One era’s eccentrics are another’s model citizens
Would an outcast from the Heian Period feel more at home in the Edo Period? Or are there general characteristics that unites any society’s eccentrics?
A charm offensive in the Yoshiwara pleasure district
Life in the pleasure district was fun, if you were capable of mustering up the right amount of charm.
The dogs have their day in old Edo
The Laws of Compassion that Tokugawa Tsunayoshi issued trickled down to the lowest rungs of Edo Period (1603-1868) Japan, which included the capital's many feral dogs.
The Edo Period: An era of utter weirdness
The Edo Period (1603-1868) was a bizarre time that visitors to Japan could not help but comment on — the countless laws, the brutal punishments ... and the dogs.
Paradise lost: Japan longs for simpler times in trying days
The Japanese weren't always workaholics. Once upon a time, work had its place and knew its place. It didn't swallow life whole. Other pursuits were given their due. People worked without being consumed by work. Author Jiro Asada, writing in PHP magazine (April), refers us ...
Engelbert Kaempfer on the old roads of Japan
"Japanese travel more often than other people," wrote Engelbert Kaempfer, the 17th-century physician, scholar, naturalist and explorer whose "History of Japan" (1712) was the first full-length foreign-language portrait of the nation.
In "Studies in Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan," leading postwar political scientist Masao Maruyama chronicles the ideas and debates of scholars throughout the Edo Period (1603-1868). Studies in Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan, by Masao Maruyama, Translated by Mikiso Hane.383 pages PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, Nonfiction. The central ...
Learning Japanese from TV samurai tales of the wild East
Portraying legendary heroes in colorful costumes of yore, jidaigeki (period dramas) date back to the earliest years of silent films, and the genre has been frequently compared with America's TV Westerns.
Throwback time for fashion leads to innovation
As regular followers of Japanese fashion can attest, the industry can be seen as somewhat flirtatious, dallying with new debutantes, another sister brand, another collaboration, another short-term "limited shop" or another retail concept that makes the news but doesn't really change the game. It is ...
Edo Period 'post town' in Okayama re-imagines its past and reaps tourism dividends
Yakage is the only preserved town along the Sanyo Road that survives in it's near-original form, and tourists are flocking there.
Japan’s 'kanban' are still hanging in there
Little information remains about the personal life of the artisan Kojiro Shimizu. His personality and interests, his passions and motivations — all are shrouded in mystery. What we know is that he worked in Kyoto in the late 19th and early 20th century and ...
Keeping up with the Joneses, Edo style
The Edo Period (1603-1868) is renowned for the flourishing of material culture — a time when major advances and innovations in Japanese folk crafts and design were prized by the burgeoning commoner class of Edo (present-day Tokyo) and Osaka. "The Golden Age of Mingei: Life ...
