Naomi Yamada

US Naval Academy ends affirmative action in admissions The change was made in response to Trump's executive order aimed at eliminating DEI initiatives from the military, including service academies.

(Workaround only lasted for 2 mo into the current administration) www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2025/03/28/us-naval-academy-ends-affirmative-action-in-admissions

AAA Renews Its Call for the Release of Dr. Rahile Dawut - American Anthropological Association October 6, 2025 Ambassador David Perdue U.S. Embassy in Beijing No. 55 An Jia Lou Lu 100600 Via email: BeijingACS@state.gov   Dear Ambassador Perdue, The American Anthropological Association has writt...

americananthro.org/news/aaa-ren...

I’ll always love 同桌的你 and pretty sure that makes me basic ❤️

Imagine deciding to buy a big American car when a typical two-way street in a neighborhood in Japan is this wide

3/3 Screenshot from Wilson’s blog. Compare and contrast Wilson’s with Stalin’s “four commons.” Both = primordialist.

2/3…”a common language, a common territory, a common economic life, and a common psychological make-up manifested in common specific features of national culture.” See: www.marxists.org/reference/ar... When I saw Wilson’s definition on his blog, it reminded me of Stalin’s definition…

1/3 Interestingly, self-described Christian nationalist Doug Wilson (and founder of the denomination that the US sec of defense is involved in) has a very similar understanding of the definition of “nation” that Stalin had. Stalin’s “four commons,” definitional to “nation” are…

Always glad to come across these and hope they don’t become obsolete in Japan

The “Japanese First” party left this in my mailbox. It’s interesting that they use an English loanword for first (ファースト) instead of dai ichi (第一), and thus more obviously allude to “America First”—a globalized xenophobia rather than an isolationist xenophobia

For those in need of pageantry

I think the idea is to primarily help the displaced and non-US citizens facing cancelled int’l student visa interviews. Later they may or may not return to the US but at least won’t have gaps in their studies/work or lose out on going to grad school

Japan will provide 23 million dollars over the next three years to support foreign researchers coming to Japan, specifically those who have lost their positions/funding in the US. www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/...

SBAC Tour

The tour was sponsored by a group that they are collaborating with to expand their access to the Chinese market, which doesn’t seem like an adequate explanation, considering that they were cognizant (their words) of the situation:
press.princeton.edu/news/sbac-to...

seems to make a disjointed argument simply praising the post-1978 ed system in China (and inserts the phrase “to do this” before “China created the C9 league,” which makes it seem even like basic education/literacy was positively affected by the creation of the C9).

comparing the dismantling of higher ed during 文革 to Trump’s attempts to structurally change elite universities. I thought his point was that China retreated from chaotic attempts to structurally change the exam-based system, not that it emphasized free thinking. The english version, however,…

He briefly mentions in both versions that the exam-based system is connected to autocracy/a decline in civil society. The Spanish version starts out with an explanation of “Kodak moments” and sets up the idea that there is a snapshot in time where a failure alters a trajectory before…

Trump vive su “momento Mao” en su embestida contra Harvard La Administración Trump intenta desmantelar el sistema universitario estadounidense, el baluarte del éxito económico y tecnológico de EE.UU. China lo hizo antes y le salió mal.

I noticed this article was originally written in Spanish and the English version is missing some paragraphs. The English version also strangely makes it seem like the C9 was formed in response to the dismantling of higher ed during the Cultural Revolution. theconversation.com/trump-vive-s...

Strangers in Their Own Land is great—Hochschild also has a newer book out called Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right. Stolen Pride adds a few elements to the same thesis (and can be read independent of the other).

Not acknowledging what's been happening in XJ is partly connected to leftist conflict discourse (and moreso, in my view, to indifference/unfamiliarity). However, the criticism of evol psych research on sex differences is that it isn't empirically robust, not that it's a threat to 2nd wave feminism.

Trump administration blocks $30M in funding to the East-West Center Since the Trump administration’s announcement to block the center’s funding, center leaders offered over 80% of their staff to take a voluntary separation deal.

I was lucky to have been an affiliate here and hope they find a way to continue

Their policy on warantless bus searches is currently on their website: www.greyhound.com/warrantless-...

He didn’t say much, but he did get criticized by the PRC gov for saying this in his 2020 book:

Japanese applying for visas to study in the US need to include their social media account information

California rice at Costco in Japan costs 2998 yen ($20 USD) for 5 kg, cheaper than all the Japanese rice in the warehouse. Yet the White House keeps saying Japan has a 700% tariff on American rice.

Many Chinese See a Cultural Revolution in America (Gift Article) People in China are expressing alarm at what seems to be an authoritarian turn in the United States, long their role model of democracy, that feels familiar.

There are so many lessons we could learn from China. Unfortunately most Americans are unfamiliar with this history. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/06/b...

TESOL Statement on the Executive Order Designating English as the Official Language of the United States

Trump’s 思想改革 is pretty evident in his removal of all things DEI (and as an excuse to fire minorities in general). Mao initially aimed for inclusive policies and these were dropped during the 文革 in favor of class background for special consideration.

Another review reads that they only sell to men, which is unpleasant. And another reads that the store has no connection to ordinary people.

Tesla doesn’t have much presence in Japan, but it has a small presence. The reviews are pretty mixed, but the negative ones are quite interesting. The one-star review here reads that the company always parks the cars illegally on the street, and doesn’t care about legal compliance.

Gödel’s Loophole and American’s ‘Cultural Revolution’ Contra Trump 造反有理 Zhang Qianfan (張千帆, 1964-) is a professor of constitutional law at Peking University. Readers of China Heritage first encountered him in The Professor, a University & the Rule of Law...

Scroll down past the intro to read an article comparing Elon Musk’s DOGE to a “Cultural Revolution Squad.” The essay is here in English and in Chinese. chinaheritage.net/journal/gode...