Ahir Shah
speaker
80 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard Apr 2025
Ahir Shah’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
And that is the big win that establishes the beginnings of the Edo shogunate.
OK, so Tokugawa Ieyasu, named shogun. He is the first shogun of our period, of the Edo period. Ahir, do you know what it translates to in English, shogun? I don't know.
Right.
What is the relationship between shogun and emperor then?
Who are the social groups in society at this time? We have the elite groups, don't we? So we should we start with them.
From my point of view, growing up, I knew a lot about ninjas and samurai, but actually I didn't really. So what do you think of when you think of samurai?
Satana, is that a good summary?
Right.
Amazing. They're just slicing their way through mountains of paperwork. Yeah. So artisans are craftspeople. They're making things. Peasants are farmers. And then merchants are selling.
Satana, you said in the second half of the Edo period, which we're saying is 265 years or so. In the second half of that period, the economic sort of patterns, they change and there's a sort of decrease in population or there's a slowdown. What happens at that time then?
So that was life in the kind of rural areas, I think. Ahir, I want to turn to you and ask you about city life, actually. So what do you imagine of the Edo period and the cities in Japan at this time?
I think that's a very fair answer. And of course, the character in the show is not a real character, but it's based on a real guy, William Adams. So there was an English pilot who arrived in Japan. We call this the Edo period because of Edo, the city, which was huge, wasn't it, Satana?
I mean, economic decline, boo, but I don't know anything about the history of economics, so I'm going to move on to the stuff that I like. And that's why you're not being paid £8,000 to hear. So let's talk more about culture and entertainment in Edo, Japan. Ahir, what do you think are the go-to cultural kind of touchstones that people respect and admire?
Yeah.
Satana, let's talk about theatre.
And how long does a play last? Is it two hours with an intermission?
That's too much culture. What other arts and cultural activities are important in Edo, Japan, Satana? A visual art I want to think about.
So that slightly brings us on actually to something I wanted to bring up next actually is Edo Japan's relationship with the wider world because obviously Japan is a series of islands. Ahir, what do you know of Japan's attitude towards foreign traders and missionaries?
But that does not mean that Japan was completely isolated, Satana. The idea here, it's not like they shut the door and trapped out the world. They didn't stop the world getting in, did they?
And this policy of semi-isolation held until the end of the period, towards the 1850s. Ahir, do you know who turned up in the 1850s knocking on Japan's door? It was I, Ahir.
Showing 41–60 of 80 · page 3 of 4
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