A Short History Of Japan In Pictures

As was her destiny, Japan has reached the heights of technology and innovation. Like England in the West, her land mass is small, her impact monumental.

But the Japanese are not native to Japan, that claim belongs to the Ainu people. The exact origins of the Japanese are not known. Perhaps they arrived on a dragon. Japanese creation myths are deeply rooted in nature.

But for Japan, it all begins and ends with the rice. For centuries rice was her currency, measured in koku, approximately the amount needed to feed one person for a year. As long as she's around, the cult of rice will continue.

Click here to see more rice field art.

Japanese religion has never been dogmatic, instead it takes established philosophies and incorporates her own twist on them. For example, though banned in 1630, most modern day Japanese weddings use Christian rituals even if they are not true believers in the doctrine.

I have always felt that religion in Japan amounted to using rituals as self-expression - and through that self-expression reach the spiritual side of life. Nothing more, nothing less.

Out of the Creation Myth descended Japanese royalty, far removed from peasant life. Though out of touch, the royals and the noble class showed a voracious appetite for culture and knowledge, bringing world class poetry to the fore.

Even in the most brutally barbaric of times, the Emperor's blessing was required for a warlord to have full credibility to rule. It was said, one must approach the emperor with "fear and trembling."

But the peasants didn't see much reason to share their rice with the glorious nobles with their blackened teeth and rarified airs. Some muscle men were then required to shake down the rice farmers for their taxes. Who would serve the emperor? The samurai - which means "to serve".

But the samurai were forward thinkers, not under the spell of a royal mystique needing to rule their lives. Though still fighting in the name of the emperor, they warred among themselves to take all real power, relegating the royal class to a mere cultural icon without any ruling authority.

Like mob families in an all out grab for naked power, samurai clans wrestled for absolute control using any means at their disposal. Poisoning, subterfuge, murdering family members - there were no rules. Just win, baby. But while reaching the mountaintop was attainable, staying there was just about impossible. For centuries, civil war fractured the country as it perpetually teetered between peace and all out warfare.

The warring periods were often very hard on the villagers and farmers caught in between power mad clan lords. Villages were burned to the ground and villagers' lives were not considered of any import. The feuding clans were as bulls in a China shop - only the China broken in this case were human lives.

Heartbreakingly detailed by the classic film "Ugetsu"

Finally, in the 1500s Japan utterly dissolved into complete chaos with no single ruler in charge. Imagine the United States with each state governor vying to become supreme overlord. This was the wild west period of Japan as warlords used all their wiles to ruthlessly achieve their single-minded ambition for ultimate power.

But out of the dust blew the winds of unification as three men of destiny brought Japan under a single government at last. She rose from the pettiness of a fractured state to an empire dreaming of conquering China. At this point she could have shaped herself as her imagination dared to dream. (James Clavell's "Shogun" is set at the end of this era)

Sadly, she decided to close both her mind and her borders. Though providing stability, the Shogunate became corrupt, gobbling up clan lands and power on the flimsiest of pretexts. Justice suffocated in the name of law and order, Japan's soul rotting at the core, the ruling class of the samurai little more than a gang of thugs. Any who stood against them were cut down without mercy or thought.

This too is an awesome film

Wheeled travel was forbidden and other onerous restrictions were applied to suppress even the possibility for rebellion. The rest of the world forged ahead as Japan fell behind. It wasn't until 1853 when America finally forced her to open her borders once again, the Americans demonstrating their strength through their vastly superior firepower. The Japanese were helpless and humiliated.

Because of this the samurai were overthrown and supreme power given back to the emperor. (During this period Cruise's film "The Last Samurai" was set). Japan became Westernized in her thought, learning of corporations and adopting our dress. Many modern Japanese companies originated as traditional merchant families who formalized themselves into what are now some of the most powerful business entities on the planet.

She industrialized with a vengeance. By the turn of the 20th century Japan had armed herself with a modern navy and adapted to the rules of commerce and trade. But her long held lust for conquest had never subsided and with these new tools at her disposal her eyes once again looked outward. The voices of sanity were drowned by the beat of military drums - a decision to forever alter her course.

The decade after the end of World War II was brutal, a scramble to rebuild and survive, slowly regaining her resources and footing. At first her industrial output was considered a joke, "Made in Japan" meaning cheap and plasticky. But the flower was not through blooming as Japan became the second largest economic power in the world.

Just as Oda Nobunaga used the power of his mind in the 1500s to lead in the unification of Japan did the country as a whole use the power of its mind to lead the way to becoming an economic superpower.

Japanese culture has been described as "The Chrysanthemum and the Sword", a study conducted in 1946. Japan treasures equally the blossom and the blade. The study concluded the Japanese people were "both aggressive and unaggressive, both militaristic and aesthetic, both insolent and polite, rigid and adaptable, submissive and resentful of being pushed around, loyal and treacherous, brave and timid, conservative and hospitable to new ways."

Even to this day she struggles with this karma, learning to lay down the ways of the sword. But we are all learning to surrender to love. Except when the day of everlasting peace comes, only Japan will still have "the land of the gods":

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