UCLA Center for East
Asian Studies
Today in Asian History
April 1
1920 Famed Japanese actor MIFUNE Toshiro was born in Northern China. Mifune grew up in Japanese occupied Manchuria and served in the Imperial Air Force during the Pacific War. In 1946 Mifune became an actor entirely by mistake -- he had applied for an assistant cameraman's job at a movie studio. Instead, he wound up in front of the camera and became Japan's best known star. He worked especially closely with KUROSAWA Akira, starring in virtually all the great director's films between 1948 and 1965, including the classics Rashomon (1950), Shichinin no Samurai [Seven Samurai] (1954), and Yojimbo (1960). Beginning in the 1960s, Mifune also appeared in US productions, most famously as Toranaga, the shogun, in the 1980 television miniseries Shogun. Mifune died in 1997.
Several websites are devoted to Mifune. Among the best is one created by Ramona Boersma.
1938 In Japan, the National Mobilization Law was decreed providing the government the authority to secure and assign human and physical resources for wartime use.
1945 US forces began their assault on Okinawa, a campaign that would not be completed until late June. More than 7,000 US soldiers and 100,000 Japanese soldiers and militiamen died in the conflict.
1986 Japan's equal employment opportunity law went into effect. "Protective" laws limiting overtime and late night work for women remained in place, but a law prohibiting companies from dismissing women for opting to take up to 14 weeks of maternity leave was enacted. The equal opportunity law was revised in 1999.
The Japanese Ministry of Labor website has information concerning its efforts to aid women entering the workforce. A Ministry chart showing growth in female labor force participation is available here. The Ministry has designated the week beginning on April 10 (commemorating the day in 1946 when Japanese women first voted) "women's week." The Temple University Law Program in Japan website includes an article by Kazutoshi Kakuyama on litigating sexual discrimination cases in Japan. In 1999 Women 2000, a Japanese non-governmental organization prepared a report on women and the economy.
1987 Japan's National Railroad split into 11 private railroads.
At least two of these companies have websites: Japan Rail East and Japan Rail West.
1996 Two of Japan's largest banks, Mitsubishi Bank and the Bank of Tokyo, merged, creating the world's largest financial institution.
2000 Beijing newspapers reported that Chinese officials broke ground on the country's National Theater, a $428 million project a few minutes from the "Forbidden City," China's former imperial palace. Designed by French architect Paul Andreu, the titanium and glass complex will include two halls each holding more than 2,000 people and an experimental theater. The project is said to have originated in 1958 with the late Premier Zhou Enlai.
The April 3 issue of the official China Daily carried an article arguing that although the site was in "early stage site preparation," construction had not officially begun and the State Council had not yet approved the project.
Volume 5, an architecture website, includes a profusely illustrated interview with one of the teams which submitted an (unsuccessful) entry in the design competition.
2001A U.S. EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft collided with a Chinese F-8 fighter jet off over the South China Sea further heightening tensions between the two nations. In the past two months, Chinese authorities had detained three China-born U.S. citizens or permanent residents on suspicion of espionage. The collision resulted in the death of the pilot of the Chinese F-8 and so severely damaged the American intelligence gathering plane that it was compelled to make an emergency landing at a Chinese military airfield on Hainan Island. Despite American protests that planes or ships making emergency stops are entitled to sovereign immunity, Chinese authorities held both the plane and its crew. The U.S. government argued the accident was the fault of the two Chinese F-8 fighters which were shadowing the plane as it flew in international airspace. The Chinese government argued the fault for the incident lay entirely with the U.S. which was illegally spying in Chinese airspace, caused the accident by swerving into the Chinese fighter, and then illegally landed -- without requesting permission -- on Chinese territory.
The AI "Today in Asian History" page was compiled by Clayton Dube. He welcomes your comments and suggestions. Send them to <cdube@isop.ucla.edu>.
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