Wikipedia
Tenko is a television drama, co-produced by the BBC and the ABC. A total of thirty episodes were produced over three series between 1981 and 1984, followed by a one-off special (which was twice the length of the other episodes), Tenko Reunion, in 1985.
The series dealt with the experiences of British, Australian and Dutch women who were captured after the Fall of Singapore in February 1942, after the Japanese invasion, and held in a Japanese internment camp on a Japanese-occupied island between Singapore and Australia. Having been separated from their husbands, herded into makeshift holding camps and largely forgotten by the British War Office, the women have to learn to cope with appalling living conditions, malnutrition, disease, violence and death.
is a Japanese term referring to the ideological reversal of numerous Japanese socialists who, between 1925 and 1945, renounced the left and (in many cases) embraced the "national community." Tenkō was performed especially under duress, most often in police custody, and was a condition for release (although surveillance and harassment would continue). But it was also a broader phenomenon, a kind of cultural reorientation in the face of national crisis, that did not always involve direct repression.
For decades, the term served both narrowly as a moral litmus test in evaluating the careers of intellectuals active before and after the war and more broadly as a metaphor for the collective experience of an entire generation of Japanese. One of the most well known and consequential instances of Tenko came in June 1933, when Sano Manabu (1892—1953) and Nabeyama Sadachika (1901—1979), top figures in the Communist Party leadership, renounced their allegiance to the Comintern and the policy of violent revolution, embracing instead a Japan-specific mode of revolutionary change under imperial auspices, in reaction to the Soviet Union's use of the Comintern for its own power purposes against Germany and Japan.
Their proclamation was followed by a wave of defections by the party rank and file and essentially signaled the demise of the party organization, except in exile. Tenkō described a change in ideological position on the part of former anti-government radicals who had undergone self-criticism and who had returned to the ideological position supported by the state.
Tenko are a type of divine beast in Japanese folklore.
A fox ( kitsune) that lives for 1000 years becomes a tenko. They are able to see a thousand ri ahead. They have four tails unlike the lower-ranked existences, the yako, the kiko, and the kūko.
Tenko are of the highest rank of foxes in the Edo period, and in the essays "" and "," the foxes are ranked in the order of tenko, kūko, kiko, and then yako. Also, in the Nihon Shoki, in the 9th year of Emperor Jomei (637), the great shooting star was written as 天狗 (normally read "tengu") and was given the reading of "amatsu kitsune," and from this, the essay "Zen'an Zuihitsu" put forth the theory that tenko and tengu are the same.
Furthermore, at the first ridge of the Fushimi Inari-taisha, a male fox by the name of is worshipped as (however, these foxes are always the divine messengers or household of Inari no Kami, not Inari no Kami himself).
In Ojika island in the Nagasaki Prefecture, the tenko is a type of spirit possession, and it is said that those who are possessed by it have a divination ability that is always correct, and is thus a divine spiritual power.
Usage examples of "tenko".
Of more pressing concern was its relationship with the establishment across the square, an inn called the Skyrrman, run by a native of the Tenko canton of Skyrr named Marplet.
The master harpist was playing well tonight, more than living up both to his reputation and to the staggering sum that Marplet sen Tenko must have paid to bring him upriver from his home in Endiscar to perform here.
Of them all, only the Archiem and Harr, Thane sen Tenko, seemed fairly sober, although each kept urging the other to drink deep.
Then, when the sequence was complete, she bowed, opened her eyes, and found herself on the center table under the chandelier, with King Sellik, the Archiem, and Harr sen Tenko all staring at her.
Marplet sen Tenko was sitting in a window of the Skyrrman smoking a long-stemmed pipe.
Shunkin gave the finest of her nightingales the name Tenko, or Drum of Heaven, and loved to listen to it from morning till night.
And so, Tenko was handled with meticulous care, every precaution being taken as to its diet.
Shunkin kept this cage in the window beside the alcove in her sitting room, where she could listen to Tenko whenever it sang.
As pampered as it was, Tenko died at the age of seven, and Shunkin, like most owners who lose their birds, tried to find a worthy successor.
After several years she managed to train another splendid nightingale, which she also called Tenko and prized as highly.
But when you hear a bird as accomplished as Tenko, on the other hand, you are reminded of the tranquil charm of a secluded ravine -- a rushing stream murmurs to you, clouds of cherry blossoms float up before your eyes.
Besides her lark, Shunkin had been keeping a nightingale which she called Tenko the Third.
Whenever Shunkin played it Tenko sang out joyously, straining its voice to rival the beauty of her samisen.
Perhaps the song made Tenko yearn for the sunlight and freedom of its native valley.