<h1 toutiao-origin="h2" > if you could travel back in time, which era would you like to go back to? </h1>
For Chinese, perhaps the Song Dynasty was the best choice. But if the Japanese answered this question, it would have been the Showa period.
After the end of World War II, Japan entered a period of unprecedented prosperity. Not only was the economy developing rapidly, but the cultural field was also full of heroes, such as Yasujiro Ozu, Akira Kurosawa, Ken Takakura, Seiko Matsuda, Yasunari Kawabata, and others whose names have become one of the symbols of Japanese culture today.
To this day, Japanese people still have nostalgia for the Showa era.
For example, Japanese people often like to hang the word "Kojiyoshi era" on their lips, and "Koji Ryo era" translates as the beautiful era that has passed. But when they talk about this word, they actually have an exact time node in their minds, that is, the Showa era.
A Japanese anime set in Tokyo in 39 years of Showa : The Tale of Showa
Why is the Showa era so attractive?
But not only because there were many retro "Showa beauties" like Yoshinaga Sayuri, Kudo Shizuka, and Yamaguchi Momoe in that era, but also because the food, clothing, and housing of that era were filled with different temperatures.
You must have seen such a Japan in the movie, where every object exudes the temperature of time and the fireworks of life.
Film directed by Yoji Yamada - "If You Live with Your Mother"
In addition, there are too many Japanese movies that are actually tirelessly recreating the Showa era, such as "The Wind Rises", "Totoro", "The Sunset of The Eternal Three-Chome", "Fairy Tale of the Years" and so on. (This list can be stretched indefinitely...) ）
Miyazaki's film "The Wind Rises", the story scene also takes place in the Showa era
Xiao Tong will take you together today, through several scenes from Japanese movies that we are familiar with, into the beautiful era of the past - the Showa era.
Totoro
In 1952, Japan regained its sovereign status. In 1953, NHK Television began to broadcast it on television first, and the red and white song festival, which had only been held for two sessions, also received its first television broadcast. This year, Christine Lee, who sparked the "New Look" fashion trend in the West with a Bar suit, Dior's first trip to Japan caused a sensation; this year, the first large supermarket settled in Tokyo.
This year, Miyazaki was 12 years old, and his memories of the moment were later placed in Totoro.
Totoro is set in rural Japan in 1953. Not the City of Tokyo, but a rural countryside on the edge, where television has not yet spread, where children play happily in the wild and in the fields.
Many of the life scenes in the movie restore the civilian life of the Showa era, the Japanese-style house where Dad and Kozuki and Komei live, the bath basin when bathing, the pressurized water well when playing with water... These old objects from the Showa era were also recorded by Miyazaki in the film.
Compare the movie scene with the hand-drawn drawing that shows the real situation:
△ Traditional Japanese house structure
Source: Rediscovering Japan: 500 Illustrated Catalogue of Japanese Nostalgic Artifacts
△ Family bathhouse
△ Public pump type well
"Forever Sunset of Sanchome"
Takashi Yamazaki's famous film "Sunset in Sanchome Forever" tells the story of Sanchome, Yuricho, in the old town of Tokyo, Japan, in 1958.
At that time in Tokyo, Japan, you can see the growth trajectory of Tokyo Tower, and people in that era have not yet gone far between people, and they have not even realized that they should be alienated, and life has maintained the most natural rhythm in the beginning.
It was an era when dilapidated bicycles and electric tricycles coexisted, when black-and-white televisions could attract a large audience, when a tavern was leisurely drinking sake and eating barbecue and chatting about someone, and it was also an era when a lottery game in a grocery store was written on a blank piece of paper and you could see the handwriting with a dip in water... In the three chomes of Yuricho in this era, eye contact between people and people is warmly watched by the most beautiful dusk.
"The Sunset of The Eternal Three-Chommome" depicts many small things in life, such as the emergence of television, the emergence of refrigerators, etc., which are some hilarious bridges.
For example, after the Yiping family bought a new TV, the neighbors gathered at his house to watch TV and sat in separate rows like watching a movie. It's the same thing we watched TV as a kid.
Because everyone has not touched the rare object of television, when the TV is suddenly interrupted, it is nervous to take apart all the TV parts, but the reason for the interruption is actually only the poor contact of the socket.
But plots like this, which seem to be very dramatic, were actually quite common in that era.
(Here is a slight expansion of the history of the development and change of electrical appliances in the Showa era under popular science.) In February 1953, NHK began broadcasting television programs, and in August of the same year, private Japanese television stations also began broadcasting. However, at that time, the price of fourteen-inch television sets was as high as 240,000 yen, and ordinary people could not wait for it, so they had to go to the streets to watch TV. In the movie, it has been 58 years, and with the development of the economy, there are already wealthy families who can afford to buy television sets and become the envy of everyone. ）
One of the most touching scenes in the film is that the scrawled literati Cha Chuan proposes to the tavern owner's wife, Hiromi, but he can't afford to buy a ring, and Hiromi shines on his finger under the light, as if he has worn the ring, and burst into tears in an instant.
The electric light bears witness to this beautiful scene, which also reflects the lighting revolution and development in Japan , which began to use nude light bulbs in 1940 , and by 1953 , the background time in the film , fluorescent lamps had spread to the home.
The Fairy Tale of the Years
Set in the 1960s in Japan, "The Fairy Tale of The Years" tells the story of Myoko, who is 27 years old this year, and she took ten days off from the company to enjoy the long-awaited rural life in the countryside. Since then, she has often remembered her fifth grade.
The story mainly reminisces about the past of Japan's elementary school in the 1960s, strung together fragmented small stories through memories, and at the same time, in order to strive for truth, through realistic and meticulous depiction techniques, the past social background, ethos, popular things, etc., are restored and reproduced one by one in front of the audience.
For example, Myoko begged her father to bring back a raw pineapple from outside, and the family saw such a fruit for the first time, and there was really no way to mouth. Later, everyone sat around the quilt stove and tasted pineapple for the first time.
The family sits around the stove to eat, which is the most common scene in Japanese dramas. And the stove, soup mother, stove, etc., are also common heating tools in that era.
Small science popularization:
The quilt stove mentioned here, which was originally inlaid, is in this form: in the room and tea room of the academy style, there is a downward excavation space, where there is a stove, and on the stove is a wooden frame with a foot stove, and the wooden frame is covered with narrow-sleeved civilian clothes and other clothes. Later, a portable quilt stove with an earthen brazier in the middle was created.
The method of use of Tang Pozi is to fill hot water in a tortoiseshell or semi-cylindrical ceramic or metal container, twist the plug, and then wrap it in a cloth and put it in the futon to avoid being burned. People generally warm their hands and feet with tang po zi when they sleep in winter, and wash their faces with warm water cooled inside in the morning.
In the film, there is also an impressive bridge section, Myoko's composition is particularly well written, and the teacher says that it can be used to participate in the Tokyo essay contest. When Myoko happily talked to her mother about this, her mother only saw the carrots that Myoko had sandwiched in the bread.
Here's a real background that can also be expanded under popular science, which is about The School Food Supply in Japan. In the early days, one of the school meals was skimmed milk powder, but later it became mainly milk and bread, and meat was also increased.
By the 1960s, the school food supply in Japan had evolved into a cafeteria format and was rapidly spreading.
Later, in the city, the food supply became Westernized and standardized, so when the girls who ate these things became housewives and mothers, Western food naturally entered their families.
△ School food at that time was a mixture of Japanese and Western eating habits
Most of the movies mentioned above are actually not far from the present in Japan, and Japanese people naturally like to use film and television to constantly recall this "ancient era". Just as the British miss the Victorian era, the French miss the pre-World War I La Belle Epoque. The love and fascination of the Japanese people belong to the Showa period.
In our time today, time is getting faster and faster, although this is the prelude to the future, but whenever we look back on the past, we still hope that there is something to keep. Japanese people miss the Showa era, perhaps not just that era, but also the good memories of the past.
△ Source: Rediscovering Japan: 500 Pieces of Japanese Nostalgic Artifacts
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Rediscovering Japan
[Sun] By Hiroaki Iwai
[Japanese] Keiji Nakabayashi - painted
As large as residential structures and means of transportation
Down to pots and pans, needle by thread
Through these items
You can see that Japan was before modernization
People's simple picture of life
Feel the wisdom and ingenuity of the predecessors
Witness the development and change of the times
If you like to watch Japanese dramas, if you like Japanese culture and want to understand the Showa era that is so memorable for Japanese people, then I sincerely recommend this "Rediscovering Japan: 500 Pieces of Japanese Nostalgic Artifacts" for you.
The book is illustrated by Keiji Nakabayashi, a film art designer, so the book not only has the knowledge of the text written by the Japanese folklorist Hiroshi Iwai, outlining the trajectory of The Changing Times in Japan, but also has more than 500 hand-drawn illustrations that are detailed, from residential structures and transportation vehicles to pots and pans, a needle and a thread, a book recreates the panorama of life in the Showa period in Japan.
Recommended to you.
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