Factbook

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    Japan’s two oldest history books were translated into English for the first time by two British Japanologists in 1882 and 1896[UPDATED: 3-31-2026]

    The best sources for myths about the foundation of the Land of the Rising Sun are two early chronicles, the Kojiki, the Record of Ancient Things, and the Nihongi, the Japanese Chronicles.

    The Koji was complied in 712 and is the oldest extant Japanese book, while the Nihongi, the second oldest book of ‘classical Japanese history’, was compiled in 720 eight years later.

    Basil Hall Chamberlain (1850-1935), an academic and son of an Admiral who taught at Tokyo Imperial University and translated haiku amongst other things after arriving in Japan in 1873, was the first person to translate the Kojiki into English. His translation was published in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, in 1882.

    The Nihongi was translated into English by a contemporary, William George Aston (1841-1911), another 19th century British Japanologist, who started his Japan-related career in 1864 as a student translator at the British Legation, the precursor to the British Embassy in Tokyo.

    Aston’s translation was published in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan in 1896.

    That said, the oldest surviving Japanese book is not a book about Japan and its history, but a religious text written in 615. It is owned by Japan’s Imperial Family.

    Japan’s two oldest history books were translated into English for the first time by two British Japanologists in 1882 and 1896 Posted by Richard Nathan
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    William Shakespeare and the first Tokugawa Shogun are linked by one very important fact[UPDATED: 3-11-2026]

    Ieyasu Tokugawa (1543-1616), who founded a military state and a dynasty of shoguns that lasted 265 years, would not look out of place in one of Shakespeare’s Machiavellian plays. 

    Most of Shakespeare’s works were produced between 1589-1613 when Tokugawa was busy building alliances and fighting historically important battles in feudal Japan. 

    In 1603, when Tokugawa became the first Tokugawa Shogun, it is very unlikely that Shakespeare would have known anything about this samurai warlord who fought six major battles in his lifetime before initiating Japan’s longest period of peace and stability. 

    Had he known, he might have written a play about this warlord to complement such plays as The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, with a narrative that revolves around the themes of loyalty, patience and opportunistic cunning.

    The decisive battle involving 160,000 men that gave Tokugawa control of Japan was fought in 1600 at Sekigahara around the time that Shakespeare was writing Hamlet – and a few years before he penned Macbeth.  

    Tokugawa understood the importance of literature and was interested in the world outside Japan. King James I exchanged letters and gifts, including Japanese armour and a silver telescope, with him. And it is possible, but unlikely, that Tokugawa might have been made aware of Shakespeare through William Adams (1564-1620) the English navigator from Kent who become an important advisor to the Shogun on all things Western. 

    During his lifetime, Shakespeare did not enjoy the reputation he does today, and was considered by his contemporaries as one of many talented playwrights active at that time. Adams, whose life was fictionalized in the 1975 novel Shogun by James Clavell (1924-1994), arrived in Japan in 1600. The Bard of Avon’s popularity and reputation would have been growing but really only took off and became established after the publication in 1623 of Shakespeare‘s works in the First Folio, three years after Adams’s death. 

    Interestingly, when the Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998) adapted Shakespeare’s plays into films set in Japan, he set them in feudal Japan during the Senkoku period (1467-1603), which ended when Tokugawa came to power and the Edo Period (1603-1868) commenced. 

    Kurosawa’s first adaptation was Macbeth in 1957, which became The Throne of Blood. He then went on to make other successful films based on Shakespeare’s plays including King Lear and Hamlet. 

    Aside from the links between the dramatic narratives that featured in both Shakespeare’s plays and the events in Tokugawa’s life, the one uncanny fact that unites the two men is the year of their death: 1616. 

    Despite Tokugawa’s much riskier lifestyle, the warlord died at the age of 74, while Shakespeare died at the age of 52. Both men, however, left remarkable legacies that still resonate with students and academics today.

    William Shakespeare and the first Tokugawa Shogun are linked by one very important fact Posted by Richard Nathan
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    For a thousand years ‘The Tale of Genji’ was required reading for Japanese aristocratic women[UPDATED: 3-11-2026]

    The Tale of Genji written by Murasaki Shikibu, in 1010, during Japan’s Heian Period (794-1185) is said to be Japan’s oldest novel and perhaps even the world’s oldest novel, if a novel is defined as narrative prose of significant length.

    It has been since its very origin a tale for Japan’s high society, written for women by a woman. For a thousand years The Tale of Genji was required reading for Japanese aristocratic women, and was inaccessible to the general Japanese public for much of this time.

    According to academics: “it remained an aristocratic text, its manuscripts the property of aristocrats and aristocrats its principal interpreters.”

    That said, from the 17th century onwards it became more widely available after an edition was printed using movable type, a technology, which first arrived in Japan in 1593, and subsequently in woodblock printed editions.

    And due to its restricted availability, the refinement it portrays and its association with the highest and most sophisticated levels of Japanese society, it became an aspirational read for emerging upwardly mobile Japanese families in Japan’s Edo period (1603-1868) and their daughters, as well as an important tool in women’s education. Home teachers, often women used the text to teach girls reading and as part of their overall education.

    According to the Japan expert and former Editor of The New York Review of Books, Ian Buruma, The Tale of Genji, which is replete with rather promiscuous characters, is a novel all “about the art of seduction.”  And this has led, at times, to concerns being raised about the appropriateness of its content. In 1880s Japan, for instance, many worried that its lusty and emotional content might damage Meiji era (1868-1912) young women.

    This, however, didn’t put future generations of Japanese women off from wanting to read it. Hisako Yoshizawa (1918-2019) is one such interesting example. She is more famous for writing and publishing life style books and broadcasting on how to live a good life, but at the end of the Second World War durning nightly air raids, wearing her silk nightgown and a steel helmet, Yoshizawa, reportedly, liked to read The Tale of Genji to while the noisy dangerous nights away.   

    All this has helped make this 11th century tale by a Japanese noblewoman, an international publishing sensation, with translations, spin-offs and adaptations for manga, anime, film and theatre.

    Such authors as Mitsuyo Kakuta have followed a long tradition of Japan’s leading authors from each generation in updating and publishing a new version of this seductive novel about the life of “Shinning Genji”.

    This multi-generational trend has helped keep the rather long and esoteric tale, which in its original version consists of 54 scrolls or chapters; around a million words; about 430 different characters; 800 poems; as well as 8 or so love interests, fresh, and relevant to contemporary readers – while helping to expand its readership.

    For a thousand years ‘The Tale of Genji’ was required reading for Japanese aristocratic women Posted by Richard Nathan
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    Japan’s first portable ‘Reading Device’ was invented in 747[UPDATED: 2-18-2026]

    Legend has it that in the reign of Emperor Tenji (626-672), Japan’s 38th emperor, the discovery of a dead bat with burnt wings inspired a Japanese craftsman to make a prototype that was in fact the world’s first functioning folding fan. 

    Still it is hard to pinpoint exactly when these early wooden folding fans were developed and then upgraded into the beautiful folding paper fans Japan is now famous for. 

    That said, archaeologists have found inscribed fan-shaped wooden strips, known as mokkan, in Japan dating back to as early as 747. Mokkan were used for record keeping and are considered to be Japan’s first portable ‘memory-sticks’.

    Over time, through upgrades and enhancements mokkan morphed into exceedingly sophisticated Ogi, folding paper fans, highly fashionable handheld canvases that displayed art and poetry, as well as delightful and entertaining prose.

    Japanese folding paper fans, which have been described as portable handheld museums as well as reading devices, allowed their proud owners to project sophistication, taste and wealth at a flick of the wrist, at home or on the go.

    And Japan’s literati loved them as they allowed them to display, read and share short form writing, mostly poetry, at will.

    Japan’s first portable ‘Reading Device’ was invented in 747 Posted by Richard Nathan
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    Western Authors have been trying to decode and explain the mysteries of ‘Unfathomable Japan’ for over 100 years[UPDATED: 4-18-2025]

    The Nobel Prize committee cited Rudyard Kipling’s (1865-1936) writing on the manners and customs of the Japanese when they awarded him his Nobel prize in 1907.

    Kipling, an English journalist and author of books including The Jungle Book, visited Japan in 1889 and 1892. No other leading English literary figure of his day is thought to have spent so long in Japan or to have written so fully about the country. Thomas Cook, the travel agency, helped Kipling plan his first trip to Japan and onwards to the United States.

    Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) wrote in his 1889 essay The Decay of Lying that ‘the whole of Japan is a pure invention. There is no such country, there are no such people… The Japanese people are… simply a mode of style, an exquisite fancy of art,’ which triggered the following response from Kipling, who was just 23 and still unknown, on his arrival in Nagasaki in 1889: ‘Mister Oscar Wilde of The Nineteenth Century is a long toothed liar!’

    And perhaps ever since this trend of decoding with wit, intelligence and unique insight, ‘the paradox of Japan’ and the nation’s so-called contradictions, and demand for such publications, has continued.

    “The impression made on our minds by the people in Japan is, that they are a paradoxical race. They bow down before and worship the most hideous idols, groveling in the lowest form of Paganism, or they rise to the contemplation of the sublimest truths of philosophy,” Lord Redesdale and The Geishas. August 11th 1909.

    “While Japan’s history declares them aggressive, cruel, and revengeful, experience proves them yielding, merciful, and gentle,” writes Eliza R. Scidmore (1856-1928) in The Most Paradoxical Race.

    The phrase Paradoxical Race was actually used earlier by Arthur Adams (1820-1878), for example, in 1870, in his book Travels of a Naturalist in Japan and Manchuria, as a chapter heading. Other chapters in this book were titled; Unbecoming Custom, and The Literature of Japan.

    “We are fully cognizant of the fact that of books on Japan there is no end – many that are truly scholarly, the result of painstaking research. But alas! Also many that are mere impressionistic nonsense, or else wholly biased and prejudiced, either describing the Japanese as new race of supermen or making of them a nation of knaves – dishonest, crafty, and untrustworthy”, write Harold and Alice Foght in the preface of their book Unfathomed Japan, published in 1928. The book also states that: “Japan is really no longer “mysterious” as it has been depicted by a host of writers.”

    Despite this, a quick Google search shows that articles such as: Travelling Around Japan: A Cultural Paradox, Japanese Paradox, The Paradox of Harmony, Japan Land of Contradictions, Japan’s Paradox of Wealth, The Paradoxical Japanese History, Paradoxical Japan’s Payday ‘Will Come”, Paradoxical Japaneseness: Cultural representation in 21st century Japanese cinema, are still being written and read.

    Western Authors have been trying to decode and explain the mysteries of ‘Unfathomable Japan’ for over 100 years Posted by Richard Nathan
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    In 1905 a Japanese aristocrat felt compelled to write a book in English explaining Japan to Westerners titled: ‘Fantasy of Far Japan’[UPDATED: 10-15-2024]

    In 1905, a Japanese aristocrat, Baron Suyematsu (1855-1920), who was educated at Cambridge University, felt compelled to write two books in English in an early form of ‘myth-busting’ and ‘fake news’ management.

    It was a time where books were being written about Japan by Western writers that didn’t always depict Japan in a manner that the nation’s leadership was comfortable with.

    It was a period when the West seemed fascinated with all things Japan. In 1907, for instance, The Nobel Prize committee cited Rudyard Kipling’s (1865-1936) writing on the manners and customs of the Japanese when they awarded him his Nobel prize.

    One of Suyematsu books was titled Fantasy of Far Japan or Summer Dream Dialogues and was published by Archibald Constable in 1905. 

    In the book’s introduction he writes: “In publishing this volume, I am not in the least degree actuated by a desire to exalt my country unduly, – still less to boast about her achievements. My sole object has been to show Japan as she is, and to claim Occidental sympathy to such a degree as she may deserve”.

    He also writes: “In the following pages I have depicted certain Japanese ideas and notions, as well as some historical facts which seem likely to interest those of the sympathetic Western public who may be inclined to study the mental side of Japan.”

    Fantasy of Far Japan covers many topics: including, for example, Japanese Commercial Morality, The Code of Honour, Truthfulness, Bushikun, and more.

    In the book Suyematsu cites a letter from the Manager of the Publications Department of the Times, amongst other things, published in theTimes regarding the Encyclopedia Britannica sales in Japan to support the character of the Japanese people, their credit worthiness and trustworthiness.

    In the letter dated 7 October 1905 the Manager writes: “No one in the Times office, at any rate, can doubt that the standard of integrity among the Japanese is so high that when young men, who have bought the Encyclopedia, abandoned their employment to go to the front, their families promptly paid the installments due, under circumstances of the utmost difficulty.”

    Suyematsu second book, The Risen Sun, published in the same year also by Archibald Constable, in which he writes: “The Russo-Japanese war will remain a vital date in the history of the peoples. When it ended, in the victory of the Rising Sun, the contact of Japan with the Occident was established on terms of equality.”

    In The Risen Sun, he also explains the status of Japanese women in early 20th century Japan: “proportionally, the mental capacity of Japanese women to men seems to be pretty similar to that which their Western sisters are supposed to have to the men. We cannot, of course, predict what will be women’s place in the social sphere at large in the future; but one thing is certain: the educational system for women has been extended, together with that for men, to a proportion that Japan has never known before. Their emulation and aspiration increase year by year, so that the supply of educational institutions is always far behind demand”.

    Suyematsu’s name is also written as Kencho Suematsu. He was a leading Japanese politician of his era, as well as an author, holding various senior cabinet level positions including Communications Minister and Home Affairs Minister.

    In 1905 a Japanese aristocrat felt compelled to write a book in English explaining Japan to Westerners titled: ‘Fantasy of Far Japan’ Posted by Richard Nathan
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    In 1870s Japan there was huge demand for ‘corrupting’ crime fiction[UPDATED: 8-6-2024]

    “The books for which there is the greatest amount of demand are those that pack the greatest amount of crime into the smallest space, and corrupt the morals of all classes”, writes Isabella L. Bird (1831-1904) in Unbeaten Tracks in Japan: An account of Travels on Horseback in the interior including visits to the aborigines of Yezo and the Shrines of Nikko and Ise, published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons New York in 1881. The book follows Bird’s trip to the Land of the Rising Sun in 1878. 

    “There are large book shops which supply the country towns and the hawkers who carry books into the villages. ‘Pure Literature Societies’ are much needed in Japan,” writes Bird.

    “A bookseller tells me that eight-tenths of his very large stock consists of novels, many of them coarsely illustrated, and the remaining two-tenth of “standard works,” continues Bird.

    “You will be interested to know the names of some of those which few but the most illiterate families are without, and which take the place with us by the Bible and Pilgrim’s Progress”. 

    “There are certain books for women, called collectively the Bunko, and respectively Women’s Great Learning, the moral duties of women based upon the Chinese Classics”.

    And she also comments on the price of books observing that: “Books are remarkably cheap. Copyright is obtained by a Japanese author by the payment to Government of a sum equivalent to the selling-price of six copies of his work”. 

    Despite Bird’s concerns about criminal fiction and its corrupting influences more than a century ago, as well as the nation’s continuing love for the genre, Japan is today a peaceful nation, with low crime rates and very low homicide rates by most international measures.

    In 1870s Japan there was huge demand for ‘corrupting’ crime fiction Posted by Richard Nathan
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    The first English language edition of Kobo Abe’s ‘The Woman in the Dunes’ was illustrated by his wife Machi[UPDATED: 6-17-2024]

    In 1964, the year of the first Tokyo Olympics, Alfred A. Knoff published the first American Edition of Kobo Abe’s (1924-1993) The Women in the Dunes in English, translated by E. Dale Saunders (1919-1995).

    This first edition is beautifully illustrated with multiple drawings, rendered in pen and ink, by the author’s wife Machi who he met while he was at university studying medicine. Many believe his wife, who was an artist and theatre designer, was the inspiration behind his decision to quit the medical profession shortly after he graduated from university and one year after they married in 1947.

    The drawings depict not just the protagonists, but also the insects one of the novel’s protagonists collects while on a break from work at the start of the narrative, a break he finds it impossible to return from.

    One such illustration, for instance, consists of four rows of insects, each with four similar looking insects holding the feelers of the insect next to them, as if they are line dancing on the page.

    The Women in the Dunes, a jarringly dry novel about the futility and repetitiveness of modern Japanese existence, was Abe’s first novel published in English.  It had already won the Yomiuri Prize for Literature in Japan in 1960 and was published in America in English 16 years after Abe had made his debut as a writer in Japan.

    A film adaptation of The Women in the Dunes, directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara (1927-2001), with its unusually memorable sound track by Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996), also went on general release in the same year as the English edition was published in America in 1964.

    The film subsequently won the special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival the same year, helping launch Abe’s reputation and career outside Japan.

    Abe, son of a medical doctor, was brought up in Mukuden, Manchuria where his father was working at a medical school. And like the protagonist in The Women in the Dunes, Abe was fascinated with and collected insects from a young age. Despite all of this or because of it his own son subsequently decided to continue the family tradition and became a doctor.

    Abe was a fan of Nietzche, Heidegger, Jaspers as well as Kafka, an author that he has often been compared to. In fact, he is often given the moniker ‘The Kafka of Japan’.

    Abe studied medicine like his father, but in 1948 the year he graduated from Tokyo Imperial University, his debut book, The Road Sign at the End of the Road, was published. Three years later he went on to win the prestigious Akutagawa Literary Prize for his novel The Crime of Mr. S. Karuma.

    Abe was a highly creative individual who ran his own avant-garde theatre group and also wrote science fiction. His best-known work of science fiction, Inter Ice Age 4, published at the height of the Cold War in 1959, is thought by many to be one of the best works of science fiction written by a Japanese author.

    Unsurprisingly, Abe and The Woman in the Dunes in particular are still popular today amongst some of Japan’s most creative individuals. People like the up-and-coming film director Yuka Eda, director and screenwriter of the 2018 crowd-funded film Shojo Kaiko, Girls’ Encounter, and the 2019 drama 21st Century Girl.

    Such Japanese artists often cite Abe as being inspirational and hugely influential on their own work, but few recall or seem to be aware of the talents of his wife and her illustrations.

    The 1964 American edition of The Women in the Dunes contains the following text on the page opposite its copyright page: “Without The Threat Of Punishment There Is No Joy In Flight”.

    1964, Japan’s Olympic year, was not only a pivotal year for Abe with the twin milestones of his English language edition and the release of the book’s prize-winning film adaptation. It was also a significant year for Japanese publishing, other creative writers, and for Japan itself.

    The first English language edition of Kobo Abe’s ‘The Woman in the Dunes’ was illustrated by his wife Machi Posted by Richard Nathan