Japan is a country that has completely and radically reinvented herself many time throughout her history. Two of these reinventions have been within the last 200 years. The first is Meiji and the second is WW2. Let’s look at the first one:

From 1640 to 1868 Japan was a closed country. No one was allowed in or out; the only open port was Nagasaki and even then only a select few countries were allowed to dock there. Culture really