Edo: The
City on the Plain
This essay
describes the katagi or “spirit and form” of Tokyo. Throughout the Edo period, Kyoto and Osaka were the cultural and economic centers, Edo was a consumer city. Edo was more popular as its plain stretched in three different directions,
making the city have unlimited boundaries.
Citizens could view Mount Fuji, an ancient mountain the Japanese worshipped, from the hills of Edo. When Edo became the capital of Japan, people traveling there would be “coming up” while those leaving would be “going down”, regardless of the geographical conditions. Edo is
known as one of the most successful castletowns, as 70% of it was once occupied by warriors, and two-thirds of the population were men. Edo changed its name to Tokyo during the Meiji Restoration (1868-1912), and this is when the Edoites began to feel superior to those in the Kamigata region. The Edo
castle was distinct from others in its spiral-shaped moat, and highways spread from the castle outward making five routes to the capital.
Yamanote is the “high city” due to its hilly terrain and was made up with members of the samurai class. Shitamachi is the “low city”, a flat
town located east of the Edo castle, where all other citizens lived. The Yamanote hills had shrines and temples on top of them, making the town a religious center. However, Zen did not flourish in Edo as it did in Kyoto, and Non-Zen temples became more important. Shitamachi is known for its relationship to water, and served as a center for fish markets and canal travel. The samurai who came to Edo never made a new culture, but rather coexisted with other cultures in the same environment. Edokko, however, was a term used for a person that grew up in the expanding town at the height of the city’s prosperity.
Sui was a man at ease with himself who wasn’t concerned with lust, but rather was good at the arts. This aesthetic notion became tsu, a more self-centered man who was familiar with the arts but displayed greater interest in the manners, the pleasure quarters, and the relations between man and woman. There were a large number of prostitutes in Tokyo, increasing by the thousands each year, and this showed the growing economic conditions of Edo citizens. The word shokunin means the construction worker who worked in high places, specifically tending to the many fires that occurred throughout Tokyo. Iki became a part of everyday life, and essentially describes the culture of watching sumo, going to the theater, reading novels, and hanging out in pleasure quarters. Ukiyo means “floating world” and became known as “depressing world” due to the fires and disease that struck the city. It also describes a lustful, amorous world where men and women are delighted in one another.
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