Who Were the Daimyo of Japan

A daimyo was a  feudal lord in shogunal  Japan  from the 12th century to the 19th century. The daimyos were large landowners and vassals of the shogun. Each daimyo hired an army of  samurai warriors to protect his familys lives and property. The word daimyo comes from the Japanese roots dai, meaning big or great, and myo, or name. It roughly translates in English to great name. In this case, however, myo means something like title to land, so the word really refers to the daimyos large landholdings and would most likely literally translate to owner of great land. The equivalent in English to daimyo would  be closest to lord as it was used in the same time period of Europe. From Shugo to Daimyo The first men to be called daimyo sprang from the shugo  class, who were governors of the different provinces of Japan during the Kamakura Shogunate  from 1192 to 1333. This office was first invented by Minamoto no Yoritomo, the founder of the Kamakura Shogunate.   A shugo was appointed by the shogun to rule one or more provinces in his name. These governors did not consider the provinces to be their own property, nor did the post of shugo necessarily pass from a father to one of his sons.  Shugo controlled the provinces solely at the discretion of the shogun. Over the centuries, the central governments control over the shugo weakened and the power of the regional governors increased markedly. By the late 15th century, the shugo no longer relied on the shoguns for their authority. Not simply governors, these men had become the lords and owners of the provinces, which they ran as feudal fiefdoms. Each province had its own army of samurai, and the local lord collected taxes from the peasants and paid the samurai in his own name. They had become the first true daimyo. Civil War and Lack of Leadership Between 1467 and 1477, a civil war called the Onin War broke out in Japan over the shogunal succession. Different noble houses backed different candidates for the shoguns seat, resulting in a complete breakdown of order across the country. At least a dozen daimyo jumped into the fray, hurling their armies at one another in a nation-wide melee.   A decade of constant war left the daimyo exhausted, but did not resolve the succession question, leading to the constant lower-level fighting of the Sengoku period. The Sengoku era was more than 150 years of chaos, in which daimyo fought one another for control of territory, for the right to name new shoguns, and it seems even just out of habit. Sengoku finally ended when the three unifiers of Japan (Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu) brought the daimyo to heel and re-concentrated power in the hands of the shogunate.  Under the Tokugawa shoguns, daimyo would continue to rule their provinces as their own personal fiefdoms, but the shogunate was careful to create checks on the independent power of the daimyo.   Prosperity and Downfall One important tool in the shoguns armory was the alternate attendance system, under which daimyo had to spend half of their time in the shoguns capital at Edo (now Tokyo) and the other half out in the provinces. This ensured that the shoguns could keep an eye on their underlings and prevented the lords from becoming too powerful and causing trouble. The peace and prosperity of the Tokugawa era continued until the mid-19th century when the outside world rudely intruded on Japan in the form of Commodore Matthew Perrys black ships. Faced with the threat of western imperialism, the Tokugawa government collapsed. The daimyo lost their land, titles, and power during the resulting  Meiji Restoration of 1868, although some were able to transition to the new oligarchy of the wealthy industrialist classes.

Reflection on Readings Using Comparison and Contrast...

Thesis: All three authors portray the voice of many people, who, on a daily basis, are underprivileged of speaking their own language, thus, emphasizing onto the lives of linguistic minority students around the world and how they struggle to cope in school and at home. Audience: Class HUM-111 and Dr. Connelly Purpose: To highlight the difficulties students have at school and at home when it comes down to learning a language which they aren’t acquainted to and the consequences of such, depending on their social background. Reflection on readings using Comparison and Contrast Maxine Hong Kingston (Tongue Tied); Richard Rodriguez (Aria); Gloria Anzaldua (How to Tame a Wild Tongue) In the short story’s ‘Tongue Tied’, ‘Aria’ and†¦show more content†¦Up to â€Å"half a year passed†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Rodriguez, 287) until his teachers â€Å"†¦began to connect [his] behaviour with the difficult progress of [his] older sister and brother were making† (287). Note the fact that the teacher’s realization was because of his siblings and not because of his solitude, silent attitude. The message, as Anzaldua perfectly evokes in his short story, is that it’s our very â€Å"tongue [which] diminishes our sense of self† (298). A similar image Anzaldua depicts in ‘How to Tame a Wild Tongue’ – coincidently at the rather beginning of the text just like Rodriguez – is when the Anglo teacher said â€Å"If you want to be American, speak ‘American’. If you don’t like it, go back to Mexico where you belong† (295). On this occasion, Anzaldua’s mother al so tells him off as she was â€Å"†¦mortified that [her son] spoke English like a Mexican† (295). Here, the pressure derives from the mom and the teacher, making Anzaldua feel out of place. He believes that â€Å"wild tongues can’t be tamed, they can only be cut† (295) emphasizing that one’s identity must be forgotten if he/she wants to learn another language (English), ultimately gaining a new identity. Another example of lack of identity recognition is when Kingston, in ‘Tongue Tied’, specifies that only the Chinese girls were left out when the class went to the auditorium. Kingston â€Å"†¦knew the silence had to do with being a Chinese girl† (284), hence, her self-esteem diminishes, she feels excluded from the class;

God may have separated the heavens from the earth Essay Example For Students

God may have separated the heavens from the earth Essay The arts are very much subjective, and contrary to the sciences, the arts are based primarily on emotion. Because of this, often the way we express our emotions and ideas is artistically. Concepts in the sciences, for instance, are often expressed through art, a good example being the work of Leonardo da Vinci. He studied the human body, physics and created artistic masterpieces simultaneously, because he realised that both the arts and sciences are studies of the world around us, using a different medium. This is another example where it is hard to differentiate areas of knowledge, as they are inextricably intertwined in each other. The arts encompass every area of knowledge in our life, and there is no easy way to make a distinction. A further example in arts, mathematics can be used. In the past, a golden ratio has been used to portray emotion in paintings. Fibonaccis sequence6 is a number pattern as a result of the addition of the previous two numbers, e. g. 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, and so on. The golden ratio uses this to its advantage; a bigger number divided by the number that goes before it to give a constant. This is approximately 1. 618. Paintings drawn in a frame of 1 proportional to 1. 618 are, for whatever reason, the most appealing to the human eye. This provides an interesting link between artistic appreciation and patterns in the natural world. This shows how knowledge issues cannot be easily classified, because often they overlap. Although creativity is the mode for expression in the arts, any area of knowledge can have creativity. So what practical reasons underpin our division of the areas of knowledge? Knowledge is so vast, and in order to study in depth a topic, we must specialise. For example, at a year 12 level, an IB English teacher could never teach IB Physics unless he/she had studied physics. Also, libraries use the Dewey Decimal System7 to organise their collection of easy retrieval. Universities also classify knowledge into distinct areas: science and the arts. The depth of knowledge one learns at university level makes it essential to break down areas of knowledge into specialised subjects, due to the vastness of knowledge. However, the broader Areas of Knowledge classifications, such as the Natural Sciences, allow for diverse subjects such as astronomy and marine biology under the same heading, focusing on their similarities rather than their differences. I think that therefore they are flexible enough for our purposes in our education. To conclude, the areas of knowledge must be divided for practical purposes, but nonetheless are all interlinked. However, we know, when studying that they are distinct, albeit with similarities in our approach to learning. Although all areas rely on each other, we have found a way to separate these areas, mainly for convenience. Thus, the classifications dividing the areas of knowledge are not always justified; they are a division by humans to make education and knowledge, amongst other things, more manageable. WORKS CITED Anonymous (2002) TOK (New) Workbook Adelaide, Australia : University of Adelaide GIANCOLI, D. (1998) Physics New Jersey, USA : Prentice Hall MAASSEN, V. Fibonnacis Sequence and the Golden ratio Fibonacci Patterns (http://www. daria. cistron. nl/eng/mainpage. html) (3 Jul 2002) POMPERAUG HIGH SCHOOL Were there Other Possible Solutions? The Atomic Bomb (http://www.. pomperaug. com/socstud/stumuseum/web/msrbomb3. htm) (3 Jul 2002) WOOLMAN, M. (2000) Ways of Knowing Victoria : IBID Press ZIEMKE, E. World War ll, Microsoft Encarta. (CD-ROM) 1996 Microsoft Corporation. Approximate Word Count: 1 535 words 1 WOOLMAN, M. (2000) Ways of Knowing Victoria : IBID Press 2 LITTLE, J. Book Review of Mathematics and the Loss of Certainty by Morris Kline 3 LITTLE, J. Book Review of Mathematics and the Loss of Certainty by Morris Kline 4 GIANCOLI, D. (1998) Physics New Jersey, USA : Prentice Hall 5 ZIEMKE, E. World War ll, Microsoft Encarta. (CD-ROM) 1996 Microsoft Corporation 6 MAASSEN, V. Fibonnacis Sequence and the Golden ratio Fibonacci Patterns (http://www. daria. cistron. nl/eng/mainpage. html) (3 Jul 2002) 7 WOOLMAN, M. (2000) Ways of Knowing Victoria : IBID Press.