1. Ancient Japan

2. Geography Only 20% of land is flat
Sea is essential part of diet (fish/seaweed)
Close but isolated
(impacts on development?)
What are the 4 main islands?
Where would cities develop (2 factors)

3. Early Japanese Society
Clans/Families ruled farming villages
Head of family ruled and had religious duties (Shinto)
Nature spirits are called kami
Everything in nature has kami (including clan leaders)
Leaders from Honshu eventually take over (greatest of kami) and call themselves emperors

4. China’s Influence
Language Philosophy Religion

5. China’s Influence
Japanese learned written language from China (earliest history is in Chinese)
200 years later they devised Japanese written Language
Prince Shotoku (shoh-toh-koo) CE
Regent for aunt
Admired Confucius thought but was a practicing Buddhist (melds the two)

6. Heian Period
794 CE – Emperor moved to Heian (Hay-ahn) current day Kyoto
Many nobles followed
Nobles loved art and beauty and set out to make the city beautiful (Golden Era begins)
Tale of Genji – fictitious story of 4 generations of Japanese aristocracy (why sig?)
Writing fan

7. Growth of Military Emperor gets distracted by life at court
Daimyo (dy-mee-oh) protect their lands by hiring samurai
Most samurai inherited position from father
Samurai derives from the word servant or those who serve

8. Samurai Fought on horseback, and used swords and bows
Lived by strict warrior code
Bushido – the way of the warrior
Samurai disciplined themselves by practicing the art of poetry, meditation and gardening

9. Powerful military leader who ruled in the name of the Emperor
Shogun
Civil war breaks out in 1150
Minamoto clan wins but keeps emperor as a figurehead
When he died he passed power onto his son
Lasts for the next 700 years
Powerful military leader who ruled in the name of the Emperor

10. Turning Point
Mongol emperor Kublai Khan 1st attempts to conquer Japan in 1274
Korean and Chinese troops made Mongol army ridiculously strong
Heavy storm decimated the fleet and its manpower
1281, Khan returns with an even larger fleet, but most of it is destroyed by a typhoon
The Japanese called these storms kamikaze – “divine wind”
Japanese take it that they are invincible because they are protected by divine powers

11. Oh yeah .... The portugese introduced guns to Japan
Oda Nobunaga (ohd-ah noh-booh-nah-gah) wins and moves the capital to Edo (Tokyo)
1630s shogun outlaws guns – afraid the peasants would revolt with them
Isolation and lack of technology keeps Japan the exact same from 1600s to late 1800s!

12. Reviewing Japan Unscramble each group of letters to spell a term:
etrgne – a person who rules in someone else’s name
Regent
misaaru – a Japanese warrior
aclsn – large, extended families
elauvs – ideas that people hold dear
uctro – a group of nobles who surround a ruler
nguosh – great Japanese general who ruled instead of the Emperor
enz – form of Japanese Buddhism
osnith – a nature religion that begun in Japan
odmiya – Japanese lords who gave land to samurai
kosouth – prince who introduced many Chinese ideas to Japan
rctusrteu – the way something is set up