I wonder what your overall impression of Japanese women is?
Is that so?
Like this?
Still like this?
Perhaps in the eyes of ordinary people, what this book talks about is the so-called Yamato Nadeshiko.
In my eyes, there are probably three images of Japanese women:
The first impression is that Japanese makeup skills are very powerful.
There is a saying on the Internet that there are four major witchcraft in Asia, namely Thai sex reassignment, Korean plastic surgery, Japanese makeup and Chinese PS. Whether Japan's makeup skills can be selected will, to a certain extent, indicate the extent of Japanese women's makeup skills. At least since high school, Japanese women will not meet people with bare faces. I watched a Japanese drama in which the heroine even wore light makeup after taking a shower.
This can show from the side how persistent Japanese women are about beauty.
The second impression is closer to traditional Japanese women. There is a special term to describe this kind of Japanese female image, called "Yamato Nadeshiko", which has rich connotations, including "charming, soft and elegant" , considerate, polite manners, gentle conversation." (I feel so tired)
Many of the looks in anime are like this. Most of the characters are the eldest ladies of aristocratic families, and they play the role of the student council president in school.
The third impression is that Japan is the birthplace of Asian danbi culture, and among danbi culture, I am most familiar with Japanese danbi comics.
Broadly speaking, Danmei comics are a branch of girls’ comics, and it can be seen that the vast majority of its audience is women. Regarding why Danmei comics are popular, different disciplines have studied them from different angles. I have read a relatively reliable book with the following opinions. I will list them one by one for the readers' convenience.
The first view is that women are dissatisfied with the relationship between the sexes in real life, so they vent it through other channels. One of the manifestations is the prevalence of beauty culture, especially in countries where patriarchy and patriarchy are prevalent. of East Asia.
The second view is close to the first view, but it is an extension of the first view. It believes that the popularity of Danmei culture is women’s revenge psychology. In Danmei comics and novels, it is inevitable to write To a large amount of violence and sexual descriptions.
The third view is that women avoid the real female lifestyle when reading Danmei works.
The fourth view is that this is a manifestation of women’s awakening of self-awareness.
But in any case, Danmei culture originated in Japan and is inseparable from Japan’s unique cultural structure. It is conceivable that women’s social status in Japan always has a sense of division: on the one hand, its Another aspect that has had a huge impact on Japanese history and culture is the inequality of gender status in Japan.
(In fact, China is not much better. How could it be so popular if it weren’t for the beauty?)
Put aside these real-life impressions and let us go back to history. A clearer understanding of the role played by Japanese women.
As the author of the book "History of Japanese Women" said: "Japan can be said to be the only country whose matriarchal social ideology extended to the Middle Ages. The depth of love, beauty of thought, and elegance of behavior of its women are all beyond the Imagine."
This book lists dozens of influential women in Japanese history. The author now analyzes the impact of Japanese women on their country based on his own knowledge structure.
First let’s start with the Age of Mythology. When it comes to this era, we have to mention Amaterasu, the highest god of Japanese Shintoism. She (yes, that is her) is also revered as the ancestor of the Japanese emperor.
“Regarding Amaterasu’s dignified character, solemn behavior, and spiritual appearance, some people in later generations believe that she is a copy of Athena in ancient Greek mythology, while others believe that she is a mythical version of Queen Himiko. ."
Later, Amaterasu sent his descendants to rule the Japanese islands.
From the myths, we can smell some traces of the matriarchal society. For example, in the mythical age of China, all emperors had the bloodline of the Yellow Emperor, the ancestor of Chinese humanity. The origin of Japanese mythology is likely to show that Japan's matriarchal society stage has a profound impact on it.
So this can explain why there are no fewer than eight female emperors in Japanese history.
Since we talked about the reaction of matrilineal society in Japanese history, I thought of a passage in "The Tale of Genji": the male protagonist Genji's wife Aoi was in the father-in-law's house, not in Genji's house. At home, when I saw this paragraph in high school, I was still puzzled. Later I learned that it was a remnant of the "walking marriage system" in matrilineal clan society. The era of The Tale of Genji is Japan around 1000 AD, when the Chinese dynasty was the Northern Song Dynasty.
In the mythical age of Japan, there were what later historians called the "three founding shrine maidens": Amaterasu, Himiko, and Empress Kamiko. The deeds of Queen Shen Gong have been publicized in Japan from the Meiji era to World War II.
If Amaterasu and Himiko represent the influence of Japanese matrilineal clan society on the later Japanese royal family and social customs, then Empress Kamiko represents the role that Japanese women sometimes play in politics.
Queen Shengong, according to the opinions of modern mainstream historians, is a mythical figure who probably lived from 170 AD to 269 AD). It is said that she went to the Korean Peninsula three times to open up territory for Japan. Expanding soil. It is precisely because of this deed that Empress Jinggong was vigorously promoted by the rulers of Japan during the Meiji period.
During the reign of Emperor Suiko, the first female emperor in Japanese history, he appointed Prince Umado, later Prince Shotoku, which started a wave of Japan learning from China's Sui and Tang Dynasties. This wave This lasted until 984 AD when Japan stopped sending envoys to the Tang Dynasty.
Emperor Suiko was Prince Shotoku’s aunt. With her acquiescence, Prince Shotoku gradually transformed Japan’s traditional customs. Main, on the other hand, is a defender of traditional Japanese Shintoism. When she felt that Prince Shotoku was too close to Buddhism, she deliberately performed a ceremony to worship the gods in the palace to remind Japan that the gods were the foundation of the country.
If Empress Jinko and Emperor Suiko can represent the political influence of Japanese female aristocrats, then Hojo Masako and later Kasuga Bureau represent the political influence of samurai class women.
First, let us tell about Masako Hojo.
In order to make it easier for everyone to understand this person, you can compare Empress Lu in Chinese history to Masako Hojo. This is enough to show that this woman is not simple.
Hojo Masako was the head wife of Minamoto Yoritomo, the founder of the Kamakura shogunate, the first shogunate in Japanese history. When her husband was alive, the Hojo family behind her contributed a lot to the establishment of the Kamakura shogunate. After Minamoto Yoritomo died, she kept the shogunate in power. When the Japanese imperial army came to attack Fuchen, During the shogunate period, she told her samurai warriors to fight hard, and in the end the shogunate army won a complete victory.
Later, she became a nun, but she still controlled the shogunate and was known as "General Ni".
At the beginning of the Edo period, the appearance of a woman also had an impact on Japanese history. She was Kasuga Bureau, the wet nurse of the third generation shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate.
Everything she did showed the characteristics of samurai class women - be bold.
First, she met with Tokugawa Ieyasu and asked him to publicly support Tokugawa Iemitsu's successor status. For this historical event, I suggest you watch the Japanese TV series "Oku Part 1"
Secondly, on behalf of the second-generation Tokugawa Shogun, she persuaded the Emperor of Japan to give up the throne to the granddaughter of the second-generation Shogun. In order to meet the Emperor of Japan, Afu, who was still named Afu at that time, recognized a certain minister as his adopted brother, and only met the Emperor as the minister's adopted sister. After the incident was over, Emperor Gomizuo named her "Kasuga Bureau".
If you talk about this, there will be more to say. First, let us look at the impact of Japanese women on their country's culture.
The representative figures here are the so-called Sancai Yuan of Japan's Heian period: Seishonagon, Murasaki Shikibu and Izumi Shikibu.
The term "Guoxue" used in modern China is the concept of "Guoxue" borrowed from Japan by scholars in the late Qing Dynasty. These Japanese "Guoxue" refer to the cultural representatives and spirit of their own country. The religion is Shintoism, and the culture is the Japanese classical books represented by "The Tale of Genji", "The Diary of Izumi Shikibu" and "Pillow" handed down from the Heian period. The authors of these three books are all from the Heian period in Japan. Written by Sancaiyuan.
First, let us tell about Qing Shaonagon. Her representative work is "Pillow", which is a representative work of Japanese essay literature. This work laid the foundation for later Japanese prose.
In this work, we can see this talented woman’s criticism and complaints about current ills. For example, satirizing some people for being pretentious, doing good things, and being nosy.
The other one is Murasaki Shikibu, who lived in the same era as Seishonagon. However, Seishonagon and Murasaki Shikibu are opposites. They serve in different palaces, and they compete for favor with each other. I won’t go into details about the significance of “The Tale of Genji”, but here is a bit of gossip. You can see the inner drama of these outstanding women:
Murasaki Shikibu’s evaluation of Seishonagon:
“Seishonagon has such a big air. She is so self-righteous. In fact, if you look carefully, there are many things that are not necessarily correct... How can the results of a person like this have a good sense?"
Murasaki Shikibu's "The Tale of Genji" is considered to be the world's earliest full-length novel. It had a huge impact on Japanese literature and started the tradition of mourning for objects in Japanese literature.
And Izumi Shikibu is the representative of traditional Japanese poetry - Waka, and is called the "soul of Waka."
4. Japanese women's shadow play of Japanese
There are currently four Japanese systems, namely kanji, hiragana, katakana and romaji. Among them, Romaji was the last to be introduced into the Japanese system, while Chinese characters were the earliest to be used. Later, Japan began to "move away from Chinese", and the result was "kana".
Hiragana was born for writing Japanese songs and stories. As mentioned before, the creator of Waka and Monogatari and the one who had the greatest influence was Sancaigen during the Heian period. Hiragana is generally used by women.
Katakana is used in current Japanese to mark foreign sounds, but it was created to understand Chinese characters. Generally, the users are men.
Looking at kanji, katakana and hiragana, they give people different feelings. Generally, Chinese characters are written in regular script, and katakana is derived from the regular script of Chinese characters; while hiragana is derived from Chinese cursive script, which gives people the impression of flowing clouds and flowing water. So when I read Hiragana and Katakana, it’s really a strange feeling.
It seems that if you don’t understand Japanese women, and really understand Japanese history and culture, you are missing a lot.