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NOTES for later articles:

Timothy Clark, "Edo Kabuki in the 1780s," The Actor's Image, Art Institute of Chicago (1994), 36.

  • Samurai class was converted to shizoku and sotsu in 1869. In 1872, many lower-ranking sotsu were reduced to regular citizens (heimin). - Andrew Gordon, A Modern History of Japan, Oxford University Press (2013), 65.
  • Generally speaking in the Bakumatsu period, the British were nominally neutral but actually worked to aid the rebelling provinces, while the French supported the shogunate. This can be seen, for example, in how Satsuma and the shogunate both, separately, ended up working with the British and French, respectively, to get Pavilions at the Paris World's Fair in 1867.
  • Igarashi and Kôami families were shogunate goyô shônin for lacquerwares. - Christine Guth, Art of Edo Japan, Yale University Press (1996), 95.
  • Ryuchikai split into Japan Art Association (Nihon Bijutsu Kyokai; leaders of traditional painting schools seeking to continue the painting traditions as they had been) and Kanga-kai (founded by Fenollosa & Okakura seeking to create a new blending of traditional and Western styles). Kanga-kai was associated with Tokyo Fine Arts School (Tokyo Bijutsu Gakko), while the Japan Art Association opposed the Ministry of Education's schools, and was associated with the Imperial Household Ministry. - Matsushima Masato, "Japan's Dream of Modern Art," Remaking Tradition: Modern Art of Japan from the Tokyo National Museum. Cleveland Museum of Art (2014), 22.
  • Meiji Art Society (Meiji Bijutsu kai, est 1889), was the "old school". Its members were mostly graduates of the Kôbu Bijutsu Gakko. In contrast, Kuroda Seiki established his own "new school," the Hakubakai, in 1896.
  • Kuge - lit. "official families", or "families of government." Hereditary occupants of the offices of the state. In 1868, there were 137 kuge houses, of which 97 were branches of the Fujiwara, and another 31 were either Sugawara, Kiyowara, Taira, or Minamoto. - Herschel Webb, The Japanese Imperial Institution in the Tokugawa Period, 89.
  • As many as 21,000 muen ("without connections") prostitutes are buried at Jôgan-ji in Tokyo. Most of them were in their 20s when they died, with no one to pay for a proper funeral. - Melinda Takeuchi, Seduction: Japan's Floating World, San Francisco: Asian Art Museum (2015), 11.
  • Tokugawa Ieyasu sent 11 letters to Cambodia in 1603-1610, three to Patani in 1599-1606, and 18 to the Philippines in 1601-1613. - Adam Clulow, “Like Lambs in Japan and Devils outside Their Land: Diplomacy, Violence, and Japanese Merchants in Southeast Asia,” Journal of World History 24:2 (2013), 339.
  • Arima Yorinori (is this a typo for someone else?) was the first lord to have his fief changed after Sekigahara. He was moved from a small 10,000 koku fief to a somewhat larger 20,000 koku one, after supporting Ieyasu in the campaign. - Pitelka, Spectacular Accumulation, 81.
  • Immigration: by 1880, the census shows 148 Japanese resident in the US.[3]
  • Japanese cuisine (料理故実) - The Shijô school of traditional cuisine traces its origins to the time of Emperor Kôkô, who had Fujiwara no Yamakage 藤原山蔭 (Shijô Chûnagon) develop it. The Muromachi Shogunate then employed Ôkusa Kôji 大草公次 of the Shijô school, who developed his own style, the Ôkusa school. The Shimazu clan continued on this Kamakura style of traditional cuisine all the way down to the end of the 16th century, and were quite proud to have maintained the true ancient traditions while so many other daimyô were following new trends. Following Hideyoshi's conquest of Kyushu, the Shimazu began to realize that their old customs were seen as backward, and that they needed to adopt the new customs in order to be seen as properly modern. They invited Ishihara Sado　石原佐渡 of the Ôkusa school; his descendants continued to serve the Shimazu, and the Ôkusa school spread within the domain. Some one hundred documents related to the Kamakura, Shijo, and Okusa schools of cuisine survive today in the collections of the Shokoshuseikan, and have been designated a Tangible Cultural Property by the prefecture. - http://www.shuseikan.jp/culture/culture19.html
  • Fujiwara Hidesato - aka 俵藤太秀郷 Tawara Tôta Hidesato - according to Shikidô Ôkagami, vol 17, p1.
  • Sakanoue Tamuramaro was possibly of mixed Chinese and Japanese parentage. - Gary Leupp, Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900, A&C Black (2003), 52.
  • Vasilii Mikhailovitch Golovnin 1776-1831, who was captured in 1811 and imprisoned in Hakodate for three years, wrote that he and his men received no looks of malice, hatred, or insult as they were marched through the town. - Leupp, 89.
  • On Omote & Naishô - “the law or custom requires that the death of an officer should not be mentioned until the government has either filled up the vacancy, or conferred some rank on his eldest son… This secrecy is, however, only publicly observed: the news is communicated in a confidential way from one to another, until, in a short time, it is known to every body.” - Golovnin, Memoirs, 95.
  • Kaikin: Hamashita Takeshi uses the term 選択的開国, which Schottenhammer translates as "selective opening" - Angela Schottenhammer, “The East Asian Maritime World, 1400-1800,” in Schottenhammer (ed.), The East Asian Mediterranean: Maritime Crossroads of Culture, Commerce and Human Migration, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag (2008), 39.
  • Kaikin was aimed not only at reducing, or controlling, the influxes of foreign influences, but also at developing a more monopolistic control over trade, and imposing a stronger order upon social classes, ... - Kenchi Ono, "Ethics and Entrepreneurship in Tokugawa Japan," in Maritime Asia: Profit Maximisation, Ethics and Trade Structure C. 1300-1800, 223.
  • Kaikin - whatever the motivations were for expelling the Iberians - that is, chiefly concerns about violence & Iberian plots to conquer the realm; and, fears about instabilities caused by Christian daimyô's divided loyalties - none of that really applied to the friendly Dutch. And yet the Dutch were restricted to Hirado, then Dejima, and their wives & children were expelled in 1639, for what? Leupp suggests it was because of a fear of race mixing, as an evil unto itself. - Leupp, 105.
  • Kaikin - not a singular policy initiative instituted in coordinated steps but rather, arguably, a series of policies which only formed a cohesive impact in aggregate, and in retrospect, with each step being taken to address a specific concern of that moment. Still, in aggregate, they can be seen as having been implemented in order to strengthen the legitimacy and security of Tokugawa rule, including severely restricting daimyô power to engage in foreign relations or foreign trade. This was not a blanket policy of seclusion or isolation, but rather addressed each foreign trading partner separately, with differing policies towards each. - William Wray, "Japanese Diaspora," 80.
  • Kaikin - scholars today also generally say that Japan was no more "isolated" or "closed" than other East Asian countries, and that its policies in this regard were thus not extreme or even unusual. Such policies were put into place in order to ensure peace and order within Japan, and in the broader region. - Wray, 74. and the overall volume of trade, in imports & exports in and out of Japan, did not decrease, but only increased going later into the 17th century. (Toby?)
  • Ogasawara Islands - the plaque placed by the British to claim the islands in 1827, on which they inscribed a renunciation of the claim in 1875 is today help in the Australian National Library in Canberra. - Tessa Morris-Suzuki, "The Frontiers of Japanese Identity," in Stein Tønnesson and Hans Antlöv (eds.), Asian Forms of the Nation, Psychology Press (1996), 57.
  • Overseas Chinese or Chinese diaspora - today, there are about 40 million people in the world who consider themselves members of the Chinese diaspora. Some 25 million of them live in Southeast Asia. - Craig Lockard, “‘The Sea Common to All’: Maritime Frontiers, Port Cities, and Chinese Traders in the Southeast Asian Age of Commerce, Ca. 1400–1750.” Journal of World History 21, no. 2 (2010): 246.
  • Kaikin - Korean policies were more restrictive. - Wray, 82. Wray further argues that "sakoku" or "kaikin" should not be seen only through the lens of economic concerns, or volume of trade - these policies had the very real effect of policing the movement of people, not just goods or funds.. These policies were aimed, at least in part, at curbing cultural & religious interactions which might threaten political stability - not just Europeans, and Christianity, but diaspora Japanese as well. Ronin, entrepreneurs, and others gained significant wealth and influence in cities across the region, including positions of power or influence within (or in relation to) foreign courts. Few if any of these figures had any direct loyalty to the Tokugawa, and whether simply through influence or more directly, they could turn these foreign courts (or various non-state entities) against the Tokugawa. By the very nature of their bases of power being so far away, they represented unknown quantities, beyond Tokugawa control, and potential rivals or problems for the shogunate. Thus, the seclusion edicts aimed to sever their direct access to networks of supporters or suppliers/consumers in Japan, and to put some distance between Tokugawa Japan and these outside powers. - Wray 83.
  • Chinese ceramics - Qing monochromes: porcelains with more complex overglaze designs were fired in small updraft kilns at 750-800 C, while single-color porcelains were fired at 950-1100 C, in the cooler parts of large cross-draft kilns.[4]
  • A pair of screens today in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum, depicting Chinese lions on one side, and bugaku scenes on the other, may be Hanabusa Itcho's most expensive commission. - [6]
  • maritime restrictions: It is important to note that when the shogunate limited trade at Nagasaki to Chinese and Dutch trading ships, the restrictions were more about the origin or control of the vessels than about the ethnicity or nationality of each member of the crew. Southeast Asian ships captained by Chinese traders, or Chinese ships crewed in part by Southeast Asian sailors, were included among the tôsen, while ships and employees of the Dutch East India company, regardless of their German or Swedish cultural/national/ethnic origin, were wholly permitted under the policies.
  • A type of aromatic sandalwood called byakudan 白檀 was often inserted in small pieces into books, to help keep bugs away. Ginkgo leaves were often used for similar purpose.
  • There were perhaps as many as more than 1000 cases of Korean castaways being repatriated by Japanese authorities in 1599 to 1888. - Geoffrey Gunn, History Without Borders: The Making of an Asian World Region, 1000-1800, Hong Kong University Press (2011), 218.
  • Some 10,000 people took part in the Chichibu Incident. - Fujitani, Splendid Monarchy, 164.
  • Excavations at the Satsuma Edo mansion dug up some 2000 animal bones, of which roughly 60% were from pigs or boar. This in contrast to the 200 bones found at the Sendai Edo mansion, most of which were from horses, dogs, and cats. - Momoto 14.
  • The Hojoki is often transcribed today using a combination of kanji and katakana (and no hiragana), as it appears in a particular 13th century handscroll version, even though another famous bound-book version of the text, from around the same time, employs hiragana in place of the katakana.
  • Tigers were considered a master of the earthly realm, and were commonly paired with dragons, though typically in an inferior position - the left side of a pair of screens, with the dragon on the right. Leopards (with spots) were mistakenly believed to be the female of the striped tiger, so while a tiger alone is a masculine symbol of strength and power, a tiger depicted alongside a leopard is a symbol of fecundity and succession - appropriate in family areas of a castle, for example, but not in most other places. - timon screech, Obtaining Images, 36. - This likely derived from the Korean belief in a paired spotted female 麒 and striped male 麟, whereas the Japanese kirin was a singular creature. p350n8.
  • The eleven-headed Kannon was one of the first Esoteric Buddhist deities to be worshipped in Japan. - Met Museum gallery label.[7]
  • Horse armor was largely absent prior to the Edo period. It was only around 1600 that samurai began to armor their horses; and before long, it became largely decorative, rather than intended to be militarily effective. [8]
  • The Portuguese, collectively, owed more debt to Japanese than to any other Asian lender. Japanese investors and lenders to Portuguese ventures made considerable profits, often charging interest rates as high as 25-30% on their loans, and were able to do so due to the balance of high risk (weather, pirates) and potential for great profits for the Portuguese ventures themselves. Even Macao's city government itself owed considerable sums to Japanese sources. - Wray, 85.
  • Yokohama - formally opened to Western trade on 1859/6/2 (July 1). Opened as the treaty port instead of Kanagawa, which had been stipulated in the Harris Treaty, and which required considerable negotiation to change (move). Foreigners were permitted by the treaty to move freely within a 25km radius, but even so, the bakufu took efforts to isolate them from broader Japanese society, and from any significant locations along the Tokaido. (Kawasaki, Kanagawa, and Hodogaya-juku were still well within this 25km zone, but Shinagawa was probably not) This would serve both the pragmatic effect of keeping them from interfering with anything serious, but also the symbolic effect of showing, or suggesting, that things hadn't actually changed so much. They were restricted to Yokohama as they had been restricted to Dejima, and outside of these few concessions Japan for the most part remains "closed" and continues on as it had. (Tinello, 182-185)
  • For government of the Kingdom of Ryukyu: Ryukyu had yokome 横目 inspectors, too. The Naha yokome was in charge of investigating matters among the people of Naha. He was under the jurisdiction of the Tomari jitô. - Naha shizoku no isshô 那覇士族の一生 (Naha: Naha City Museum of History, 2010), 14.
  • Samurai armor - many suits of armor were made in the Meiji period explicitly for export, i.e. for foreign consumption as artworks or collectors' items. - Gallery labels, Hotta mansion.[9]
  • Taiping War - There is little evidence that China before the Taiping War was beset by deep or intractable racial animosities. Chinese and Manchus certainly did have resentment towards one another, but ethnic conflict was not the primary cause of unrest, and racial invectives were typically appended to more direct grievances, rather than being the grievance at the center. Even the Taipings did not unequivocally hypothesize irremediable hostilities between Chinese and Manchus based on static racial qualities. But, something did change with the Taipings, who used religion, ideology, and propaganda to promote the idea, to a greater extent than ever before, that “the Chinese people” were enslaved or oppressed by “the Manchus,” a barbarian “slave” race. The Taiping experience seems to have sharpened people’s consciousness of belonging to a “people” – no longer defined above all by their identity as bannermen, they were now Manchus, Mongols, Xibe, or Han, with ethnic histories, and futures. They were still generally quite loyal to the Qing, however, after the Boxer Uprising, these ethnic groups began to become more nationalistic, seeking independent states: once the Han overthrew the Qing and reclaimed China, they hoped to have an independent Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet, and/or East Turkestan again. - Crossley, Translucent Mirror, 342-343. (Needs to be reworded before posting!)
  • Xinhai Revolution: in 1912, the ROC government promulgated just two "articles of favorable treatment" (優待條件) - one guaranteeing certain privileges of the imperial family, including their continued holding of their private property (until the 1920s, when Imperial property began to be nationalized), and one offering protections for the rights and property of certain designated ethnic minorities. This came as part of a treaty with Mongols, Manchus, Tibetans, and Muslims, to try to protect the new China from antagonisms from newly independent neighboring states. - Crossley, Translucent Mirror, 344.
  • Kyogen - Kyogen costumes are based on the clothing of common people of the Muromachi period; unlike Noh costumes, they contain less luxury materials, such as gold and silver thread, and intricate embroidery. This makes Kyogen characters more approachable, more human or realistic. In the Edo period, however, bolder designs did begin to appear in the costumes. - TNM Gallery label, "Kyogen Masks and Costumes" [10]
  • Omote and uchi: A fine example of omote and uchi: in 1627/4/27, the retired daimyo Hosokawa Tadaoki of Kokura arrived in Edo. However, he was ill, and Shogun Iemitsu was ill too, so they didn’t announce his arrival, and gave the tatemae of his not being in the city. However, this also meant not being able to have any other daimyo (or other people) officially/publicly visit him.
    • Similarly, in 1644, Mori Hidenari, lord of Hagi/Choshu, received his official leave from the shogun, and sent his official notice that he would be departing Edo. But then his stomach began to hurt, and so he stayed secretly recovering for a time. However, a notice came from the roju, which he was obligated to sign. His rusuiyaku submitted it quickly, pretending that though the lord was on his way back to Choshu, this response had simply come quite quickly… (Yamamoto Hirofumi 山本博文, Sankin kôtai 参勤交代, Kodansha Gendai shinsho (1998), 178-179.)
    • When Siebold's daughter Oine was born in Dejima in 1827, the brothel to which her mother belonged filed a report officially stating she had been born in Nagasaki proper - thus seeking to absolve the brothel (and perhaps the mother herself) of violating laws against giving birth on Dejima. A record by the Yoriai ward headman states that he sent interpreters to Dejima to convince the Dutch that the girl was born in Yoriai-cho, and not on Dejima. - Leupp, 120-121.
    • Katsu Kokichi's example, too, of course.
    • (Tinello, 265) When the Shogun Iesada died in 1853, a messenger rushed from Edo to Kagoshima to convey a formal message that the shogun is indisposed and that the ryukyu embassy must be delayed. But, at the same time, the karo receiving this message, Niiro Hisanori, writes in his diary that he heard (由) that it was because of the shogun’s death.
  • Ryôsai kenbo - good wife, wise mother 良妻賢母.
  • In the late Asuka & Nara periods, the militias from the Kantô and southern Mutsu were known for having the best horses, and the best horsemen, and so when larger groups needed to be mobilized, it was these eastern warriors who were often called upon. The system of military conscription was eventually ended in 792, and though foot soldiers continued to form the core of Japanese armies in the 8th-10th centuries, by sometime in the 10th century, mounted warriors from select families - i.e. the samurai, or their precursors - came to be the dominant form of military power. - William de Bary, Sources of Japanese Tradition, vol 1, Columbia University Press (2001), 266.
  • Buddhist temples: Since Buddhism is not congregational, and there are no fixed periodic assemblies, the regular or occasional opening of the doors (kaichô) to show hidden Buddhas (hibutsu) was one way for temples to regulate or at least predict attendance. - Tim Screech, Obtaining Images, 119.
  • Dragons were an auspicious sign. They were believed to appear when the world was in order, and to be absent when the world was corrupt. - Tim Screech, Obtaining Images, 35.
  • The most fundamental purpose of hanging a painting was that it brought auspiciousness, in accordance with the season or occasion. - Tim Screech, Obtaining Images, 40. I imagine something could be said for it simply augmenting or emphasizing the occasion as well, making spring feel more like spring, and making a somber occasion feel more somber, etc.
  • In East Asia, the representation of realistic likeness in painting or sculpture was always considered an expert artisan skill, but not something of artistic talent. This is the work of the anonymous if skilled craftsman, not of a great man whose name should be lauded. Figures such as Wu Daozi and Zhang Sengyou painted creatures as they were, not as they looked, paintings that contained "spirit resonance" or vitality as described by Xie He (気韻生動). - Timon Screech, Obtaining Images, 26.
  • Buddhist sculptures: Traditionally, in the Edo period and earlier, people were generally not concerned with the aesthetic beauty of Buddhist sculpture, but rather with its efficacy. - Tim Screech, Obtaining Images, 119.
  • Portraits - were chiefly made "to aid memory or for the ritual purpose of veneration or funeral." The more elite someone was, the more elite someone would need to be to see that person's portrait; "the rule of thumb seems to have been that if you could meet the person, you could view their portrait; if not, not." - Timon Screech, Obtaining Images, 165.
  • Paired screens were the loftiest format; triptychs were one step down. - Tim Screech, Obtaining Images, 33.
  • Outer Mongolia officially secedes from China in January 1946. - Ping-Ti Ho, "The Significance of the Ch'ing Period in Chinese History," Journal of Asian Studies 26:2 (1967), 190.
  • Though women were banned from professional sumo, and banned from even touching the dôhyô, all the way up until the 1950s there were unofficial, misemono matches with mixed-gender or all-female fighters. ("Tongue in Cheek: Erotic Art in 19th-Century Japan," Honolulu Museum of Art, exhibition website, accessed 30 November 2014.)
  • In the Edo period, there was in most regions no peasant custom as to a widow's obligations to her late husband's family. In widowhood, a woman was particularly free to do as she wished, to remarry or not, to remain with the husband's family or not, to return to her own parents' household or not, to travel, and so forth. Many took the tonsure in order to cement their new status, independent of any family obligations. - Amy Stanley, Selling Women: Prostitution, Markets, and the Household in Early Modern Japan, UC Press (2012), 124.
  • In aftermath of 1616 bans on Christianity, loads of Japanese converts who had simply adopted Christianity at the orders of their lord renounced the religion. A written oath was required in many cases. Christianity enjoyed numbers around 300,000 in Japan at its peak around 1615, but by the late 1630s was reduced to only kakure Kirishitan pockets. - Robert Hellyer, Defining Engagements, 47.
  • In the Edo period, many domains ranked their vassals on three axes: honor ranking (kaku), government office (shoku), and basic income level (hôroku). Mentioned in Ikegami, Bonds of Civility, 133, but explained more fully in Ikegami, The Taming of the Samurai, 267-277.
  • Fukuoka han lost 2000 soldiers in the Shimabara Rebellion, in which Fukuoka, Karatsu, and Kagoshima together supplied around 700 ships. - Kalland, 214.
  • Samurai - up until Ieyasu's reign, peasants/commoners could prove themselves worthy in battle and be promoted to full samurai status. The lines between the status categories were much blurrier. But in Edo, one could only be samurai if one was born into it. - Eiko Ikegami, Bonds of Civility, 129.
  • Kirisute gomen - samurai could not simply kill anyone whenever they so desired without consequences. Only when survivors/witnesses could report that a samurai's conduct was so flawless, and the other party's misconduct so clear, would the samurai be able to escape some sort of punishment. - Luke Roberts, "Mori Yoshiki: Samurai Government Officer," in Anne Walthall (ed.), The Human Tradition in Modern Japan, Scholarly Resources, Inc. (2002), 33.
  • During the Edo period, Emperor was expected to devote himself to ritual; his courtiers, to maintaining the ancient customs of their ancestors, including literary practices, appreciating nature, and managing estates. - Anne Walthall, Human Tradition in Modern Japan, 1, 3.
  • Term "bakuhan taisei" coined by Itô Tasaburô　(伊東多三郎). Mercantilism in a Japanese Domain, 22-23.
  • Kangaku: The shogunate was not only concerned about Western books, but also Chinese books coming in through Nagasaki, which might have Christian elements. The shogunate's censorship project began with the establishment of a temple in Nagasaki, and the conscription of two Nagasaki book dealers into the shogunate's service. In 1639, Mukai Genshô, a Saga han Confucian scholar & physician, was appointed chief censor. He was followed by at least seven generations of successors. Book dealers were obliged to issue a pledge of their loyalty to uphold the polity (kôgi), etc., and to report any suspicious printed/written matter - including discussions of Christianity or military matters - which appeared at Edo, Osaka, Kyoto, Sakai, or anywhere else. A list of banned books was also circulated, and a number of prominent intellectuals are known to have possessed copies of the list, indicating their interest in what was censored. (Jansen, China in the Tokugawa World, 72-73)
  • Generally, only samurai, priests, physicians, and a few favored commoners (e.g. goyo shonin) were permitted to have surnames in the Edo period. (Kalland, 28.)
  • Satsuma, Choshu, Hizen and Tosa have together been called the seinan yûhan 西南雄藩, the great southwestern domains which overthrew the shogunate. - Ravina, Land and Lordship, 14.
  • In First and Second Choshu Expeditions (1864, 1866), Fukuoka han contributed 2,000 corvee laborers (fishermen etc who transported troops), who were enlisted away from home for a span of two whole months. - Kalland, 214.
  • Roberts draws a distinction between samurai (retainers with the right of audience, the right to bear two swords, and the right of entry into domainal registers of retainers, known as bugen'iri) and other figures such as ashigaru, kachi, and others not possessing such rights. All were bushi (warriors) or hôkônin (military servants), but samurai made up only the top 10 percent of retainer households. - Mercantilism in a Japanese Domain, 33.

Tsushima officials worked with Korean officials to ensure that Christian devotees or materials were not permitted to enter Japan. Satsuma officials, similarly, sent a special envoy to Shuri to speak to the court about the shogunate's concerns that Christians might have fled to Ryukyu and might be hiding out there; also, that Spanish missionaries from the Philippines should not be allowed to land in the Ryukyus (particularly the more remote southern islands) and preach there. Shuri then strengthened its coastal surveillance efforts in the southern islands. Over the course of the entire Edo period, Satsuma conveyed more than 20 anti-Christian directives to the authorities at Shuri. - Robert Hellyer, Defining Engagements, 47-48.

  • Though the term chôtei is used quite standardly today to refer to the Imperial Court, the terms used in the Edo period were, much more commonly, kinri 禁裏 and kinchû 禁中. - Watanabe Hiroshi, Luke Roberts (trans.), "About Some Japanese Historical Terms," Sino-Japanese Studies 10:2 (1998), 38-39.
  • David Noble translates 中華 as "central flowering." - Mitani Hiroshi, David Noble (trans.), Escape from Impasse, 38.
  • The word yari is said to appear for the first time in the Miidera chapter of the Taiheiki, and in no earlier literature. - Told Round a Brushwood Fire, 142, 294n180.
  • Samurai were required to provision themselves. Arms and armor were not provided by the lord, but rather each man was expected to show up fully equipped and prepared, or else suffer severe consequences. (see docs read in sorobun class)
  • Scholar-officials came to be known as "mandarins" from a Sanskrit word for "councilor" which entered Hindi, then Malay, where it was picked up by the Portuguese and was then adopted by other Europeans. - Craig, Heritage of Chinese Civ, 109.
  • In the Forbidden City, during the Tang Dynasty, emperors sat together with their grand councilors to discuss matters of state. In the Song, officials stood in the emperor's presence. In the Ming, the emperor sat on a raised dais, and the officials knelt in his presence. Behind the audience hall were the emperor's private chambers and harem. In 1425, the palace had 6300 cooks serving 10,000 people every day. By the 17th century, there may have been as many as 9000 court ladies and 70,000 eunuchs. - Craig, Heritage of Chinese Civilization, 107-108.
  • The Yongle Emperor's rebuilding of Beijing involved 100,000 artisans and one million laborers. The city lay within three sets of walled enclosures; the imperial city lay within the outer walls, and beyond that, within an inner set of walls, was the Forbidden City. The palace itself contained some 9000 rooms, and front courts measuring 400 yards on a side, furnished with impressive marble terraces and curved railings. - Worlds Apart Worlds Together, vol B, 431.
  • Railways expanded from 350 to over 2000 miles of track in 1885-1895. The last link in the Tokaido line connecting Tokyo to Kobe was completed in 1889. In 1891, this line was extended to connect Ueno to Aomori, and by 1901, down the other way as far as Shimonoseki, where it connected up with Kyushu railroad networks already in place. By 1907, there were over 5000 miles of track. - Takashi Fujitani, Splendid Monarchy, 202.
  • The number of county seats in the Chinese bureaucracy remained relatively stable over the centuries, as county boundaries were regularly redrawn to accommodate the growing population. They numbered 1180 in the Han, 1235 in Tang, 1230 in Song, 1115 in Yuan, 1385 in Ming, and 1360 in Qing. - Benjamin Elman, A Cultural History of Civil Examinations in Late Imperial China, University of California Press (2000), 130.
  • Agriculture began in China in the Yellow River valley c. 5600-4000 BCE. The chief crops were millet, taro, and yams, with rice cultivation first emerging in southern China & Vietnam, and wheat being later introduced from the west. - Craig, Heritage of Chinese Civilization, 2.
  • Bronze appears in China c. 2000 BCE, which is 1000 years later than Mesopotamia, and 500 years later than in India. - Craig, Heritage of Chinese Civilization, 6.
  • Watanabe Kazan, in his Saikô seiyô jijôsho 再校西洋事情書, wrote that the major part of India had become a British possession, and that some coastal areas were Portuguese and French colonies. - Rambelli, Idea of India, 263.
  • The character 士, which comes during the Warring States era to refer to scholar-bureaucrats, did prior to that refer to warriors. (Craig, Chinese Civ, 12) Thus, the Japanese usage, as in bushi 武士、士族, sort of comes back around, referring specifically to the warrior class while also possessing the connotation of the refined, cultured, cultivated scholar-bureaucrat.
  • Hawaii enjoyed most favored nation status, and thus extraterritoriality in Japanese ports. - Masaji Marumoto, "Vignette of Early Hawaii-Japan Relations: Highlights of King Kalakaua's Sojourn in Japan on His Trip around the World as Recorded in His Personal Diary", Hawaiian Journal of History 10 (1976), 62.
  • The popularity of imported karamono in the Muromachi period, and the need/desire to display them, contributed to the development of shoin architecture, including the chigaidana shelving, tokonoma alcove, etc. - H. Paul Varley, "Ashikaga Yoshimitsu and the World of Kitayama: Social Change and Shogunal Patronage in Early Muromachi Japan", in John Hall and Toyoda Takeshi eds., Japan in the Muromachi Age, 1977, University of California Press, (Berkeley), 192.
  • Heian gardens are viewed from a stationary position from within the palace, versus Zen gardens meant for contemplation – not for beauty or for poetry - , versus Edo gardens which are walking gardens, for moving through.
  • The earliest extant record listing the names of kyogen pieces dates to 1464 and is known as the Tadasu-gawara Kanjin-Sarugaku. The diary of Shôjô shônin of Ishiyama Honganji, written c. 1532-1554 indicates some as well, and a volume known as the Tenshô-bon, written in 1578/7, contains synopses of over 100 pieces. Kyôgen no Hon (1642), written by Ôgura Toraaki (d. 1662), 13th head of the Ôgura school, is the earliest real volume of kyogen scripts. In addition to other writings by Toraaki, four other anthologies of kyogen plays were compiled between 1646 and 1660. - Andrew Tsubaki, "The Performing Arts of Sixteenth-Century Japan: A Prelude to Kabuki," Educational Theatre Journal 29:3 (1977), 302.
  • On origins of samurai/bushi, Karl Friday writes that during the Heian period, they were essentially miyako no musha, with much closer associations to their social peers within the Court & aristocracy than to a warrior or bushi identity, and that it was only after the establishment of the Kamakura shogunate and of the gokenin hierarchy that a distinctive bushi identity began to emerge. More details of his argument/explanation can be seen at: Karl Friday, Samurai Warfare and the State in Early Medieval Japan, Routledge (2004), 10.

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Roger Keyes, Ehon, NYPL 2006, p70.

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  • hikime kagihana 引目鉤鼻 - simple line for the eyes, hook for the nose (in Heian/Kamakura emaki, e.g. Tale of Genji.
  • fukinuki yatai 吹抜屋台 - "blown off roof" pictorial technique.

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Lane p311 for pigments

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Tim Clark's article on Kabuki, for bios of Nakamura Nakazo I, Yanagisawa Nobutoki, and other good stuff.

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  • Several historical figures are believed to have been manifestations of the Guze Kannon, starting with Queen Srimala (勝鬘夫人) who heard the dharma directly from Shakamuni, the Chinese monk Nanyue Huisi 南岳慧思, King Songmyong 聖明 of Paekche, and finally Shotoku Taishi, believed the final living manifestation of Guze Kannon. - Rambelli, The Idea of India, 245.
  • Ataka & Kanjincho take place in Komatsu, Ishikawa-ken
  • Noodles from millet first made in China c. 3000-2000 BCE. (Crossroads & Cultures p379)
  • Tsuruya Shôgen 鶴屋将監 - wakô raider
  • Kaiin Jôko, a monk from Kyoto who became abbot of Shuri Enkakuji
  • Hachisuka clan were not samurai!? but were merchants, arms merchants.
  • Gusuku article needs expansion, from articles, from Kerr, etc. - currently cites only Kitahara
  • Wet rice cultivation in mainland SE Asia by c. 1st century CE, spread to Java by 8th century.

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"The magistrate offices of North and South Edo, which took turns overseeing city administration, from fire prevention and publishing activities [i.e. censorship], to the adjudication of civil suits, operated with a staff of about 500 samurai officers. Of this number, only 24 were assigned to 'patrol duties' resembling the function of a modern police officer." - Ikegami Eiko, Bonds of Civility, p307.

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It is believed that over two thousand travel accounts were composed in the Edo period, including more than sixty relating to the island of Ezo. -- Plutschow Edo Period Travel Reader, p2

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Over 11,000 terakoya were established in the Edo period. - Arts of the Bedchamber exhibition website. Honolulu Museum of Art. (http://shunga.honolulumuseum.org/index.php?page=1)

  • See Dusinberre (Hard Times in the Hometown) pp34-36 for effects of Meiji changeover on port towns. after 1871, han are abolished, and local/regional taxes come to be paid in cash, not in kind, eliminating a large sector of the shipping of rice and other goods through the inland sea. Domainal monopolies and monopsonies also come to an end, exposing local industries to international competition – local industries in salt, cotton, etc. suffer or struggle. // most private merchant shippers (kitamaebune operators) cannot afford to purchase steamships, and so lose out to corporations like Mitsubishi, who can afford such investments, and who then come to dominate the shipping industry.
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