Culture Smart! Japan: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture - Softcover

Norbury, Paul

Softcover

ISBN 10: 185733860X ISBN 13: 9781857338607

Verlag: Kuperard, 2017

Inhaltsangabe

Culture Smart! Japan will guide you through modern Japan's shifting social and cultural maze. It provides invaluable insights into people's attitudes and behavior, and practical tips to help make your visit to this complex, rich, and dynamic society a mutually rewarding experience. Today Japan is at a crossroads. The postwar economic miracle is over and the balance of power in Asia is shifting as new players enter the field. The bedrock of traditional Japanese culture'its remarkable resilience, coherence, and consensus-based philosophy, underpinned by many protocols'until recently regarded by some as a hindrance, is starting to look like a virtue in a world of accelerating change. Japan remains the world's third-largest economy and one of the most attractive and secure destinations for investment. The younger generation is outward-looking, Japanese women have a new confidence, and the country's technical and scientific research capability is as good as it gets. Japan continues to excel at innovation in technology and the 'new' sciences, and is among the world's largest funders in research as a percentage of GDP.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Paul Norbury has been closely associated with Japan and Asian Studies as publisher, editor, and author since the early 1970s, principally through his various imprints: Paul Norbury Publications, Japan Library, Global Oriental, and most recently Renaissance Books. In 2003 he received the Japan Society Award, in 2011 the Order of the Rising Sun (Japanese government), and in 2013 the Order of Civic Virtue (government of the Republic of Sakha/Yakutia). He is also the author of Culture Smart! Britain.

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Culture Smart! Japan

By Paul Norbury

Bravo Ltd

Copyright © 2016 Paul Norbury
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-85733-860-7

Contents

Map of Japan, 
Introduction, 
Key Facts, 
Chapter 1: LAND AND PEOPLE, 
Chapter 2: VALUES AND ATTITUDES, 
Chapter 3: RELIGION, CUSTOMS, AND TRADITION, 
Chapter 4: THE JAPANESE AT HOME, 
Chapter 5: TIME OUT, 
Chapter 6: GIFT GIVING, 
Chapter 7: FOOD AND DRINK, 
Chapter 8: LIVING IN JAPAN, 
Chapter 9: BUSINESS BRIEFING, 
Chapter 10: LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION, 
Appendix: Some Useful Words and Phrases, 
Further Reading, 

CHAPTER 1

LAND & PEOPLE

LOCATION

The Japanese archipelago, situated in the North Pacific to the east of Korea, consists of four main islands — Hokkaido, Honshu (the largest, with 60 percent of the landmass), Shikoku (the smallest), and Kyushu — which together make up 98 percent of the country's territory. The remainder is made up of a number of small islands, including the Ryukus (of which Okinawa is one), which lie strung out in the Pacific between Kagoshima in southern Kyushu and Taiwan; in addition, there are some 3,000 tiny islets that surround the coastline and extend southward.

Overall, Japan is slightly smaller than France or Spain, but slightly larger than Italy or the British Isles, and accounts for 0.3 percent of the world's landmass. The "arc" of its primary archipelago extends from 30°N in southern Kyushu to 45°N in northern Hokkaido, a latitudinal range comparable to the Atlantic seaboard of the USA from Maine to Florida, or in Europe, from Venice to Cairo; if we include the string of southern islands (such as Okinawa), which reach as far south as latitude 20, the distance covered is 2,362 miles (3,800 kilometers).

The Tsushima Strait (known as the Kaikyo Strait in Korea), which separates Japan from Korea, is 112 miles (180 kilometers) wide, while some 500 miles (800 kilometers) of open sea lie between southwestern Japan and the nearest point on the coast of China.

THE LAND

Running through the center of Japan — endowing it with a rare scenic beauty — are six chains of steep, serrated mountains that are studded with volcanoes resulting from her geological location within the Pacific "ring of fire." There are over 100 volcanoes, some seventy-seven of which are designated as "active" (although few really are), especially Bandai and Asama in central Honshu, Aso, Unzen, and Sakurajima, which is currently in an active phase, in Kyushu. The highest is Fuji (known as Fuji-san), standing at 12,388 feet (3,776 meters), which last erupted in 1707 but is still on the "active" list. In central Japan, dense mixed forests of oak, beech, and maple blanket the slopes up to an altitude of 5,900 feet (1,800 meters).

Land shortage, particularly during the period of spectacular economic growth in the second half of the twentieth century, concentrated minds on the potential for land reclamation. This hugely expensive and painstaking process took place in many parts of Japan (and continues to do so), adding valuable new building land (approximately 0.5 percent) to Japan's main landmass of 143,660 square miles (372,070 square kilometers); it included vast areas around the modern industrial cities of Tokyo (especially Tokyo Bay) and Osaka. Most remarkable was the creation of Port Island and Rokko Island, and other adjacent islands, off the port of Kobe, as well as the new Kansai International Airport (which is known to be sinking at the rate of 2.5 in (7 cm) per year) involving the removal of millions of tons of earth and rocks from the tops of neighboring mountains — a solution that underlines the pragmatic Japanese approach to life and its challenges. On the other hand, all of Japan's coastal areas are at risk (the Inland Sea less so) from storm damage and tsunami — the giant waves generated by earthquake activity which the people of northeastern Japan (Tohoku region) learnt to their terrible cost in the great earthquake of 2011 (see page 17).

CLIMATE AND SEASONS

Many people have found it ironic that the refined aesthetics, the exquisite art forms and cultural elegance of Japan (consider, for example, the manicured beauty of her formal gardens!) should have been created in a group of islands that straddle one of the world's most dangerous tectonic regions — four tectonic plates, the North American, the Pacific, the Eurasian, and the Philippine, meet under the Japanese archipelago — and in one of its most hazardous climatic zones. Japan's climate is the outcome of two competing weather systems, one from the Pacific and one from Continental Asia, involving, at times, ferocious annual weather changes from deep snow and low temperatures to devastating typhoons and unbearable levels of humidity. These physical facts heighten interest in what can generally be called the "Japanese achievement" throughout history.

The Japanese themselves regard such notions of "achievement," however, as transient and very fragile, likening them, as with life itself, to the brief flowering of the cherry blossom (sakura) in spring. They celebrate this natural phenomenon with outdoor events, public and private "viewings," and the writing of poetry. As the countryside warms up, the blossoming fans out in an extraordinary six-week flourish, initially from southern Kyushu in early March, then on through Shikoku and Honshu to northern Hokkaido, along a 1,100-mile (1,800-kilometer) journey.

Seasonal changes, therefore, are well defined and vary considerably from east to west and from mountain to plain. In Tokyo, which sits on the Kanto Plain, the biggest of the coastal plains, the average temperature is 77 °F (25 °C) in summer with high humidity and 38 °F (4 °C) in winter. The sunniest months are December and January; the wettest June and September. Spring (March to May) and fall (mid-September to end-November) are considered to be the best months because the days are generally clear and sunny with sharp blue skies — the fall, like New England, having the added attraction of the leaves, especially the maple, turning to red and gold. Like the cherry blossom viewing, the fall colors are also celebrated with outings and excursions.

Seasons apart, it is worth remembering that Japan is often "wet" and, like the UK, is an "umbrella" society! Indeed, umbrellas are to be found everywhere in case of need — in hotels, offices, restaurants, and temples.

EARTHQUAKES

Earthquakes are frequent and widespread, and although most are mild and hardly noticeable, the threat of catastrophe is ever present — as was demonstrated in recent times by the Kobe earthquake of January 1995, the devastating earthquake and tsunami off the east coast near the city of Sendai, Tohoku Prefecture, in March 2011, and the Kumamoto earthquakes of April 2016.

Whenever a serious tremor occurs, city gas supplies are automatically cut off; all commercially available oil heaters have extinguishing mechanisms. Each district organizes earthquake drills on a regular basis, and all households are supposed to keep an emergency survival kit, available from department stores. All hotels are also required to follow such drills and are rigorously scrutinized for safety in both design and exit procedure. Following the Tohoku catastrophe, all systems were up for review.

RICE AND FISH

Heavy rains and hot summers allow rice, Japan's staple food, to be grown on most of the lowlands, including,...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Kuperard
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 185733860X
• ISBN 13: 9781857338607
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 168
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar