Terrified of death, having inflicted it on many, the Chinese ruler Qin Shi Huang (259-210 B.C.) sent his court sage, Xu Fu, across the eastern seas in quest of the elixir of eternal life. Xu Fu's 60 ships, carrying (says one version) 3,000 virgin ...
This story spans 10,000 years, yet presents few recognizable individuals. Here's one: "The earliest known Jomon man," writes J. Edward Kidder Jr. in "The Cambridge History of Japan," "was uncovered in 1949 below a shell layer in the Hirasaka shell mound in Yokohama City. He ...
You can live for years in a major city without knowing such a thing exists, but in more tranquil, less distracted settings, an unexpected ring of the doorbell as likely as not signals a neighbor bringing the kairanban (回覧板), an irregularly circulated newsletter put ...
Thirteenth-century Japan has this in common with early 19th-century Japan: a land culture paying scant heed to the sea until the sea, as though in outrage, rises up and compels attention. The dominant features of 13th-century Japan are Zen Buddhism and the newly empowered samurai; ...
At Tafushi Cape / Those gracious men of the court / gather seaweed. — "Manyoshu" (7th century) By the Bay of Ami / Lovely maidens board a boat, / their long skirts drenched / by the flowing tide. — Manyoshu There is a Pure Land of ...
Last week, Japan celebrated Umi no Hi (Marine Day). First observed as a national holiday in 1996, Marine Day marks the anniversary of the return of Emperor Meiji from a boat trip to Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido on July 20, 1876. It is intended, ...
"For 20 years I labored in the mission. The one thing I know is that our religion does not take root in this country." The speaker is a tragic figure. In 1632 the Portuguese Jesuit Christovao Ferreira, after 6 hours of torture in the pit ...
"It is 12:30 p.m. in Nagasaki, on March 17, 1865. Father Bernard Petitjean, a priest of the French Societe des Missions Etrangeres, hears a noise at the back door of his little chapel. On opening he is surprised to find a group of 15 ...
Some scholars say Japan's Christian history began long before the so-called "Christian century" (1549-c.1640). Their claim takes us all the way back to 7th- and 8th-century Nara, where Nestorian Christians from Persia are said to have built churches, operated a leper hospital and even ...
