Traditional Culture Encyclopedia - Hotel accommodation - Why was Japan called "Japanese" in ancient times? Was it because they were too short?

Why was Japan called "Japanese" in ancient times? Was it because they were too short?

Japanese people were called "Japanese" in ancient times because they were too short.

The word "Japanese" means "obeying people and entrusting people", which is also a dwarf. The word "Wei" is a knowing word, and the word "Wei" is Conghe Congnu. The original meaning is that the plants of the crops are shorter than usual.

A large number of ancient skeleton specimens from the Han, Tang and Song dynasties were unearthed in Zhengzhou. According to the forensic formula, the average height of each generation was calculated based on the femur: Han Dynasty: adult men 170 cm, adult women 161.25 cm "Zhengzhou Han, Tang and Song Dynasties" Research on human bones unearthed from tombs."

The height of adult Japanese men in ancient times was around 1.58.

"Book of the Later Han·Biographies of Dongyi" "In the second year of Jianwu Zhongyuan (AD 57), the Japanese slave country paid tribute and congratulated people, making people call themselves doctors. The southernmost boundary of the Japanese country was also given by Guangwu. Seal Ribbon." This gold seal serves as proof of the earliest exchanges between China and Japan. During the period of Emperor Wu of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the King of Japan sent envoys to Luoyang, the capital of the Han Dynasty, to pay tribute and offered to become a Han vassal. He asked the Emperor of the Han Dynasty to give him a name, but the Han Dynasty gave him the "Japanese Kingdom" because he was short. The king also asked the Emperor of Han to grant him a title, and Emperor Guangwu granted him the title of "King of Japanese Nu".

The earlier "Hanshu Geography" also records that "there are Japanese people in the Lelang Sea, divided into more than a hundred countries, and they are presented according to the age of the year."

"Wei Zhi·Biography of the Japanese" records: In 239, Queen Himihu sent Nan Shengmi as an envoy to China. I met Cao Rui, the emperor of Wei during the Three Kingdoms period at that time, and Cao Rui named the Queen of Japan the pro-Wei Japanese king. The Queen of Japan was given the title of "King of Japan". She was very happy that she finally got the canonization of China, so she named her country "Japan". The original meaning of "Japan" was not derogatory. It was not until the Tang Dynasty in China that the Japanese country sent many envoys to China to study Chinese culture. At this time, they discovered that the word "Japanese" meant "short", so they revised the country's name to Japan. Later, the word "和" was replaced with the word "和" which had the same pronunciation as the word "倭". In order to show that they were not short, they added "大" at the beginning and were called the "Yamato" nation.

It wasn’t until after World War II that Japan’s dietary structure changed, eating more beans, beef, and all people eating high-protein foods such as milk. In addition, American soldiers stationed in Japan, American soldiers had more and more Japanese female lovers, and many of them formed families. American soldiers were handsome, tall, and respected women more than Japanese men, so they were very popular. After World War II, there were so many mixed-race Americans and Japanese people that the average height of the Japanese as a whole increased significantly.

Remarks: In 1784, a gold seal engraved with the five characters "King of Han Weinu" (ancient Wetongwa) was unearthed in Shiga Island, Hakata Bay, Kitakyushu region, Japan. The gold seal is made of pure gold, with a square body, 2.3 cm long and 2 cm high, with snake buttons and inscribed seal characters.

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