History - Japan Video Transcripts
Video 1 Transcript
Now you probably have heard kamikaze in terms of the Japanese fighter pilots during World War II who flew in with just enough gasoline to attack Pearl Harbor by, you know, bombing them by driving the airplane into a ship or what have you. So that is what typically we think of with kamikaze are those fighter pilots. Where did kamikaze come from? So kami meaning god and kaze meaning wind, in other words divine wind, actually came from in the 13th century when the Mongols were about to invade Japan. But Japan was protected by some kind of a divine wind that created a storm that prevented the Mongols from invading Japan which led to the cultural belief that they, Japan being an awesome nation and of the gods, was always protected by this kamikaze.
Video 2 Transcript
Fun historical fact, Ise Jingu is in Mie Prefecture. Ise Jingu is one of the most famous Shinto shrines in all of Japan. During the period of isolationism in Japan, Japanese were actually allowed to travel to Ise Jingu to pay homage to the goddess Amaterasu. Ise and is in particular was known to be very hospitable to those on their pilgrimage that were representing their village and this is during a period where they were ruled by shogun and typically Japanese were not allowed to travel so it was very significant to represent your village on your way to Ise Jingu. What's significant about how this shrine was constructed is that in many ways it's similar to the temples like the temple of Solomon for example in ancient Judaism. They rebuild it every 20 years so they have it built for 20 years, deconstruct it and then have it rebuilt on another side and then they alternate every 20 years so it's always fresh always new.
Video 3 Transcript
So Hokkaido is the name of the island. And actually, before the Japanese people came to that island, they had a native people. And that native nation's name was Ainu. And I was always told, I haven't done a lot of research with this, but I was told that it was kind of a similar story to the Native Americans and how people came over from Europe and started taking over. So you have to do a little research about this Ainu people that used to live there before the Japanese people. I don't think they really have any communities of Ainu people there, but it has a lot of cool culture there left over from the Ainu people that you'll have to check out.
Video 4 Transcript
Oda Nobunaga was the general who began the unification of Japan and then there were two other men after that who ended up unifying Japan and Oda, he originated from Nagoya. So Nagoya is the city where basically all these very important historical figures came from and in different areas you can see castles, you can see different places and different parts of the history of Japan in that very important time when they were going around and unifying all the states.
Video 5 Transcript
Ujima's sister city is a city called Sendai, which is two hours north of Tokyo, so it's not even close to each other. So how are they sister cities? Turns out, when my dad did a little research, he, or my mom, they told me that one of the Date Masamune, the founder of the Date clan's successors, actually invaded Ujima and just took it over. Because as you'll see, all of Ujima, the Date clan symbol, which is the two birds and the little, like, leaves around it, you'll see the crescent moon on the arm when you go to the Ujima castle, and there is a Date museum in Ujima.
Video 6 Transcript
The Japanese people in Hokkaido look different than the people down in southern Japan. There's a very special reason for this, because before the Japanese people populated the islands, there were the Ainu there, and they pushed all the Ainu up north in the inner bread. The Ainu were kind of bigger, taller, and they had beards that were more hairy. So the Japanese people up north in Hokkaido, you'll sometimes see with beards and facial hair, and they'll be taller and bigger than the Japanese down south, which they have no facial hair, and they tend to be shorter. It's an interesting thing. I never got to meet any Ainu personally, but I did see the effect with the Japanese people there in Hokkaido.
