Besides loyal samurai, Tokugawa Ieyasu stocked his capital with ninja. Their commander was Hattori Hanzō, renowned for his cunning and deadly tactics that helped Ieyasu at key moments in his career. The ninja master’s legacy was enshrined in Hanzōmon, a gate that still exists today at the Imperial Palace.
Samurai: Those Who Serve
The culture of Kyoto originated in the imperial court. Osaka is still associated with its mercantile roots. Tokyo, meanwhile, is the city of the samurai.
The prime duty of a samurai, a member of the warrior class, was to give faithful service to his daimyō (feudal lord). In fact, the origin of the term ‘samurai’ is closely linked to a word meaning ‘to serve’. Over the centuries, the samurai established a code of conduct that came to be known as bushidō (the way of the warrior), drawn from Confucianism, Shintō and Buddhism.
Confucianism required a samurai to show absolute loyalty to his lord. Towards the oppressed, a samurai was expected to show benevolence and exercise justice. Subterfuge was to be despised, as were all commercial and financial transactions. A real samurai had endless endurance and total self-control, spoke only the truth and displayed no emotion. Since his honour was his life, disgrace and shame were to be avoided above all else, and all insults were to be avenged.
From Buddhism, the samurai learnt the lesson that life is impermanent – a handy reason to face death with serenity. Shintō provided the samurai with patriotic beliefs in the divine status both of the emperor and of Japan – the abode of the gods.
Seppuku (ritual suicide), also known as hara-kiri, was an accepted means of avoiding dishonour. Seppuku required the samurai to ritually disembowel himself, watched by an aide, who then drew his own sword and lopped off the samurai’s head. One reason for this ritual was the requirement that a samurai should never surrender but always go down fighting.
Not all samurai were capable of adhering to their code of conduct – samurai indulging in double-crossing or subterfuge, or displaying outright cowardice, were popular themes in Japanese theatre.
Though the samurai are long gone, there are echoes of bushidō in the salaryman corporate warriors of today’s Japan. Under the once-prevalent lifetime employment system, employees were expected to show complete obedience to their company, and could not question its decisions if, for example, they were transferred to distant Akita-ken.
Boomtown Edo
In securing a lasting peace nationwide and ruling from Edo, Tokugawa Ieyasu laid the foundation for Tokyo’s ascendancy as one of the world’s great cities. In 1603 the emperor appointed him shogun, and the Tokugawa family ruled from Edo Castle (Edo-jō), on the grounds of the current Imperial Palace. The castle became the largest fortress the world had ever seen, with elaborate rituals shaping the lives of its many courtiers, courtesans, samurai and attendants. Edo would also grow to become the world’s largest city – topping one million people in the early 1700s and dwarfing much older London and Paris – as people from all over Japan flocked there to serve the growing military class.
This came as the result of a canny move by the Tokugawa that ensured their hegemony: they implemented a system called sankin kōtai that demanded that all daimyō in Japan spend alternate years in Edo. Their wives and children remained in Edo while the daimyō returned to their home provinces. This dislocating policy made it hard for ambitious daimyō to usurp the Tokugawas. The high costs of travelling back and forth with a large retinue also eroded their financial power.
Society was rigidly hierarchical, comprising (in descending order of importance) the nobility, who had nominal power; the daimyō and their samurai; the farmers; and finally the artisans and merchants. Class dress, living quarters and even manner of speech were all strictly codified, and interclass movement was prohibited.
The caste-like society imposed by Tokugawa rule divided Edo into a high city (Yamanote) and a low city (Shitamachi). The higher Yamanote (literally ‘hand of the mountains’) was home to the daimyō and their samurai, while the merchants, craftsmen and lower orders of Edo society were forced into the low-lying Shitamachi (literally ‘downtown’).
The typical residential neighbourhood of the Shitamachi featured squalid conditions, usually comprising flimsy wooden structures with earthen floors. These shanty towns were often swept by great conflagrations, which locals referred to as Edo-no-hana, or flowers of Edo; the expression’s bravura sums up the spirit of Shitamachi. Under great privation, Shitamachi subsequently produced a flourishing culture that thumbed its nose at social hardships and the strictures of the shogunate. Increasingly wealthy merchants patronised the kabuki theatre, sumo tournaments and the pleasure quarters of the Yoshiwara – generally enjoying a joie de vivre that the dour lords of Edo castle frowned upon. Today, the best glimpses we have into that time come from ukiyo-e (woodblock prints).
The ‘Eastern Capital’ Is Born
Edo’s transformation from a grand medieval city into a world-class capital required an outside nudge, or gaiatsu (external pressure). This came in the form of a fleet of black ships, under the command of US Navy Commodore Matthew Perry, that sailed into Edo-wan (now Tokyo Bay) in 1853. Perry’s expedition demanded that Japan open itself to foreign trade after centuries of isolation.
The coming of Westerners heralded a far-reaching social revolution against which the antiquated Tokugawa regime was powerless. In 1867–68, civil war broke out between Tokugawa loyalists and a band of upstart daimyō from southern Kyūshū. The latter were victorious; faced with widespread antigovernment feeling and accusations that the regime had failed to prepare Japan for this threat, the last Tokugawa shogun resigned. Power reverted to Emperor Meiji in what became known as the Meiji Restoration; though in reality, the southern lords were the real decision makers. In 1868, the seat of imperial power was moved from Kyoto to Edo, and the city renamed Tokyo (Eastern Capital).
Japan’s new rulers pushed the nation into a crash course in industrialisation and militarisation. A great exchange began between Japan and the West: Japanese scholars were dispatched to Europe to study everything from literature and engineering to nation building and modern warfare. Western scholars were invited to teach in Japan's nascent universities.
The new Japanese establishment learnt quickly: in 1872 the first railroad opened, connecting Tokyo with the new port of Yokohama, south along Tokyo Bay, and by 1889 the country had a Western-style constitution. In a remarkably short time, Japan achieved military victories over China (1894–95) and Russia (1904–05) and embarked on modern, Western-style empire building, with the annexation of Taiwan (1895), then Korea (1910) and Micronesia (1914).
Nationalists were also busy transforming Shintō into a jingoistic state religion. Seen as a corrupting foreign influence, Buddhism suffered badly – many valuable artefacts and temples were destroyed, and the common people were urged to place their faith in the pure religion of State Shintō.
During the Meiji period, and the following Taishō period, changes that were taking place all over Japan could be seen most prominently in the country’s new capital city. Tokyo’s rapid industrialisation, uniting around the nascent zaibatsu (huge industrial and trading conglomerates), drew job seekers from around Japan, causing the population to grow rapidly. In the 1880s electric lighting was introduced. Western-style brick buildings began to spring up in fashionable areas such as Ginza.
Edo was divided into machi (towns) according to profession. It’s still possible to stumble across small enclaves that specialise in particular wares. Most famous are Jimbōchō, the bookshop area; Kappabashi, with its kitchen supplies; and Akihabara, which now specialises in electronics and manga (comics).
The Great Kantō Earthquake
If the Meiji Restoration sounded the death knell for old Edo, there were two more events to come that were to erase most traces of the old city: the Great Kantō Earthquake and the firebombings of WWII.
According to Japanese folklore, a giant catfish living underground causes earthquakes when it stirs. At noon
on 1 September 1923 the catfish really jumped: the Great Kantō Earthquake, a magnitude 7.9 quake that struck south of Tokyo in Sagami Bay, caused unimaginable devastation in Tokyo. More than the quake itself, it was the subsequent fires, lasting some 40 hours, that laid waste to the city, including some 300,000 houses. A quarter of the quake’s 142,000 fatalities occurred in one savage firestorm in a clothing depot.
In true Edo style, reconstruction began almost immediately. The spirit of this rebuilding is perhaps best summed up by author Edward Seidensticker in Tokyo Rising (1990), which outlined how popular wisdom had it that any business that did not resume trading within three days of being burnt did not have a future. Opportunities were lost in reconstructing the city – streets might have been widened and the capital transformed into something more of a showcase – but its spirit prevailed.
Low City, High City (Edward Seidensticker; 1970) and Tokyo Now & Then (Paul Waley; 1984) are two classic tomes that tell the story of how Edo became Tokyo, revealing along the way traces of the old city that still remain today.
Modern Boys, Modern Girls
The devastating effects of the Great Kantō Earthquake aside, the first few decades of the 20th century were a time of optimism in Tokyo. Old feudal-era loyalties finally buckled and party politics flourished for the first time, giving rise to the term Taishō Democracy – after the era of the short-lived Taishō emperor (1912–26). In 1925 suffrage was extended to all males, not just property owners (women wouldn't be given the vote until the American occupation after WWII).
Western fashions and ideas, initially the domain of only the most elite, began to trickle down to the middle class. More and more Tokyoites began adopting Western dress (which they most likely traded for kimonos as soon as they got home). Cafes and dance halls flourished. Women began to work outside the home, in offices, department stores and factories, enjoying a new freedom and disposable income. Like women around the world in the 1920s, they cut their hair short and wore pants. These were the 'modern girls' – or moga for short – who walked arm in arm with their male counterparts, the moba, around Ginza, then the most fashionable district in the city.
In 1904, the kimono shop Echigoya, founded in 1673, decided to reinvent itself as Japan’s first Western-style department store, Mitsukoshi. The shop in Nihombashi (1914) was called the grandest building east of the Suez Canal. The retailer remains one of the most prestigious shops in Tokyo.
The Beginning of Shōwa & WWII
Following the accession of Emperor Hirohito (Shōwa tennō to the Japanese) and the initiation of the Shōwa period in 1926, the democratic spirit of the last two decades was replaced by a quickening tide of nationalist fervour. In 1931 the Japanese invaded Manchuria, and in 1937 embarked on full-scale hostilities with China. By 1940, a tripartite pact with Germany and Italy had been signed and a new order for all of Asia formulated: the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. On 7 December 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, bringing the US, Japan’s principal rival in the Asia-Pacific region, into WWII.
Despite initial successes, the war was disastrous for Japan. On 18 April 1942, B-25 bombers carried out the first bombing and strafing raid on Tokyo, with 364 casualties. Much worse was to come. Incendiary bombing commenced in 1944, the most devastating of which took place over the nights of 9 and 10 March 1945, when some two-fifths of the city, mainly in the Shitamachi area, went up in smoke and tens of thousands of lives were lost. The same raids destroyed Asakusa’s Sensō-ji, and later raids destroyed Meiji-jingū. By the time Emperor Hirohito made his famous capitulation address to the Japanese people on 15 August 1945, much of Tokyo had been decimated – sections of it were almost completely depopulated, like the charred remains of Hiroshima and Nagasaki after they were devastated by atomic bombs. Food and daily necessities were scarce, the population was exhausted by the war effort and fears of marauding US military overlords were high.
Black markets thrived after WWII when goods by other channels were scarce. The remains of Ueno’s black market can be seen in Ameya-yokochō, which is still a lively market. Shinjuku, too, has two former black markets that are now popular places to eat and drink: Omoide-yokochō and Golden Gai.
The Postwar Miracle
Tokyo’s phoenix-like rise from the ashes of WWII and its emergence as a major global city is something of a miracle. Still, during the US occupation in the early postwar years, Tokyo was something of a honky-tonk town. Now-respectable areas such as Yūrakuchō were the haunt of the so-called pan-pan girls (prostitutes).
In 1947, Japan adopted its postwar constitution, with the now-famous Article 9, which barred the use of military force in settling international disputes and maintaining a military for warfare (although the nation does maintain a self-defence force).
By 1951, with a boom in Japanese profits arising from the Korean War, Tokyo began to rapidly rebuild, especially the central business district. Once again, Tokyoites did not take the devastation as an opportunity to redesign their city (as did Nagoya, for example), but rebuilt where the old had once stood. (Extravagant plans, which included a lush greenbelt around the city, existed, but pragmatism – and financial constraints – prevailed.)
During the 1960s and '70s, Tokyo re-emerged as one of the centres of growing Asian nationalism (the first phase was in the 1910s and '20s). Increasing numbers of Asian students came to Tokyo, taking home with them new ideas about Asia’s role in the postwar world.
One of Tokyo’s proudest moments came when it hosted the 1964 Summer Olympics. In preparation, the city embarked on a frenzy of construction unequalled in its history. Many Japanese see this time as a turning point in the nation’s history, the moment when Japan finally recovered from the devastation of WWII to emerge as a fully fledged member of the modern world economy.
Based on the price paid for the most expensive real estate in the late 1980s, the land value of Tokyo exceeded that of the entire US. During the late '80s, Japanese companies also bought international icons including Pebble Beach Golf Course, the Rockefeller Center and Columbia Pictures movie studio.
The Bubble Bursts
Construction and modernisation continued at a breakneck pace through the '70s, with the interruption of two Middle East oil crises, to reach a peak in the late '80s, when wildly inflated real-estate prices and stock speculation fuelled what is now known as the ‘bubble economy’. When the bubble burst in 1991, the economy went into a protracted slump that was to continue, more or less, into the present.
There were other, more disturbing, troubles in Japanese society. In March 1995, members of the Aum Shinrikyō doomsday cult released sarin nerve gas on crowded Tokyo subways, killing 12 and injuring more than 5000. This, together with the devastating Kōbe earthquake of the same year, which killed more than 6000 people, signalled the end of Japan’s feeling of omnipotence, born of the unlimited successes of the '80s.
Rise of the Megamalls
When Roppongi Hills opened in 2003, it was more than just another shopping mall: it was an ambitious prototype for the future of Tokyo. It took developer Mori Minoru (1934–2012) no fewer than 17 years to acquire the land and to construct this labyrinthine kingdom. He envisioned improving the quality of urban life by centralising home, work and leisure into a utopian microcity.
Foreign investment banks and leading IT companies quickly signed up for office space, and Roppongi was positioned as the centre of the new economy – an alternative to Marunouchi, a bastion of traditional (read: old-fashioned) business culture. The nouveau riche who lived, worked and played at Roppongi Hills were christened Hills-zoku (Hills tribe) by the media, and their lavish lifestyles were splashed across the tabloids.
Similar projects appeared in succession: Shiodome Shio-site (2004), Tokyo Midtown (2005), Akasaka Sacas (2008) and Toranomon Hills ( GOOGLE MAP ; http://toranomonhills.com; 1-23 Toranomon, Minato-ku; bGinza line to Toranomon, exit 1) (2014). While they open to much fanfare, such developments have proved polarising: conceived during the economic bubble
of the late '80s and early '90s and unveiled in harder times, the luxury and exclusivity that they project seem out of step with today's lingering economic malaise. Still, Roppongi Hills at least is credited with transforming the neighbourhood of Roppongi, once synonymous with sleazy nightlife, into a cultural attraction.
21st Century
Tokyo has weathered a long hangover since the heady days of the bubble economy. Despite periods of small but hopeful growth, and declarations that 'Japan is back', the economy is still sputtering. In 2014, the administration of Prime Minister Abe Shinzō launched an ambitious stimulus plan – nicknamed 'Abenomics' – that seemed promising but ultimately couldn't pull Japan out of its slump. The raising of the consumption tax the same year, from 5% to 8%, put a squeeze on spending (it's set to increase again in 2019).
Japan is also struggling with its international role, particularly the leeway allowed by its ‘Peace Constitution’. In 2004, then Prime Minister Koizumi Junichirō sent Self-Defense Force (SDF) troops to join Allied forces in Iraq. Though it was a humanitarian – not combat – mission, this marked the first deployment of Japanese troops overseas since WWII; the move was received with apprehension and even protest. The Defense Agency was promoted to a fully fledged ministry and Japanese military cooperation with the US escalated. In 2014, the Abe administration passed a resolution to reinterpret Article 9 (the peace clause) of the constitution to allow the SDF to come to the aid of an ally under attack. It was a decision that was not supported by the majority of citizens; demonstrations were held in the capital.
Lonely Planet Tokyo Page 33
