Heroic Imperial Naval Ship...
And...
Imperial Carriages...
So, displayed around Tokyo as the Three Sacred Treasures of the Empire of Japan.
(Photos by EEE Reporter)On the Emperor's Birth Day of 2010
The oldest shinto shrine in Japan is Oh-miwa Shrine situated in Nara Prefecture, south of Kyoto Pref.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%8Cmiwa_Shrine)
Nara Prefecture, formerly called Yamato, is the old power base for the Imperial Family since the era when the Imperial Yamato Court was located there till it moved to Kyoto in A.D. 794.
The god enshrined in Oh-miwa Shrine is called Oh-mono-nushi who is regarded as the spirit of Oh-kuni-nushi. Yet, god Oh-kuni-nushi is a god associated with Izumo region facing the Sea of Japan.
A god in Izumo is enshrined in the oldest shrine in Japan that is situated in Yamato, the birth place of the power of the Imperial family.
Accordingly, the three most important shrines in Japan are Ise Grand Shrine enshrining Amaterasu-Oh-mikami, the ancestor goddess of the Imperial family; Oh-miwa Shrine, the oldest shrine in Japan; and Izumo-taisha situated in the Izumo region.
Historically, it is well known that Yamato and Izumo were two major centers of religion and politics in ancient days, in addition to Tsukushi, a northern Kyusyu area facing the Korean Peninsula.
Additionally, Oh-miwa Shrine is believed to have been established in 91 B.C.
Anyway, the Japanese myth is a little complicated and mysterious, since it contains some key factors related to Izumo and Tsukush. Yet the Imperial Court was first established in Yamato by First Emperor Jimmu in 660 B.C., according to the Japanese myth and an old Imperial history book.
Myth of any nation or tribe must be respected.
(So, from a religious point of view, the Emperor of Japan must be a son of the father who has a blood relation with First Emperor Jinmu through his male ancestors without an interruption, no matter how long some of those ancestors did not ascend the Imperial throne over generations.
Incidentally, the religious basement and the rule of legitimacy all the past Chinese dynasties adopted for themselves are very different from those for the Japanese Imperial Family.
Specifically, a son of the Chinese father cannot be an emperor of Japan, but a son of the Japanese father can be an emperor of China, though the last Chinese empire fell through the Chinese Revolution in 1911, and Manchukuo presided by the last Chinese Emperor was abolished in 1945 due to the surrender of the Empire of Japan to the Allied Forces led by the United States of America.
And remember that it is only once that an emperor of Japan has ever visited China in history; it was in 1992.)
PART I: Mencius (372 - 289 BCE; Moushi in Japanese)
Mencius (孟子) said:
Shun (舜), one of the greatest ancient kings, had been a civilian;
Fuyue (傅説), an outstanding minister to the Shang Dynasty (殷), had been a laborer on the street;
Jiao Ge (膠鬲), an outstanding elite official of the Shang Dynasty (殷), had been a fish vendor;
Guan Zhong (管仲), an outstanding minister to the state of Qi (斉), had been a failed prisoner of war;
SunShu'ao (孫叔敖), an outstanding minister to the state of Chu (楚), had been a fisher; and
Boli Xi (百里奚), an outstanding minister to the state of Qin (秦), had been a slave on the street.
When the Heaven intends to appoint a great task to a chosen man, it surely puts the man in hardship so as to make him suffer, waste his strength, harm his health, live in poverty, and fail in whatever he tried to achieve.
The reason for this process set by the Heaven is to move the mind of the man, have him conquer his nature, and grow something yet hidden in him.
Every man commits a mistake, but by correcting it he can take start in society. By checking his mind in bewilderment, hatred, and anger, he with calmness can later stand in society. By checking his appearance, behavior, and voices, he with calmness can later establish himself in society.
A nation will eventually perish, without an official who regulates society with laws, a wise minister who remonstrates with his king, a strong enemy state that could be at war with, and a foreign threat that could cause a war.
Therefore, you must understand in the case of man life is in distress, trouble, sorrow, and an ailment, while death is in ease and comfort.
(http://www.kokin.rr-livelife.net/classic/classic_oriental/classic_oriental_25.html)
Note: The Shang Dynasty (In in Japanese) is the first kingdom in China proven to have existed between 1600 BC – 1046 BC by archaeological evidence.
The states of Qi (Sei in Japanese), Chu (So in Japanese), and Qin (Shin in Japanese) all came to exist in the terminal stage of the Zhou (周) Dynasty (Shu in Japanese) that occupied ancient China after having defeated Shang.
PART II: A Chinese Student in Japan after 1989
The Chinese student was learning Western philosophy in a university in Japan when the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident occurred.
One day he found many books on ancient Chinese philosophy and copies of the Analects of Confucius and other ancient books in a book shop. He never thought that so many books related to the ancient Chinese culture were published and sold in Japan. Nobody in China told this sort of thing about Japan to this elite Chinese student. What's worse during the reign of Mao Tse-tung and his successors it was virtually forbidden to read the Analects of Confucius and other ancient philosophical books.
Another day he found that a huge amount of knowledge and a quite high level of understanding of Confucius and other ancient Chinese philosophers were possessed by Japanese professors and scholars. Even a professor discussing French philosophy in a class of the graduate school he attended referred to some teaching of Confucius.
This shocking discovery in Japan led him to opening the mind to truth. He found how sinful it was that the Chinese Communist Government had destroyed the tradition of ancient Chinese culture by forcing people to throw out the Analects of Confucius and other ancient books like rubbish during the Proletarian Cultural Revolution that was sweeping all over China between 1966 and 1978.
Yet, one of his grandfathers had secretly taught him the Analects of Confucius during the Proletarian Cultural Revolution, as he wanted his grandson who just entered an elementary school to become a Chinese medicine doctor in future. To be an excellent Chinese medicine doctor, knowledge of classical Chinese philosophy was essential. So, the poor little boy was just told to write and copy so many times each word and sentence in the old book the meaning of which however he could not understand. Yet, the grandfather burnt, secretly without letting him notice, all the sheets of paper on which his grandson wrote those difficult words, in order to keep this hard academic training secret from communists in his village.
So, the Chinese student in Japan suddenly recalled what he had remembered a long time ago without knowing the meaning in his grandfather's home in a village in China. But, now in Japan, he could start to understand the rich contents of Chinese classical books.
(http://www.seki-hei.com/rongo/rongo.html)
Finally he became Japanese by naturalization in 2007.
So, I recommend you to ask about China a diligent Chinese Japanese if you want to know truth, at a level of the global standard, about China.
*** *** *** ***
According to a Japanese economist, deflation that has continued in Japan since 1990 has caused a loss of GDP in Japan that reaches 5000 trillion yen ($50 trillion in a rate of 1990).
The economist claims that the Japanese Government should sell, say, 500 trillion yen ($5 trillion) of a right of issuing paper money (seigniorage) to the Bank of Japan in return for 500 trillion-yen bank notes issued by the BOJ. Then, without incurring budgetary deficits, the Government can spend money for services to the people, which would increase consumption and demands and thus narrow the deflation gap.
(http://www.niwa-haruki.com/)
But, where has the lost GDP of Japan, namely $50 trillion, gone?
Yes, it has gone to thankless China.
Accordingly, any effective strategy applied to a fight against deflation in Japan must include this China factor.
===
I stepped out of the door after writing some part of this blog.
Then a small private airplane was flying almost 400 meters above my head in the night sky of winter.
Its wing and tail lamps were so impressively flickering.
Then I knew that my posting today was not useless at all.
Joh 12:23 And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified.
Joh 12:24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.