Visited National Museum of Japanese History

I visited the National Museum of Japanese History on November 28, 2020. It's a huge museum of Japanese history that houses and displays 200,000 artifacts focused on history and culture in Japan. The most interesting part about this museum is that it's focused on culture (folklore) in Japan; I feel some cultural anthropological viewpoint here.

The entrance of the National Museum of Japanese History

The huge museum consists of 6 galleries, each having different themes. I visited the museum for the first time to see their special exhibition, "Gender in Japanese History."

The special exhibition "Gender in Japanese History"

The special exhibition focused on different times in history and explained how female was presented in each time. It might be surprising to some people to learn that women had quite a power in the Japanese culture in political, financial, family, etc., point of views. Many females had power in feudal times, supporting her husband samurais to govern their areas. Females had taken a lot of part in farming, too. They lost much power after the Meiji Period, as Japan started to follow Western culture to be a part of modern society.

The special exhibition itself was a little scattered, and much of the information was not new to me, so it was okay. The permanent exhibitions were more than impressive! They have six galleries, but I only could see Gallery 6 briefly and some parts of Gallery 4. Gallery 4 is dedicated to folklore, and it was most interesting to me.

Gallery 6 of the National Museum of Japanese History

Gallery 4 of National Museum of Japanese History

The map of National Museum of Japanese History

Although the museum takes approximately 2 hours from central Tokyo, I highly recommend this museum. Their exhibitions seem amazing, and I definitely need to visit there again...!

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