What's Different?

Initially when I thought of Japan I thought of the usual things that anyone might have thought of, the rooms full of tatami mats, sleeping on the floor on a futon, Geisha, temples, and maybe "funny" writing. I never thought of culture shock until after coming here, but it did happen. Living in Japan has been a lifelong dream that has finally come true, and now that I've come and studied their lifestyles, I've found out that I just can't bring myself to leave. Everything that I once thought of Japan feels like it has become a part of who I am -- living in the tatami matted rooms, sleeping on a futon, seeing a Geisha walking down the streets in Kyoto, visiting temples to see their buildings and parks, and being able to understand and read their kanji. Going back to my home country soon is a sad part of the study abroad experience I guess, but I've been fully changed after getting over culture shock.

While having a long past, and many things that are very reminding of its past kimonos, and temples for example, Japan is definitely not as old as it may be known. It's very modern an becoming a world power as its yen is equal to the dollar, and their architecture can resemble the older styles typically it is now in the modern form of sky scrapers. Also even the kimonos are still used it now seems to be overpowered by the pressed suit.

This is the Democratic Party of Japan's advertisement

The Komeito party's advertisement.

American Politics have a particular ideal about law, that being separation of religion and state. Another thing about the American system is there is only two major parties, the republicans and democrats. In Japan its not a law, but for the most part there is a separation of state and religion, but they do have five parties for their parliament called the Diet: Liberal Democratic, Democratic party, New Komeito, Japanese Communist, and Social Democratic Party.

The one of interest to me is the New Komeito. This is both a religious party and also a political party. This party is run by the Soka Gakkai. It has shown influence in Japan by attempting to be very active in the government trying to get its party to power. I think with the Japanese people not voting all too often, this also helps the party gain power. About only 50% of people vote in Japan, and the Soka Gakkai religion has about 18% of Japan's population. This gives them a strong ground for entering into the Diet ever since its starting to be in politics.

Soka Gakkai's website:
www.sgi.org

Links to two sides of the Japanese Diet:
http://www.ipu.org/cntr-e/japan.htm

Baseball America's Pastime?

Since I would think maybe the 1950's America's pastime was always considered baseball. You could imagine the crowds absolutely jam-packed and everyone shouting for their team. I think with that said, and coming to Japan I think we have it all backwards. Japan seems to have the grip on baseball. It doesn't make as much as American baseball, but all in all Japanese baseball is incredibly popular. In my classes I've seen some documentaries based just around high school baseball talking about going to their biggest game ever, and even just being high school the same thing with the crowd its packed and loud! Another example is just at the school I now go to, Kansai Gaidai. They have a baseball team and I can't remember a day when I went to school in the morning and left at night seeing all the baseball players training. On that same way to school is also Komatsu's factory. Komatsu wants to keep its employees happy and with that they even have their own baseball field on the company grounds.

Who wears the Pants in a Family

In Japan is a very masculine oriented society, but it is slowly becoming an equal opportunity society. Most of the families are based on the man working, and the Wife staying at home. This was really impressed on me after I started to hang around my friend's family. The man in this family actually works three jobs, just to support the wife. This is very traditional. Another example that was impressed on me was another family I met. I went to his work as it was a trip of mine during Japan. On this trip we went down a river with a few rapids, but there was three people all steering and pushing the boat. Obviously they were all men. Recently I've come to notice that not only have women started to more often have jobs in Japan, as it is happening in the police force, Osaka being the leader in that department. I also see maybe a bit of role reversal in this society. I've gone out on trips with my family, and I would have thought that the men walk together and then the women carry everything for the men. I was mistaken as I started noticing on our trip, the men seemed to be carrying everything, and with the push of equality the women were still taking care of the children.