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Journey into Japan: Modernising Japan in the Meiji era

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Journey into Japan: Modernising Japan in the Meiji era

SUBJECTS:  History

YEARS:  7–8, 9–10


The restoration of Emperor Meiji in 1868 ushered in a period of rapid change in Japan.

The country not only borrowed practices and technologies from Western countries, in less than forty years it too had become an imperialist power.

This clip is fifth in a series of six.


Things to think about

  1. 1.By the early 1860s, Japan faced two choices. It could retain its policy of isolation and risk domination by Western imperialists. The other choice was to adopt Western ways in order to survive as an independent nation and preserve the parts of its culture it valued most. Japan chose the second course and its success was extraordinary.
  2. 2.What were the two slogans of the new government? How did Japan catch up with Western machinery and production methods? Which section of Japanese society provided both the work that financed Japan's industrial revolution and conscripts for a modern army? What technologies and ideas did Japan borrow from Britain and from Germany? Why was Japan able to make such enormous changes over such a short period of time?
  3. 3.As you can see in this clip, Japan replaced its samurai warriors, who were loyal to local feudal lords, with a modern conscript army. Why do you think this conscript army was able to defeat a samurai uprising? What do Japanese invasions of Korea and China, and war with Russia suggest about Japan's potential for aggression and its ideas about its future role in world affairs?
  4. 4.Look closely again at the old black-and-white footage of Japanese street scenes. Describe what you see. What features in these scenes provide evidence of rapid change through the adoption of Western technology, architecture and styles? What features provide evidence of continuity?


Acknowledgements

Produced by ABC and Japan Foundation.


Date of broadcast: 5 Jul 1979


Copyright

Metadata © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia Ltd 2012 (except where otherwise indicated). Digital content © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). Video © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). All images copyright their respective owners. Text © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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