Tokyo - Not A City, Really Another World

sitors to Japan first arrive at Narita Internationalconnected to the history of Edo, and by association,
Airport, they often experience immediate cultureTokyo. The balance of power changed under the
shock. Signs point the way in Kanji (JapaneseMeiji emperors. Shogun Yoshinobu Tokugawa, who
characters), but most tourists cant read them.was rather weak with regard to the West, especially
Without a few helpful signs in English, it would bethe United States, abdicated in 1867 and left Edo to
easy to get quite lost.the emperor.
At first sight, Tokyo itself is crowded, loud and notBut the actual goal of sealing Japan off from the
especially beautiful. The air quality is not particularlyWest was never implemented by the shoguns
good. Men wearing white gloves shove people insideadversaries, headed by the emperor. In fact, just the
the regional transit cars in order to fit more peopleopposite occurred: a very active period of
inside, and most Japanese respond with a blank staremodernization based on the Western model began.
when spoken to in English.Destruction and rebuilding.
Tokyo can be hard to negotiate and travel aroundIn Tokyo, European-style houses were built right in
town can be stressful  but it is also a unique andbetween traditional wooden houses. Some of the
exhilarating experience.most famous examples are the houses on Ginza
Kagemusha, the Shadow Warrior.Street, which were built from red brick in order to
Prior to 1456-1457, there is very little salientcreate more European surroundings for foreign
knowledge available about the city of Edo, Tokyosresidents of the capital. In spite of everything, such
predecessor. With the building of the Edo Fortresschanges were mainly superficial. The city plan and
during these years in the mid-fifteenth century, thehomes of the native Japanese remained closely tied
city on Hibiya Bay gained in importance.to the Edo tradition of the Shogun Era. But that
The greatest advance, however, came in 1653, whenchanged in 1923, the year of the Great Earthquake,
the shogun Tokugawa leyasu established his centremeasuring more than 8.0 on the Richter scale.
of government here. Director Akira Kurosawa stagedThe earthquake itself and the fires that resulted
the life and work of this prominent, powerful shogunfrom the it reduced nearly all of Tokyo to ruins.
in his 1980 film Kagemusha  The Shadow Warrior.However, destruction has always represented an
George Lucas did not shoot the backdrop of the film,opportunity for change in Japan. Tragically, the
but he spun the threads, so to speak.Second World War came quite soon after the
In his novel Shogun, writer James Clivell also painted aearthquake, signaling yet another period of
portrait of the most imposing figure in Japanesedevastating destruction.
history. Ieyasu is considered the founder of modernThe new development of Tokyo began after the
Tokyo, even though the city did not take its officialend of the Second World War, and literally began on
name or become the "Capital of the East" until thetop of debris and ashes. On the basis of new
emperor moved there in 1868.technologies, a modern Tokyo cityscape consisting of
Beginnings of Western influence.skyscrapers, steel and concrete emerged. Special
The population of the city is said to have alreadyconstruction methods had to be used, because
exceeded a million at the beginning of the eighteenthTokyo lies in one of the most active earthquake
century. Edo was not only the capital city under thezones in the world. Earthquakes are nothing out of
Tokugawa shogunate, it was also the economicthe ordinary here, and smaller tremors can be felt in
centre of Japan. The end of the shogunate is closelythe city almost daily.