early japan

[thomas]

Guest adam joeseph asked:

How was early japan affected by contact with koreans and chinese?

[thomas]

Adam,

the question you raised is a very complex one indeed. Not being a qualified historian myself, I am not presuming to answer, I'll list you a few online resources that certainly allow you to find further information:

=> Ancient Japan, Site of the Month in March

=> Schauwecker's Historical Guide to Japan, please refer to the chapters "Early Japan" and "Nara and Heian Periods"

=> We Love History, a Japanese web site that features articles on early Japanese history.

[samuraitora]

Those are some fabulous sites thomas...thank you

[moyashi]

For lazy people,

Korea and China influenced in many ways. They have also found artifacts in old-old emperor graves ... lol ... but most Japanese wouldn't know that since it would require re-writting Japanese history.

[miyuki]

In early Yayoi period (BC3C-AD3C), rice culture was from China and Korea.
One of history books writtten in China in late 3rd century says,
Himiko,the queen of Yama taikoku in Japan, sent envoys to Gi and the king gave her mirrors or a seal made of gold .
At that time,mirrors made of bronze showed a power.
In fact,many mirrors made in China were found from old graves here.
In 3rd century we didn't have any letters.
Only Chinese wrote about Japan in their books.

Japanese first history book 'Nihon syoki' written in 8C said,
'late 4th century, Japanese government have relationship with small countries called kara in Korea.'

In 6th century, Buddhism came from Korea.

During 4th to 6th century, People from Korea brought us Kanji or
fabric,iron making etc.,

[miyuki]

In the process of being formed the Japan's first coalition government 'Yamato ohken,' people or culture from Korea and China greatly affected
it in many ways.

[lexico]

Originally Posted by miyuki

In early Yayoi period (BC3C-AD3C), rice culture was from China and Korea.
......
In 3rd century we didn't have any letters.
......
Only Chinese wrote about Japan in their books.
......
Japanese first history book 'Nihon syoki' written in 8C said,
'late 4th century, Japanese government have relationship with small countries called kara in Korea.'
......
During 4th to 6th century, People from Korea brought us Kanji or
fabric,iron making etc.,

Hello, Miyuki. Thanks for forwarding my question to Thomas. I think the problem is solved. I will contact Thomas if I have any further questions regarding system use.

I just read the above post today, and found your summary quite useful because I have not formally studied early Japanese history. I presume that this was the view generally accepted by Japanese scholars in 2002 when you wrote it. Is your summary still valid now as it was then? Has there been any updates, revisons, or corrections to it?

One more minor question. The summary said Japan had no written records in 3rd century. And it also said that the first Japanese history Nihonsyoki was written in the 8th century. But if Nihon syoki records historical events before 4c(does it?), how could memory of the period before 4c be preserved without writing? I just think there has to be some kind of explanation for this discrepancy. Are you aware of any?

Is there any "oral history" which was used before 4c that got written down, and passed down to 8c Nihon syoki?
Or was there some kind of non-chinese script used in Japan, for example numerals or pictograms for book keeping purposes?
Or could the raw data have been quoted from Chinese or Korean sources?

The 4th to 6th century transmission of high civilization from Korea/Kara seems rather late, too.

If you know anything about this, please let me know. With early development of pottery, intensive dwelling, rice agriculture, and political unions in Japan, I just feel there must have been some kind of recording system to keep track of the traffic of foods, materials, and political alliances. I wonder if anything of this nature has shown up in Japanese archeology or history.