Meiji Restoration

Well, I'm actually going to turn the question around, Gary, because I think you're better suited to answer that than me.

But just on the historical note, it's the Meiji Restoration in the late 1860s that was, I think, exactly triggered by encountering the outside world.

They'd been somewhat separated from developments in Europe and the United States.

In the 1850s, Commodore Perry shows up and the Japanese are like, oh, I see we've fallen behind on military technology.

in multiple

periods of their history.

After the Meiji Restoration, arguably they were catching up to the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States in productivity, in manufacturing, but they also adapted in agriculture.

In the post-war era, they didn't adapt in agriculture.

or a spirit within the Shinto faith.

The shrine commemorating him was built a year after his death and then destroyed by Tokugawa before being rebuilt after the Meiji Restoration, where it still stands today, a short way away from the Mimizuka.

I hate it when my haters start destroying my sepulcher.

I can't speak for its popularity, but I can say it currently has 3.7 stars on TripAdvisor.

Hmm.

So third period is really cool because, you know, what happens is in the Meiji Restoration, the 1860s, Ja- Japan realizes, oh my gosh, like, here we have been preserving these really amazing, beautiful arts.

Like the Japanese put a tremendous amount of energy-

Mm-hmm

They were using them to trim the trees, you know? Carefully choosing each leaf, which one to cut, and so on.

So like really, really particular.

So 19th century, the Meiji Restoration, right? That's when they say, "Oh my gosh, we put all this energy into samurai swords and stuff like that, and they're coming at us with Gatling guns," right? And so they, they embark with tremendous national unity and discipline on an attempt to rapidly modernize, to industrialize, to reevaluate the way their government works, the way their government is structured.

And that's the, the whole period that is a, a great national intellectual, spiritual struggle for the Japanese as they try to figure out how are we gonna become modern.

Yeah,

I mean, he was this new generation, right, of the new Japan, right? He's born just a few years before the Meiji Restoration.

He probably, when he was young, was educated in the old system in a Buddhist temple.

But then he graduates, you know, the high school he graduates from is like a prefectural high school.

Japan could modernize or it could risk becoming a colony.

The political revolution known as the Meiji Restoration began in 1868.

The old feudal system was dismantled, authority was centralized around the emperor, and the government launched one of the fastest modernization programs in history.

Japan built railways, shipyards, factories, schools, arsenals, and communication networks.

So, for example, the four novels I wrote are all set during the Bakumatsu period.

They're all set in the period between Commodore Perry and the so-called Meiji Restoration.

So I knew that bit really well.

And then I had done, there's a series called Age of Samurai, which is on Netflix, and they'd interviewed me for that.

Where are we there, Rana?

So the key year is 1868 because that is the year of what's become known as the Meiji Restoration.

Uh, the term restoration is used because for the Japanese at the time, it was supposed to be bringing the emperor, the Japanese emperor, back to the throne.

But in fact, really, it's a Japanese revolution.