Shintarō Arakawa Shintarō Arakawa Arakawa graduated from the Faculty of Letters at Kyoto University in 1995. He stayed on for graduate studies at Kyoto University, from where he received his doctorate in 2002. Since 2003 he has been teaching at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, with the position of associate professor since 2007. Arakawa specialises in the study of the Tangut language, in particular Tangut phonology and the reconstruction of the pronunciation of Tangut characters. In 2006 he co-edited a Tangut-Russian-English-Chinese dictionary with Evgenij Ivanovich Kychanov, for which he provided the reconstructed Tangut readings. He has also published a number of studies
Sumida River being manufactured by Korean prisoners of war. Sandra Andacht wrote in 1987, "Sumida gawa wares have found great popularity with collectors, dealers and investors. The motifs conform to the general Western concepts of what Oriental designs are expected to depict; writhing dragons, Buddhist disciples, mythological and legendary beings and creatures. Thus these wares are sought after and prices (here in the States) are quite high, even for pieces in less than perfect condition." The "Noh" play "Sumida-gawa", which the British composer Benjamin Britten saw while visiting Japan in 1956, inspired him to compose "Curlew River" (1964), a dramatic work based