Essay Comparing The Heian Time Period And Medieval Europe

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The Heian time period and medieval Europe were on opposite sides of the planet during their time, but they actually had a lot of similarities, and of course, some differences. The characteristics of a person’s beauty and fashion, the social class structure, and the warriors and soldiers of each area are some of the common ideas that both can relate to and be compared and contrasted from. Though fashion and beauty were mostly for the rich and wealthy, people from both civilizations valued it. Both groups liked having attractive teeth, but the definition of attractive teeth was different. In Japanese culture, blackening the teeth was considered good-looking, and white teeth was perceived as not being beautiful. Japanese people were judged based on how they looked and their style and elegance. Women would grow their hair very long, which was longer than their height, and would wear multiple layers of silk clothing. Women would also use white face powder to make themselves look pale, and have their cheeks decorated with red touches. Plucking out eyebrows and painting new ones that were higher up the head was also common, and women also painted a tiny, red mouth. Using perfumes was also part of proper etiquette. Families usually had recipes that very private and unknown to others, in the case of others stealing their recipes that work very well. Japanese men would have been considered handsome if they had little, sharp beards. Whereas in medieval …show more content…

Beauty and fashion were both important aspects of daily life in both areas, and both groups also had fairly complex social structures, ranging from the lowest-class peasant all the way to high-ranking nobles and officials. The soldiers of each group did have a lot more differences, where samurai with rapid movements dominated Japan and somewhat immobile, hard to defeat, knights controlled medieval