Although it'd be a stretch to call a homogeneous country like Japan a "melting pot," modern Japanese society does represent an enormous number of different outside influences over time. Some examples include the arrival of Buddhism and the kanji writing system in the 6th century A.D., the adoption of Confucianism as the official philosophy of Japan during the Edo Period, the era of rapid modernization and "empire envy" of Great Britain during the Meiji Period, and a total rebuilding of the nation by the Allies after World War II, which left its mark on the Japanese people in the form of the "peace" sign they make whenever someone pulls out a camera. Without a doubt, two factors that have helped to make Japan such a mysterious place when seen from the outside are its status as an island nation, which allowed the country to develop culturally at its own pace, slowly internalizing the various outside influences and making them uniquely Japanese, and the long period of sakoku ("closed country"), when almost no information was allowed into Japan from the outside, surely unprecedented in history.
And here we have...a lovely woodblock painting from the Battle of Port Arthur during the Russo-Japan War. Is anyone else amazed that there are ukiyoe from events that are just a century old? I had no idea...
4 comments:
Peter,
This is only incidentally related to the subject of your post, so I hope you will forgive a slightly off-topic comment. I recently saw this article online: http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,91251-1309938,00.html?f=rss
and wondered what your experiences were in relation to the "Low birth rate" phenomena in Japan.
Have recent changes in Japanese law and culture aided or impeded the birth rate? What else do you and your Japanese associates think can be done to improve the birth rate? Do you think there will be a turnaround point, where the birth rate starts to climb again? Do you have any other thoughts on this issue?
Sorry again for the off-topic comment, but when I see articles like this I worry for the Japanese people, and since you are an excellent source for information on them, I thought you would be a good person to ask.
Wearyman
I'm used to seeing modern woodblock prints from Japan because I go to galleries that carry them.
I was more surprised to find a print I recognized by Hokusai for sale in a gallery.
Weary Man, welcome. I think that the lowering of the birthrate happens for many reasons, some of them economic (expansion of the "rat race factor") and some of them social (women are smarter, earn as much as men if they want to, are often getting married later and having fewer children). Sometimes phenomena like men using "substitutes" (like those silly dolls you see) is brought up, but that's just a tiny sub-section. I wonder if sociologists know (or think they know) why birthrates decline in places like Germany and Britain, and where comparisons could be made.
Tudza, once again, proof that I live in a box ^_^ That's one problem with being a business owner, there are things I don't get out to do enough, like go to art galleries. (Although today I took a day off to take a friend from the U.S. (er, General Reinhardt) to the nearby history museum.
I have a real woodblock print on my wall, that I had made for me from Japan, using the traditional methods. I was happy to find that this art-method was being preserved. It's from an old series, though, featuring fujiyama, red version.
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