Meiji period

Feudal Japan was a time in Japanese history that lasted from 1185 to 1603 A.D. This influential time included the rise of the bakufu, or tent government, and rule by shōgun. It also included many wars, battles, and introductions of new weapons, ideas, or religions from foreign places. The mentioned introductions included firearms, Buddhism, and Christianity. The geography, climate, and location of Japan affects the inhabitants then and now. The geography of Japan consists of mountains, basins, plains

over two hundred years, challenges to Tokugawa authority were few, and this era was known as the time of Great Peace. In general, its appearance for the populace was grateful, because of a period of freedom from the warfare marked Sengoku, from the middle of 15th century to the end of 16th century. During that period, the chain of islands that makes up Japan was ruled by samurai and warlords. During the late sixteenth-century Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and finally Tokugawa Ieyasu took power in

Korea was controlled by Mongol, China, and Japan and its culture was a mixture of those countries. Although it had an independent empire in the late 19th century, the empire did not have a great power to control its country. Kabo Reforms during this period was not stable so that Korea struggled to establish its political system and to develop its culture. Additionally, Tonghak movement could be a factor not to be influenced by the West. Korea tried to keep away from the West so that it

The Meiji Restoration, refers to the events that led to the “restoration” of power to Emperor Meiji Tenno. The previous political and military leader of Japan had been the Tokugawa shogunate, but due to the intrusion of the western powers, particularly the Americans, under the command of Commodore Perry, the Shogun was forced to return power to the Emperor. This restoration of power led to many changes in Japanese society such as the social structure, the education system and the Japanese economy

Kawabata’s Beauty and Sadness and Murakami’s Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World Although wildly different in subject matter and style, Kawabata’s Beauty and Sadness and Murakami’s Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World both show how Japan has been internationalized as well as how it has remained traditional. Kawabata’s novel is traditional and acceptable, much like the haiku poetry he imitates, but has a thread of rebelliousness and modernity running through the web that

Bias and preposterous assumptions about a foreign society are a detriment to the image of that society. Creating a burden to the future comprehension of said society. Doctor David C. Unger, former foreign affairs editorial writer for the New York Times, has stated and debunked said stereotypes in his editorial titled Faces of Japan. In it, Unger argues that Japanese stereotypes are utterly incorrect and the presumptions surrounding Japanese culture are outdated. Japan’s culture is not static, Japanese

the Rise of Japan’s New Nationalism The Yasukuni Shrine is a Shinto shrine established in 1869 in Tokyo. It was constructed in order to honor and worship the soldiers who have died for their country in the Boshin Civil War that brought about the Meiji restoration and sacrificed their lives in the service of their emperor to build a firm foundation for Japan to become a truly peaceful country. For some Asian countries such as China and South Korea, which had been victims under Japanese imperialism

Louise Young in her meticulous and groundbreaking monograph, Japan’s Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism, calls for a turn to the study of ordinary people’s agency in building Japanese imperialism and empire. She accurately points out the problem at the root of previous scholarships that concentrate on the state as the sole actor in the history of Japan’s expansionism. Certainly, to drag the ordinary into the swirl of history and the responsibility of its cause is not to

Japanese Animation and Identity In Orientalism, Edward Said claims that, “as much as the West itself, the Orient is an idea that has a history and a tradition of thought, imagery, and vocabulary that have given it reality and presence in and for the West” (5). The complex network of political, economical, academic, cultural, or geographical realities of the Orient called “Orientalism” is a way of coming to terms with the Orient, or to be less geographically specific, the Other. Although Said

All About Yuri Kochiyama Yuri Kochiyama was a Japanese- American activist who fought for topics that she was extremely passionate about. In her ninety-three years on this Earth, Kochiyama worked to gain civil rights in the black, Latino, Native American and Asian-American communities. Unfortunately,Yuri Kochiyama has recently passed away due to natural causes in Berkeley, California. Although Kochiyama was born in San Pedro, California, her family was forced to evacuate as the bombing of pearl harbor