japan

www.fretnotgospel.com/japan.html

SECOND IMPORTANT THING ABOUT JAPAN
Japan is a democracy with a royal family like the United Kingdom. A long time ago, Japanese leaders were called shoguns. These leaders were military leaders. A shogun was the most powerful daimyo. The other daimyos were loyal to him. Daimyos were feudal lords who owned land and had serfs, who are like slaves, working for them. To enforce the daiymos' rule they employed samurai, who were royal soldiers. At the same time, for over 1400 years, the same imperial family has also been ruling Japan. The emperor was worshipped by the Japanese people but he did not have power. The shogun had the power because he had samurai. In the 1880's, Emperor Meiji got rid of the shogun because Japan stopped having a feudal society. Emperor Meiji is know for modernizing Japan. Now they have a constitution and a parliment, called the diet, who choses a prime minister. They still have an emperor who still has no power.

THIRD IMPORTANT THING ABOUT JAPAN
Japan attacked the US in World War II but now is our great ally. On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the Aleutian Islands, Alaska, and the Philippines. Before the attack, there was war in Europe. Germany conquered France, Poland, Belgium, and many others, and were fighting England. The main events that lead up to the attack were: (1) Japan conquered Manchuria in 1931, (2) Japan took eastern China in 1937, (3) Japan bombed Chongqing in 1940, which made the United States mad because we had missionaries in China, (4) Germany gave Japan Indochina in 1940, and (5) then the US cut off all oil exports to Japan in 1941. Japan used airplanes and midget submarines to attack Pearl Harbor. They were successful in some ways but not in others. They destroyed much of the military stuff that was there, but the US aircraft carriers were gone and weren't attacked.

Tell me about the snow monkeys of Honshu. The snow monkeys are the most northern monkeys in the world. They are funny and they are good learners. Some snow monkeys have figured out that hot springs are warm in the winter. For the first couple of months, the babies hang from their mother's belly fur. They have opposable thumbs, which means their thumbs move independently of their fingers like ours do. A group of them in Koshima learned to walk on their hind legs because they like to walk through the surf and carry things. They live in groups where one male is dominant, and he helps everyone else find enough food. Some big males weigh 40 lbs. In the winter in the north they mostly eat bark and always have snow on them.

Tell me about Japan. They call their country "The Land of the Rising Sun" because they say that Japan was the first place the sun ever shined. There are four main islands. The biggest is Honshu. South of it are Shikoku and Kyushu. North of it is Hokkaido. They call the western coast, facing the Sea of Japan, "Inner Japan" or the "Back of Japan", because there are no big cities and very little trade from there with other countries. The eastern coast faces the Pacific Ocean and is called the "Front of Japan", because that is where there is alot of tourism and trade and people. Half of all their people live between the cities of Kobe and Tokyo. Tokyo is the biggest city in the world with 33 million people. There are many volcanoes and earthquakes, also tsunamis, typhoons, and "plum rains" which are mid-summer rains, and lots and lots and lots of snow, especially in Hokkaido.
Tell me about the history of Japan. The first people to ever live in Japan were the Ainu. They are light-skinned like most Americans. They are very good wood carvers. Some of them look like Europeans. They live in Hokkaido now. The first capital of Japan was Nara. In 1637, there were many Portuguese Christians in Japan but the samarai killed what they thought was all of them because they didn't want any foreign influence. From 1637 for 200 years, Japan isolated itself from the world. During that time the leaders of Japan were military men called the Shogun. The Emperor was their boss in name only. Daimyos were lords of groups of soldiers called samurai. In their isolation, their system of government was a feudal system where families required anyone who lives on their land to work for them as a slave. The Russians were the first to get to Japan after the isolation. The Americans were the second. Commodore Matthew Perry was the first American to sail to Japan in 1854. Emperor Meiji was known for the growth and modernization of Japan. He became emperor in 1868 at the age of 15 when his father died. In the 1930's and 1940's, Japan tried to conquor the whole Pacific. They attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and the Aleutian Islands, Alaska.
Tell me a few interesting things about their language. Japanese words are different depending on how much they respect the person they are talking to. For example, to say "come here", if you're talking to a kid you say "koi", and if you're talking to someone older than you you say "irrashaimasu". There are many Japanese words that sound similar to their meanings, like "kiki" means squeaky, "bechacucha" means chatterbox, "goro-goro" means rumbling, and "pota-pota" means dripping. They have taken alot of English into their language, like "jeeusu" is juice, "remon" is lemon, "biru" is building, "beisbaru" is baseball, and "waishattu" is a white shirt. To say bring a thing you say "motte-kiru". To say bring a person you say "tsurete-kiru". If you bring a goldfish you bring a thing, but if you bring a dog you bring a person.

What Japanese movies do you like? I like "My Neighbor Totoro" and "Spirited Away" both by Hayao Miyazaki. The first one is about two girls and their father who move to a new house near a forested hill; their mother is in a hospital. The girls find a big bear-sized creature whose face looks like a cross between an owl and a rabbit and whose body looks like a cross between an owl and a cat. He is called Totoro. I like the movie but I don't know why I like it, except that parts of it are funny and the animation is beautiful, and I also like totoro.
What is the national sport of Japan? It is baseball. I know a little about it because I watched a movie called "Mr. Baseball", about an American baseball player who was traded from the New York Yankees to a Japanese team, the Chunichi Dragons. The Japanese players said the field was sacred. In the locker room, he couldn't get into a bathtub without showering with other people first. The best Japanese baseball player that I have heard of and seen is Ichiro Suzuki. He is one of the most well-known baseball players in the world for being the best in the world. A Japanese player on the Oakland A's is Keichi Yabu. I saw him pitch one day.

Japan

Tell me about this book. "Shipwrecked! - The True Adventures of a Japanese Boy". The boy in the story's name was Manjiro. His father had died so he was the head of the family at age 9. He was required by law to be a fisherman because his father was as fisherman. One day when he was 14, he was fishing with some of his friends in a boat and a storm carried them all the way to an island off the coast of Japan called Torishima. They ate the meat of the short-tailed albatross that breeds only on Torishima. They drank rain water that was stuck in rock crevasses but there was so little that they limited themselves to one oyster shell of fresh water per man per albatross eaten. When the albatross migrated away they almost starved. They had been there five months when an American whaling ship, the John Howland, rescued them. If they went back to Japan, they would be arrested or maybe executed because they would have been "poisoned" by foreign influences. So they were taken on the ship's whaling trip. Manjiro learned English very quickly and soon he was up in the crows nest spotting whales. The whalers had to be patient to get the whales because sometimes it was an hour and a half before the whales came back to the surface. When they did get a whale, they cut off and boiled the blubber to make whale oil. They ate the meat or saved it for when they landed. They cut the bones into slabs to build houses out of them. The made ivory out of the teeth. The next stop the ship made was in Honolulu. Manjiro's friends stayed there but Manjiro went on with the ship to New England, where Captain Whitfield housed and schooled him like a son. He learned about all the things that were different in the United States. He learned to be a navigator. He learned writing in English. Some people in the United States called him John Mung because they thought Manjiro was hard to pronounce. In Fairhaven, Connecticut, they still have a Manjiro festival every year. When he was a man, Manjiro went on another whaling ship but the captain of that ship went crazy. The made Manjiro first mate and kept the captain in shackles. They left him in the Philippines. After he returned to New England, Manjiro went to California to dig for gold. He was trying to get enough money to finance his return to Japan. He got enough money, went to Honolulu, and bought himself a small whale boat, and took two of his friends on a steam ship heading for China to drop them off in Japanese waters. They worked for no pay. When they were dropped off, they took their small whale boat to the island of Okinawa. People ran away from them because they thought they were "poisoned" by foreign influence. They were arrested on Okinawa. They were sent to Lord Nariakira in the City of Nara. He wasn't executed because Lord Nariakira believed they were not criminals and he wanted Japan to not be isolated. So he sent them to Nagasaki where the Shogun was ruling. Manjiro and his friends were set free after a year of being in prison. Manjiro went to the home of his friends by their family had all died, because they had been gone 12 years. Then in 1853 he went to his own home and found his family was still alive. He didn't get to stay very long because the Emperor called him to Tokyo when Commodore Matthew Perry was in the bay with American warships. Commodore Perry wanted the Japanese to not be isolated because he wanted American ships to be able to get supplies from Japan. Manjiro was made an honored samurai. He wrote a book for Japanese called "A Short Cut to the English Conversation". He set up and taught at a navigation school. He designed the first big Japanese ships that could sail long distances over seas. He could be seen on the streets of Tokyo wearing a kimono and western shoes and hat. He thought that Americans were a peace loving nation, with "a better temperment than the Japanese". I admire Manjiro for how good a worker he was. An amazing thing about him was that he changed Japan from being isolated.

Is "belly" in Japanese a special word? Yes. They use the word "belly" or "stomach" in the same way we use the word "heart". Some examples are: (1) angry is "belly standing", (2) hiding real feelings is "not showing the belly", (3) suicide is "belly slitting", (4) to be truthful is "to cut the belly and speak, and (5) hungry is "the belly is hungry".

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Learning how to love everyone

Country of the Month         Restaurant

Jan 2003 - Armenia            La Mediterranee, Berkeley
Feb 2003 - Poland              Old Krakow, San Francisco
Mar 2003 - Ireland             Kells, San Francisco
Apr 2003 - Jamaica            Jamaica Station, Oakland
May 2003 - El Salvador      Balompie, San Francisco
Jun 2003 - Nepal                Kathmandu, Albany
Aug 2003 - Turkey             Bosphorus, Berkeley
Oct 2003 - Cambodia         Angkor Wat, San Francisco
Dec 2003 - Philippines        Aroma Cafe, Concord
Jan 2004 - Saudi Arabia      Rihab's Bakery, Belmont
Feb 2004 - Mexico             El Huarache Azteca, Oakland

Home

Country of the Month         Restaurant

Mar 2004 - Mongolia          Col. Lee's Mongolian BBQ, Mtn View
May 2004 - Switzerland      Fondue Fred's, Berkeley
Jul 2004 - Afghanistan        Da Afghanan Kabob House, Fremont
Sep 2004 - Morocco          Menara Moroccan Restaurant, San Jose
Nov 2004 - Portugal           Souza's Restaurant, San Jose
Jan 2005 - Thailand            Saysetha, Oakland
Mar 2005 - Tibet                Taste of Himalaya, San Francisco
Apr 2005 - South Korea      Sahn's Korean Cafe, Oakland
Jun 2005 - North Korea      Jong Ga House, Oakland
Aug 2005 - Japan               Todai, Pleasanton
Oct 2005 - Nicaragua

Country of the Month

by Noah Arthur

FIRST IMPORTANT THING ABOUT JAPAN
Their culture is very different than ours. Japanese are loyal, disciplined, hierarchical, and polite people, who find inspiration in nature. In my opinion, some positive results of the Japanese identifying themselves in groups instead of as individuals are (1) respect for adults from children, (2) people are very loyal to their groups like their employers, families, newspapers, schools, baseball teams, and cities, (3) mothers doing things for every whim of their family's, and (4) gentleness from seniors to younger people. On the other hand, in my opinion, some negative results of groups are (1) the people not being able to have jobs except the jobs their families had, (2) no newspapers that cover all of Japan, (3) difficult for two businesses to merge into one, and (4) and not being allowed to do things that I thought of myself but only what the group does. Japanese people are ranked differently. That means that they view some people as receiving more respect and honor than others. Older peole are ranked higher than younger. Teachers are higher than students. Bosses are higher than employees. Ainus and foreigners are ranked lower than Japanese. Women are lower than men. For example, most disputes in Japan are settled by rank and not court. That means that they don't sue each other much. That also means that if someone takes advantage of a foreign businessman they might lose. The Japanese people hide their emotions and do not show them on their faces. Another way that Japanese culture is different than ours is they bow to each other as show of respect, the lower and longer the bow the more respect. A long time ago when there were samurai, people had to kowtow to lords, on all fours with their foreheads on the ground. Another way that Japanese culture is different is that gifts must be wrapped in certain ways or they're not good gifts. Finally, it is very important not to "lose face" which is to be ashamed before your superiors like your bosses, your senior who is an older person in your group who is training you, your parents, or your rulers. For example, there was a man in a Japanese midget submarine at Pearl Harbor who was caught by the Americans. He aksed them to kill him because he would rather die than lose face. In addition, the main religions of Japan are Shinto and Buddhism. The main belief of Shinto is that there are spirits in all things so they have to make the spirits happy by giving them things, visiting shrines, show them respect. The Japanese believe that Buddhism will take care of the afterlife. Both Buddhism and Shinto don't believe in God and think that doing what comes natural is right because they believe that people are born right. So they admire natural beauty because that's the best they have to admire. They have a word for the feeling of seeing something very beautiful that is going to soon end, like seeing cranes in the snow.

FOURTH IMPOR-TANT THING ABOUT JAPAN
Japan is one of the most prosperous nations in the world. The United States rebuilt Japan after World War II through the Marshall Plan. George Marshall was the Secretary of State. Now the Secretary of State is Condelleza Rice. They have the second largest economy in the world behind the United States with a per capita income of $28,000. After the war, Japan's econo-my grew very fast because their high rate of personal savings, people putting money into their businesses, a labor force with a strong work ethic, a good supply of cheap oil, good ideas. Before they mostly did light industry and farming. But now they have mostly heavy industry like making cars, ships, machinery, con-struction, and electronics. The electronics we have from Japan are my digital camera, my Dad's digital and regular cameras, CD and tape players, a big television, a telephone, and Daddy's laptop. Some of the companies in Japan that make these products are Sony, Fuji, and Panasonic. Some Japanese car companies are Mitsubishi, Daiyatsu, Toyota, Nissan, Subaru, Infinity, and Acura. There are more things in our family's life from Japan than from any other country except China and the United States. Some of the other things from Japan in our house are wall pictures by Tesuko Osamu and koi. We also have Japanese movies and Japanese books. Japan and the United States are great allies.

Tell me about the giant squid. For the first time ever, this year, Japanese scientists found and photographed a live giant squid, near the Bonin Islands of Japan. They let down a line with a camera 3,000 feet, and baited it. One giant squid got hooked on the bait. One of its long tentacles tore off. The scientists brought it to the surface where they identified it as a giant squid tentacle.
Other unique wildlife. There are whooper swans, red-crowned cranes, stellars sea eagles, oldsquaw ducks, sika deer, and koi. Red-crowned cranes are the second rarest crane in the world, second to the whooping crane. They are on Japanese paper money and there is a city, Maizuru, which means 'dancing crane', named after their mating dance. Koi are carp that are bred to look pretty. I have koi in my backyard pond.

Why is Mt. Fuji called Fujiyama-san? Fujiyama-san means Mr. Mountain. Mt. Fuji is Japan's highest mountain. They think so highly of it because it is very beautiful. I agree that it is.

How good is Japanese food? The food was great. At one restaurant I had teriyaki salmon and at another one I had all different kinds of seafood from a buffet. I like their seafood even if it's raw. The salmon was served in a red compartmented dish.
What is the origin of tempura and sushi? Tempura is vegetables or fish dipped in batter and fried. It is from the Portuguese who called it a "temporary thing" because they were Catholic and were not allowed to eat meat on Fridays. Sushi is raw fish with rice and seaweed wrapped around it. Before refrigerators, raw fish rotted, so they wrapped fermented rice around the rotten fish to mask the stench.
How many shoes does a person in Japan need? A Japanese person has a pair of outdoor shoes, a pair of house slippers, and a pair of bathroom slippers, left at the bathroom door.
How are houses in Japan different than in the US? They have no tables or chairs. The poo and pee in toilets on the ground. They have futons instead of beds and their houses are very small. They have paper windows and doors. They must not have much crime.
What do you think of modern Japanese music? I like it. I heard the Yoshida Brothers, who are very popular in Japan. I like how songs sometimes change right in the middle of it. The instruments sound to me like a ticking clock. The Yoshida Brothers are from Hokkaiddo.
www.yoshidabrothers.com

References - Books
Cultures of the World, Japan
Rex Shelley, 1990.

Shipwrecked!
Rhoda Blumberg, 2001

Monkeys, Japanese Macaques
Overbeck, 1981

Remember Pearl Harbor
Robert D. Ballard, 1989

Internet
http://beautifulatrocities.com/ archives/2004/10/i_c_h_i_r.html

www.sg.emb-japan.go.jp/
JapanAccess/economy.htm

http://magma.nationalgeographic.
com/ngm/0301/features5./

Articles
Tokyo Bay
National Geographic, Oct 2002

Inner Japan
National Geographic, Sep 1994

What do you admire about the Japanese people? I admire how the Japanese people make such great movies that I like alot. I admire that they live on such a small land but they do it without com-plaining and are very successful. I admire that they try to make things so beautiful.
What are the Japanese world famous for? They are famous for being a very prosperous nation and for their electronics and especially their cars. Right now at this moment they are famous for finding the giant squid alive.
What do you pray to Jesus about Japan? I pray that God would bless them with peace in their land and not much trouble from volcanos and earth-quakes. I pray that they would become Christians and find what they are looking for in their search for beauty. I would like to visit Japan to see the mating dance of the red-crowned crane.

mt. fuji