Above: A view of Sensо̄-ji, perhaps the oldest Buddhist temple in Tokyo; established in 645, nearly one thousand years before the surrounding fishing village first began to develop into a city. Photo my own, June 2013.
History of Japan
Japan is a country of nearly 130 million people, spread across more than 400 islands, from quiet sea-side towns to snowy mountain villages to some of the busiest cities in the world. There is much in Japanese history and culture to attract interest and curiosity, and that merits investigation, both to help us better understand Japan, but also to understand ourselves, our own history and society, and our broader world.
I believe strongly in the value of the study of other places and cultures as a powerful mirror upon ourselves, allowing us new perspectives on our own culture and history, and helping us to challenge assumptions we did not even realize we take for granted. I also believe strongly in the value of studying peoples, places, and cultures of our world simply because they are part of our world: they are our neighbors, our friends and relatives, our fellow human beings on this small and highly interconnected globe of ours. And their history, their culture, manifests in and affects our own as well; to understand Japan is not only to understand what may for many of us be a faraway place, but it is also to understand something that manifests in our own communities, culture, politics, and news.
Japan is, in fact, a land of considerable homogeneity in certain ways, a product of Imperial homogenization/assimilation efforts and of more organic cultural developments, but it is at the same time home to incredible diversity, and regional pride and identity that has never been fully suppressed. From the ancient Buddhist temples of Asuka and Nara to the Grand Shrine of Ise, to modern shrines established in the 19th-20th centuries at the height of ultranationalism and Empire; from some of the world’s oldest pottery and lacquerwares to ink paintings, woodblock prints, and calligraphy, to Impressionist, Modernist, and post-modern installation and performance art; from gagaku court music, geisha dances accompanied by shamisen, and local folk festivals to Japanese jazz, surf rock, and enka lounge music to the latest J-pop hits and nightclub DJ mixes; from the traditional theatre forms of Noh and kabuki to variety television and art films. From the wooden machiya townhouses of Kyoto to the 19th century port towns of Hakodate, Kobe, and Yokohama, replete with red-brick government buildings and Victorian-style homes, to the neon-lit lights of Tokyo and Osaka. From the ancestral lands of the indigenous Ainu people in the north, to the sub-tropical Ryukyu Islands of the south, ruled by an independent kingdom until their conquest in the 19th century; from the island of Tsushima, halfway between Japan and Korea, to the Ogasawara Islands, settled by a mix of white + Polynesian settlers long before Japanese claimed the islands.
The cities and towns of Japan are home to artists and scientists, farmers and engineers, young and old, conservative and progressive, world travelers and some who’ve never left home; they include people of all genders and sexualities, and numerous religions. They include citizens and immigrants of both Japanese and non-Japanese descent, people with interests or experiences from all around the world, students or native speakers of countless languages, practitioners of countless types of arts and music; they include people descended from Chinese, Korean, and Taiwanese colonial subjects, and some descended from Chinese or Korean immigrants who came to Japan hundreds or even over a thousand years ago, as well as the indigenous Ainu and Ryukyuan peoples. Keeping this diversity - as well as homogenizing forces and processes - in mind, we can explore just what concepts such as “race,” “ethnicity,” and “identity” might mean to different people, and tensions between racial/ethnic/cultural identity and nationality, between urban and rural, and between regional and national identities.
The political history of the Japanese islands presents a distinctive case of a state, recognized both internally and by neighbors in the region as “Japan” – as a distinctive and singular entity – since ancient times, but at the same time disunited in meaningful ways throughout the pre-modern period. One which was never conquered or colonized from without, but which responded to internal and external pressures to Westernize and modernize in the late 19th century, became an imperial power itself, was defeated, Occupied, and became the liberal democracy we know Japan as today. That process brings numerous opportunities to question and reassess our understandings of state and authority, “Western” and “non-Western,” nation and nationalism, and empire and colonialism, among numerous other topics and concepts. Recognizing that “Japan” was in certain ways so political fragmented and regionally diverse, and that so much of Japanese arts, religion (Buddhism), and culture otherwise developing originally out of ideas and practices adopted from the Continent or elsewhere, how did people in Japan across history conceive of “Japan” and the “foreign”? How was Japanese empire similar to, or different from, European or American empires? What makes Okinawa and Hokkaido different from Korea and Taiwan in terms of whether they are considered “colonies”?
Japanese arts range widely, from some of the earliest pottery, lacquerwares, and printing in the world, to numerous traditional forms of music, theatre, and dance, poetry, calligraphy, and painting, each with their own complex and fascinating histories, to a vibrant and flourishing printing & publication culture in the 18th-19th centuries; since then and still today, it is said Japan publishes a greater number of individual titles – distinct publications – each year, than any other country. Exploring the history of Japanese arts brings with it discussions of the artist as individual creative genius vs. expert skilled maker or performer; the relationship between artistic production and the market; how we define “fine” and “decorative” arts, and popular, elite, and folk culture; and how we think about tradition and modernity.
In the process of exploring the history of these islands - from the earliest prehistoric communities, through the age of the samurai and the flourishing of early modern Japan, through empire, and down to the present day - we can engage with concepts of art and religion, tradition and modernity, culture and identity, and nation and nationalism, building and exploring more complicated, nuanced, understandings of both Japan and of our broader world.
Below: A “Nanban” (“Southern Barbarians”) screen, c. 16th to early 17th c. depicting Europeans arriving at a Japanese port.
Replica on display at Kyushu National Museum, Dazaifu. Photo my own, summer 2018.
