EAJS screening 1: Japanese Margins: Documentaries on Contemporary Japanese Society

Shun Coney & Megha Wadhwa - Japan - 2023, 2022 - 39 min. & 58 min.

This screening takes place as part of the 17th International Conference of the European Association for Japanese Studies (EAJS). In 2023 it will be hosted by the Institute of Japanese Studies at Ghent University on 17-20 August 2023.
Single screening on Friday 18/08 at 5 P.M.
Tickets: Free access (first come, first served, full=full)

Other Screenings:
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Part 1: The Future with Juvenile Parkinson’s Disease (by Shun Coney) - 39 min.
光を纏うーー若年性パーキンソン病患者が掴んだ未来

Etsuko Yoshida, who suffers from juvenile Parkinson’s disease, overcomes her physical disability and accomplishes her dream of taking photographs wearing a kimono with her beloved husband.

Synopsis

Etsuko Yoshida was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in her 20s. Parkinson’s disease is an intractable disease that affects about 200,000 people in Japan, and it is said that there are tens of thousands of people with juvenile Parkinson’s disease in their 20s to 40s. At the onset of the disease, Etsuko-san suffered from a lack of diagnosis, and doctors suspected that she was faking her symptoms. It was her husband, Tomoaki Yoshida, who accepted Etsuko and proposed to her. Based on his idea that no human being is perfect, he viewed the incurable disease as a kind of trait and decided to spend the rest of his life with Etsuko. Although Tomoaki ‘s family stubbornly opposed the marriage, calling it reckless, they did not give up and continued to persuade his family to agree to the marriage. Based on the support of the devoted Tomoaki, Etsuko has been making various efforts in their married life. Etsuko had a dream of having a wedding ceremony with her husband in kimono, but it was difficult for her crippled body to wear heavy kimono, and she gave up on her dream. Then, she found a company called Asusakura, which provides a service that improves kimonos for the handicapped and makes it easy for anyone to wear kimonos. Through Asusakura unique technology and service, Etsuko and her husband were able to fulfill their dream of wearing kimono as a couple.

Part 2: Finding their niche: Unheard stories of migrant women (by Megha Wadhwa) - 58 min

Film documents the life of two Indian migrant women who moved to Japan as trailing spouses and the challenges they faced in ‘finding their niche’

Synopsis

This film documents the life of two Indian women migrants who moved to Japan more than a decade ago as trailing spouses. Jyoti, 41 and Mandeep, 39, grew up in the state of Punjab, northern India, in middle-class households. They received a good education and had promising careers in India. Then, in their early 20s, they each agreed to marry men living in Japan by arrangement. The women were excited to move to a foreign country and to be with their husbands but they had no prior knowledge of Japan. Having witnessed at a distance the lives of their relatives settled in the US, UK and Canada, they had similar expectations for their own future lives in Japan. But the reality was to prove different from the expectation. In place of comfort, luxury, love, and fun, loneliness and fear took over. Through personal narratives told by the women, we examine past, present and future expectations and see how these affect their roles as Indian women, wives, mothers and workers in a foreign country, as well as the challenges they faced in ‘Finding their Niche’.

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