Bilderback is a Korean adopted through the Holt International Program when she was six months old by an American couple who also have two older sons. She was not given any special cultural ... [more]
Cain's birth-father is Japanese-Irish and his mother is white; he identifies himself as Japanese, but has never had any contact with his father. His parents were divorced before he was b... [more]
For nearly 200 years the Qing dynasty practiced a form of adoption to secure orderly succession to the throne when the emperor was childless. It was instituted by the Yong Zheng Empero... [more]
Choi was born in Choong Chung province, Korea, then under Japanese occupation. A Japanese shopkeeper in his village, who had no sons, kidnapped Choi when he was about eight years old and to... [more]
The Dalai Lamas - supreme heads of Tibetan Buddhism and also the secular rulers of Tibet before the Chinese invasion - as well as some other important leaders of the religion (such as the P... [more]
Geisha are professional entertainers in Japan, with their main centers in Tokyo and Kyoto. The tradition is centuries old and continues today, although the heyday of the geisha was before W... [more]
Hokusai's first few years are a mystery, but he was born near Tokyo, and when he was four or five he was adopted by a mirror-polisher named Nakajima Ise. There is speculation that Nakajima ... [more]
Until the 19th century what is now India (like Europe) was a patchwork of over 650 princely states, like kingdoms, ranging from the small and relatively unimportant, to the large, immensely... [more]
Sanraku was the last of the great Momoyama decorative painters of Japan, head of the Kano school of painting in Kyoto from 1614 on, and the adopted son of Eitoku, another great artist. He w... [more]
Sansetsu was raised by the colony of Kano artists in Kyoto, and later adopted by the master Kano Sanraku , whose daughter he also married. He was leader of the Kano school from 1635 to his... [more]