Excellent papers on Japanese history and culture

The wide spread of Japanese history and culture has promoted Japan's position in the hearts of its citizens and other countries. Many countries also learn from Japanese culture and actively absorb beneficial elements, which plays an important role in the integration of cultures of various countries. The following is the content of my paper on Japanese history and culture for you. Welcome to read the reference!

Japanese Historical and Cultural Papers 1 On the Historical Contribution of Japanese Geisha Culture

Abstract: With the release of the film Memoirs of a Geisha directed by Spielberg, Japanese geisha quickly attracted many people's attention. In the eyes of most people, geisha is always a special profession full of mystery and some ambiguity. Some people even simply think that geisha is a prostitute with some talents. Actually, this is a misunderstanding. In fact, geisha are engaged in a performing art, and their musical instruments and even their gestures all embody classical artistic ideas. Therefore, in modern society, geisha is called the living fossil of Japanese classical culture, and geisha even played some special roles in Japanese history.

Keywords: Japanese geisha Wang Qin geisha historical contribution

With the release of the film Memoirs of a Geisha, Japanese geisha quickly attracted the attention of the whole world. In the eyes of most people, because? Geisha? There is another one in this title? Ci？ So there are many misunderstandings about geisha. In fact, this is only due to the deviation after translation into Chinese. In Japanese, geisha is called? Artist? (geisya), when will it be translated into Chinese? Who is it? Delete this word and add one? Ci？ So many people mistakenly think that geisha is a prostitute who can sing and dance.

Geisha can really sing and dance, and they can also laugh with wine, but the difference with prostitutes is that they are artists and don't sell themselves. In other words, geisha are engaged in a performing art, and their singing, dancing and instrumental music, as well as their gestures, all reflect the classical artistic concept. So geisha is called the living fossil of Japanese classical culture in modern society. Moreover, in the process of Japanese social development, geisha even played some special roles in history.

First of all, from the origin of geisha.

Geisha was born in the Edo period during the Tokugawa shogunate, and has a history of more than 300 years. Their predecessors were vagrant female artists who performed songs and dances. With the increase of population in Edo (now Tokyo), the center of Tokugawa Times, a large number of vagrant female artists gathered and became prostitutes who settled here. At that time, in order to increase taxes, the Tokugawa shogunate strictly prohibited prostitutes, forcing folk prostitutes to find jobs as a cover, so they gradually evolved into professional waitresses who mainly performed Sanwei Line backup singers, and people called them maiko. It can be called the initial formation period of geisha.

After maiko appeared, prostitutes in brothels run by shogunate gradually absorbed some performances of maiko, and began to transform into maiko in order to attract guests. The word geisha originally refers to the accompaniment of dancers. By the second half of the18th century, the accompanist and maiko were collectively called geisha. Because geisha are both entertainers and prostitutes, government-run prostitutes are facing the double competition from internal and external geisha, and their living situation is extremely difficult. In this case, the Jiang Mu shogunate made clear regulations on the management of geisha, forbidding geisha to engage in prostitution and violating hell to pay. This regulation completely separates geisha from prostitutes, making geisha as a profession formally independent, and its professional norms and customs are also established.

As a profession, geisha has its own unique code of conduct, that is, geisha Dao. First of all, geisha sell their skills without selling themselves and maintain their image; Second, we must persist? Seal? Order means keeping the guests' secrets strictly. You can only listen to the guests' top secret with your ears, such as passing clouds, and you can't tell stories to outsiders behind your back, so as to give guests a sense of security. Thirdly, geisha need to cultivate the typical temperament of Japanese women's beauty in order to conform to the ideal female image in men's concept.

Although geisha, as a profession, is officially legalized and is a model of Japanese women's beauty, in Edo Japan, geisha is still at the bottom of society and belongs to the enslaved and ravaged class. Geisha can enter the mainstream society and make waves in Japanese history because Meiji Restoration changed Japan and changed the image of geisha.

Second, the historical contribution of Japanese geisha

1, the influence of geisha culture on Japanese politics

1853, at the end of edo, Americans opened the door to Japan with guns, forcing the edo shogunate to sign a series of unequal treaties. The signing of the unequal treaties intensified various contradictions in Japan, and also gave neighboring countries an excuse to attack the shogunate. Changzhou and Samoa, in particular, were powerful and dissatisfied with the Tokugawa era for a long time, and gathered in Kyoto under the slogan of respecting the king and resisting foreign countries, trying to overthrow the Tokugawa era. This school is called Qinwang School. Of course, the shogunate will not ignore this point, and will send people to strengthen their vigilance in Kyoto. This school is called Zuomu School. The two factions gathered in Kyoto at that time and often competed.

When discussing important affairs, Kyoto Qinwangpai often chooses a geisha pavilion to hide their eyes and ears, because one of the important rules of geisha Taoism is to strictly keep the secrets of guests and make them feel fully safe. So choosing this place can hide people's eyes and ears, and there is no need to worry about the content of the discussion being leaked out. But there are also geisha who sympathize with loyal ministers and often help and cover them up. Taking this as an opportunity, geisha walked from the bottom of society to the front of history, causing waves in the great changes of society. These geisha who come to the front desk are called diligent geisha.

Among the diligent geisha, Wei Jun is the most famous, and Wei Jun is the small garden in Kyoto. Shimamura house? Geisha in geisha houses often work in a place called. Fish? Performing in a teahouse, where she met Fan (Yamaguchi), a loyal minister and scholar from Changzhou. Noue Kaoru was born in 1835 and studied in Britain. Later, he served as Foreign Minister, Interior Minister and Tibet Minister in the Meiji Restoration Government, and was one of the Meiji elders. Noue Kaoru fell in love with Wei Jun at first sight, and they had a deep affection. Later, Teru Shimada, the assistant shogunate, also took a fancy to Wei Jun. Teru Shimada is the leader of the assistant shogunate in Kyoto, and he is very influential in Kyoto. In the eyes of ordinary geisha, it is welcome to be such a concubine. But Wei Jun refused, only for one reason, just because Teru Shimada is a behind-the-scenes planner. But soon, Noue Kaoru's colleagues found Wei Jun and asked Wei Jun to agree to Teru Shimada's request and become the undercover of the King of Qin to spy on Teru Shimada's secrets. So Wei Jun became a geisha spy. Later, according to the information provided by Wei Jun, the king of Qin sent a plot to assassinate Teru Shimada, and finally Teru Shimada died by the sword of the king of Qin. Wei Jun made a great contribution to the King of Qin School.

It is said that Wei Jun also saved Hyoji, an urban household known as the three outstanding reformers. At that time, diligent geisha used the geisha hall as a cover to contact local people for a secret curtain call. Geisha sent by Wang Qin often come forward to help them in order to cover them. Wei Jun is just one story in which many heroes save the United States. Because of the special role of geisha in the closing movement, they made important contributions to the Meiji Restoration in Japan, so some people later joked that if there were no geisha, the history of Japan would be rewritten.

2. Geisha's contribution to Japanese society.

A qualified geisha usually begins at the age of 65,438+00, and spends five years studying Japanese traditional dance, Sanwei line, tea ceremony, calligraphy, flower arrangement, costume dressing and so on. Therefore, geisha inherits the essence of Japanese traditional art and culture in dance, lyre, costume and makeup, and is a living fossil of Japanese classical culture and art, and also provides a noble, elegant, gentle and obedient ideal woman for the society.

The influence of (1) on Japanese literature and art

Geisha culture has become a part of Japanese traditional culture. Geisha makes a living by art. Taking literature as an example, there are many novels about geisha's life. Among them, the most famous ones are Yasunari Kawabata's Dancer of Izu and Snow Country. The work reproduces the geisha culture by literary means, which makes people admire the traditional Japanese geisha culture and have a good impression on Japanese modern and contemporary literature. In a sense, this also made Yasunari Kawabata the first Japanese writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

(2) The impact on Japan's modern service industry.

With the development of history, Japanese geisha gradually faded out of the historical stage, but this did not eliminate the inherent decisive influence of Japanese geisha. Geisha is integrated into all levels of social life. For example, the considerate service of geisha has become a model of service industry. Services similar to geisha can be seen in hotels, hotels, airports and department stores in Japan. Most foreigners who have been to Japan have experienced the first-class services of hotels, restaurants and department stores, and are amazed at their thoughtful and meticulous services. For example, in a Japanese restaurant with tatami room, the waiter shows a kind of respect and humility when opening the sliding door, serving and quitting, which makes people feel like a host. Wherever you go, you can hear the gentleness of the receptionist. Are you welcome? 、? Thank you for coming? All these make people feel the potential influence of geisha culture, that is, considerate and obedient to guests.

(3) The influence on Japanese women's aesthetics and values.

In the film Memoirs of a Geisha, the temperament of a Geisha shows all the characteristics of female beauty in the traditional Japanese concept: loyalty, elegance, charm and obedience, which also constitute the elements of female beauty in their concept. The dressing of geisha has become a model of classical beauty of women in modern Japanese society. It is said that in modern society, when Japanese people wear kimonos, how do geisha play with the standards of belts, hairstyles and accessories? To embody and practice this temperament, geisha naturally becomes a model for Japanese women, and its words and deeds are also the objects of imitation by ordinary women, and even geisha itself is proud of its geisha.

The influence of geisha on Japanese women is also reflected in values. A mature geisha must be extremely gentle, calm and decisive. It is said that this temperament has become a model of modern women. For example, when we watch Japanese dramas, we often feel a gentle charm from the characters in the dramas, but at the same time we also feel the tenacity and strength behind a gentleness. These are the inner characters of geisha, and now they have been internalized as a virtue of Japanese women. For example, A Xin, the hero of the Japanese drama A Xin, which was popular in China in 1980s, is such a woman.

In a word, the film Memoirs of a Geisha reproduces the mysterious Japanese Geisha world in history. Geisha, like Mount Fuji and cherry blossoms in Japan, have become a symbol of Japan together. As a living fossil of Japanese traditional culture, it embodies the charm of Yamato culture from different angles, and the theme of Japanese culture pursuing aestheticism has been perfectly expressed in geisha culture. The appearance of Japanese geisha is endowed by Japanese real life and is one of the epitome of Japanese traditional culture. Geisha has become an integral part of Japan's unique culture, which will have a far-reaching impact on all aspects of Japanese social history.

References:

[1] Lori: The Snow Country written by Duan Kangcheng and He? The beauty of Japan? Journal of Qiandongnan Normal University for Nationalities, 1, 2005.

[2] Kang and Bai Limin: Looking at Japanese Geisha Culture from Movies, Film Review,No. 17, 2006.

Historical and Cultural Writing in Contemporary Japanese Novels

Taking contemporary Japanese novels as the research object, this paper investigates the historical factors of war and its context in Japanese novels in the early postwar period, the historical writing in Japanese novels in the new period and Japanese historical novels respectively. Among them, there are many works that show historical themes or factors, especially a large number of works that accuse and reflect on the injuries and disasters brought about by the war have emerged after the war. However, judging from the number of works and ideological content, there are few works that can comprehensively and profoundly reflect on the war.

Keywords: contemporary Japanese novels; History; write

Compared with the literature of past dynasties, Japanese contemporary literature presents some new trends. For example, writers pay more attention to personalized creation, pay attention to the increase of war, society and history in ideological content, and emphasize self-expression at the same time. There are also some breakthroughs in tradition. This paper sorts out the novels in Japanese contemporary literature and wants to explore the historical and cultural writing and its context.

First of all, the historical factors and background of war in Japanese novels in the early postwar period.

1In August, 945, Japan surrendered and World War II officially ended. Japan has maintained the war system and political order for nearly ten years, the wartime cultural rule was lifted, and literature got rid of wartime control and regained freedom of expression. After a short period of confusion and confusion, the literary world gradually began to recover. In this context, Japanese literature has entered a new historical period.

1945,65438+In February, once suppressed left-wing writers initiated the establishment of the New Japanese Literature Society. 1946, their social magazine "New Japanese Literature" was founded. Its representative writers, such as Yuriko Miyamoto and Dezhi, have published many works that reflect the trauma of war and show the evil of Japanese militarism. Shigeru Miyamoto's masterpiece Ye Ping in Bozhou describes the tragic scene of defeat and his criticism of the war. Through the female perspective of the protagonist Ishida Hiroshi Zi, the novel reveals the price paid by Japanese imperialism for its war. It describes the grief of the widow who lost her husband in the atomic bomb explosion and the grief of the mother who lost three sons in the war and the original explosion, and exposes the pain and harm brought to women by the war. In addition, De Yongzhi's autobiographical novel Wife! Rest in peace. The novels Jing Shan, Toad, Boiling and other works also show the historical turning point of postwar Japan and the historical picture of the unyielding struggle of ordinary workers, peasants and women from many angles.

Many postwar writers, especially the first batch of postwar writers, also have a deep historical imprint. The creation of the first batch of postwar writers basically revolved around two basic points: war experience and turning experience. For example, Haruki Misaki's Red Moon on the Face, Gloomy Painting, Vacuum Zone, Sakura Island, Taijun Takeda's Trial, Wildfire in Shōhei Ooka, Prisoner, etc.

"The Red Moon on the Face" describes that the hero didn't realize the preciousness of family ties until he experienced the war, showing the harm that the war brought to the people. Dark Pictures describes the protagonist's ambivalent mentality of being attracted by revolutionaries but unwilling to really participate in the revolution. This is a work that shows a turning point. Bruegel's dark picture symbolizes the distress and pain of young intellectuals. "Vacuum Zone" is also based on the author's real experience in prison, and the background is still war.

Haruki Misaki's Sakura Island is set at the end of World War II. This paper describes the complicated inner changes of sergeant Murakami, who was born as an intellectual, in the desperate situation surrounded by American troops stationed in Japan. While longing for a better life, we exposed the cruelty of war and lashed the inhuman Japanese reactionary army. Jiro, the hero of Taijun Takeda's novel The Trial, is guilty of killing the people of China in the war. In order to atone for his sins, he chose to stay in China because he was worried that his crimes would be diluted when he returned to Japan. This kind of self-critical work is rare, which also reflects the writer's deep reflection on the war.

Based on his experience of joining the army and being captured, Shōhei Ooka created the short story Prisoner, the novella Wildfire and Wright's War. The process of being captured is described by psychoanalysis, which reflects the soldiers' war-weariness, the inevitability of defeat and the destruction of human nature by war, and discusses the fate and existence value of people at the critical moment of life and death. In addition, among postwar writers, Horida Shanwei's Loneliness in the Square describes the turmoil and anxiety of Japanese intellectuals before and after the Korean War. His novel History is set in Shanghai in 1946, reflecting social unrest. In the Diary of Shanghai, he expressed his introspection on the war of aggression and his criticism of Hirohito. Postwar faction? The third newcomer? Although his creation no longer pays attention to the theme related to war, the shadow of war can still be found in his works. For example, The Joy of the Night by Akitaro of Angang, The Scenery by the Sea by Yoshiyuki of Shunsuke, and so on.

Second, the historical writing in Japanese novels in the new period.

With the passage of time, the number of works directly describing the theme of war gradually decreased. But the historical traces in the works are not difficult to find. Takeshi Kaikō' s Glowing Darkness, Summer Darkness and Falling Flowers Darkness are based on his experience of visiting Vietnam as a special correspondent in 1964. Seicho Matsumoto is a writer of mystery novels, and also the author of documentaries that deeply explore Japanese modern history, such as The Excavation of Showa History. Nobel Prize in Literature winner Kenzaburo Oe's Feeding tells the story of a black soldier who landed in a mountain village due to a plane crash during the war. Notes on Hiroshima was written in 1963. Kenzaburo Oe went to Hiroshima for a social investigation and was deeply touched by the persecution caused by the atomic bomb. The football team in the first year of Wanyan involves the history of the peasant uprising in the first year of Wanyan in Japan (1860).

The themes of Haruki Murakami's works are mostly cities, youth and love, but there are also references and reflections on history in his works. Among them, Chronicle of Clockwork Birds records the contents of a little-known battle of Nomenkan on the border between Mongolia and Manchukuo. There are also novel plots based on the facts of Sino-Japanese historical relations in The Adventure of Looking for Sheep, such as Dr. Yang's field trip to Manchuria for sheep multiplication. In 1Q84, the heroine mung bean likes reading books about Manchuria railway in the 1930s, and the adoptive father of the hero Tianwu is also designed as a member of the Manchu-Mongolian pioneering group who returned to Japan after the war. These pen and ink about war and history are trivial and scattered, which are rare in contemporary Japanese literary circles in recent years.

Third, historical novels in Japanese literature

Historical novels (also known as? Time novel? ) is an important literary type in modern Japanese literature. Especially in the contemporary literature of more than half a century after the war, his creation is more prosperous. A series of writers appeared, such as Kaizan Nakazato, Naoki Naoki, Jiro Sato, Shogoro Haiyin Temple, Jing Shangjing, Chen, and so on. Among them, Yoshikawa Eiji, Ryotaro Shiba, Yamaoka Sōhachi and other Japanese modern historical novelists are more representative. Yoshikawa Eiji has written Musashi Miyamoto, Taige Collection, Heroes of the Three Kingdoms and New? Ping family stories, private peace books and many other masterpieces. Ryotaro Shiba's literary achievements are mainly reflected in historical novels describing the end of Edo. The characters in Sakamoto Ryoma and other works have now become typical examples of repeated recitation in time dramas. Nonobunaga Oda, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Tokugawa Ieyasu and Saigō Takamori have appeared repeatedly in many of his works and have been put on the screen for many times. It took Yamaoka Sōhachi 65,438+07 years to complete his masterpiece Tokugawa Ieyasu, which caused an unprecedented sensation at that time? Home health fever? . Later, he mainly wrote historical novels, such as Noyong Oda, Sakamoto Ryoma, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Data Masamune.

In addition to paying attention to Japanese local history, some novels are written according to the history of other countries. For example, Jing Shangjing's historical novels, such as Tianpingzhi, Loulan, Canglang, Dunhuang, Confucius and Yang Guifei, are mostly based on the history of China and China's historical biography literature, showing his yearning for China history and China culture, as well as his life. In addition, Osamu Dazai's Run, Melos is based on the historical story of Greek mythology, and Shusaku Endo's novel Silence describes a history in which Portuguese Jesuit missionaries were suppressed in spreading Catholicism in Japan.

From the above summary of historical and cultural writing in contemporary Japanese novels, we can see that the historical elements of contemporary Japanese novels are quite strong as a whole. Among them, the works mainly describe Japanese historical figures, and there are also many works that show historical events in whole or in parts. In postwar novels, there are a large number of works that accuse and reflect on the injuries and disasters caused by the war in World War II, which is obviously different from literary creation in other periods. However, judging from the number and ideological content of the works, there are few works that can comprehensively and profoundly reflect on the war. Moreover, for a period of time after the war, since the late 1950s, this kind of works that focus on war or have a historical component of war have declined sharply. Moreover, there are few works that pay attention to the national history and destiny, which are quite different from China's literature.

Fund projects:? Social Science Fund of Hebei Agricultural University? Grant (No.:SK20110401)

References:

[1] He Naiying. Research on Japanese Contemporary Literature [M]. Beijing: Beijing Normal University Press, 2005.

[2] Zhang, Qu Li. Japanese literature [M]. Beijing: Higher Education Press, 2008.

[3] Wang Xiangyuan. The source of living water: Japanese contemporary historical novels and China history and culture [M]. Yinchuan: Ningxia People's Publishing House, 2006.

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