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Japan is the subject of more gullible and misguided musings than perhaps any other place in the world: the best way to approach it is to discard your preconceptions. Somewhere between the elegant formality of Japanese manners and the candid, sometimes boisterous exchanges that take place over a few drinks, between the sanitized shopping malls and the unexpected rural festivals, everyone finds their own vision of Japan.  Whether you end up taking photos of a reproduction Eiffel Tower, surfing an indoor wave, shacking up in a converted love hotel or quipping down in a capsule, you'll do best to come with an open mind and be prepared to be surprised.

Japan's earliest settlers were fishers, hunters and gatherers who slogged over the land bridges from Korea to the west and Siberia to the north.  It's also thought that seafaring migrants from Polynesia were part of the ethnic blend. By AD 300, the sun-worshipping Yamato kingdom had loosely unified the nation through conquest and alliance.  Buddhism was introduced from China in the mid-6th century and soon became the state religion. Rivalry between Buddhism and Shinto, the traditional religion of Japan, was diffused by presenting Shinto deities as manifestations of Buddha.

With the empire more or less stable, particularly after the conquest of the indigenous Ainu in the 9th century, Japan's emperors began to devote more time to leisure and scholarly pursuits and less time to government. Important court posts were dominated by the noble but corrupt Fujiwara family. Out in the provinces, a new power was on the rise: the samurai, or 'warrior class', readily turned to arms to defend its autonomy, and began to muscle in on the capital, Heinz (modern-day Kyoto).  The Tiara clan briefly eclipsed the Fujiwara, and were ousted in turn by the Minato family in 1185. After assuming the rank of shogun (military leader), Minamoto Yoritomo set up his HQ in Kamakura, while the emperor remained the nominal ruler in Kyoto.  This was the beginning of a long period of feudal rule by successive samurai families which lingered until imperial power was restored in 1868.

The feudal centuries can be clunkily split into five main periods. The Kamakura Period (1185-1333) saw repeated invasions by Kublai Khan's Mongol armies. Japan managed to stave off the Mongols, but a weakened leadership lost the support of the samurai (warrior class). Emperor Go-Daigo presided over the beginning of the Muromachi Period (1333-1576), until a revolt masterminded by the disgruntled warrior Ashikaga saw him flee to the hills. Ashikaga and his descendants ruled with gradually diminishing effectiveness and Japan slipped into civil war and chaos.  The various factions were pacified and unified during the Momoyama Period (1576-1600) by Oda Nobunaga and his successor Toyotomi Hideyoshi. The quick spread of Christianity during the Christian Century (1543-1640) was tolerated at first, then ferociously quashed as the interloping religion came to be seen as a threat.  During the Tokugawa Period (1600-1867), Tokugawa Ieyasu defeated Hideyoshi's young heir and set up his headquarters at Edo (now Tokyo).  The emperor continued to exercise purely nominal authority in Kyoto while the Tokugawa family led Japan into a period of national seclusion. Japanese were forbidden to travel overseas or to trade abroad and foreigners were placed under strict supervision.  The rigid emphasis of these times on submitting unquestioningly to rules of obedience and loyalty has lasted, some would say, to the present day.

By the turn of the 19th century, the Tokugawa government was stagnant and corrupt. Foreign ships started to probe Japan's isolation with increasing insistence, and famine and poverty weakened support for the government.  In 1867 the ruling shogun, Keiki, resigned and Emperor Meiji resumed control of state affairs, seeing Japan through a crash course in westernisation and industrialisation. In 1889 Japan created a Western-style constitution, the tenets of which seeped into national consciousness along with a swing back to traditional values. Japan's growing confidence was demonstrated by the ease with which it trounced China in the Sino-Japanese War (1894-5) and Russia in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5). Under Meiji's son, Yoshihito, Japan sided with the Allies in WWI. Rather than become heavily involved in the conflict, however, Japan took the opportunity, through shipping and trade, to expand its economy at top speed.  Emperor Hirohito ascended to the throne in 1926. A rising tide of nationalism was quickened by the world economic depression that began in 1930.  Popular unrest led to a strong increase in the power of the militarists: Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931 and entered into full-scale hostilities against China in 1937.

Japan signed a tripartite pact with Germany and Italy in 1940 and, when diplomatic attempts to gain US neutrality failed, the Japanese launched themselves into WWII with a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941.  At first Japan scored rapid successes, pushing its battle fronts across to India, down to the fringes of Australia and out into the mid-Pacific.  The Battle of Midway opened the US counterattack, puncturing Japanese naval superiority and turning the tide of war against Japan. By August 1945, with Japan driven back on all fronts, a declaration of war by the Soviet Union and the release of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was all over.

Emperor Hirohito announced unconditional surrender.  Japan was occupied until 1952 by Allied forces who aimed to demilitarize the country and dismantle the power of the emperor.  A recovery program enabled the economy to expand rapidly, and Japan became the world's most successful export economy, generating massive trade surpluses and dominating such fields as electronics, robotics, computing, car production and banking.

With the arrival of the 1990s, the old certainties seemed to vanish: Japan's legendary economic growth slowed to a virtual standstill; the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) was swept out of power and then back in again the next year; a massive earthquake in 1995 brought Kobe to its knees (a disaster made worse by a government that was slow to react); and to top it off, a millennial cult with doomsday ambitions engineered a poison gas attack on the Tokyo subway system.

Things began to look up with the appointment of Keizo Obuchi, who took over from Prime Minister Hashimoto. Hashimoto was ousted after voter backlash over the spiraling economy.  Obuchi ushered in a few brief years of economic vitality, but the job took its toll and he died, while still in office, from a massive stroke. His successor, LDP stalwart Yoshiro Mori held the dubious honor of possessing the lowest approval rating of any leader in recent Japanese history, until he announced his resignation in early April 2001. Mori's successor is the eccentric Junichiro Koizumi, who brings a beguiling mix of nationalism and reform to Japan's top job. Promising to end Japan's perceived culture of high-level nepotism, he distinguishes himself from his many recent predecessors by creating a high level of public expectation. Time, as ever, will tell.

Much of Japan's early literature was written by women, as men wrote in Chinese characters while women, who were denied the educational resources to learn Chinese, wrote in Japanese script (hiaigana. Thus, while men were busy copying Chinese styles and texts, women were producing the first authentic Japanese literature. Among these early female authors is Murasaki Shikibu, who wrote one of Japan's most important works of literature, The Tale of Genji, about the intrigues of early Japanese court life. The revered poet Matsuo Basho perfected just-so haiku poetry in the 17th century. More modern literati include controversial Yukio Mishima, provocative Murakami Ryu and cool cat Banana Yoshimoto.

Shinto (the native religion of Japan), Buddhism (a much-traveled foreign import originating in India), Confucianism (a Chinese import that is less a religion than a code of ethics), Taoism and even Christianity all play a role in contemporary Japanese social life, and are defining in some way of the Japanese world view.  Religions, for the most part, are not exclusive of each other. Shinto grew out of an awe for manifestations of nature such as sun, water, rocks, trees and even sounds. All such natural features were felt to have their god and shrines were erected in particularly sacred spots. Many Shinto beliefs were incorporated into Japanese Buddhist practices after Buddhism was introduced in the 6th century.

Eating is half the fun of being in Japan, and the adventurous eater will be delighted to know that Japanese food is far more than the sushi, tempura and sukiyaki for which it is best known in other countries. With the exception of shokudo (all-round eateries) and izakaya (the equivalent of a pub with meals), most Japanese restaurants specialize in one type of cuisine.  In a cook-it-yourself okonomiyaki restaurant, diners choose a mixture of meat, seafood and vegetables to fry up in a cabbage and vegetable batter; a robatayaki is a rustic drinking restaurant specializing in charcoal grills. There are a variety of cook-at-your-table restaurants where you'll end up eating sukiyaki (thinly sliced beef, vegetables and tofu cooked in broth), shabu-shabu (beef and veggies cooked by swirling them in broth and then dipped in sauces) or nabemono (a participatory soup, with each diner dipping ingredients from trays of prepared raw food).  It's possible to eat relatively cheaply by sticking to humble shokudo, or eating bentos (boxed lunches) or teishoku (set meals) from cheaper restaurants or cafeteria-style places.

Drinking is the glue that holds Japanese society together.  It is practiced by almost every adult, male or female, and a good number of teenagers. Beer is the favorite tipple of the Japanese and it's dispensed everywhere from vending machines to temple lodgings. Sake (rice wine) is served warm or cold, with the warm stuff especially likely to go straight to your head. Sake hangovers are memorable, so drink carefully.  Japanese green tea contains a lot of vitamin C and caffeine. It's very healthy and refreshing and is said by some to prevent cancer.