The ongoing presence and purity of Japan’s traditional culture in so many areas of life is one of the most amazing aspects of modern Japan. This is particularly so since the early 1870s, when the Japanese as a whole adopted foreign lifestyles with astounding skill and speed.

The primary reason for this susceptibility and virtual obsession with change was due to the fact that historically, life in Japan was so structured, so homogenized and so intellectually limiting that people hungered for change — for almost anything new.

In fact, from the mid-1600s until 1867-68, the reigning shogunate government did its best to enforce a law that banned virtually all change. This was implemented again from the 1870s to the mid-1900s when the new nationalistic government controlled the lives of the people to the point that they were still not free to innovate or invent on their own.

But all of this was to change dramatically after the introduction of democracy and personal freedom into Japan at the end of World War II in 1945. With their knowledge, ambitions and skills unleashed for the first time in the country’s history, the Japanese began an incredible flow of inventions and innovations that transformed and have continued to transform their lives, not to mention the lives of millions of people around the world.

The complete article can be found in Issue #277 of the Tokyo Journal. Click here to order from Amazon.