纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 058日本铜镜（4）（在线收听）

Untroubled by outside influences or new arrivals, Japan turned inwards for several centuries - a fact which still resonates today - and developed its own highly idiosyncratic culture. At the court in Kyoto every aspect of life was constantly refined and aestheticised in the pursuit of ever more sophisticated pleasure. It was a society in which women played a key cultural role. It's also the time of the first significant literature written in Japanese - written, in fact, by women. So it's a world we know quite a lot about, and it's the world of our mirror. The person who first used it could well have been reading that first great Japanese novel - indeed one of the first great novels of the world - the 'Tale of Genji' written by the court lady Murasaki Shikibu. Here's the novelist and expert on Japanese culture, Ian Buruma:

"Lady Murasaki was a little bit like Jane Austen... the 'Tale of Genji' gives you an extraordinary insight into what life was like in that aristocratic hothouse of the Heian period.