In Japan, spring is the season for renewal, rebirth, life and growth. When you think of spring in Japan, you would usually think of the cherry blossoms that bloom all throughout this country. The cherry blossoms are a symbol of “human life, transience, and nobleness.”(Spring, JNTO) There is more to spring than just the cherry blossom viewing. All throughout Japan, different prefectures are celebrating festivals to welcome the coming of spring and to pray for good health. Some of the festivals that might occur in Japan are: Dai Himonjiyaki, Yayoi Festival, Hina Matsuri, Kodomo no Hi, and Aoi Matsuri. To begin with, the Hina Matsuri is celebrated all around Japan. The name Hina Matsuri means “Doll’s Festival”. The family prays for their daughter that they grow up to be in good health and blissful life. During this event, the …show more content…
This festival is one of the three popular festivals celebrated in Kyoto. The main attraction of this festival is the large parade that occurs on this day. Various people dress up in aristocratic attire during the Heian period. The parade begins at the Imperial Palace and ends at the Kamo Shrines. The word “Aoi” in Aoi Matsuri means Hollyhock in Japanese. The people participating in the parade wear Hollyhock leaves, so this festival was named after it. The Aoi Matsuri predates to the 7th century. The people of the time suffered from natural disasters, who believed were caused by the gods of the Kamo Shrines. These disasters faded away after the Emperor made an offering to the Kamo Shrine. To this day, the official name of this festival remains Kamo Matsuri because of its relation to the Kamo Shrines. At parades, you might see men on horseback, massive bouquets of flowers, elaborately designed ox-drawn carts, and the chosen Saio of the year. Saio was a priestess of the imperial family, who served for the Kamo Shrines. During these festivals, Saio performed various
-Nara’s Buddhist temples were another result of cultural diffusion, Buddhist began in India in 500s B.C.E. about 1,000 years later, it came to Japan from China by way of Korea.
Japantown, in San Francisco, is an ethnic enclave to the Japanese who migrated to the US and it is a space created by themselves for themselves to practice their old traditions and remind them of home. The Kinokuniya building in Japantown is home to many generations of Japanese and they would often celebrate traditional festivals and more than often there are many subculture groups within the Japanese here in San Francisco. One subculture that is evident is the Ikebana group located in Japancenter where they display flower arrangements called Ikebana. Being an outsider, the need to observe and research is very important to understand this art form flourishing in San Francisco. The empirical evidences I have gathered allowed me to dwell deeper into the history of Ikebana and the Ikebana group as well as the importance of this group to its fellow members.
Lao , Mike . "JapanToday." Japan Today RSS. N.p., 14 Mar. 2014. Web. 7 June 2014. .
...o geisha take on the capacity of sisters to one another, but they call the women who run the teahouses "mother". Geisha are by no means the only Japanese who live and work in social groups defined by kin terms, but this phenomenon does appear most explicitly in the traditional occupations: carpenters, miners, sumo wrestlers, and gangsters, for example. 13
Most American citizens remember December 7, 1941 and the significance that the incidents of that day had. The attack on Pearl Harbor was a shock to the United States of America and it engaged our country in the Second World War of that century (Pearl, 2009). Unfortunately, due to that incident, many Americans harbor many negative feelings and attitudes towards the country of Japan. While this is an understandable sentiment, it is unnecessary, because Japan is an influence on not on the United States but the entire world. Throughout this paper, we will look at the country of Japan as many have never viewed them before. Their actions of the past are just that, the past. Japan is a thriving and successful country within our environment and it is in our best interest to understand that country better. Japan, as a culture, is the
From the animated mega city of Tokyo, to the serene zen gardens with rustic ponds home to the koi fish, Japan has a unique past, present, and future. The alcove ornament samurai houses called, shoin-zukuri are a symbol of the struggling past that Japan escaped. These samurai houses were training centers long ago of judo, sumo, and other martial arts. Lush trees envelope houses, and the religion Shintoism was developed back in 500 A.D. Paintings and drawings capture the grace and beauty the landscape portrays. The Japanese dragons reveal the legends held within themselves, many are associated with rainfall and the ability to reach peace. Seeking farther inland you witness the largest city in the world, Tokyo. Cars, buses, subway systems, taxis, and bicycles are buzzing through every street, going to and from work, quickly advancing technology.
Shinto is the indigenous religion of Japan. Founded in 660 B.C., it traces back to the very first people to settle in Japan. Shinto focuses on ancestral worship and is deeply immersed in Japanese culture. Even though it is as ancient as Japan itself, Shinto is still very widely practiced by Japanese people today. However, over the years, it gained some influence from Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism. Over 50 percent of the Japanese population still practice Shinto.
Lao , Mike . "JapanToday." Japan Today RSS. N.p., 14 Mar. 2014. Web. 7 June 2014. .
Shinto has long been a life of Japan’s culture. As long as Japanese culture exists, Shinto will continue to be a meaningful part of it. The religion bases itself on the basic goodness of human nature and of the world. It is apparent that it will continue to do so through the ways of its ethical principles of worship and of the
The geisha of Japan were more than entertainers they were a part of the bigger picture of the Japanese society from the early 1600s to today, their role as an entertainer for men was respected at a point in which man that had time with geisha were praised and they were even respected by the wives of the clients. One of the most significant historical contexts of geisha in Japanese society is the empowerment of women, they were the only women in the history to create a set of norms and social tradition for themselves, and the group of women to have control of men. Geisha are the representation of Japanese tradition and
Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke is a development of Japanese animation that can be seen as a romantic fable of two characters that were brought together through one cause; however, Miyazaki’s film can be seen as a Japanese cultural production. It is seen as a cultural production because it shows elements of Shinto through the Kami and the use of water for purification, as well as the female stereotype reversal that was quite dominant in the time of the Heian period. The characters in Princess Mononoke interact with the kami (gods or spirits) when they are in sacred sites or areas that assist in the contact. In Princess Mononoke, the mountain is the place where the characters make contact with the kami, which is their Shinto shrine because
Sonzai is constructed from 2 words; son and zai. Son means subjective self-subsistence or sustain over time. Zai means that the subject stays in the same places in which the word “places” refers to social places which consist of human relations, such as home, hotel, inn, etc. By putting these two words together, we get sonzai (human existence) which literally means self-sustenance of human relations. Although sonzai looks similar to ningen, they are quite different. Ningen refers to capability of being an individual and at the same time also being a member of a society. To sum up, ningen is mostly explaining about a person as an individual. Sonzai emphasizes the dynamic structure of human being, such as human relations which concerns about the relationship between one individual to others. However, sonzai can be said as the interconnection of the acts of ningen as sonzai describes what a person (ningen) does to others. According to Watsuji Tetsuo, we can combine both ningen and sonzai becomes “ningen sonzai” which refers to the subject, who is at once individual and social, and to society, who are at once singular and composite (Kalmanson, 2010).
Scissors, Paper, Rock! For my first cultural event, I attended the University Performing Dancers rendition of “Scissors, Paper, Rock!”. This dance performance took place in University Hall here on campus. This performance is considered a cultural event because the game Rock, Paper, Scissors is an ancient game that many different cultures have claimed to invented.
An examination of Japanese culture, and where it stands on Kluckholn and Strodbeck’s Value Orientation, Hall’s cultural dimensions, and what America needs to know in order to communicate properly with Japan.
Japan is a fascinating multifaceted culture, on one hand it is filled with many traditions dating back thousands of years and yet is a society with continually changing fads,