Culture of Japan

The culture of Japan is the result of a historical process that begins with the immigration from the continent of Asia and the islands of the Pacific Ocean, followed by a strong cultural influence of China and, later, a long period of isolation with the rest of the world until the end of century XIX, where it receives an immense foreign influence and that is increased after the end of World War II. This gave as is result a culture different from other Asian cultures.

In Japan, the personal interrelations are very influenced by the ideas of honor, obligation and respect; this represents a custom that is different from the individualistic and liberal culture from the western countries.

Traditional Clothing
In Japan two types of clothes can be found: traditional and the modern one.

In traditional clothes the kimono stands out, this is a long showy article used by women, men and children in special times. Also the sleeves of the kimono differentiate from the married women to the single women.

Other articles used by the Japanese are: yukata, which is a kimono light of summer; hakama, a ceremonial article; jinbei, pledges masculine light used like pajamas; and jūnihitoe, a feminine article similar to a kimono and used by the noble.

With respect to Japanese modern clothes, some tendencies like ganguro exist, that, is a feminine fashion characterized to use clothes of designers, to have the bronzed skin and the use of many accessories.
Another modern fashion in Japan is the Lolita fashion that are inspired by the infantile Victorian fashion derivations of the subcultures gothic, punk, etc.

Another modern fashionable form that began in Japan is cosplay, which consists of disguising itself of some personage who appears in some Japanese mass media: like animates, musical sleeve, videogames, videos, etc.

Mass media
In Japan there are around 100 million equipment of television in use, and it is considered as the main form of entertainment and information of the population. The programming of television, enough is varied, mainly with soap operas, the news, games, animates, sports, etc. There are six national networks of television. As far as the radio, the main chains are the NHK, the Japan Radio Network and the National Radio Network. Five important newspapers at national level exist. In addition, there are newspapers in English like the Japan Times.

Cuisine
The Japanese cuisine owns a cooking past length that has been developed in a specialized gastronomy for each station. The foods are based on five rich carbohydrate foods: rice, wheat, oats, kidney bean and millet. The plates generally are salty. A standard Japanese food always consists of a cup of Japanese rice and support a cup of soup and a variety of plates like fish, meat, vegetables, etc.
In recent years, Japanese food has become fashionable and popular in the U.S., Europe and many other areas.

ReligionOne of the practiced religions more in Japan is the Shinto that is simultaneously the native religion of Japan and that is exclusive of that country, it was the unique religion that existed before the arrival from the buddhism to Japan and marked Japanese mythology remarkably. The Japanese buddhism is the religion practiced mainly in Japan, arrived at the country of Korea. The Christianity is introduced to Japan in 1549. A century practically finished later, surviving only in the area isolated around Nakasaki. At the moment this religion has 1.4 million faithfuls, who include a high percentage of important people in the education and subjects public.

Sports

Kodokan Judo
Judo is a fun sport, an art, a discipline, a recreational or social activity, a fitness program, a means of self-defense or combat, and a way of life. It is all of these and more. Judo comes from the fighting system of feudal Japan. Judo was introduced into the Olympic Games in 1964 and is practiced by millions of people throughout the world today. People practice Judo to excel in competition, to stay in shape, to develop self-confidence, and for many other reasons. But most of all, people do Judo just for the fun of it.

Occidentalization of Japan.

The first meeting between Japan and occidental culture is situated in the XVI century with the arrival of religious missions by spanish and portuguese, where the impact of nautical techniques and music, medicine, and technology in general, mechanics and mining industry transcended both cultures as an exchange, not only in this way but the culture trough religion too.

One important fact about this exchange was education. After the Spanish and Portuguese visit, the Dutch were interested in the knowledge about the medicine; the Japanese became one of the important countries exporting medicine.

Matthew Perry arrived Japan in 1853, there was a policy called Sakok, which started two centuries before, this policy isolated Japan from the rest of the world, the reason may be because the Shôgun (the main leader) was afraid that someone would take the power. The making of the modern Japan is supposed to be at the end of XIX century by the politic called by the historians as the “Meiji Restoration”. This is the most important fact of the opening with economical interests.

Matthew Perry forced the samurai government to open the doors for occident, he wanted concessions for harbors located in Tokyo; the concessions were successful due the internal crisis of the government. Some sectors of society refused to accept the concessions by their leader and started an internal civil war against the foreigners, but little by little, they started to adopt the culture, education and technology, highly advanced for them, and the way of thinking started to change: they saw in the learning of the new technology the key to progress.

This was the beginning of industrialization and trade, the progress that the country reached, avoided the invasion of USA and Europe. The emperor Mutsuhito was the first emperor who won legitimacy with different sectors of society and he became an icon for the Japanese.

The industrialization allowed Japan to develop the army, the beginning of XX century it was one of the most powerful countries in the world.

Japan

Why Japan???

Japan is a very complicated Country full of mystisicim and with a very ancient history... One of the oldest countries thath still keeps their own native culture and traditions.

But even Japan has been afected by the influence of the Western countries, mostly the United States.

Obviously the official language of Japan is the Japanesse, However as a consequence of globalization, mixture of culures and overall the progress of communication tecnologies such as computers, cellphones and specially the Internet, English became a necessity for their way of life, adding that, to the fact that USA is one of the most powerfull economies in the world.

Japan has adopted English as a secong language, even if it's not official (very similar to what's happening in Mexico, that is the very same reasson for us to study English, isn't it???).

But Japanese not only speak English, they've adopted a lot of words in English and introduce them into their every day vocabulary since they can vistually reproduce any word or sentence in English to their own alphabet. As matter of fact, Japanese has three alphabets:

• Hiragana, wich is entierly Japanesse and for words born in Japan.
• the Kanji alphabet, that was an adaptation from the chinese alphabet.
• Katakana, that is exclusive for foreigns words, mostly in English.