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Summary of Introduction to Japanese culture and society (FOTC8a)
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Japanese culture and society1. Invented tradition
Invented tradition :
o many “traditions” which “appear or claim to be old are often quite
recent in origin and sometimes invented. = Concept of Eric
Hobsbawn : historian
o The phenomenon is particularly clear in the modern development of
the nation and of nationalism, creating a national identity,
promoting national unity, and legitimising certain institutions or
cultural practices.
o Examples: Flanders: “Flemish awareness”
Meiji identity: Government reinvented traditions
Emperor-system ideology (kokutai)
the new regime manufactured an orthodoxy centred around a
mythic emperor with the aim of mobilizing the people behind
capitalist development and imperialist expansion.
the emperor as a symbol of national unity, military success and
rapid modernization
After collapse Tokugawa period:
Japan rapidly implemented the process of modern
nation-building by effectively utilizing
the venerable institution of the emperor (Tennō) as its
new national symbol.
The Meiji government abolished the socioeconomic and
political privileges of the samurai class, namely its
exclusive right to bear arms, hold office and receive
hereditary stipends.
By 1900, Japan had already equipped itself with
a modern Constitution that defined citizens’ rights and obligations,
a parliamentary system,
an updated judicial system,
universal education,
None of these institutions had existed prior to 1868.
Before the Meiji restoration, Japanese society had been
governed exclusively by its hereditary samurai elites for
two and a half centuries.
Invented new traditions to help the new rules
First concept of “kokumin”, or citizens
the Kojiki as an example of invented tradition
o oldest chronicle , 712
o collection of myths dealing with the origin of the Japanese islands,
the kami and the lives of the earliest emperors
o ordered to be made to legitimize Yamato rule
Higashiyama Culture
o Ashikaga Yoshimasa 1465 - 1489
Builder of the Ginkakuji , temple of the silver pavilion
, 8th Ashikaga Shogun, at time of Onin War (1467-1477), in
Muromachi bakufu Period
o Higashiyama period (1483-90)
Yoshimasa retired to his mountain retreat (Higashiyama)
where he helped a new culture / a kind of renaissance rise
from the ashes of what was the greatest destruction that
Japan had known up to that point
o In the eyes of most historians, this does not outweigh his
incompetence and lack of responsibility.
A man with far more aesthetic aspirations than military.
The Higashiyama culture thrived in the island of relative calm between the
end of the Onin war and the beginning of the wars of the sixteenth
century. Its duration was brief and the participants were not numerous,
but its effects on later Japanese culture were immense.
Nihon no kokoro: soul of Japan was shaped in this period
Literature, noh theatre, sumi-e, Ikebana,…
relation with (Ming) China
an almost religious awe for karamono (Chinese things)
from Yoshimitsu’s shogunate imitating China in all
possible areas.
The love for China goes back to the Nara period, but
from Yoshimitsu it almost becomes idolatry.
Yoshimasa really considered himself a vassal of the
Ming emperor (for example, all coins were imported
from China).
paradoxically, Chinese art is going through a
‘Japanization’ process in that period
not only the shōgun had something with China, also
and even more this applies to the zen priests, their
entire organization comes from China
extra incentive (motivating) for the shoguns: an art
form in which they were not inferior to the nobility
Yoshimasa created a collection of Chinese art under
the guidance of Zen masters, hundreds of works
o as soon as the Chinese realized that, they flooded
the market with fakes of Mu Ch’i and Liang K’ai
Sumi-e
o Chinese originated paintings on silk/paper
o First imitation experimented by zen monks
o Most famous: Sesshū Tōyō
o Zen monasteries dominated the intellectual life as did the
monasteries in medieval Europe, knowledge of classical Chinese
comparable to Latin
but the monks were more than just literate, literary in prose and
poetry in Chinese (gozan bungaku, literature of the 5 mountains)
o led a very worldly life, against which revolted, among others, Ikkyū,
according to him the monks did not live according to the strict zen
austerity
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