The Restoration Period Essay

and made the greatest impact within the Japanese culture. He established universities, newspapers, publishers, taught commercial and political undertakings, while doing his best to practice them. Fukazawa wrote a few books during the Edo period and Meiji Period, which have inspired the Japanese culture. His autobiography explains his roots and how he journeys through life from Tokugawa to Meiji. Fukuzawa was the youngest, born into the low-ranking samurai of the Okudaira Clan of Nakatsu on…

powerful military caste and servants of great lords known as daimyos ("The Age of the Samurai: 1185-1868"). Until the Meiji Restoration of 1868, during which the Japanese feudal system was abolished and a centralized bureaucratic government rose, the samurai maintained control from the Kamakura to the Tokugawa period ("Samurai Essay"). During the Tokugawa Shogunate, Japan was in a period of peace and prosperity for 250 years and samurai were able to form a traditional code of honor, known as…

During the decades of Japanese colonial rule, Korean self image underwent significant changes. Due to the rapid modernization brought about by the Japanese takeover, Korean culture became significantly more nationalistic. Nationalism refers to the process of desiring a nation’s well-being and autonomy as though it were your personal interest. The Korean self-image of scholars and politicians during the time of colonial rule was one which desired power, autonomy, and held a fierce sense of…

The origin of Japan’s long history about reverence for nature started with native religion. No one is quite sure how long religion has been practiced in Japan. The natives’ belief system was based on and in the worship of kami. Kami are the elements of the landscape or forces of nature (“Kami”). In the 6th century Shintoism was created to distinguish native religion from Buddhism and Confucianism (“Shintoism”). Shinto most literally means, “the way of kami” (Hirai). Shintoism became more popular…

Commonly called, “The Heart of Japan” Kyoto was the center of Japan’s culture, literature, Japanese Imperial Court, and arts during it’s hayday. Looking at Japan’s long history, it was first introduced 1200 years ago as Japan’s capital during the Heian Period (794 to 1185 C.E.) as Heian-kyō meaning, "tranquility and peace capital.” The four centuries of the Heian Golden Age changed the course of Japan’s history because of the emergence of the intertwining elements such as well-renowned female…

years. During the colonial period, Japanese imperialism in Korea had a significant ambivalent impact towards many Koreans. This essay will compare and contrast the differences between the first ten and second ten years of Japanese colonial policy in Korea. This is because Korea experiences dramatically changes in their cultural, political and economic policy under the Japanese rules. The essay will then distinguish why Japan changed its policies during the colonial period and how the changes in…

Saigō Takamori was born on on 1827/12/7 in the Castletown of Kagoshima, an isolated area within the Satsuma domain under the control of the Shimazu clan which had established themselves as the oldest living clan in Japan at the time of his birth. The Shimazu clan were of notable prestige in that they were the only clan that received foreign ambassadors in a time when, under the orders of the Tokugawa Shogunate (the shogunate was a council of military commanders led primarily by a single domain),…

is often seen as a cohesive, homogenous nation with a strong sense of national pride and identity. However, this was not always the case; the image of Japan as a nation, as a group of people with a common identity, did not exist in the pre-Tokugawa period. Instead, it was through the centralizing forces of the Meiji Revolution, on both political and social levels, that ultimately resulted in the creation of Japan, the nation state. The political structure of Japan in the Tokugawa era was a…

Since the Meiji era to our Modern era, Nihonga was changed and Tenmyouya Hisashi created Neo-Nihonga to break out of this rut that Japanese painters have been stuck in and now wants to shake everything up for this new age. Wanting Neo-Hihonga to break free of that structure that Hihonga was given over 120 years ago and create something new and fresh. Tenmyouya Hisashi went as far as to create a whole new style called “BASARA” “which is extravagant as well as extraordinary which embodies a…

Imagining a country that is totally closed off from all exterior surroundings is very difficult do, as there are very few countries that even have the resources for such an endeavor. This is the perceived vision of what Japan was like during the Tokugawa period, where the Shoguns employed an idea of Sakoku in Japan. But what does Sakoku mean? There is a literal translation of closing down the country, but the foreign relations policy did not follow this word for word translation . Along with…