History of Japan

Pre-history
Archaeological research indicates that the earliest inhabitants of the Japanese Archipelago migrated over land bridges from Northeast Asia about 30,000 years ago. Other evidence also suggests that there may have been some migration by sea from Southeast Asia during a period of general migration toward the Pacific Ocean.

The first signs of civilization appeared around 10,000 BC with the Jômon culture, characterized by a mesolithic to neolithic semi-sedentary hunter-gatherer lifestyle of pit dwelling and a rudimentary form of agriculture. Weaving was still unknown and clothes were often made of bark. Around that time, however, the Jomon people started to make clay vessels, decorated with patterns made by impressing the wet clay with braided or unbraided cord and sticks (Jômon means "patterns of plaited cord"). This led to the introduction of the earliest known pottery in the world.

Many believe that the Ainu, an indigenous people found mostly on the northern island of Hokkaidô, are descended from the Jomon and thus represent descendants of the first inhabitants of Japan.

The start of the Yayoi period around 300 BC marked the influx of new practices such as rice farming, shamanism and iron and bronze-making brought by migrants from Korea, and most likely China. These formed the basic elements of traditional Japanese culture, still seen today. As the population increased and society became more complex, they began to weave cloth, live in permanent farming villages, construct buildings of wood and stone, accumulate wealth through landownership and the storage of grain, and develop distinct social classes.

The ensuing Kofun era, beginning around AD 250 and named after the giant burial mounds that were popular at the time, saw the establishment of strong military states centered around powerful clan leaders. The Yamato Court, concentrated in the Asuka region, suppressed the surrounding clans and acquired agricultural lands, increasing their power. Based upon the Chinese model, they then developed a central administrative and imperial court system and society was organized into occupation groups: farmers, fishermen, weavers, potters, artisans, armorers, and ritual specialists.

Classical era
Japan first appeared in written history in 57 AD with the following mention in the Eastern Han Chronicles of China: "Across the ocean from Luoyang are the people of Wa (in Chinese, "Wo" or "dwarf state"). Formed from more than one hundred countries, they come and pay tribute frequently." The beginning of historical writing in Japan culminated in the early 8th century with the massive chronicles, Kojiki (The Record of Ancient Matters, 712) and Nihon Shoki (Chronicles of Japan, 720). These chronicles give a much different and more legendary tale of Japan's beginnings in which the people are descendants of the gods themselves.

According to the myths contained in Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, Japan was founded in 660 BC by the ancestral Emperor Jimmu, a direct descendant of the Shinto deity Amaterasu, or the Sun Goddess. The myths also claim that Jimmu started a line of emperors that remains unbroken to this day. However, historians believe the first emperor who actually existed was Emperor Ôjin, though the date of his reign is uncertain. In any event, for most of Japan's history, the real political power has been in the hands of the court nobility, the shoguns, the military and, more recently, the prime minister.

The Japanese did not start writing their own histories until after the 5th and 6th centuries, when the Chinese writing system, Buddhism, advanced pottery, ceremonial burial, and other aspects of culture were introduced by aristocrats, artisans, scholars, and monks from Baekje, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea.

Starting with the Taika Reform Edicts of 645, Japanese intensified the adoption of Chinese cultural practices and reorganized the government and the penal code in accordance with the Chinese administrative structure (the Ritsuryo state) of the time. This paved the way for the dominance of Confucian philosophy in Japan until the 19th century.

The use of the word Nihon for the emerging state first appeared around the end of the 7th century.

The Nara period of the 8th century marked the first emergence of a strong Japanese state, centered around an imperial court in the city of Heijo-kyo (now Nara). The imperial court then moved briefly to Nagaoka, and then to Heian-kyô (now Kyoto).

A distinctly indigenous culture emerged during the Heian period which lasted for nearly four centuries. After absorbing so much from the mainland over several centuries, the Japanese began to experience a growing sense of self-confidence and appreciation of their own land and heritage. The arts and literature flourished and, in the early 11th century, Lady Murasaki wrote the world's first known novel called The Tale of Genji. Although trade expeditions and Buddhist pilgrimages continued, the court decided to discontinue official relations with China. The Fujiwara clan's regency regime dominated politics during this period.

Medieval era
Japan's medieval era was characterized by the emergence of a ruling class of warriors, the buke or more commonly known in the West as the samurai and bushi. In the year 1185, following the defeat of the rival Taira clan, general Minamoto no Yoritomo was declared Seii-tai Shogun and established a base of power in Kamakura. After Yoritomo's death, another warrior clan, the Hojo, came to rule as regents for the shoguns. The Kamakura shogunate managed to repel Mongol invasions in 1274 and 1281, with assistance from a storm that the Japanese interpreted as divine intervention, and named kamikaze (Divine Wind). The shogunate lasted another fifty years. Its successor, the Ashikaga shogunate failed in the management of Daimyo. Vassals rebelled against their liege lords and peasants rebelled against their superiors. This led to the "Warring States" or Sengoku period.

During the 16th century, traders and missionaries from Portugal reached Japan for the first time, initiating the Nanban ("southern barbarian") period of active commercial and cultural exchange between Japan and the West. Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu established greater control over the warring states of Japan. Nobunaga died in a treacherous attack by one of his generals whom he had humiliated earlier. Hideyoshi, one of Nobunaga's other generals, avenged his master's death, defeating other rivals and completing the reunification of the country. Hideyoshi launched two ill-fated invasions against Korea. But Ming China came to Korea's aid and following Hideyoshi's death, Japanese troops were quickly withdrawn.

Ieyasu then dominated the political scene and defeated a coalition of rival clans. He was eventually declared shogun and worked to consolidate the hold of his clan on Japan, setting up the Bakuhan taisei feudal system and implementing Sankin-kotai to ensure the loyalty of the vassal lords. After Ieyasu, the Tokugawa shogunate began to pursue the Sakoku ("closed country") policy of isolation. Lasting for two and a half centuries, this during a time of tenuous political unity known as the Edo period, often considered to be the height of Japan's medieval culture. The study of Western sciences, known as Rangaku, continued during this period through contacts with the Dutch enclave at Dejima in Nagasaki.

Modern era
Meiji Restoration
On March 31, 1854, Commodore Matthew Perry and the "Black Ships" of the United States Navy forced the opening of Japan to the West with the Convention of Kanagawa. The Boshin War of 1867 to 1868 led to the resignation of the shogunate, and the Meiji Restoration established a government centered around the emperor. One of the main figures that helped bring change was Fukuzawa Yukichi who wrote "Leaving Asia", encouraging Japan to disassociate itself from China and Korea and modernize through Westernization.

Imperial Japan
During the Meiji period, Japan adopted numerous Western institutions, including a modern government, legal system, and military. These reforms helped transform the Empire of Japan into a world power, defeating China in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) and Russia in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). The Russo-Japanese war is important because it was the first time that an Asian country had defeated a European imperial power. By 1910, Japan controlled Korea, Taiwan, and the southern half of Sakhalin.

The early 20th century saw a brief period of "Taisho democracy" overshadowed by the rise of Japanese expansionism. World War I enabled Japan, which fought on the side of the victorious Allies, to expand its influence in Asia, and its territorial holdings in the Pacific. In 1936, however, Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, joining Germany and Italy to form the Axis alliance. Japan invaded China, occupying Manchuria in 1931, and continued its expansion into China in 1937, starting the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), which lasted until the end of World War II. In 1941, Japan attacked the United States naval base in Pearl Harbor and declared war on the Allies, bringing the United States into the war. Japan then invaded and occupied British, Dutch, and U.S. colonies that now make up the present-day countries of Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore.

After a long campaign in the Pacific Ocean, Japan lost many of its initial territorial gains, and American forces moved close enough to begin strategic bombing of Tokyo, Osaka, and other major cities including the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing about 214,000 people, mostly civilians. The Japanese eventually agreed to an unconditional surrender to the Allies on August 15, 1945 (V-J Day). The Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal was convened on May 3, 1946 to prosecute Japanese war crimes, including atrocities like the Nanking Massacre. Emperor Hirohito, however, was given immunity and retained his title.

Modern Japan
The war cost millions of lives in Japan and other countries, especially in East Asia, and left much of the country's industries and infrastructure destroyed. Official American occupation lasted until 1952, although U.S. forces still retain important bases in Japan, especially in Okinawa. In 1947, Japan adopted a new pacifist constitution, seeking international cooperation and emphasizing human rights and democratic practices.

After the occupation, under a program of aggressive industrial development and U.S. assistance, Japan achieved spectacular growth to become the second largest economy in the world. Despite a major stock market crash in 1990 and the resulting recession from which the country is recovering gradually, Japan remains a global economic power today and is now bidding for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.

Culture of Japan

After several waves of immigration from the Asian continent and nearby Pacific islands, followed by a heavy importation of culture from China and Korea, the inhabitants of Japan experienced a long period of relative isolation from the outside world under the Tokugawa shogunate until the arrival of the "Black Ships" and the Meiji era. As a result, a culture distinctively different from other Asian cultures developed, and echoes of this persist in contemporary Japan.

For example, as Ruth Benedict analysed in her classic study The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, Japan has a shame culture (external reference standard) rather than the guilt culture (internal reference standard) that is more familiar in the West. In Japan, inter-relationships between people are heavily influenced by concepts of "honor", "obligation", and "duty" in a way that is no longer true in the more individualistic and free-wheeling West. Finally, generalized conceptions of morality and desirable behavior are less developed in Japan, where particular and situational obligations to family, school, and friends tend to guide behavior. See: Japanese values.

The Japanese language has always played a significant role in Japanese culture. Nemawashi, for example, indicates consensus achieved through careful preparation. It reflects the harmony that is desired and respected within Japanese culture.

Although the Japanese are better known for their physical comedy outside of Japan, they have intricate humor and jokes. Because this humor relies so heavily on Japanese language, culture, religion, and ethics, it is generally considered to be very difficult to translate.

Clothing
Kimonos (Japanese: literally "something one wears") are the traditional garments of Japan. Originally, the word "kimono" was used for all types of clothing, but eventually, it came to refer specifically to the full-length garment also known as "naga-gi" (literally "long-wear"), that is still worn today on special occasions by women, men, and children.

Japanese cuisine
Through a long culinary past, the Japanese have developed a sophisticated and refined cuisine highly sensitive to the change of seasons. Modern Japanese enjoy a variety of traditional Japanese food, including many seafood dishes (sushi and sashimi for instance), as well as a multitude of foreign dishes. One can easily find Chinese, Korean, and Thai dishes as well as non-regional American, French, and Italian foods. Japanese cuisine is a product of its environment and people. The ease of acquiring fresh ingredients led to sushi, high temperature and humidity led to varieties of pickled and fermented food like natto and soy sauce, and an adaptation of foreign cuisines led to ramen.

Japanese language
Understanding the Japanese language is essential to understanding Japanese culture. Both traditional Japanese culture as well as the modern popular culture is based on spoken and written Japanese language.

Japanese is known to be related to the nearby Ryukyuan languages, forming the Japonic language family. An earlier theory that it is a language isolate related to no surviving tongues is generally deprecated by scholars. However, beyond that, its classification remains controversial. The most widespread theory is that the Japonic languages are not related to any other language family; however, other theories have tied it to extinct languages from Manchuria and the Korean peninsula, to a Ural-Altaic super family (along with Korean and the Uralic languages such as Finnish, Hungarian, and Samoyedic), or to the Austronesian languages of the South Pacific.

Although it is not thought to share a common linguistic ancestor in Chinese, it has borrowed a great deal of vocabulary from that language. The Japanese writing system itself was developed from transmittance of Chinese classical writing from Korea in 400 CE.

The habit of modifying Chinese symbols to better fit in with Japanese symbols, has resulted in what the Japanese call wasei kanji, and continues today as they modify English (or words from European languages in general) words, which they refer to as wasei eigo.

The Japanese writing system is actually four writing systems used in tandem: kanji, which are logograms adopted from Chinese writing; the two kana syllabaries, hiragana and katakana, which developed from kanji; and the Latin alphabet, called romaji when used to write Japanese, is also common.

Japanese Television and Radio
In Japan, about 100 million television sets are in use, and television is the main form of home entertainment and information for most of the population. The Japanese have a wide variety of programs to choose from, including the various dramas (police, crime, home, and jidaigeki — "samurai" dramas), anime, news, game, quiz, and sports shows provided by the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (Nippon Hoso Kyokai--NHK) general station, the NHK educational station, and numerous commercial and independent stations. The violence of samurai and police dramas, and the satirical humor of the cartoons as well as many depictions of sexuality have drawn criticism from mothers and commentators.

Popular culture
Japanese popular culture not only reflects the attitudes and concerns of the present but also provides a link to the past. Popular films, television programs, comics, and music all developed from older artistic and literary traditions, and many of their themes and styles of presentation can be traced to traditional art forms. Contemporary forms of popular culture, much like the traditional forms, provide not only entertainment but also an escape for the contemporary Japanese from the problems of an industrial world. When asked how they spent their leisure time, 80 percent of a sample of men and women surveyed by the government in 1986 said they averaged about two and one-half hours per weekday watching television, listening to the radio, and reading newspapers or magazines. Some 16 percent spent an average of two and one-quarter hours a day engaged in hobbies or amusements. Others spent leisure time participating in sports, socializing, and personal study. Teenagers and retired people reported more time spent on all of these activities than did other groups.

In the late 1980s, the family was the focus of leisure activities, such as excursions to parks or shopping districts. Although Japan is often thought of as a hard-working society with little time for pleasure, the Japanese seek entertainment wherever they can. It is common to see Japanese commuters riding the train to work, enjoying their favorite manga or listening through earphones to the latest in popular music on portable music players.

A wide variety of types of popular entertainment are available. There is a large selection of music, films, and the products of a huge comic book industry, among other forms of entertainment, from which to choose. Game centers, bowling alleys, and karaoke are popular hangout places for teens while older people may play shogi or go in specialized parlors.

Kawaii
Kawaii is a Japanese term which means "cute". Cuteness seems to be a highly valued aesthetic quality in Japanese society and particularly Japanese pop culture, and overpowering cuteness seems to carry less of the stigma of infantilization as it does in many other cultures. Kawaii is pronounced /ka.w̜a.ii/ (not to be confused with "kowai", /ko.w̜a.i/ the Japanese term for "scary"). "Kawaii" can be used to describe animals and people, including fully grown adults; while attractive women are usually described as "kawaii," young men are more likely to be described as kakkô-ii, meaning "good looking" or "cool". "Kawaii" is also used to describe some men who are considered to have "cute" personalities.

Geinôkai
The Geinôkai is the world of Japanese entertainment, encompassing everything from movies and television (including talk shows, music shows, variety shows, etc.) to radio and now the Internet. Geinojin is a term, often used interchangeably with tarento, which refers to members of the Geinôkai. Tarento is an adaptation of the English word 'talent' and refers to a rather large group of people who appear on television from night to night, but cannot be quite classified as actors, singers, or models (and are thus given the more vague appellation of "talent" instead). Tarento usually appear on variety shows and talk shows and may later move into acting or singing if they are successful and become popular.

Many non-Japanese tarento have also appeared on Japanese programs. Notable non-Japanese tarento are Dave Spector (United States), Thane Camus (United States), Bobby Ologun (Nigeria), Adogony Baudouin Euloge (Benin), Zomahoun Idossou Rufin (Benin), Osuman Youla Sankhon (Guinea), Kent Gilbert (United States), Kent Derricott (United States) and Peter Barakan (United Kingdom) Panzetta Girolamo (Italy) Yinling, ( Taiwan), etc.

Sports
Popular professional sports in Japan can be categorized into either traditional sports like Sumo wrestling or imported sports like baseball and football (soccer). In addition, many amateur sports are popular in Japan, such as table tennis, tennis, volleyball, basketball, golf and rugby. Popular amateur sports native to Japan include martial arts like kendo and judo. Professional wrestling is also very popular in Japan.