Let me introduce myserf. My name is Seiko Fujihara. I was born in Takamatsu City, Kagawa Prefecture, Japan on August 28, 1984.
I am a first year student at Kagawa Junior College. My major is Nutrition.
My hobbies are listening to music, watching to movie.
My Friends
Web Searches
Search Engine: Google
Directories: Yahoo! Japan | NTT goo
Textbook Links
http://www.better-english.com/
Visiting or living in Shikoku is something special, for this island has always been the spiritual sanctuary of the Japanese people. No other place in Japan has been visited by so many generations of people from all over the country.
They have often spent more than 60 days walking along the whole circuit of the eighty-eight temples that compose the longest, oldest and most popular pilgrimage in Japan.
Even those who have arrived here in weariness of life, in unhappiness or weak health, have usually left the island with a lighter heart, more enlightened, and in many cases in improved health.
Though today the island is quite accessible and traveling around it can be very easy, some of the eighty-eight temples still remain very hard to reach.
This pilgrimage circling the island is nationally known as 0-Shikoku-san, showing that "Dear old Shikoku Pilgrimage" is synonymous with this island and provides sanctuary to the soul of Japan. The scenes along the Shikoku Pilgrimage correspond well to what Shikoku offers-the Seto INland Sea, the Uwa-kai Sea, thePacific Ocean, the green mountains that crown a large part of the island, cosy little towns and middle-sized cities that fringe the coasts.
Its climate is mild; the seas are bountiful; the land is fertile. Naturally local people have been content with their blessed island, eben if it has remained underdebeloped since the 8th century. Until then the northern coast of Shikoku was among the first areas to enjoy civilization in Japan, as proved by so many archaeological findings.
Remote as it was for many centuries, however, Shikoku did not stand aloof but odserved movements on the Inland Sea as an artery of Japan's cultural, political and economic development. On the other hand, Shikoku's unique attractions such as the Shikoku Pilgrimage, Kompira worship and the Dogo Onsen Hot Spring spa have always drawn alarge number of people from the capotals and other parts lf the main island of Honshu and neighdoring Kyushu.
Naturally those visitors brought something new with them each time, just as refugees and exiles from the capotals added color to the island's history. They were welcomed and sometimes the culture they brought here was carefully preserved or developed even long after being forgotten in its homeland - language, festivals, arts and techniques. These cultural assets now peculiar to Shikoku have added another dimension rewarding travelers to this island.
A new type of attraction in Shikoku is the fruit of modern technology that the waves of development have finally brought here in the 1980's and 90's - the colossal bridges connecting Shikoku with the main island, pleasure resorts, theme parks, museums, skyline drives and relatively inexpensive golf courses. So the charm of Shikoku can rightly be called an exquisite coexistence of tradition and modernity, nature and art.
Last but not least is a spiritual climate of Shikoku that has produced people like the father of the Shikoku Pilgrimage, who is often credited as afather of Japanese culture, the man who aired the idea of the Seto Ohashe Bridge, and two young men who turned out to be most instrumental in carrying out the modernization of Japan, opening Japan's door to the world as an independent nation. They were all rare cosmopolitans in Japanese history. There must have been something inspiring on this island.
We hope this guidebook will help you enjoy Shikoku, and Japan herself seen through Shikoku, finding inspiration of your own by traveling around this small but great island. Bon voyage!
The islands hold various livelihoods, some serving as orchards or pastures, others as bases for fishing or shipping, yet others are known for producing fishing nets and fishing boats. Some are predominantly religious, others were port towns, while yet others have been known for the production of granite.
Today some are turning to aquaculture or tourism, many of the 800 inhabited islands offering cosy summer resorts along their usually unpolluted beaches. Not a few of them are of historical interest, still retaining legends, relics and monuments from the long past of the Inland Sea as an artery of Japan's cultural, political and economic development.
The following are some of the islands well-known for their specialities:Awajishima Shodoshima Honjima Omishima Ikuchishima Miyajima
The Seto Inland Sea as a Witness
of Japan's HistoryThe climate in the Inland Sea area was relatively mild and the sea was calm and bountiful. thus its coastal areas cradled some of the earliest civilizations in Japan. From around 300 BC to 300 AD advanced cultures arrived from China and rice-growing. Those who succeeded in crossing the treacherous Japan Sea or the China Sea continued along the Inland Sea up to the early capitals in Naniwa (Osaka) or Yamato (Nara). During the centuries after that, Chinese writing and Buddhism followed the same route.
Meanwhile the seamen of the Inland Sea area were acquiring knowledge of tides and currents, navigating expertise and ship-building skills. Some early Emperors enlisted them for military expeditions as far as the Korean Peninsula. On the other hand, the cultures and human resources from ancient Korea-Pekche, Koguryo and Silla-greatly influenced the cultural, political and economic development of ancient Japan.
In 646 the Taika Reform declared all land in the country the property of the Emperor, and it was divided into kuni had to send its products regularly to the Imperial Capital as mandatory tribute. The Inland Sea was needed as a main route for maritime transportation. It was also about this time that the Inland Sea saw Japanese envoys dispatched to China several times, seeking the advanced knowledge and technology of the Sui and T'ang dynasties.
But the life of the people was far from easy. Heavily burdened with taxes and mandatory tributes, many turned to piracy. Eventually even the privileged came to join the poor and take the initiative for them. Fujiwara no Sumitomo is famous for one such escapade. After quitting the lordship of Iyo (now Ehime Pref .), he made himself pirate chief and ravaged for several years with his fleet of 1,000 ships, completely paralyzing Inland Sea transport until 941 when he was finally quelled at his base of Hiburijima Island off present-day Uwajima City.
To patrol their coastal waters, many local clans organized their own marine guard. These guards called suigun, usually led by the clan's chief, were instrumental in the history of the centuries that followed. The central government enlisted suigun to patrol the sea, to supress pirates and to guard its trading ships to and from Sung dynasty China. Soon some suigun were engaging in coastal trade and even overseas trade themselves, thus gaining the wealth and power to control the land as well as the sea.
In 1185 they joined a civil war known as Gempei no Kassen. The end of that war marked the fall of the refined Heian civilization that flourished in Kyoto. Kono Michinobu, whose suigun had contributed to bringing about the new era of the Kamakura Shogunate, was appointed by the Shogun to govern the main part of Iyo. Some suigun dubbed themselves 'Admiral,' taking pride in their activities as independent merchants as well as official guardians of the sea.
Some other suigun joined the Wako - the fleets of Japanese pirates who from the 13th to 16th centuries plundered the coasts of the Korean Peninsula, China and the South Sea Islands, while other suigun helped the Shoguns stop the Wako. To defend helped against Wako, Ming China issued an identification mark for the use of Japan's official trading ships, which brought swords, sulfur, copper, gold, folding fans and gold lacquer, among other things, bringing back copper coins, raw silk, silk fabrics, books and so on from China.
During the Civil War Period, one suigun after another was consigned to powerful clans, for any ambitious warlord had to prepare himself with a strong army and navy. The civil war that lasted about 100 years rendered the lands and seas into chaos until 1573 when Oda Nobunaga managed to enforce some peace.
In 1588 Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who succeeded Nobunaga and unified Japan, restricted sword ownership to the samurai class. He severely banned piracy, having decided that society had to be strictly regulated to ensure peace. Now pirates found their heyday was gone, and so did the suigun clans, most of whom had already been incorporated into the feudal domains of the Daimyos.
Only the suigun of the Shiwaku Islands were privileged to continue their activities because of the great assistance they had given to Nobunaga and Hideyoshi. Soon after the unification of Japan in 1590, Hideyoshi waged two wars against Korea assisted again by the Shiwaku suigun without success, but the thousands of Korean artisans he brought back were to greatly promote Japan's arts of printing, dyeing, weaving and ceramics through the new era to come.
The Tokugawa Shogunate, established in 1603 in Edo(Tokyo), was careful enough to put Osaka, the former capital of Hideyoshi, under its direct control, because it had already grown into the commercial and financial center of Japan. In the 1630's the Shogunate adopted a national isolation policy with a small island in Nagasaki Harbor as a window only open to China and Holland, thus consolidating Japan's feudal society. Now the only foreign vessels seen on the Inland Sea were those of Korean envoys of the Li dynasty to the Edo Shogunate.
In 1673 'a westward route' was opened, leading all the coastal trade of the Japan Sea side into the Inland Sea up to the port of Osaka. Now 70 % of Japan's commodities passed through Osaka, earning this town the nickname of 'Kitchen of the Country'. Some merchants were so wealthy that even Daimyos borrowed money from them. Many of the local specialities date back to this time when each Daimyo was eagerly promoting local industries in order to improve the revenue of his province.
It was also about this time that the religious fervor of Kompira worship combined with the Shikoku Pilgrimage began to attract hordes of people to 'the Remote Island of Shikoku.' The seamen of the Shiwaku Islands talked of the great merits of visiting 'Kompira-san' and 'O-Shikoku-san' while sailing around the coast of the nation not only as the Shogun's seamen but also as independent merchants.
In the 1860's the three driving wheels carrying out the Meiji Restoration were busily crossing the Inland Sea, as the Big Three Clans came from Kyushu, Shikoku and westernmost Honshu.
In the 1870's when Japan's modernization started, Osaka, Kobe and Kita-Kyushu were readily industrialized, followed by Hiroshima. But it was not until the 1960's that the rest of the Inland Sea area began to undergo the large-scale industrialization that we see today. Toward the end of the same decade what is called akashio or red tides (an unusual generation of plankton that turns the tide an ominous red) began to appear.
By the end of the 20th century, the Inland Sea will see even greater changes through the three routes connecting Honshu and shikoku by bridges.
The Seto Inland Sea Folk History Museum on Goshikidai Plateau in Takamatsu houses a large collection of local archae-ological and ethnographical material. Several thousands out of 50,000 articles are displayed at a time.
35 minutes' drive from downtown Takamatsr or Sakaide.
The Shiwaku Islands consist of about 30 islets, 5 of which have become piers for the Seto Ohashi Bridge. In 1590 Hideyoshe rewarded 650 seamen with a feud of 250 koku on their islands and each with the status of Nimmyo or feudal lordship-something unheard of in the history of Japan.
Their government office Kimbansho is preserved on Honjima
The whole island of Miyajima dedicated to Itsukushima-jinja is also designated a Special Historic Site.
Its founding dates back to598, but it was not until 1168 that a magnificent shrine complex was built by Taira Clan, who revered the three goddesses of water, rice-planting and sea-faring enshrined there.
The original buildings are gone but the style -the shinden-zukuri (noblemen's residence style of the Heian Period) -has been carefully preserved whenever they were reconstructed. Most of the main buildings are National Treasures. The Museum also houses 130 National Treasures or Important Cultural Properties.
5 minutes by ferry from JR Miyajima-guchi after a 20 minute train ride from Hiroshima (the Sanyo Line).
丂
Return to the Kagawa Junior College Internet English Classes Home Page