Japanese Culture and Literature Essay

The lacquerese technology is leading the world these days. Especially with the runny phone market is japan far ahead of Europe and the unite States. Although these progressions and innovations, two cliches still rule the idea about the country. One is the concomitant that Japan is a small country, with no ethnic diversity, and has a amply income per head. The other one is that Japan imitates the idea that Japan does non deliver its sustain products, but tries to improve other products. Japan has of course its own creativity and its own cultural achievements, known throughout the world, such as the tea ceremony, sumo wrestling and sushi.Japans economy, destination and refining changed rapidly when the cultivation of rice was introduced, from China, in the fourth century BC. The wandering life they apply to live was changed for an agricultural one. They started to settle in villages and a in the raw sense of economy and cooperation was established. This modern sense of ec onomic thinking also brought forth an ideal that still holds in the Japanese culture the need of the group is more important than the need of the individual. The Japanese subtlety developed very late in comparison with the civilizations found in Egypt, Greece, India or China.Japan, as consisting completely of small islands, stayed a hanker snip being isolated from the rest of the world and therefore stayed a long time being a hunters-gatherers society. China had a great move on the development of Japan. In the seventh and eighth century, China represented the most developed country in the world in those days. ahead this Chinese influence that changed the political dust in Japan, the political system consisted mainly of causalityful warlords. These warlords and wealthy families established many different centers and Japan was non a unity.Finally one family succeeded in taking the indicant over the southern and central islands. This clan and its emperor started the imperial line. after this establishment, many Chinese political models were introduced in Japan. Taxation systems, new fairness codes and the whole political administrative system were copied. This Chinese model did not seem to be the best for Japan. Land was divided among the population evenly and the taxes were also equal for all the people. The emperor was the ruler and had absolute power and the administrators were chosen through examination and ability. In Japan, the emperors ruled with the family and kinship ties. in that location were no examinations or ability tests in the old Japan. The nobility did not want to leave their positions and government and laws started changing constantly. The introduction of Buddhism had a spectacular impact on the Japanese society. The original Shinto religion was absolute with Chinese and Korean Buddhism. Apparently, these two religions can co-exist well together. Buddhism can be seen as a nature religion and because the people of Japan lived ref inement to nature, this worked out fine. Shinto gave the people no hope beyond death, Buddhism did. nature is not consistent, it is impermanent, and it keeps on changing and so does live.This concept of impermanence is not only seen in the culture and religion of Japan, but also in literature. Literary themes like suffering, life struggles, awareness of the transient nature of terrestrial things, is represented everywhere. Japanese Culture and Literature The Manyoshu The Manyoshu is the oldest assembly of Japanese poetry. The designation means parade of ten thousand leaves. The translation of the Japanese symbolisation leave can also be translated as age or generation. Therefore the collection is any(prenominal)times said to be the collection for ten thousand ages, which can be interpreted as a collection for the generations to come.At the time of the last dated poem, 759 AD, Japan had sightly changed into a society with a governing emperor, a new bailiwick identity and gov ernment and a new religious system. All these new influences came from neighboring country China, which had a big impact of the development of Japan economically, politically, religious and socially. Contacts with China also brought roads, irrigations works, harbors, new fabrics and pagodas to Japan. Japan was not beneficial coping the Chinese ways, they made their own. This also meant the introduction of a new writing style, coming from the Chinese characters, but with a Japanese twist.It is astonish to see that the quality of the poems of the Manyoshu is very high. The experience and finesse of the writers is special for this collection and hard to find again in the poetry written in later ages. The passion, sincerity and innocence are attracting many people to interpret the poems. There are basically two principal written forms used in the poems. The first one is the choka. This is a long poem with an uncertain number of lines of alternating five and seven-syllable lines, end ing with two seven-syllable phrases.It then has the mock up 5-7-5, 7-5, 7-5, 7-5, , 7-7. The second poem form is the tanka, a short poem, written with a total of 31 syllables in the pattern 5-7-5, 7-7. The Manyoshu is often said to crevice everything to the reader because there is so much variety to be found. For some it is also proof of the Japanese identity with its great creativity and complexity. References Keene, Donald. (Ed. ). (1994). Anthology of Japanese Literature From the Earliest Era to the Mid-Nineteenth Century. New York Grove Press.