How to Exchange Gifts with the Japanese
The Japanese love to give gifts. This habit is not practiced only on special occasions, but it's widely accepted as giri - a social duty and obligation. Gift-giving is an accepted practice encountered everyday, from taking a little something to a neighbor to receiving an extra radish from the greengrocer. If you give someone a gift, you can be sure to receive one in return. And, if you want a gift, you must give one first.
For the Japanese, gift-giving at its finest is a token of appreciation, and at its worst, a competition. When you return a gift, yours must be better and more expensive. In turn, the gift you will receive will be better and more expensive than the one you gave. The value of the gifts increase successively.
Although this may seem extreme to Americans, the notion of gift-giving is not alien to us. We have all given or received gifts. The Japanese just integrate it into a part of their day-to-day life. Because gift-giving is such an important social aspect of Japanese life, it's important to be aware of some key fac...
Mathews, Gordon. 1996. What Makes Life Worth Living? How Japanese and Americans Make Sense of Their Worlds.Berkeley: University of California Press.
There is a social outlook to the increase for the medicalization of birth. According to a study, women with higher social status and greater access to education often choose a cesarean birth. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists even stated that c-sections should only be done if the risk of a child being birthed vaginally is higher than going through the surgical process with anesthesia. Even though the guidelines promote going towards vaginal birth, the rates continue to
Roles of the Catholic Church in Western civilization has been scrambled with the times past and development of Western society. Regardless of the fact that the West is no longer entirely Catholic, the Catholic tradition is still strong in Western countries. The church has been a very important foundation of public facilities like schooling, Western art, culture and philosophy; and influential player in religion. In many ways it has wanted to have an impact on Western approaches to pros and cons in numerous areas. It has over many periods of time, spread the teachings of Jesus within the Western World and remains a foundation of continuousness connecting recent Western culture to old Western culture.-
“The Columbine shooters played violent video games; that has to be a factor in their decision to brutally murder their classmates!” Society is quick to point fingers and approach unknown situations with a causal mentality that often results in a false accusation of an innocent bystander. With the advent of the video game era, psychologists have debated their effect on the minds of their youthful audience. Throughout the multitude of studies and the perpetual debate, society still lacks an absolute answer. With this knowledge, when it comes to video games and their impact on the minds of children, researchers must consult a wide variety of subjects with an open mind about the potential outcomes. I conducted my research by examining my personal experience, analyzing studies refuting both sides of the argument, trying to view the American fascination with violence through an outside perspective, and reviewing the thought processes that lead the members of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) in order to gain a full perspective of the issue. What correlation exists, if any, between violent video games and the violent tendencies that children exhibit after exposure to said media? Throughout my research, I have discovered that a trend does exist, but it manifests after the child has encountered puberty because of the heightened levels of testosterone that accompany this phase of development, and the trend relies heavily on other factors in a violent disposition. The age factor generally fails to exist in the violent tendencies argument; this is intriguing in that the majority of violent videogames are targeted toward an older audience. In order to truly understand the violent tendencies of mankind, we must first analyze these ...
Carnagey, Nicholas L., Anderson, Craig A. “The Effects of Reward and Punishment in Violent Video Games on Aggressive Affect, Cognition, and Behavior” Psychological Science, Nov 2005; vol. 16: pp. 882-889.
The version of childbirth that we’re used to is propagated by television and movies. A woman, huge with child, is rushed to the hospital when her water breaks. She is ushered into a delivery room and her husband hovers helplessly as nurses hook her up to IVs and monitors. The woman writhes in pain and demands relief from the painful contractions. Narcotic drugs are administered through her IV to dull the pain, or an epidural is inserted into the woman’s spine so that she cannot feel anything below her waist. When the baby is ready to be born, the doctor arrives dressed in surgical garb. The husband, nurses and doctor become a cheerleading squad, urging the woman to, “Push!” Moments later, a pink, screaming newborn is lifted up for the world to see. Variations on this theme include the cesarean section, where the woman is wheeled to the operating room where her doctors remove the baby through an incision in her abdomen.
Japan and America each have their own value system that draws comparable interest for how it shapes society and patterns of interaction. Even though there are similarities between the two-value systems, it is essential to understand the fundamental differences that deal with equality, respect, and communication style. Understanding the motivations behind behaviors will lead to successful intercultural interactions.
The Story of Christianity is a very informative summation; a continuation of Volume 1 which covered the beginning of the church up to the Protestant Reformation, while Vol. 2 dealt with the Protestant Reformation up to more modern time period. This author delivers a more comprehensive and deeper look into the development of Christianity, which includes particular events which had transpired throughout the world; particularly how Christianity has expanded into Central and South America. Gonzalez opens up this book with the “Call for Reformation,” where he shares with his readers the need for reform; the papacy had started to decline and was corrupt, in addition to the Great Schism, which had further weakened the papacy (p.8). The author explains how the church was not the only issue but that the church’s teachings were off track as well, seeing that the people had deviated from...
that person appreciated the gift and it would be almost like a gift to you.
...esult, the more directly one sees their personal efforts impact someone else, the more happiness one can gain from the experience of giving. Sometimes generosity requires pushing past a feeling of reluctance because people all instinctively want to keep good things for themselves, but once one is over this feeling, they will feel satisfaction in knowing that they have made a difference in someone else’s life. However, if one lives without generosity but is not selfish, they can still have pleasure from other virtues.
Japan is a harmonious society with low rates of litigation, crime, and divorce. Their citizens learn to be attentive to others, to value group goals more than immediate personal gain, and to broadly include everyone in group activities and decisions.
Sherman, Amy L. “Expectant Giving.” The Christian Century 116.6 (1999): 206. Academic OneFile. Web. 1 Nov. 2013.
...accustomed to what we have in the United States, it is also enjoyable to see how other cultures are formed and structured. That’s what makes other people love each other, it is how they are. How we are all different. The Japanese culture may be different, but to them it is their society and marriage and love is important to reputation and society.
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.
Today’s youth is heavily influenced by the media. Video games, television, and movies make up a large part of the lives of children in America. These easily accessible forms of entertainment are lightly regulated by parents and the government; children and adolescents are exposed to extremely violent media everyday. “By the time the average American child reaches seventh grade, he or she will have witnessed 8,000 murders and 100,000 acts of violence on television. Some people say so much violence on television makes American society- including its children- more violent” (“Causes of School Violence” 1). Among the violent media, video games are the current trend. Although video games are rated by ESRB (the entertainment sof...