11 The East Asian Rimlands: Early Japan, Korea, and Vietnam

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• The East Asian Rimlands Early Japan, Korea, and
  Vietnam

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Japan and Its Neighbors
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Japan Land of the Rising Sun

• Main islands Hokkaido, Honshu, Kyushu, and
  Shikoku
• Importance of geography
• Importance of being an island country
• A Gift from the Gods Prehistoric Japan
• Creation myth
• Marriage of Izanagi and Izanami
• Birth of Amaterasu Sun goddess
• Descendant of Amaterasu founded Japan
• Jomon people, 10,000 years ago
• Hunters and gatherers
• Agriculture appeared sometime during the first
  millennium B.C.E.
• Yayoi culture
• Mixture of Jomon and new arrivals
• First lived on Kyushu and later Honshu
• Tribal society based on clans (uji) in central
  Honshu

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Early Japan
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Rise of the Japanese State

• Yamoto state
• Two methods to deal with Chinese threat
• Shotoku Taishi (572-622)
• Missions to Tang China to learn about the
  centralized kingdom
• Emulating the Chinese Model
• Reforms
• Centralized government under a supreme rule
• Merit system for public officials
• Taika reforms continued movement toward
  centralized rule
• Interest in Buddhism
• Nara Period
• Nara Period (710-784)
• Fujiwara clan married into the ruling Yamato
  family
• Chinese state model

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Heian (Kyoto) Period (794-1185)

• Fujiwara clan had the real power, senior member
  of the family serves as regent
• Decentralized political system
• Shoen (tax exempt) farmland
• Emergence of the samurai (military retainer)
• Bushido warrior code

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Kamakura Shogunate (1185-1333)

• Minamoto Yoritomo (1142-1199)
• Bakufu (tent government)
• shogun (general)
• Shogunate system
• Mongols
• Khubilai Khan demands tribute, 1266
• Japan invaded twice by the Mongols
• Kamikaze (Divine Wind)
• Kamakura shogunate weakened and overthrown
• Ashikaga shogun
• Power to local landed aristocracy, daimyo
• Onin War (1467-1477)

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Economic and Social Structures

• Noble control of land, wealth in agriculture
• Commerce slow to develop
• Trade and manufacturing developed more rapidly in
  Kamakura period and the Ashikaga shogunate

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Daily life

• Most were peasants who worked the land owned by
  the lord
• Under the authority of local officials
• Dispose of harvest as they saw fit after taxes
  paid
• Genin, landless laborers
• eta, hereditary slaves
• Daily life was similar to others peoples in Asia
• shoen, several villages
• Life was difficult
• Women in Japan
• Had rights in early Japan
• When introduced Buddhism relegated women to a
  subordinate position
• Nevertheless, played a role in all levels of
  society

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In Search of the Pure Land Religion in Early
Japan

• Shinto
• Kami, nature spirits
• Ancestor worship
• Physical purity and its relationship to women
• Nature and beauty
• State doctrine linked to divinity belief about
  emperor and the sacredness of Japan
• Buddhism, 6th century B.C.E.
• Jodo, Pure land
• Zen
• Zen teaches ways to achieve Satori, enlightenment
• Zazen, scripture study and self-discipline

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Sources of Traditional Japanese Culture

• Literature
• Adapted Chinese writing system
• Poetry and prose
• Haiku
• Women prolific writers of prose
• No, drama
• Art and Architecture
• Art
• Search for beauty hand scrolls, screens, other
  works
• Nature themes dominated search for emotional
  response
• Kamakura Period (1185-1333)
• Zen Buddhism
• Landscape
• Tea ceremony

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Japan, China, and Korea, 600-800
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Japan and the Chinese Model

• Consequences of isolation
• Lack of knowledge form the outside delayed the
  process of change
• Importance of geography
• Spared destructive invasions
• Decentralized political forces remained dominant

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Koreas Three Kingdoms
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Korea Bridge to the East

• Farming began about 2000 B.C.E.
• Chinese influence and rule
• Three Kingdoms (4th-7th centuries)
• Koguryo -- influenced by China, Buddhism, and
  Confucianism
• Paekche
• Silla -- dominant power
• The Rise of the Koryo Dynasty
• Koryo dynasty
• Social structure
• Buddhism
• Under the Mongols
• Seized in the thirteenth century
• Forced labor for the peasants
• Introduced Chinese ideas and technology
• Yi dynasty, 1392

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Vietnam The Smaller Dragon

• Irrigated agriculture in area of the Red River
• Conflict with the Qin and Han empires in China
• Trung Sisters Revolt, 39 C.E.
• Chinese regain control
• The Rise of Great Viet
• Overthrow of Chinese rule
• Expansion
• The Chinese Legacy
• Following the Confucian model
• Spread of Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism
• Borrowed from Chinese for literature
• Society and Family Life
• Borrowed the Confucian system and the civil
  service examination
• Peasant masses
• Growing emphasis on male domination
• Strong tradition of heroic women

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Discussion Questions

• How did geography and climate affect the
  development of Japan?
• What were the main characteristics of the
  political development of early Japan?
• How was Japanese daily life like the early life
  in China? How was it different?
• Trace the development of religion in early Japan.
• What was the relationship between early Japan and
  its neighbors in Eastern Asia?