r/JapaneseHistory

As far as I understand, the current evidence suggests Japonic-speaking populations originated in what is now southern and central Korea and gradually migrated to the Japanese archipelago over time.

What I’m curious about is what came before that. Did they move into Korea from southern China or even further south? I ask because some cultural similarities between Japan and Southeast Asian groups (Austronesian, Austroasiatic, Kra–Dai, etc.) are really fascinating to me—things like stilt architecture, tooth blackening, tattoo traditions, animistic practices, and spirit/shrine structures. According to Chinese records, both ancient groups were known for having tattoos and short hair, unlike the Han Chinese, who generally kept their hair long and uncut.

At the same time, modern Yamato Japanese seem genetically northern-shifted, so overall closer to Koreans and northern Chinese (Henan and Shandong) populations, while the Jomon are a much older layer that diverged from continental East Asians around 40,000 years ago.

So I’m wondering: how do people here think these similarities developed? Shared ancestry, cultural diffusion, parallel development, maritime networks, or something else?

America needed coal, ports, and a passage to China — and Japan happened to be in the way.

Our estate sale ended and we still have some geisha dolls, and I don’t know how to value them or sell them. Could I get help from this sub?

I have this print in real life.With minimal information on the back. Naturally , a google image search told me all sorts of things. As far as I know, there's no writing or explicit information about this man being a boat man except perhaps his clothing.

I think this image from 1832 is an actor in the role of a boatman in a tree. Could the play have been so popular that everyone knew this or do his clothes represent the trade of boatmen?

- please excuse the typos! voice to text without my reading glasses earlier :(

Hisashige Tanaka was the founder of the company that would become the root of Toshiba, and was an engineer who was active from the late Edo period to the Meiji era.

Hisashige Tanaka studied astronomy, Onmyōdō (Japanese esoteric cosmology), and calendrical science, and combined this knowledge to create a multi-functional astronomical clock called the "Man-nen jimei-shouaa(Man-nen dokei)."

The six-sided display and celestial sphere work in conjunction to visualize the flow of time, such as seasons and time of day, as caused by the movements of the Earth, Moon, and Sun. Furthermore, once wound, it operates continuously for one year.

The Perpetual Clock has undergone several restorations and is currently on display at the National Museum of Nature and Science.

In preparation for the 2005 Aichi Expo, a national project was implemented to disassemble and investigate the Perpetual Clock and create a replica using current technology for display.

Because it had been stored in a non-functioning state for some time, its original operation was not fully understood, but during this investigation and restoration process, the complex and intricate mechanism of the first-sided split-gear type Japanese clock was revealed.

I got so fascinated that I made an Apple Watch app based on it

It shows:

* traditional Japanese time

* sun / moon movement

* moon phase

* zodiac hour names

* seasonal hour changes

* star map

Wadokei57 was inspired by the 万年時計[まんねんどけい]（man-nen-dokei), an astronomical clock created by Hisashige Tanaka, the founder of Toshiba.

TOSHIBA
https://toshiba-mirai-kagakukan.jp/en/history/toshiba_history/hisashige.htm

Free beta version Wadokei57

https://testflight.apple.com/join/3vyH6nEG

App Store Wadokei57

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wadokei57-astronomical-watch/id6748839654

I came across this Meiji-era woodblock print in the National Diet Library Digital Collections and thought people here might find it interesting.

This is Seikai Bōdō Denshin Kibun, or “Telegraphic Chronicle of the Western Disturbance,” by Yōshū Chikanobu, published in 1877.

Original title:

西海暴動電信紀聞　〔神風連の輩種田政明少将の私邸を襲う〕

It is not a battlefield scene from the Satsuma Rebellion itself. The bracketed description identifies the scene as an attack on Major General Taneda Masaaki’s private residence by members of the Shinpūren. But it belongs to the same uneasy visual climate of the period: political violence, telegraphic language, rumor, and recent events turned into color woodblock images.

What struck me is that the print uses the language of “telegraphic” news, but does not show a telegraph machine. Speed and distance are announced in the title, while the image itself relies on older woodblock conventions: bodies, blades, labels, color, and explanatory text.

Source: National Diet Library Digital Collections

Rights note: Public Domain Mark, as indicated in the NDL IIIF manifest.

More archival-image essays are linked in my profile, if anyone is interested.

Translation:
Nations of the world criticizing the actions of the old Japanese army during the Nanking Massacre: “Why didn’t you kill all of them!!”