Photographs of 19th Century Japan • Hacker News Board

Re: Photographs of 19th Century Japan

#91

Post by decimalenough » Thu, Apr 10, 2025, 11:26 AM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #89

decimalenough wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kyoto was never bombed, but outside a very few carefully curated touristy bits, it's still an ugly AF concrete jungle that looks nothing like these pictures.

Not the central part of Kyoto. You can walk in areas like Gion that have mostly remained the same for centuries. Of course as cities get bigger you get concrete. just like other cities Kyoto has grown in the 20th century and at some point you need concrete instead of wood

Gion and Sannenzaka are the very definition of touristy Kyoto.

Re: Photographs of 19th Century Japan

#92

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 10, 2025, 11:38 AM UTC

throwup238 wrote: post #20

It looks like the other blog post linked to about the photos of the Russian Empire is behind a paywall, but the original Prokudin-Gorskii collection is available for free at the Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/collections/prokudin-gorskii/about-this-... Unlike these photographs from Japan, the ones from the Russian Empire were made with colored photographic plates and they were reassembled into true color ph…

[deleted]

Re: Photographs of 19th Century Japan

#93

Post by lproven » Thu, Apr 10, 2025, 11:59 AM UTC

xandrius wrote: post #8

And this stuff is why I love either super creative science fiction or travelogues (and the formers are hard to find). You can try to imagine a brand new world or simply try to re-live our real and past world. To me that is even more amazing, as it often can be the door to understanding some things of today's cultures and/or discover lost little worlds. Currently I'm going through this book of a guy who cycled across…

> this book of a guy who cycled across Central Asia and in Japan

Go on, give us a clue. Title, author, even language...?

Re: Photographs of 19th Century Japan

#94

Post by antonkochubey » Thu, Apr 10, 2025, 12:04 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #82

hoseyor wrote: post #33

[flagged]

The thing is, Sakoku passim, you can't really prevent homogenization without entirely abandoning the 20th century (heck, 19th century!) travel revolution. You'd need a global ban on air travel, TV, and Internet. The alternative is a sort of re-enactment/cosplay approach where people consciously try to keep local traditions and minority languages (e.g. Gaelic, Sami) alive.

Long distance traveling was invented much earlier than 20th and even 19th century.

Re: Photographs of 19th Century Japan

#95

Post by damnitbuilds » Thu, Apr 10, 2025, 12:17 PM UTC

tjpnz wrote: post #87

damnitbuilds wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm. If we want to preserve our diverse cultures, then we have to do more to defend our own cultures against immigrants imposing their cultures over them. How you do that without being outright racist is the tough part. And I say this as a migrated child of migrants.

Don't see much imposition in Japan and this year will mark ten years living here. People who can't or won't assimilate quickly find themselves living on another plane of existence and eventually leave. Language plays a big part with that too. If you can't speak Japanese or have someone with you who can there are countless everyday situations where you're SOL.

Yes.

But is that a good thing?

And if it is, should we be trying to promote it elsewhere where immigrant imposition does occur? And how?!

Re: Photographs of 19th Century Japan

#96

Post by ListeningPie » Thu, Apr 10, 2025, 12:17 PM UTC

What a difference presentation makes. On Ops link I could enjoy scrolling through the photos, to see them on the Smithsonian site ,I had to find the "See all digital content in FSA.A1999.35" link then 4 clicks for each photo from a harsh index page.

Thank you to makers for putting the sites together, one for storage and the other for consumption.

Re: Photographs of 19th Century Japan

#97

Post by damnitbuilds » Thu, Apr 10, 2025, 12:27 PM UTC

xandrius wrote: post #59

mc3301 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it "Around the world on a bicycle"? I, too, would like to know the name of this book. Sounds interesting!

Thomas Stevens, really an interesting character. He sometimes makes sweeping generalisations, which makes his writing even more real and not filtered.

One suspects "Bloody hell, car drivers are selfish bastards" sprung from his lips a couple of times.

Re: Photographs of 19th Century Japan

#98

Post by yannis » Thu, Apr 10, 2025, 12:32 PM UTC

autoexec wrote: post #34

hoseyor wrote: post #33

[flagged]

> This reminds me that we are all losing our unique and diverse cultures and humanity through the incessant drive of globalist world domination to force everyone to do and be the same We're actually creating new unique and diverse cultures by adopting and remixing parts of the various cultures we encounter. Just looking at photos from other cultures (as you have done today) is a part of that process. This is a good t…

I agree diversity makes us richer, and historically there was always cultural diffusion, what I lament though is that this is now partially done by multinational corporations, wiping out local traditions.

Re: Photographs of 19th Century Japan

#99

Post by yannis » Thu, Apr 10, 2025, 12:42 PM UTC

damnitbuilds wrote: post #83

hoseyor wrote: post #33

[flagged]

Hmm. If we want to preserve our diverse cultures, then we have to do more to defend our own cultures against immigrants imposing their cultures over them. How you do that without being outright racist is the tough part. And I say this as a migrated child of migrants.

How do immigrants impose their cultures on a host country? Can you give some examples? Historically populations mix by migration, wars, slavery, and trading networks. It is a process that cannot be stopped, maybe slowed down or accelerated. The disappointing aspect of it, is now this process has been hijacked by corporations. How did the West acquire a culture of coffee or coffee-shops? Now is McDonalds and Costa Cafes.

Re: Photographs of 19th Century Japan

#100

Post by FalseNutrition » Thu, Apr 10, 2025, 12:53 PM UTC

prmph wrote: post #80

The color detail of these pictures is so detailed and beautiful. Were they really hand colored? The color absolutely looks like something that would be computer generated. If they were indeed hand colored (when?), that would be an absolutely massive amount of painstaking work.

They were dyed, rather than painted. The details come from the photograph.