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.

Danjiri Festival

Religion in Japan is varied throughout the ideals of Shinto, Buddhism and Christianity. Their religions are useful throughout life, as they use Shinto as a religion to come into the world. Next, they'll use Christianity as their wedding religion. And to exit the world, they will use Buddhism.

Trying to please their gods, they will set up festivals. This festival is in preparation for the planting and farming season for good crops.

This festival consists of amazingly big wooden carts being pulled through the city. There are many festivals with danjiri (the name of the cart), but the most popular one being in the city of Kishiwada. The carts are carved wood with many designs on it, a couple in particular is a dragon and a shrine. At night the carts are dragged through the city, but during the day they're ran through the city at dangerous speeds.

A notable item with this festival is that the Japanese have a homogeneous society. With this homogeneous society, there seems to be an unwritten set of rules that you don't want to stick out. This particular festival I've heard that they've loosened their grips at times, this being one of those times.

Introducing Tadahiko Hayashi!!

© Tadahiko Hayashi courtesy of Studio Equis

From his birth Tadahiko was destined it would seem to be a photographer. Born in Yamaguchi in Japan to Ishi Hayashi who also was already a famous photographer, and she even taught Shin'ichi, Tadahiko's father. After Shin'ichi and Ishi's divorce, Tadahiko stayed with his mother, and he grew up learning from his mother the art. One of the factors that led to his being famous is his candid pictures of Jun'ichirou Tanizaki. His pictures depicting the city life are also another popular set. This set even being in an anthropology book in the 1980's. After his starting candid photos became the norm, he then started to tweak his style to be flawless. This led to some staging of the photos at times. In the 1950's he also worked in America with the Miss Universe contest. In the 1980's Tadahiko started traveling around Japan preparing a few photography books. At the same time he also was working as the principal of a photography school. 1985 is the year that Tadahiko announced he had liver cancer, and released one more photography book, Toukaidou. This book was published just two months before his death. He passed away in 1990. His works can now be seen in the Shunan City Museum of Art and History.

Photo taken from: http://www.helsinkitimes.fi/htimes/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4636:light-and-shade-images-of-post-war-japan-&catid=21:culture&Itemid=165
Photo by: Tadahiko Hayashi
Title: Boys from 1946

Spare Time in Japan

Being in Japan, and experiencing their ways of entertainments, for me, has been surprising. Being on the train on my weekly train ride, or on the overnight bus to Tokyo, there's always about 50% of the people within eyesight reading a manga, playing their Nintendo DS, or even listening to their constantly changing popular songs on an I Pod. Another popular item are their rhythm games, Taiko no Tatsujin, Pop'n Music, Dance Dance Revolution, or even Ouendan. Ouendan is even on the Nintendo DS. Ouendan has been released in America under the name of Elite Beat Agents. Manga has been very popular here for quite a while, the more popular they are here the more likely they will be released in America. One of the biggest mangas being Dragonball, which started in 1984. This manga is still being sold here in brand new editions. Then listening to new music in America, it's played for about 2 months and your sick of hearing it. Here in Japan, their popular music changes roughly on a bi-weekly basis, but there are also artists who have been in the music business for some time also. For example: Utada Hikaru, Ayumi Hamasaki, Greeeen. Greeeen hasn't actually been around for long, but they did a song kiseki that stayed on the Japanese charts for quite a few weeks. Utada Hikaru is famous even in America because of the Kingdom Hearts games as she has done the opening themes to both of the Playstation games.

A few band's fansites:
http://ayumi.primenova.com/
http://islandrecords.com/site/promo/splash/utada/

Greeeen's music video for kiseki.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogEKEAGcCBg