The Life and Culture of Japan
Location and Culture
Japan’s surroundings are the republic of Korea, China and Russia. The four main islands in Japan are Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu. Japan is surrounded by sea. Japan really defines the seasons with cherry blossoms in spring and beautiful, natural reds, oranges, and yellows, of the autumn leaves. Japan’s capital is Tokyo. The population of Japanis 126,926,000. The land area is 377,873. Japan’s religions are Shinto, Buddhism, and Christianity.
Government and Daily
Living
Japan’s constitution went into force in 1947.
Japan’s lifestyle made an extreme change after World War II. TraditionalJapanese houses are made of wood and are supported by wooden pillars. They eat foods such as breads, noodles, and pastas. They also eat traditional dishes like sushi, tempura, and sukiyaki. They eat foods such as rice and miso soup. Also one food that is very popular is hamburgers, but instead of hamburgers they call them hanbagu.
TokyoTower
The TokyoTower is located South of Tokyo station. The height of the tower is 333 meterstall. The tower was opened in 1958. The TokyoTower weighs 4,000 tons. It is much lighter compared to the EiffelTower which weighs 7,000 tons. 164 floodlights light up the tower at night.
Writing Japanese
Around the 6th century Japan began using the Chinese writing system to represent their own language. This was very hard because Chinese and Japanese belonged to unrelated language families, so their sound systems, grammar, and vocabulary are completely different. In Chinese, each character represents a one-syllable word with a pronunciation and a meaning. To adapt this character to the Japanese language, the writer might decide to ignore its meaning and use it for its sounds alone, that is, to let it stand for words or parts of that sound like “mao” in Japanese.
Sports and Recreation
The most ancient and traditional sport in Japan is sumo wrestling. Martial arts are very popular; those are things like judo, karate, and aikido. They also play golf; it is considered a sport for the wealthy and is a symbol of prestige. Kids enjoy things like kite flying and origami which is the ancient art of paper folding.Japan has a wide variety of sports and arts.
Schools
Japanese schools have a string social code of cooperation. The code is called “wa”, which means harmony. One way that they show cooperation is by cleaning up the school 20 minutes after school. They also have PE, lunch, and recess just like we do. Most of there schools are very historical and they really take care of their school. Their field day is very different from ours because when they have field day the girls have to perform different dance routines. Students also have to make a pyramid to show strength. There school works differently from ours.
Clothing
The traditional dress of Japan is the kimono. Kimonos are usually made out of silk, have large sleeves, and reach from the shoulders all the way down to the heels. Kimonos are usually worn on special occasions.