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This paper analyzes the shift in career strategies among Japanese women due to the globalization of Japan's economy since the 1980s. It highlights how economic changes led to a gender‐based division of labor, propelling women to seek opportunities abroad. The research draws on interviews with 81 women who moved to financial centers in East Asia, mainly in Hong Kong and Shanghai, examining their experiences in the workforce, the impact of human resource agencies in their migration, and the challenges and opportunities they encountered. The study reveals a complex landscape where Japanese women navigate gendered expectations and discrimination both in Japan and abroad in pursuit of career advancement. The conclusion emphasizes three points. First, women found opportunities abroad to do what they wanted, even if it was not what they initially expected before leaving Japan. Second, although supportive and subordinate to male managers, their work was indispensable to the management of Japanese companies abroad. Their contribution has long been underestimated but needs to be considered. Third, the experience abroad gave them direct interaction with various clients and colleagues and a view of rapid societal change in Hong Kong and China, contributing to choosing their diverse career trajectories and life plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the largest freely available EcoPlate dataset for Japan, comprising data collected from a network of 33 natural forest sites (77 plots) in regions of East Asia ranging from cool temperate to subtropical. EcoPlate is a 96‐well microplate that contains three repeated sets of 31 response wells with different sole carbon substrates. The utilization of each carbon substrate by the microbial community is quantified by the color density of the well during incubation. EcoPlate can provide a multifunctional index of a soil microbial community. Soil properties (water content, carbon [C] and nitrogen [N] contents, the C/N ratio, and pH) that are essential for interpreting the EcoPlate results were also measured. The network is part of the Forest and Grassland Survey of the Monitoring Sites 1000 Project established by the Ministry of the Environment. Using a standardized protocol, soil was sampled between September and December 2020. A preliminary principal component analysis was performed on the temporal integration of color density using 31 substrates. For the temporal integration, we calculated the cumulative amount of color development by integrating the color density development curve. PC1 contributed 55.6% and is thought to represent the magnitude of the overall absorbance of all substrates. The model of environmental factors including elevation and the model of soil properties, including water content and pH, were selected as the best‐fit models for variation in PC1. EcoPlate data enable the meta‐analysis of comparative studies among forest types and testing community ecology and ecosystem function hypotheses at broad spatial scales. The complete data set for this abstract published in the Data Paper section of the journal is available in electronic format in MetaCat in JaLTER at http://db.cger.nies.go.jp/JaLTER/metacat/metacat/ERDP‐2022‐01.1/jalter‐en. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the different relationships between the two types of South Asian highs (SAH)—the southern mode of the SAH (SSAH) and the traditional SAH in its entirety (ESAH)—with respect to the variations in summer rainfall over East Asia. The ESAH is closely related to summer rainfall over northeastern China, whereas the SSAH is closely linked to summer rainfall over the Yangtze River valley, northern China, and Japan. Above‐normal rainfall tends to occur over northeastern China in strong ESAH years, whereas strong SSAH years tend to yield above‐normal rainfall over the Yangtze River valley and Japan together with below‐normal rainfall over northern China. The westerly jet and the western Pacific subtropical high (WPSH) shifts northward associated with a strengthened ESAH. The related anomalous southwesterly winds to the northwestern side of the WPSH transports abundant water vapour to northeastern China and leads to above‐normal rainfall there. In contrast, the westerly jet shifts southward and WPSH shifts southwestward to the South China Sea associated with a strengthened and southeastward‐shifted SSAH. Accordingly, a cyclonic anomaly appears over Northeast Asia and mid‐latitude western northern Pacific and an anticyclonic anomaly occurs over subtropical western North Pacific. The associated southwesterly wind anomalies over the Yangtze River valley and Japan contributes to above‐normal rainfall over these regions via transporting sufficient amount of water vapour. In addition, the anomalous northerly winds to the western flank of the cyclonic anomaly results in below‐normal rainfall over northern China via carrying drier air southward. Furthermore, the preceding winter ENSO events may play a more important role in the SSAH variation via modulating India Ocean SST. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, with a focus on Japan and Thailand, we outline a relational environmental and economic history of East Asian economic integration (EAEI) and its implication for the commons in both places. We draw attention in particular to global commodity chains as relational processes not only of trade and investment, but also geopolitics and aid, to argue that these transborder processes have connected together commons in distant localities resulting in their simultaneous enclosure, dispossession and (re‐)commoning with implications for community vulnerabilities in positive and negative ways. To demonstrate this argument we analyse three periods of EAEI: the late nineteenth century until World War II, when Japan and Thailand both began to modernise and new trade and geopolitical relations emerged in the context of colonialism; the post‐World War II recovery until the Plaza Accord in 1986, during which time Japan rapidly industrialised, as did Thailand to a lesser extent and regionalism was largely defined by US hegemony; and the post‐Plaza Accord period, when Japan deindustrialised its labour intensive manufacture and heavy industry and Thailand rapidly industrialised and EAEI became defined by new and intensified global commodity chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although economically interdependent, political rivalry between Japan and China have brought about the inability of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Plus Three (APT) process to transform itself into an East Asia Summit (EAS) as originally envisioned. The existence of the APT and the EAS as two separate entities not only reflected the politico-security rivalry between the two neighbours but more importantly affected the direction and progress of East Asian regionalism as a whole. Aiming to provide a historical account of the EAS process and examine Japan's role in the development of the EAS framework, this paper argues that Japan has put greater attention on the EAS and made numerous unilateral initiatives to develop it. While Japan does not seek ultimate power, it considers the EAS as an excellent opportunity to: (i) raise its influence in the region vis-à-vis China; (ii) elevate the status of the EAS in region-building and (iii) check Chinese advances by fulfilling its long-held policy of having other Asia Pacific countries, primarily Australia and New Zealand, join. Nevertheless, the decision to expand the EAS to include the USA and Russia will have some adverse effects on Japan's unilateral ambitions and the furtherance of regionalisation processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the 1920s Tokyo transformation of hanamatsuri (the celebration of the Buddha's birthday) from a local observance to a mass public spectacle. The Lumbini Festival was a performance of Buddhist modernity orchestrated to promote links between Japan and Asia and present Japan as leader of Asia. The Lumbini Festival appeared in 1925, the same year as did the Young East, an English language journal published in Tokyo to promote the trans-Asian Buddhist fellowship. Neither was a state initiative, but both nevertheless contributed to the formation and naturalisation of links between Japan and its Asian neighbours and the development of the Japanese empire. The Lumbini festival naturalised Buddhist brotherhood in Tokyo; the Young East, by reporting it through Asia and the West, promoted ideas of their shared Buddhist heritage, and of a Buddhist basis for social reform and Asian modernity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In community ecology, trait‐based approaches have been strongly recommended in recent years to understand the responses of community functions against environmental changes. Trait‐based approaches have been used to solve the mechanistic rules in the relationship between soil animal communities and environmental change. However, databases of functional traits of soil animals are still lacking. Collembola is one of the most abundant and diverse group in land ecosystems, with more than 400 identified species in Japan. This data set provides taxonomic information, geographic, habitat distributions and 13 morphological trait items of 407 species of Japanese Collembola: described in Japanese literature. The workshop of Japanese Collembola, supported by the Japanese Society of Soil Zoology, summarized the taxonomy for the Japanese Collembola species. The data set presented here is mainly based on their work. The spatial coverage of this data set is in the land area of Japan. Suborder, superfamily, family, subfamily, genus and species names, as well as common Japanese names, are listed in this paper. The species distributions of Japanese Collembola in each global ecozone and in each area within Japan were described. Habitat preference for soil, cave, seashore and tree trunk habitats was recorded. The 13 morphological traits of Collembola species, which are body length; body weight of adult individual; body form; antenna length; furca length; body pigmentation; pairs of ocelli (eyes); post‐antennal organ; pseudocelli; body scale; anal spine; mandible and molar plate are listed in this dataset. These 13 morphological traits in this dataset are covered the most of trait items which have been internationally used in Collembola study. Trait‐based studies of Collembola have mainly been for European species, most of which are not found in Japan or East Asia. These data sets may provide an important first step to incorporating community data from the Asian region to the trait‐based global ecology. Data files are stored in the Ecological Research Data Archives at http://db.cger.nies.go.jp/JaLTER/ER_DataPapers/archives/2019/ERDP-2019-03. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]