JAPANESE CULTURE.

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During the following years, different shogun controlled Japan, many civil wars passed between powerful families, the Mongolians attempted to invade Japan, but a typhoon destroyed the Mongolian army and saves Japan.

By the 1540’s, Portuguese ships arrived to japan carrying new items to Japan which they had never seen before, the most important object that Portuguese carried and were influential in feudal history were guns, and example of its effect in society was the Nagashino battle where two thousand guns were used to shoot against a samurai army who still carried swords, by the result of this battle the samurai power was seriously threatened. As years passed, other countries came to Japan expecting to commerce object but with this it also arrived Catholic missionaries.

In the sixteenth century the daimyo Oda Nobunaga and his successor Toyotomi Hideyoshi reunified japan, when Hideyoshi died in 1598; Tokugawa Ieyasu came to power and was given the title of shogun by the emperor. His shogunate governed from Edo which is modern Tokyo, this period was marked by being prosperous and peaceful, this period of time is well known as the Edo period, and it also imposed a strict class system in Japan and cut the majority of contact from the rest of the world.

All this lead to a new form of control called feudalism, which is based in giving power to the leaders of different armies who controlled pieces of land all across Japan rather than one person controlling everything, these landholders were called daymos and to the most powerful of all it was granted the title of shogun by the emperor.

This new type of reign brought many changes in japan, the Yamato family remained as emperor but it was seen as a political figure without power because the shogun, daymos and samurais held the true power, other changes were that japan began to create their own unique culture and didn’t imitate the Chinese.

The end of feudalism in Japan began when western countries began to pressure the commerce between japan and them; this made the shogun loose power and later resigned from its charge; that is when the emperor was restored to power. This marked the end of feudalism and began the empire by first adopting some western politics, legal system and constitutional government.

II: Traditions

In war times, it was a tradition to rip off their enemy’s head and show it to the shogun, that way the shogun congratulate and pay more to the samurais who brought more heads, but by the sixteenth century there was a fierce and great war against Korean, there were so many dead people that samurais only took ears and noses form their enemies because carrying all the heads were a problem.

The “geisha” appears as entertainment for professionals, mostly they were men who used make up and had artistic aptitudes like singing, dancing, acting, there were also women geisha, both types of geisha gave sexual entertainment, by the 1800’s there were more women geisha than men so the term was used to refer to women.

Sokushinbutsu its referred to Buddhist monks who mummified themselves in life by keeping a strict diet consisting in three steps, the first one is to make a special diet that eliminated all the fat from their body so this way the body doesn’t decompose itself once is dead, the second consisted in drinking a special tea that provoked vomits, sweats and constantly urinate, this makes the body venomous to worms and other insects that want to eat it, and the third part was building a coffin and putting the monk inside in lotus position still living until its death, once dead the other monks buried the dead monk for another thousand days, and if everything was well done, they had a perfect monk mummy

The seppuku or Hara-Kiri it’s when a samurai committed suicide, this was an honorable way of dying, this consisted in having the samurais dress in a white kimono, eat his favorite food and when he finished eating it is presented his other sword, one that it is shorter than the katana, so the he ripped his stomach and died honorably.

III: Art

During feudal Japan there were four periods: the kamakura, Muromachi, Azuchi-Momoyama and edo period.

The Kamakura art was represented by its sculpture, the Kei school sculptor Unkei made supra-realistic figures, he created sculptures from about eight meters tall, and these sculptures were carved from multiple blocks in a period of three months by using a group of workers under his command.

During the Muromachi period japan went through a deep change and this change lead the shogun to change its capital which marked the end of the Kamakura period, this brought end to its culture and that’s why during the new period their culture became more sophisticated. All those beautiful houses (castles alike) were build, painting was influenced by the Chinese because Zen temples went to China to make trending missions and they end up bringing new art.

In the Azuchi-Momoyama period paintings changed not only its structure, but how big was normally built those big houses had a painting all over the ceiling or all over the walls inside the house.

In the Edo period everything changed, architecture, painting and sculpturing; the architecture combined the classic styles of Japan with innovative restatements, its consisted in having a mini temple like houses surrounded by gorgeous gardens; the paintings were more colorful and recreated themes about nature and literature; a monk named Enku carved one hundred twenty thousand Buddhist images, making that, the most representative sculptures of the time.

IV: Literature

Japanese literature was influenced by their contact with China and its literature, Indian literature had also influenced over the Japanese because of the diffusion of Buddhism. Japan owns style began when Japanese writers began to write about Japan; it also was influenced when Japan reopened to the western and eastern world; this affected literature on both sides, one of the best examples of Japanese literature is the “Hagakure”, this books explains the culture and way of living of a samurai, it is also a source of important values and teachings.

V: Way of living

There were seven classes of people in feudal japan the political leader, nobles, warriors, paid soldiers, farmers, craft people and sales people.

The political leader were the emperor and the shogun, the emperor was the supreme ruler and has divine power but during this time he held little political