish (The Amish), the first book about countries who want to pursue Anabaptist ally and figuratively. Donald B. Kraybill the Amish written in Italian, and Erik and Pietist studies here. We celebrate the spent a week in Japan talking about his Wesner (Snowden Fellow in Fall 2008) ways that the work of the Young Center book, Amish Grace, which is already has completed the manuscript for a book travels to new places. We are also grate- available in Japanese translation. Steve about the Amish written Polish. In Octo- ful for people who make this growth Scott was invited to Japan for two weeks ber, Marcus Meier (Fellow in Fall 2006) possible through their interest and finan- in June by former Young Center Fellow will receive the Dale Brown Book Award cial support. Chiho Oyabu. He lectured on the lifestyle and lecture on his recent book, The Ori- I hope you will come to our events this of the Amish and other Plain groups. gin of the Schwarzenau Brethren. year and see how the work of the Young We have also received news of recent I am amazed at how the work of staff Center is spreading in amazing ways. books written by past Fellows from other and Fellows at the Young Center spreads Anna Blough correspondence project underway ecently, the Young Center was able to great aunt, Anna V. Blough, a Church of when she died of typhoid fever in China. Rexpand its historical research on the Brethren missionary stationed in They provide valuable insight into the Brethren Missions in China during the Shanxi Province from 1913 to 1922. daily struggles and satisfaction of mis- first half of the twentieth century. In The letters and diaries range from sionary work in a foreign country. March 2009, Maylee Samuel lent the Cen- 1906, during Blough’s student years at Blough’s letters recount her calling to ter correspondence and diaries from her Mt. Morris College in Illinois, to 1922, mission work and detail her departure for China in 1913, where she joined Brethren missionaries in Shanxi Province. Blough Japanese interest in the Amish (continued) visited Chinese women in her area, taught at the girls’ school set up by the mission- Museum of Ethnology had a broader of Living Together in the 21st Century.” aries, and worked in the villages during theme, and was the featured lecture of an Both Scott and Kraybill combined the famine conditions in the 1920s. afternoon forum titled “The Amish Way their speaking engagements with the The Anna Blough Collection is a novel experiences of visit- remarkable primary source for researchers ing a new and intriguing interested in women in the early twentieth country. From decidedly century and cultural interfaces between tourist activities such as American Christian missionaries and, in watching cormorant fishing this case, Chinese people. and visiting the Imperial Samuel has given the Young Center Palace grounds to every- permission on behalf of her family to copy day, “native” experiences the letters and diaries as well as some pho- such as riding the bullet tos. Thanks to the college’s High Library, train, eating rice and fish at the collection will be digitized and made breakfast, and sleeping on available to the public. After the digitizing futons atop tatami mats, the is complete, the original materials will be two enjoyed a bit of cul- returned to Samuel. The collection, how- tural immersion themselves ever, will be available to interested people as they shared the Amish around the world through Elizabethtown Toshihara Sugihara and Stephen Scott in Sugihara’s home near Gifu. culture with their hosts. 2 Martyrs Mirror conference scheduled Falkenstein n June 8-10, 2010, the Young Center Amish. The Ephrata edition of 1748 was materials donated Owill hold a conference to commemo- the first complete German translation, rate the 350th anniversary of the publi- significant because it meant that Men- n the summer of 2008, Andrew Miller cation of the first edition of Martyrs nonites in the colonies could read the donated several boxes of materials Mirror by Thieleman van Braght in work. It was also the largest book pro- I related to George Ness Falkenstein to Dutch. “Martyrs Mirror: Reflections duced in colonial America. Elizabethtown College and the Young Across Time” will focus primarily on the The goal of the conference is to exam- Center on behalf of G. N. Falkenstein’s German translation produced by the ine the importance of Martyrs Mirror grandchildren. Falkenstein was instru- Ephrata Community in 1748. However, and to provide a forum for sharing the mental in the founding of Elizabethtown the conference will also cover other knowledge of those who have studied it. College and served as president from aspects of Martyrs Mirror, including its The Young Center is coordinating the 1901 to 1903. history and social context, theological conference with a research initiative Among the materials in the collection themes, and portrayal of women. being developed by Mennonite scholars are several of Falkenstein’s detailed Martyrs Mirror has symbolic value for a multi-year study of the full history diaries and a number of business papers for Anabaptist groups in the United and impact of the various editions of related to the Falkenstein and Shellen- States, especially for Mennonites and Martyrs Mirror. berger families from the second half of the nineteenth century. A handwritten letter in which Falkenstein reflects on his time as pastor at the Germantown New publications in the JHUP series Church of the Brethren is pasted into one of his journals. Also among the artifacts he Johns Hopkins University Press Prussia from the early is a German Bible dated from 1860 with Thas recently released the sixth book in sixteenth through the “G. N. Falkenstein” signed on a piece of the Young Center Books in Anabaptist late eighteenth cen- paper attached to the inside of the front and Pietist Studies series.
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