Zaibatsu
"financial clique"
industrial and financial business conglomerates in the Empire of Japan
Country Transformations
Traveling Into the World
- 1900 Rail is in excess of 34,000 miles
- 1870s imported "hired foreigners"
- Called "the Workshop of Asia"
- Major Manufacturing: Textiles, Coal and metal mining
- 1860s Bakufu, Daimyo including Satsuma and Choshu sent students to study in Europe
Monarchy Transforms
- 1868 Imperial procession from Kyoto to Edo
- 1880 Empress adopted western clothes
- 1888 Emperor portrait by Italian artist (Eduardo Chiossone) enshrined in all public schools
- 1889 Permanent capital declared
- Constitution elevated legal authority from 1880s – 1930s
Bunmei Kaika
(Meiji through Taisho)
Tanizaki Junichiro
Higuchi Ichiyo
Major Events for tomorrow
- July 24, 1886 - July 30, 1965
- 2nd most well-known author in Japanese literature
- wrote erotically charged and ironically witty stories often dealing with cultural conflict
- styles/influences: French Decadents, Heian Literature
- 1922 Aguri - beauty, consumer culture,
- May 2, 1872 – November 23, 1896
- 24 novels between 1894-1896
- wrote about candid descriptions of lower class life and Tokyo
- influenced by Ihara Saikaku (Edo period writer)
- Takekurabe (Child's Play/Growing Up) written after family moved near Yoshiwara
- 1905 The Treaty of Portsmouth ends the Russo-Japanese War (1904–5)
- 1910 Japan officially annexes Korea
- 1912 Emperor Meiji dies and his third son Yoshihito (Emperor Taisho, 1879–1926) is coronated.
- 1914 On August 23, Japan declares war against Germany
- 1916 The first animated film is made in Japan.
- 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake
Education
- 1886-1889 Mori Arinori put in tighter control of textbooks
- 1890 Imperial Rescript on Education
- 1905 98% of boys and 93% girls attended elementary schools
- 1905 about 104,000 students went on to middle schools
- 1905 7 imperial universities
Hiromichi Ozaki
New "Traditional" Japan
Great Revolution
Theatre: Noh & Kabuki reinventions
Art: Fenellosa and Nihonga
Martial Arts: judo and kendo
Sports: Sumo
- Theatre & Literature
- Ibsen, Genbun ichi movement
- Art
- Yoga
- Women's Movements
- Hiratsuka Raicho and Seito
“[G]reat revolution in Japan was to be done not only in politics, but also in society in general, customs, practices, religion, skills, arts, as well as in everyday thinking.”