>This is an ancient method, developed in the 14th century
Isn't it interesting, how most of the history of East Asia just has label "ancient" slapped onto it in pop-culture?
Isn't it interesting, how most of the history of East Asia just has label "ancient" slapped onto it in pop-culture?
Hell unlike most western culture, Japan didn't really get their current system for naming individuals and families until the 1870s.
But as to why all these practices in Japan that date past the Meiji era are considered "ancient", one of the major parts of the restoration was the systematic centralisation of Japanese society and standardisation of practices. This resulted in a lot of practices being more or less outlawed with the surviving practices that weren't officially sanctioned by the central government surviving solely due to rebellious/non-compliant individuals secretly preserving their practices throughout the Meiji era.
Into the late Taisho and early Showa era, the threats of violence from the central government were removed and the stigma around these "outlawed" practices faded, allowing families to publicly practice their "non-standardised" crafts.
This is more or less the reason behind the seemingly endless quantity of "ancient crafts" and "secrets passed down through generations". There was a systematic attempt at eliminating non-conformant practices for a good ~40-60 years. That's at least a few generations who grew up fearing retribution for practicing their family traditions.
There's also a whole orientalisation/fetishisation of Japanese things and concepts. The same applies to the broader east asian and greater asian cultures.
Interestingly enough I think the Scandinavian countries moved from a patronymic system around the same time. My hunch is that this is due to globalization of the era and increased international/interimperial interactions.
> Isn't it interesting, how most of the history of East Asia just has label "ancient" slapped onto it in pop-culture?
At least in China, they freely refer to that time period as being "ancient" (古). "Ancient" is probably any time up to the early 20th century.[1]
If you want to emphasize that something is really ancient, you can use 上古.
[1] I asked Baidu 什么时候算古代 ("what time counts as 'ancient'?"), and it turns out I was wrong. The answer is "before 1840".
The standards for "ancient" are simply relative to your own cultural history. A 200 year old building in the US is ancient - a 800 year old building in Germany is also ancient.