HIST-UA 1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Columbian Exchange, Zheng He, Qianlong Emperor
Document Summary
Selective borrowing: japan would borrow certain aspects of chinese culture. There was no civil service exam, rather there were only nobles as government officials. They also used their own language, kana, which was phonetic rather than character based: this lead to a high literacy rate for the japanese, shintoism/kami. In shinto, every clan worshipped kami (natural spirits) In shinto, shrines was very important: heian court. There were beautiful pavilions, gardens, and house ponds. Women would produce amazing literature high literacy rate due to easy to understand phonetic alphabet. They were an extremely elite society: japanese feudalism. Emperor: symbolic power only (different from european ruler) Shoguns: military rulers that had more power than the emperor. Daimyo: feudal lords (like lords in europe, gave fiefs) Samurai: warriors who were loyal to their daimyo and lived on fiefs (like the knights of europe) practiced bushido (code of honor)
