This study deploys netnography to investigate online reaction to suzhi jiaoyu, China’s national curriculum. Few papers have attempted to gauge popular opinion on the curriculum, despite state rhetoric that, once universally implemented, it will revolutionize China’s development. I analyse 1,644 posts of netizens’ judgements of ongoing suzhi jiaoyu reforms, uploaded to China’s most popular “question-and-answer” site, Zhihu. Deploying grounded theory to gauge the levels and nature of consensus/dissent across opinions, my study details the unpopularity of suzhi jiaoyu among users of Zhihu. Most appropriate suzhi jiaoyu discourse to criticize China’s unequal distribution of resources and, implicitly, the failure of state initiatives to address these inequalities. Users perceive the previous national curriculum to be fairer, noting the absence of sufficient state intervention in this area. I conclude by examining the broader implications of Zhihu users’ engagement with social problems in China.

This article explores the early development of Japan’s recording industry, focusing on locally driven “minor transnational engagements” between emerging Japanese record companies and foreign recording experts. The initial phase of Japan’s recording history mirrored the pattern in most countries from the early 1900s, with major record companies organizing international recording expeditions equipped with new acoustic disc recording technology. However, it was homegrown firms in the 1910s, especially the Nipponophone Company (Nihon Chikuonki Shōkai 日本蓄音器商會), that positioned themselves as the main producers of Japanese titles and gramophones. In the second half of the 1920s, the industry evolved further with the introduction of electrical recording technology, and Japanese record companies embraced it by partnering with international labels to establish multinational ventures. With a focus on the acoustic recording era of the 1910s and early 1920s, this article investigates Nipponophone’s recruitment of foreign recording experts, who not only shared their technical knowledge but also served as strategic conduits for expanding the company’s presence across regional and international markets. Nipponophone and other domestic record companies grew through expert collaborations and secondhand emulation. Their efforts, rather than global campaigns led by the multinational major labels, played a decisive role in shaping Japan’s early recording industry.

During the Imjin War (1592–1598), a new type of warfare centered on the harquebus was introduced into Korea. This led to the formation of a new infantry-based military composed largely of harquebusiers. Existing scholarship on the military change of Korea in this period has primarily focused on the emergence of the standing army. However, most of the troops were militiamen, similar to those of the prewar military. This article examines the broader contours of Korea’s military organization during this transformative period, with particular attention to the composition and roles of the forces. To be sure, a new standing army unit was organized, but its proportion was small both in absolute numbers and in participation in actual warfare. Instead, the militia continued to constitute the core of the Korean military and carried out the majority of wartime operations. The Korean court did not intend to raise a standing army as the new center of military power. This was due to its strong ideological commitment to the militia system and the actual military environment that Korea was facing. The Korean case presents a distinctive example of how the introduction of harquebus could coexist with the persistence of militia-based military structures.

This article examines the lexicon for “gift” in the Gāndhārī epigraphical corpus, focusing on three key word-forms: G. dana-, danamuha- and deyadhaṃma-. These terms, which denote the meaning of “gift”, appear 36, 111 and 14 times respectively (both as single words and as compound constituents) in Gāndhārī inscriptions currently recorded in the CKI. Despite their frequent appearance, existing scholarship has primarily restricted itself to identifying their synonymous functions or analysing their grammatical construction in the case of the two compounds. No comprehensive study has yet catalogued all occurrences of these word-forms, traced their semantic development or examined the reasons behind their changing usage over time. This article addresses this gap by providing a complete inventory of the occurrences of these word-forms in the Gāndhārī epigraphical corpus and examining their use in non-Gāndhārī sources. It also presents a semantic analysis, exploring their synchronic and diachronic relationships within Gāndhārī inscriptions.

Contention about representations of history and the purposes of History education has long surrounded Japanese History textbooks. From 2012, the ascent of powerful nationalist Prime Minister Abe Shinzō raised questions about possible political pressures on textbook content. This article analyzes recent market-leading junior high school and high school History textbooks to discover how pedagogical format and content related to controversial topics or national identity have changed since 2012. It finds that leading junior high school textbooks have largely maintained their representation of controversial topics, while developing investigative, analytic pedagogical approaches. Coverage of some aspects of ethnic and cultural diversity within Japan has increased. Following the implementation of a new curriculum from 2022, some high school textbooks for the new compulsory subject “Integrated History” facilitate a more analytic, “disciplinary” pedagogy than previously evident in compulsory high school History. Nonetheless, an “enhancing collective memory” approach to History pedagogy remains central throughout secondary education. These developments suggest that power over History education in Japan is distributed between a range of actors. The state, the market, and social pressures all influence the content of History textbooks in Japan.