Hand fan
A handheld fan may be any broad, flat surface, waved back-and-forth to create an airflow. Purpose-made handheld fans are shaped like a sector of a circle and made of a thin material mounted on slats which revolve around a pivot so that it can be closed when not in use. On human skin, the airflow from handfans increases evaporation which has a cooling effect due to the latent heat of evaporation of water, it increases heat convection by displacing the warmer air produced by body heat that surrounds the skin. Fans are convenient to carry around folding fans. Next to the folding fans, the rigid hand screen fan, was a decorative and desired object among the higher classes, its purpose is different. They were used to shield the lady's face against the glare of the sun or the fire. Archaeological ruins and ancient texts show that the hand fan was used in ancient Greece at least since the 4th century BC and was known under the name rhipis. Christian Europe's earliest fan was the flabellum; this was used during services to drive insects away from wine.
Its use continues in the Eastern Orthodox and Ethiopian Churches. Hand fans were absent in Europe during the High Middle Ages until they were reintroduced in the 13th and 14th centuries Fans from the Middle East were brought back by Crusaders. Portuguese traders brought them back from China and Japan in the 16th century, fans became popular; the fan is popular in Spain, where flamenco dancers used the fan and extended its use to the nobility. European brands have introduced more modern designs and have enabled the hand fan to work with modern-day fashion. In the 17th century the folding fan, its attendant semiotic culture, were introduced from Japan. Simpler fans were developed in China and Egypt. Japanese fans became popular in Europe; these fans are well displayed in the portraits of the high-born women of the era. Queen Elizabeth I of England can be seen to carry both folding fans decorated with pom poms on their guardsticks as well as the older style rigid fan decorated with feathers and jewels.
These rigid style fans hung from the skirts of ladies, but of the fans of this era it is only the more exotic folding ones which have survived. Those folding fans of the 15th century found in museums today have either leather leaves with cut out designs forming a lace-like design or a more rigid leaf with inlays of more exotic materials like mica. One of the characteristics of these fans is the rather crude bone or ivory sticks and the way the leather leaves are slotted onto the sticks rather than glued as with folding fans. Fans made of decorated sticks without a fan'leaf' were known as brisé fans. However, despite the relative crude methods of construction folding fans were at this era high status, exotic items on par with elaborate gloves as gifts to royalty. In the 17th century the rigid fan, seen in portraits of the previous century had fallen out of favour as folding fans gained dominance in Europe. Fans started to display well painted leaves with a religious or classical subject; the reverse side of these early fans started to display elaborate flower designs.
The sticks are plain ivory or tortoiseshell, sometimes inlaid with gold or silver pique work. The way the sticks sit close to each other with little or no space between them is one of the distinguishing characteristics of fans of this era. In 1685 the Edict of Nantes was revoked in France; this caused large scale immigration from France to the surrounding Protestant countries of many fan craftsman. This dispersion in skill is reflected in the growing quality of many fans from these non-French countries after this date. In the 18th century, fans reached a high degree of artistry and were being made throughout Europe by specialized craftsmen, either in leaves or sticks. Folded fans of silk, or parchment were painted by artists. Fans were imported from China by the East India Companies at this time. Around the middle 18th century, inventors started designing mechanical fans. Wind-up fans were popular in the 18th century. In the 19th century in the West, European fashion caused fan size to vary, it has been said that in the courts of England and elsewhere fans were used in a more or less secret, unspoken code of messages These fan languages were a way to cope with the restricting social etiquette.
However, modern research has proved that this was a marketing ploy developed in the 18th century - one that has kept its appeal remarkably over the succeeding centuries. This is now used for marketing by fan makers like Co.. Ltd who produced a series of advertisements in 1954 showing "the language of the fan" with fans supplied by the well known French fan maker Duvelleroy; the rigid or screen fan became fashionable during the 18th and 19th century. They never reached the same level of popularity as the easy to carry around, folding fans which became an integrated part of women's dress; the screen fan was used inside the interior of the house. In 18th and 19th century paintings of interiors one sometimes sees one laying on a chimney mantle, they were used to protect a woman's face against the glare and heat of the fire, to avoid getting'coup rose' or ruddy cheeks from the heat. But not in the least it served to keep the heat from spoiling the applied
Awa Province (Chiba)
Awa Province was a province of Japan in the area of modern Chiba Prefecture. It lies on the tip of the Bōsō Peninsula, whose name takes its first kanji from the name of Awa Province and its second from Kazusa and Shimōsa Provinces, its abbreviated form name was Bōshū or Anshū. Awa Province in Shikoku is written with different kanji. Awa is classified as one of the provinces of the Tōkaidō. Under the Engishiki classification system, Awa was ranked as a "middle country" and a "far country". Awa was one of four districts of Kazusa Province, it was well-known to the Imperial Court in Nara period Japan for its bountiful seafoods, is mentioned in Nara period records as having supplied fish to the Court as early as the reign of the semi-legendary Emperor Keikō. On May 2, 718 the district of Awa was elevated into status to a full province. On December 10, 741 it was merged back into Kazusa, but regained its independent status in 757; the exact location of the capital of the new province is not known, but is believed to have been somewhere within the borders of the modern city of Minamibōsō, Chiba.
During the Heian period, the province was divided into numerous shōen controlled by local samurai clans. These clans sided with Minamoto no Yoritomo in the Genpei War; the history of the province in the Kamakura period is uncertain, but it came under the control of the Yūki clan and the Uesugi clan in the early Muromachi period. However, by the Sengoku period, the Satomi clan had gained control over much of Awa and Shimōsa provinces; the Satomi sided with Tokugawa Ieyasu in the Battle of Sekigahara, but after being implicated in the political intrigues of Ōkubo Tadachika in 1614, were forced to surrender their domains for Kurayoshi Domain in Hōki Province, Awa became tenryō territory administered by various hatamoto aside from five small domains created at various times in the Edo period, with an additional two domains created at the start of the Meiji period. The entire province had an assessed revenue of 95,736 koku; the various domains and tenryo territories were transformed into short-lived prefectures in July 1871 by the abolition of the han system, the entire territory of Awa Province became part of the new Chiba Prefecture on June 15, 1873.
Asai District – merged into Awa District on April 1, 1897 Awa District – absorbed Asai and Nagasa Districts on April 1, 1897 Heguri District – merged into Awa District on April 1, 1897 Nagasa District – merged into Awa District on April 1, 1897 Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric and Käthe Roth.. Japan encyclopedia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-01753-5. Historical and Geographic Dictionary of Japan. Tokyo: Librarie Sansaisha. OCLC 77691250 Murdoch's map of provinces, 1903
Tokyo Bay
Tokyo Bay is a bay located in the southern Kantō region of Japan, spans the coasts of Tokyo, Kanagawa Prefecture, Chiba Prefecture. Tokyo Bay is connected to the Pacific Ocean by the Uraga Channel, its old name was Edo Bay. The Tokyo Bay region is both the largest industrialized area in Japan. In ancient times, Japanese knew Tokyo Bay as the uchi-umi or "inner sea". By the Azuchi -- Momoyama period the area had become known as a reference to the city of Edo; the bay took its present name of Tokyo Bay in modern times, after the Imperial court moved to Edo and renamed the city Tokyo in 1868. Tokyo Bay juts prominently into the Kantō Plain, it is surrounded by the Bōsō Peninsula in Chiba Prefecture to the east and the Miura Peninsula in Kanagawa Prefecture to the west. The shore of Tokyo Bay is subject to rapid marine erosion. Sediments on the shore of the bay make for a continuous shoreline. In a narrow sense, Tokyo Bay is the area north of the straight line from Cape Kannon on the west of Miura Peninsula to Cape Futtsu on the east Bōsō Peninsula.
This area covers about 922 square kilometres in 2012, reclamation projects continue to shrink the bay. In a broader sense, Tokyo Bay includes the Uraga Channel. By this definition the bay opens from an area north of the straight line from Cape Tsurugisaki on the east of Miura Peninsula to Cape Sunosaki on the west of the Boso Peninsula; this area covers about 1,100 square kilometres. The area of Tokyo Bay combined with the Uraga Channel covers 1,500 square kilometres; the shoal between Cape Futtsu in Chiba Prefecture and Cape Honmaku in Yokohama is known as Nakanose, has a depth of 20 metres. North of this area the bay has a depth of an uncomplicated underwater topography. Areas south of Nakanose are deeper moving towards the Pacific Ocean; the only natural island in Tokyo Bay is Sarushima at Kanagawa Prefecture. Sarushima was one of the locations fortified with coastal artillery during the Bakumatsu period and was subsequently incorporated into the Tokyo Bay Fortress during the Meiji period; the Imperial Japanese Navy maintained a degaussing station on the island until the end of World War II.
The island is a marine park. Many artificial islands were built as naval fortifications in the Taishō periods. After World War II these islands were converted to recreational use. Odaiba known as Daiba, was one of six artificial islands constructed in 1853 as a fortification to protect the Tokugawa shogunate at Edo, was known as the Shinagawa Daiba. After World War II Odaiba was incorporated into Tokyo and redeveloped for commercial and recreational use. After World War II Yumenoshima was planned as a solution to dispose of the large quantities of garbage from the Tokyo Metropolitan Area; the island hosts numerous recreational facilities. Hakkei Island Landfill Number 14, was constructed in 1985 and is home to Yokohama Hakkeijima Sea Paradise. Other artificial islands include Heiwa, Katsushima, Shōwa, Higashiōgi islands. Numerous rivers empty into Tokyo Bay, all provide water for residential and industrial areas along the bay; the Tama and Sumida rivers empty into the bay at Tokyo. The Edo River empties into Tokyo Bay between Chiba Prefecture.
The Obitsu and Yōrō rivers empty into the bay in Chiba Prefecture. Land reclamation has been carried out along the coast of Tokyo Bay since the Meiji period. Areas along the shore with a depth of less than 5 metres are simplest to carry out landfill, sand from the floor of Tokyo Bay is used for these projects; the topography of the shoreline of Tokyo Bay differs from that of the pre-modern period due to ongoing land reclamation projects. Tokyo Bay includes about 249 square kilometres of reclaimed land area in 2012. Aggregate household waste production is enormous in Greater Tokyo, there is little room for traditional garbage disposal sites; the Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line bridge-tunnel crosses Tokyo Bay between Kisarazu. Tokyo Bay was a historical center of the fishing industry, a source of shellfish, other aquaculture; these industries decreased with the industrialization of the Tokyo Bay region early in the 20th century, completely ceased with the construction of the Keihin and Keiyō industrial zones directly after World War II.
A number of Japan's most important ports are located in Tokyo Bay. The Port of Yokohama, the Port of Chiba, the Port of Tokyo, the Port of Kawasaki, the Port of Yokosuka, the Port of Kisarazu, rank not only as the busiest ports in Japan, but in the Asia-Pacific Region. Industrial zones on Tokyo Bay were developed as early as the Meiji Era; the Keihin Industrial Zone was built on reclaimed land in Kanagawa Prefecture to the west of Tokyo. This was expanded to the Keiyō Industrial Zone in Chiba Prefecture along the north and east coasts of Tokyo Bay after World War II; the development of the two zones has resulted in the largest industrialized area in Japan. The large-scale industrial zones of the coastal Tokyo region have caused significant air and water pollution; the Port of Yokosuka contains the naval bases of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force and the United States Forces Japan. Tokyo Bay was the venue for the Perry Expedition, which involv
Whaling
Whaling is the hunting of whales for their usable products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil which became important in the Industrial Revolution. It was practiced as an organized industry as early as 875 AD. By the 16th century, it had risen to be the principle industry in the coastal regions of Spain and France; the industry spread throughout the world, became profitable in terms of trade and resources. Some regions of the world's oceans, along the animals' migration routes, had a dense whale population, became the targets for large concentrations of whaling ships, the industry continued to grow well into the 20th century; the depletion of some whale species to near extinction led to the banning of whaling in many countries by 1969, to a worldwide cessation of whaling as an industry in the late 1980s. The earliest forms of whaling date to at least circa 3000 BC. Coastal communities around the world have long histories of subsistence use of cetaceans, by dolphin drive hunting and by harvesting drift whales.
Industrial whaling emerged with organized fleets of whaleships in the 17th century. By the late 1930s more than 50,000 whales were killed annually. In 1986, the International Whaling Commission banned commercial whaling because of the extreme depletion of most of the whale stocks. Contemporary whaling is subject to intense debate. Countries that support commercial whaling, notably Iceland and Norway, wish to lift the ban on certain whale stocks for hunting. Anti-whaling countries and environmental groups oppose lifting the ban. Under the terms of the IWC moratorium, aboriginal whaling is allowed to continue on a subsistence basis. Over the past few decades, whale watching has become a significant industry in many parts of the world; the live capture of cetaceans for display in aquaria continues. Whaling began in prehistoric times in coastal waters; the earliest depictions of whaling are the Neolithic Bangudae Petroglyphs in Korea, which may date back to 6000 BC. These images are the earliest evidence for whaling.
Although prehistoric hunting and gathering is considered to have had little ecological impact, early whaling in the Arctic may have altered freshwater ecology. Early whaling affected the development of disparate cultures – such as Norway and Japan, both of which continue to hunt in the 21st century; the Basques were the first to catch whales commercially, dominated the trade for five centuries, spreading to the far corners of the North Atlantic and reaching the South Atlantic. The development of modern whaling techniques was spurred in the 19th century by the increase in demand for whale oil, sometimes known as "train oil", in the 20th century by a demand for margarine and whale meat. Many countries which once had significant industries, such as the Netherlands and Argentina, ceased whaling long ago, so are not covered in this article; the primary species hunted are minke whales,belugas and pilot whales. Which are some of the smallest species of whales. There are smaller numbers killed of gray whales, sei whales, fin whales, bowhead whales, Bryde's whales, sperm whales and humpback whales.
Recent scientific surveys estimate a population of 103,000 minkes in the northeast Atlantic. With respect to the populations of Antarctic minke whales, as of January 2010, the IWC states that it is "unable to provide reliable estimates at the present time" and that a "major review is underway by the Scientific Committee."Whale oil is used little today and modern whaling is done for food: for pets, fur farms, sled dogs and humans, for making carvings of tusks and vertebrae. Both meat and blubber are eaten from narwhals and bowheads. From commercially hunted minkes, meat is eaten by humans or animals, blubber is rendered down to cheap industrial products such as animal feed or, in Iceland, as a fuel supplement for whaling ships. International cooperation on whaling regulation began in 1931 and culminated in the signing of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling in 1946, its aim is to: provide for the proper conservation of whale stocks and thus make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry.
The International Whaling Commission was set up under the ICRW to decide hunting quotas and other relevant matters based on the findings of its Scientific Committee. Non-member countries conduct their own management programs, it regulates hunting of 13 species of great whales, has not reached consensus on whether it may regulate smaller species. The IWC voted on July 23, 1982, to establish a moratorium on commercial whaling of great whales beginning in the 1985–86 season. Since 1992, the IWC's Scientific Committee has requested that it be allowed to give quota proposals for some whale stocks, but this has so far been refused by the Plenary Committee. At the 2010 meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Morocco, representatives of the 88 member states discussed whether or not to lift the 24-year ban on commercial whaling. Japan and Iceland have urged the organisation to lift the ban. A coalition of anti-whaling nations has offered a compromise plan that would allow these countries to continue whaling, but with smaller catches and under close supervision.
Their plan would completely ban whaling in the Southern Ocean. More than 200 scientists and experts have
Hiking
Hiking is the preferred term, in Canada and the United States, for a long, vigorous walk on trails, in the countryside, while the word walking is used for shorter urban walks. On the other hand, in the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, the word "walking" is acceptable to describe all forms of walking, whether it is a walk in the park or backpacking in the Alps; the word hiking is often used in the UK, along with rambling and fell walking. The term bushwalking is endemic to Australia, having been adopted by the Sydney Bush Walkers club in 1927. In New Zealand a long, vigorous walk or hike is called tramping, it is a popular activity with numerous hiking organizations worldwide, studies suggest that all forms of walking have health benefits. In the United States, the Republic of Ireland, United Kingdom, hiking means walking outdoors on a trail, or off trail, for recreational purposes. A day hike refers to a hike. However, in the United Kingdom, the word walking is used, as well as rambling, while walking in mountainous areas is called hillwalking.
In Northern England, Including the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales, fellwalking describes hill or mountain walks, as fell is the common word for both features there. Hiking is sometimes referred to as such; this refers to difficult walking through dense forest, undergrowth, or bushes, where forward progress requires pushing vegetation aside. In extreme cases of bushwhacking, where the vegetation is so dense that human passage is impeded, a machete is used to clear a pathway; the Australian term bushwalking refers to both on and off-trail hiking. Common terms for hiking used by New Zealanders are walking or bushwalking. Trekking is the preferred word used to describe multi-day hiking in the mountainous regions of India, Nepal, North America, South America and the highlands of East Africa. Hiking a long-distance trail from end-to-end is referred to as trekking and as thru-hiking in some places. In North America, multi-day hikes with camping, are referred to as backpacking; the idea of taking a walk in the countryside for pleasure developed in the 18th century, arose because of changing attitudes to the landscape and nature associated with the Romantic movement.
In earlier times walking indicated poverty and was associated with vagrancy. Thomas West, an English priest, popularized the idea of walking for pleasure in his guide to the Lake District of 1778. In the introduction he wrote that he aimed to encourage the taste of visiting the lakes by furnishing the traveller with a Guide. To this end he included various'stations' or viewpoints around the lakes, from which tourists would be encouraged to enjoy the views in terms of their aesthetic qualities. Published in 1778 the book was a major success. Another famous early exponent of walking for pleasure, was the English poet William Wordsworth. In 1790 he embarked on an extended tour of France and Germany, a journey subsequently recorded in his long autobiographical poem The Prelude, his famous poem Tintern Abbey was inspired by a visit to the Wye Valley made during a walking tour of Wales in 1798 with his sister Dorothy Wordsworth. Wordsworth's friend Coleridge was another keen walker and in the autumn of 1799, he and Wordsworth undertook a three weeks tour of the Lake District.
John Keats, who belonged to the next generation of Romantic poets began, in June 1818, a walking tour of Scotland and the Lake District with his friend Charles Armitage Brown. More and more people undertook walking tours through the 19th century, of which the most famous is Robert Louis Stevenson's journey through the Cévennes in France with a donkey, recorded in his Travels with a Donkey. Stevenson published in 1876 his famous essay "Walking Tours"; the subgenre of travel writing produced many classics in the subsequent 20th century. An early American example of a book that describes an extended walking tour is naturalist John Muir's A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf, a posthumous published account of a long botanizing walk, undertaken in 1867. Due to industrialisation in England, people began to migrate to the cities where living standards were cramped and unsanitary, they would escape the confines of the city by rambling about in the countryside. However, the land in England around the urban areas of Manchester and Sheffield, was owned and trespass was illegal.
Rambling clubs soon sprang up in the north and began politically campaigning for the legal'right to roam'. One of the first such clubs, was'Sunday Tramps' founded by Leslie White in 1879; the first national grouping, the Federation of Rambling Clubs, was formed in London in 1905 and was patronized by the peerage. Access to Mountains bills, that would have legislated the public's'right to roam' across some private land, were periodically presented to Parliament from 1884 to 1932 without success. In 1932, the Rambler’s Right Movement organized a mass trespass on Kinder Scout in Derbyshire. Despite attempts on the part of the police to prevent the trespass from going ahead it was achieved due to massive publicity; however the Mountain Access Bill, passed in 1939 was opposed by many walkers' organizations, including The Ramblers, who felt that it did not
Tokugawa shogunate
The Tokugawa Shogunate known as the Tokugawa Bakufu and the Edo Bakufu, was the last feudal Japanese military government, which existed between 1603 and 1867. The head of government was the shōgun, each was a member of the Tokugawa clan; the Tokugawa shogunate ruled from Edo Castle and the years of the shogunate became known as the Edo period. This time is called the Tokugawa period or pre-modern. Following the Sengoku period, the central government had been re-established by Oda Nobunaga during the Azuchi–Momoyama period. After the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, central authority fell to Tokugawa Ieyasu. Society in the Tokugawa period, unlike in previous shogunates, was based on the strict class hierarchy established by Toyotomi Hideyoshi; the daimyō were at the top, followed by the warrior-caste of samurai, with the farmers and traders ranking below. In some parts of the country smaller regions, daimyō and samurai were more or less identical, since daimyō might be trained as samurai, samurai might act as local rulers.
Otherwise, the inflexible nature of this social stratification system unleashed disruptive forces over time. Taxes on the peasantry were set at fixed amounts that did not account for inflation or other changes in monetary value; as a result, the tax revenues collected by the samurai landowners were worth less and less over time. This led to numerous confrontations between noble but impoverished samurai and well-to-do peasants, ranging from simple local disturbances to much larger rebellions. None, proved compelling enough to challenge the established order until the arrival of foreign powers. A 2017 study found that peasant rebellions and collective desertion lowered tax rates and inhibited state growth in the Tokugawa shogunate. In the mid-19th century, an alliance of several of the more powerful daimyō, along with the titular Emperor, succeeded in overthrowing the shogunate after the Boshin War, culminating in the Meiji Restoration; the Tokugawa shogunate came to an official end in 1868 with the resignation of the 15th Tokugawa shōgun Tokugawa Yoshinobu, leading to the "restoration" of imperial rule.
Notwithstanding its eventual overthrow in favor of the more modernized, less feudal form of governance of the Meiji Restoration, the Tokugawa shogunate oversaw the longest period of peace and stability in Japan's history, lasting well over 260 years. The bakuhan taisei was the feudal political system in the Edo period of Japan. Baku is an abbreviation of bakufu, meaning "military government"—that is, the shogunate; the han were the domains headed by daimyō. Vassals provided military service and homage to their lords; the bakuhan taisei split feudal power between the shogunate in Edo and provincial domains throughout Japan. Provinces had a degree of sovereignty and were allowed an independent administration of the han in exchange for loyalty to the shōgun, responsible for foreign relations and national security; the shōgun and lords were all daimyōs: feudal lords with their own bureaucracies and territories. The shōgun administered the most powerful han, the hereditary fief of the House of Tokugawa.
Each level of government administered its own system of taxation. The emperor, nominally a religious leader, held no real power; the shogunate had the power to discard and transform domains. The sankin-kōtai system of alternative residence required each daimyō to reside in alternate years between the han and the court in Edo. During their absences from Edo, it was required that they leave family as hostages until their return; the huge expenditure sankin-kōtai imposed on each han helped centralize aristocratic alliances and ensured loyalty to the shōgun as each representative doubled as a potential hostage. Tokugawa's descendants further ensured loyalty by maintaining a dogmatic insistence on loyalty to the shōgun. Fudai daimyō were hereditary vassals of Ieyasu, as well as of his descendants. Tozama became vassals of Ieyasu after the Battle of Sekigahara. Shinpan were collaterals of Tokugawa Hidetada. Early in the Edo period, the shogunate viewed the tozama as the least to be loyal. In the end, it was the great tozama of Satsuma, Chōshū and Tosa, to a lesser extent Hizen, that brought down the shogunate.
These four states are called Satchotohi for short. The number of han fluctuated throughout the Edo period, they were ranked by size, measured as the number of koku of rice that the domain produced each year. One koku was the amount of rice necessary to feed one adult male for one year; the minimum number for a daimyō was ten thousand koku. Regardless of the political title of the Emperor, the shōguns of the Tokugawa family controlled Japan; the administration of Japan was a task given by the Imperial Court in Kyoto to the Tokugawa family, which returned to the court in the Meiji Restoration. While the Emperor had the prerogative of appointing the shōgun, he had no say in state affairs; the shogunate appointed a liaison, the Kyoto Shoshidai, to deal with the Emperor and nobility. Towards the end of the shogunate, after centuries of the Emperor having little say in state affairs and being secluded in his Kyoto palace, in the wake of the reigning shōgun, Tokugawa Iemochi, marrying the sister of Emperor Kōmei, in 1862, the Imperial Court in Kyoto
Ferndale, Washington, USA[15]
Blankenberge, Belgium[16]
