Have tattoos been common among Japanese people since ancient times? When did the current tattoo culture disappear? fashion?
2024-01-07
Category:Japanese culture
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Japan has had a tattoo culture since ancient times.
You may hear people say that Japan does not have a culture of tattooing, but tattooing is actually an ancient Japanese culture. In Gishi Wajinden, it is written that Wa people liked tattoos, and both men and women had tattoos on their faces and all over their bodies. People in China and the peninsula don't have tattoos. It is said that these things are not done due to Confucianism. This is not a recommendation. People who don't want to don't have to.
Influence from southern Asia?
Many cultures were introduced to Japan from southern China, and there were people living in what is now Southeast Asia in the southern part. The method of preserving fish in vinegared rice, which is the origin of sushi, is said to have come from Southeast Asia, where tattoos are common. Sake is said to have originated from southern China's Shaoxing wine, which was originally made from sake-brewing technology that was brought to Japan. Northern China has a field farming culture, and southern China has a rice farming culture.
Tattoos that have been banned since the Meiji era
Tattoos began to be banned in Japan due to the influence of Confucianism. Even so, Toyama Kinshiro Kagemoto of Toyama Kin-san had a tattoo. Even judges had tattoos back then. It is said that tattoos were completely banned after the Meiji Restoration. The reason is for westernization. Even in the West, some people got tattoos, but they were only one-point tattoos, and they were not tattoos that covered the entire body like in Japan at the time. Amid these regulations, Japan's tattoo culture was inherited by the world of chivalry.
Read it together
Sphinx and Nagaoki Ikeda. Samurai takes a commemorative photo of Egypt and visits the Suez Canal
Mysterious group of samurai in front of the Sphinx
Goes to France to apologize for Idogaya Incident
The Suez Canal is a huge waterway for the colonization of Asia
Edo shogunate that canceled the Paris Agreement
Edo shogunate's country opening theory
The first photo was taken by a samurai in front of the Sphinx in Egypt. It is often introduced as a humorous image. In the scorching heat of Egypt, wearing a crested hakama seems to convey the heat. The second photo is Nagafuku Ikeda, a foreign magistrate of the Edo Shogunate who was participating in this group.
In 1863, the Idogaya Incident occurred in Japan, where three ronin, believed to be members of the Joi group, murdered a French military officer near Yokohama. A 34-person delegation, including Nagafatsu Ikeda, traveled to France to apologize and make peace with the incident.
The group arrived in Paris, had an audience with Emperor Napoleon III, apologized to the French government for the incident, and paid 195,000 francs in support to the family.
The 34-member delegation arrived in Cairo from Suez via India from Shanghai on their way to Paris, where they posed for a commemorative photo in front of the Sphinx. This is a picture of a samurai in front of the Sphinx.
The Suez Canal is an bypass built by France to allow ships from Europe to go to Asia without passing through Cape Hope at the southern tip of Africa. Ikeda and his colleagues inspected it.
Afterwards, reconciliation with France was reached in Paris, and the group, recognizing the power of Western civilization, signed the Treaty of Paris, which promised the opening of three ports, including Yokohama, as free ports.
The Edo shogunate ordered a mission to negotiate the closure of Yokohama Port, but this was difficult due to French resistance. Nagafuku Ikeda, seeing the strength of Western culture, abandoned negotiations and concluded the Treaty of Paris.
After returning to Japan, Nagafuku Ikeda appealed to the shogunate about the importance of opening the country, but it was not accepted, and the shogunate, which had a policy of closing ports, canceled the Treaty of Paris, and as punishment, Ikeda's stone allowance was cut in half. Although Ikeda was later forgiven and returned to politics, he soon resigned from his post and died at the age of 42. What kind of truth did Ikeda see during this trip?
Ikeda Nagafuku, as a member of the Edo Shogunate, called for the opening of the country. He was a member of the shogunate, which was on the opposite side of Sakamoto Ryoma, Katsu Kaishu, and Saigo Takamori, who started the Meiji Restoration. It can be said that the scale of the Western Industrial Revolution was shocking.
The Meiji Restoration side looked overseas and considered the future of Japan, but the Edo shogunate tried to maintain isolation and the shogunate system. Ikeda, who saw the West with his own eyes, felt the same feeling as the young people on the Meiji Restoration side.
Enactment of the Organized Crime Countermeasures Act
Due to this background, tattoos came to be considered anti-social forces. This is now called Japanese culture. Furthermore, in Japan, the anti-organized crime law was enacted in 1992, placing significant restrictions on the activities of anti-social forces in general society, and these groups are currently on the decline, with public baths now being sought after in the city. You no longer see people who were once members of organized crime groups.
Public baths where you cannot enter if you have a tattoo
Young people in Japan now have tattoos as a fashion item. In other words, they seem to be trying to create their own individuality by drawing something on their bodies, just like the Japanese of old. The pattern is a so-called tattoo that looks good on clothes. Tourists coming from foreign countries are told that if they have a tattoo, they won't be able to go to the traditional Japanese hot springs that they were looking forward to, so they wrap them in some kind of cloth to hide it, but they are told that the cloth is also bad. It seems that there are cases where the application is refused. On the contrary, it is said that young Japanese people with tattoos cannot go to hot springs, which is a part of Japanese culture.
Is it OK for men to take women's baths?
You may be wondering what I'm trying to say, but Japanese people need to protect the culture of public baths, which is unique to Japan, in a healthy manner. Nowadays, it seems that men who are women at heart are thinking about how to bathe women.
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[related article]
What do teachers who refuse to sing the national anthem teach children? Kimigayo is the very essence of Japanese culture that has been passed down since ancient times. ``Kimigayo'' is a tanka poem that appears in the Kokin Wakashu. In the Kokin Wakashu, it begins with ``Waga Kimi wa.'' It was put to music during the Meiji period, and officially became Japan's national anthem in 1999, when the ``Law Concerning the National Flag and Anthem'' was enacted. Until then, it had been handed down from ancient times in Japan.
Does it matter for whom Kimigayo was composed? The main idea is to pray for the eternal prosperity of the other person's life, family, and descendants, and it is important that the concept of eternity is expressed as ``until the rocks turn into rocks and become covered with moss.'' It is included in the anthology of ancient and modern waka poems because its outstanding expressiveness moved people, and it has been passed down from generation to generation. If you were not familiar with the poems in the Heian period, it is clear that they had been written and loved long before that.
It was composed at various celebratory occasions, and it no longer matters who the author wrote it for. Since the Meiji era, songs have been written about You as the Emperor, and if you value His Majesty the Emperor, who is also a symbol of the Meiji Restoration, it is no wonder that people sing it like that.
If this song exists to help us imagine and pass on the spirituality of the ancient Japanese people when they prayed for the happiness of others, what on earth should Japanese educators teach? I wonder if it is.
The only one in the world? Japan eats raw eggs. Why are raw eggs safe in Japan? Egg rice is a soul food in Japan.
Japan seems to be the only country in the world that eats raw eggs. Japan is known as a country where tap water is drinkable, but you might think it's a similar story, but it's not. In Japan, tap water is drinkable because it is soft and sanitary water is thoroughly controlled, and eggs are only born from chickens, so there is no difference in countries around the world.
Even if you explain it as a food culture, eggs are probably eaten all over the world, so why did Japan come to eat eggs raw? You might think it's a matter of Japanese tastes, but foreigners say that sukiyaki is delicious, and even simple rice with egg is delicious. Could it be that only Japanese people noticed the taste of raw eggs?
If you ask foreigners, they will tell you that raw eggs are dangerous. Then, I wondered why Japanese eggs were so safe, and when I looked into it, I found out that Salmonella bacteria is contained in the parent hens' feces and urine and seems to penetrate through the egg shells. Alternatively, if the parent chicken is infected with Salmonella, eggs infected with Salmonella will be born. Current Japanese poultry farms take thorough measures to prevent Salmonella, which is why they can even be eaten as raw eggs.
Then, when did Japan start eating raw eggs? When I researched it, I found that before the Edo period, food derived from animals was avoided due to the influence of Buddhism, and there seems to be a mention of raw eggs in the Edo period. Later, there was a mention of tamago kakigohan (egg-dried rice) in the Meiji period, and it is said that Ogai Mori also liked eating it.
When I researched Salmonella, I discovered that it was named after Daniel Salmon, a bacteriologist who discovered the type strain of the Salmonella genus, Hog cholera, in the United States in 1885. It became. In the Edo period, there would have been no recognition of Salmonella.
In summary, Japanese people did not have any biological knowledge about Salmonella, but they did know that if parent chickens were kept in an unsanitary environment, the baby eggs would have fatal problems if eaten by humans. On the other hand, they knew that if they thoroughly managed and cleaned the chickens, this problem would not occur.
His Majesty the Emperor, who continued researching fish, discovered 10 new species - two were announced at academic conferences after his abdication.
Most members of the imperial family enroll at Gakushuin University, and their academic majors are not related to politics, economics, or military affairs. The reason is said to be that the Emperor, as a symbol of Japan, is not involved in these activities. Emperor Showa studied biology, and when his attendants said that the grass they cut around the Imperial Palace and Fukiage Palace was ``cutting weeds,'' he said, ``There is no such thing as weeds.''
``Every plant has a name, and each grows in its own favorite place. We shouldn't take a one-sided approach and label it as a weed. Be careful,'' he said. .
In 1964, His Majesty the Emperor Emeritus, then Crown Prince, visited Thailand with Her Imperial Highness Princess Michiko. When he met with King Bhumibol Adulyadej and learned about Thailand's current situation of food shortages, he proposed to King Adulyadej that they try growing tilapia as a protein source. Upon returning to Japan, he donated 50 tilapia raised at the Akasaka imperial estate to Thailand.
When former King Bhumibol Adulyadej bred them in his palace pond, the number of young fish increased to 10,000 in a blink of an eye due to their ease of raising and strong reproductive ability. They were sent to various places through the Fisheries Experiment Station, and became a source of food for the Thai people. Even today, it is a common fish in Thailand under the name Pranin. Pura is an abbreviation for Emperor, and Nin is the kanji for Akihito read aloud.
His Majesty the Emeritus also majored in biology and mainly conducted research on fish. In June 2021, after the Emperor's abdication, two new species of goby were discovered, and His Majesty the Emperor himself named them ``Awayukiftus goby'' and ``Sebosyftus goby'' and announced them at an academic conference. A total of 10 new species of fish have been discovered and announced to the world by His Majesty the Emperor.
Osaka and the Meiji Restoration - Koan Ogata's Tekijuku, the roots of Osaka University where Yukichi Fukuzawa also attended, still exists in Osaka.
When I researched Osaka and the end of the Edo period, I discovered that there was a school called Tekijuku, which was founded by Koan Ogata to study Dutch studies. It seems to have roots in Osaka University. Japan at the time was isolated from the rest of the world, trading with the Netherlands through Nagasaki, and receiving academic information from the Netherlands about the world. This was called Dutch studies. Koan Ogata is said to be the father of modern medicine in Japan, and even appears in the popular drama ``JIN.'' Yukichi Fukuzawa also entered Tekijuku in Osaka at the age of 20 to study Dutch studies.
Keio University appears to be based on the former Dutch Studies School. In Japan, learning was carried out in small cram schools and terakoya like this one. They were not in the position of teacher and student in the current educational system, but rather had a close relationship between teacher and student. Learning flowed from the source to the disciples, and had the energy to directly change the country and society.
Seoul National University was formerly an imperial university and was established in 1924 as Gyeongseong Imperial University. It is said that Japan brought modern learning to the Korean peninsula, but what is the true story? In other words, there was no teacher-disciple relationship that aimed to enrich the Korean peninsula.
I have heard that Seoul National University is the best academic institution in South Korea, but what do you think about the origins of the university and its academic activities?
In any case, education during the Japanese colonial period on the Korean peninsula was the same as it is today. If we were to call this a science, it would be completely different.
South Korea, which tries to equate the Rising Sun flag with Hakenkreuz, is completely unaware of its history and meaning.
Japan's national anthem, ``Kimigayo,'' is based on an unknown tanka that was published in the Kokin Wakashu of the Heian period. It's a song whose author is unknown. In the Kokin Wakashu, it says, ``My lord will ripple through a thousand and eight thousand generations until he becomes a rock of stone and becomes a child of moss.'' Who this ``my lord'' refers to is a hot topic, but the original meaning of this poem is ``You... It means "May you live a long and healthy life forever."
This song has been sung during birthdays, weddings, and celebrations of life milestones throughout Japan's long history. After the Meiji Restoration, it was put to music and performed as a song wishing for the long life of the Emperor. In other words, this era was the song of the Meiji Restoration. After that, Japan entered the war, and some forces denounce this as a symbol of militarism, but it only describes Japan for a short period of time in its long history.
A similar story can be said about the Rising Sun flag. There are various theories about the design of the Rising Sun flag, but one theory is that it is a legend that Amaterasu Omikami, the sun god, came out of a rock and the sun returned to this world. The legend of Iwato dates back to the time of the first Emperor Jinmu. In this way, the rising sun pattern has been used for various celebrations since ancient times in Japan, and when Japan entered World War II, it was adopted as the flag of the Japanese military. In other words, it is merely an explanation of Japan for a short period of time.
Considering this timeline, the Hakenkreuz was first the party flag of the Nazi Party, which then became the national flag. The reason why the swastika was adopted as the flag of the Nazi Party is that the swastika, which was painted on the ruins of Troy, was thought to be a symbol of the Aryan race and was adopted.
In other words, the national symbol associated with the idea of a chosen people coincided with the thinking of the Nazi Party, which advocated the principle of Germanic first, and became a symbol of the genocide of the Jews. In other words, this flag was adopted based on the consistent ideology of the chosen people.
Please tell Professor Seo Kyung-deok, who has never studied history, a little bit.