Like, if you want to talk about the internet becoming less of a reliable source of information as it popularizes, in college, minoring in a department that was one of the US' real repositories of Japan knowledge, I learned things that weren't widely treated in English-language academia and hadn't been part of any US regime-promoted understanding of Japan, including
"the concept of Buddhism and 'Shinto' as distinct things dates to a suppression of monasteries that disempowered autonomous forces AND brought critical population knowledge under imperial authority"
and
"After the Opening of Japan around 100 students were sent to study in Europe, they not only brought back technical knowledge but were key to the successful Meiji Restoration plot to remake Japan along the lines of Prussia"
and at the time I remember being able to google things to support that point but less so every year since
Wikipedia has got your back on Shinto-Buddhist syncretism:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinbutsu-sh%C5%ABg%C5%8D
imported foreign experts:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_government_advisors_in_Meiji_Japan
overseas missions:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iwakura_Mission
and sending students overseas:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiji_(era)#Economy
There were at least two reasons for the speed of Japan's modernization: the employment of more than 3,000 foreign experts (called o-yatoi gaikokujin or 'hired foreigners') in a variety of specialist fields such as teaching English, science, engineering, the army and navy, among others; and the dispatch of many Japanese students overseas to Europe and America, based on the fifth and last article of the Charter Oath of 1868: 'Knowledge shall be sought throughout the world so as to strengthen the foundations of Imperial rule.' This process of modernization was closely monitored and heavily subsidized by the Meiji government, enhancing the power of the great zaibatsu firms such as Mitsui and Mitsubishi.
The Prussia thing is news to me.
oh everyone wanted to be Prussia back then!
