Carnival Assignment - Japan

Japan, a populous land that kept its ancient cultures but one of the most technological
advanced countries in the world. The characters that make up Japan mean sun-origin,
which is why Japan is known sometimes as the Land of the Rising Sun. Japan lies on the
very east of Asia, stretching from the Sea of Okhosk to the North of the East China Sea.
Japan is an archipelago (cluster of many islands) of around 6800 islands. The main four
islands are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, these islands make up 97% of
Japans area. Historians and archeologists say that people were living in Japan from the
Upper Paleolithic period (about 100,000 years ago). The first written mention of Japan was
in Chinese texts from the 1st century AD. After Singapore, Japan has the lowest murder
rate in the world. Japan also has the longest life expectancy rate in the world.
In this report, there will be precise exploration of both ancient and modern cultures
of Japan, including Religion, Language, Art, Literature and Cuisine and a comparison
between the ancient and modern lifestyles in Japan. Enjoy finding out about the exciting
cultures of the Japanese people!

Religion
Ancient
Shinto is the earliest recorded religion (-700 BC) that the Japanese adopted from the
Chinese, as the word Shinto translates directly to the Chinese word shen dao. Shinto
today in modern Japan is a term/word that applies to shrines serving purposes such as
historical monuments, war memorials, festivals as well as romance shrines. Practitioners of
the modern Shinto show their beliefs by talking a standard language and adopting a similar
style of dressing. 191 million people in Japan claim to be Shinto practitioners.
The myth of the creation of Shinto was made around the 7th to 8th century, it is a
series of events that led up to the creation of the Japanese Islands (the four main ones are
Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku). In the myth, Izanagi (male) and Izanami (female)
were called by gods to create a new land which was to become Japan. The gods gave
Izanagi a spear, with which he stirred in the great nothingness, when his sweat flowed
down the spears head, an island formed in the great nothingness. On that island, Izanagi
and Izanami created a palace, in which was a large pole. The first time they wanted to bear
offspring, they performed a ritual that involved each of them rounding the pole, male to the
left and female to the right, the female greeting the male first. They gave birth to two
children (which were islands), they turned out badly and they cast them out. After that
incident, they decided to act to the laws of nature, with the male greeting the female. They
created the 4 perfect islands of the Japanese archipelago. The Shinto myth does not
describe how the humans were made, but a fair educated guess is that they gave birth to
the humans, and left them on the islands.

Modern
Buddhism is the more recent religion that Japan has adopted, the main paths for
Buddhism in Japan are Amidist, Nichiren, Shingon and Zen Buddhism. The root word in
Japan for Buddhism comes from butsu. Around 91 million practitioners in Japan claim to
be Buddhist. Buddhism in Japan came from the Silk Road in China, it was famous for its
trading systems that ranged from borders close to Europe to the very end of South East
Asia. A Chinese man by the name of Zhang Qian went on a long trip on the Silk Road
between 140 and 130 BC, and introduced the Buddhist ways to both Chinese and
Japanese people. Most historians agree that Buddhism began to be popular in Japan in
the middle of the first century. The ways of the Buddhist religion are incredibly complex and
very hard to explain.

Language
The history of the Japanese language can be separated into 3 different categories, Old
Japanese, which saw no influence from the Chinese language, Middle Japanese, which
had a significant amount of Chinese influence, and Modern Japanese, which saw large
amounts of Chinese influence, and small amounts of English influence.

Ancient
The first written Japanese language was brought over to Japan by the first settlers coming
from the mainland (now China) at around the middle of the 2nd century BC, which
replaced the language of the original Jomon inhabitants that lived there. This old
Japanese consisted of 88 syllables, which is larger than the modern Japanese, because of
some extra syllables that were decided to be too rarely used and were removed from the
vocabulary.
At the 8th century AD, the Middle Japanese started emerging in parts of Japan,
people started using a new category of characters, now known as kanji for objects and
words that were brought over from China to Japan, the numbers that were originally written
in Japanese are now completely in Chinese, because of the ease of writing them (Most of
the Japanese numbers had two characters, while the Chinese numbers only had one
character, that consisted only of one to four steps to write). In the late parts of Middle
Japanese, English also started to influence the Japanese language, because of the new
food and objects that were introduced to the Japanese people from European countries,
some of those words include, pan (bread), tabako (tobacco which is now known as a
cigarette).

Modern
Modern Japanese is considered to begin in the 17th century, where the 4 different
categories that the Japanese people use today started, these four categories consist of
hiragana, which consists mostly of the syllables from the Old Japanese. Katakana, which
was created because of the overflowing amount of uncharted Japanese symbols that were
being borrowed from European countries, katakana is also sometimes used for English
names being translated. Romaji, which uses the English letters to write the sounds of the
hirigana, katakana and kanji characters, romaji is used in some words like CD or DVD, and
even for some companies that were created in Japan, like Sony. Last of all, kanji, which is
the exact characters that the Chinese people use, except for the change of sound, and
sometimes the change of the definition.
During the 19th century, the Japanese government attempted to limit the number of
kanji that were taught in schools, because of the fear of complete overtaking of the
Japanese language by Chinese. The kanji characters were contracted from around 3000 to
1945 characters, which were separated into kyoiku kanji, which was taught in primary
school, and consisted of 1006 characters, and joyo kanji, which was taught in high school,
which consisted of 939 characters.
As for katakana for personal names, the circumstances of this subject in Japan are
somewhat complicated, the Japanese government highly disapproves of the use of
katakana characters for names, and suggests to people that they use the hiragana
characters, this is probably for the same reasons that they contracted the amount of kanji
characters. Names containing unapproved katakana characters are denied registration in
Japan.

Art

Japanese art covers a very large range of styles and media, including the ancient pottery,
ink paintings on silk and paper, sculptures in wood and bronze, the folding of paper to
create beautiful structures or origami and the more modern manga, cartoon and anime.

Ancient

Ancient Japan art started with the first settlers of Japan, who crafted decorated clay
figurines called dogu (300 BC). At around 800 AD, it was predicted that the first invasion
by the Asian continental culture took place in Japan. When Buddhist cultures were brought
to Japan, so were the brushes and silk that the Chinese used to write the many ways of the
Buddhist way. Several paintings from China inspired the Japanese to create their own, and
when a few talented artists were rewarded from the emperor for their beautiful paintings,
several more were inspired, and the number grew and grew over the years.
An art that is very famous in Japan is origami, the art of paper folding. Origami is
said to have originated from the traditional Chinese funerals, which involved the burning of
folded paper, it is not known when this tradition started in Japan, but it seems to have
become incredibly popular at around 900AD. The origami that was first made included
dishes, hats, boats, animals or flowers. Almost all origami books begin with a description of
all the techniques that one might have to use when constructing a model in the book, they
include valley folds, mountain folds, pleats, reverse folds, squash folds, and sinks. There
are also standard bases that can be used to create a variety of models, for example, the
bird base can be used to construct the crane, the flapping bird, the double crane and many
other birds.
Ancient arts are believed to have originated in Japan with the Buddhist cultures that
were brought over from inland countries. Buddhist practitioners brought over to Japan new
ways to build structures, for instance, the dove tail joint, which allowed the Japanese to
build wood structures that used no nails at all, the dove tail joint was just a cubic piece of
wood sticking out from a large piece of wood to fit into a hole of similar size and shape in
another piece of wood. They also brought over new techniques of casting bronze, which
allowed the Japanese shape metal into sculptures of Buddha and other gods of the Shinto
religion.

Modern
Modern art in Japan include manga and anime, an average Australian or American
person might believe that they are the same, but they are very different. Manga consists of
comics and print cartoons in the Japanese language. People of all ages read manga in
Japan. The genres include action, adventure, romance, sports, games, drama, comedy,
science fiction, mystery, horror and more.

Cuisine

Ancient
Ancient cuisine in Japan shifted from a hunter-gatherer society to an agricultural
society when the settlers came. This was when rice cultivation began, and the Japanese
used their hands to eat, until Buddhists brought over chopsticks, which were instantly a hit
in Japan, because of both their cleanliness and their ease of use. Japan moved towards its
own individuality in culture and cuisine at the 15th century, the dishes that were consumed
then included grilled meat, simmered food, steamed foods, soups, fish, vegetables,
seaweed in strong dressings and vegetables.

Modern
 Modern cuisine is based on combining staple foods, or as we might call them, side
dishes, which were usually fish, meat, vegetable, tofu, a carbohydrate, which would be
either rice or noodles and a small bowl of soup. Modern Japanese cuisine also included
sweets and snacks, which included wagashi, Japanese style sweets, yogashi, Western
style sweets, kashi pan, which was sweetened bread, and dagashi, which was old
fashioned Japanese sweets.

Military
Samurais were the military nobility of Ancient Japan, they wore suits of armor made
from rectangular pieces of wood stuck together with strong chains. The samurai carried
katanas, which was a curved, single edged blade and had a long grip to accommodate two
hands. The ancient samurai had 7 myths: Seppuku for honor, which was the ritual suicide
that they did when they were captured by the enemy, Samurai didnt retreat, which was not
true, because records indicated that they almost always retreated, even when they
experienced as few as 2 casualties. Samurai were dependent on swords, which was their
katana. However, in reality, the samurai used a wide range of weapons, from short knifes
to cannons. Samurai were Gentlemen, modern movies and books show samurai as
gentlemen, but this was not true at all, in fact, they were ruthless, and samurai clans had
large amounts of infighting and disputes. Samurai were few, the percentage of samurai in
the population was around 7% from the start of the 14th century to the end of the 19th
century. Samurai were merciful, samurais are often portrayed as having modern ideas
about fairness and justice. They are even depicted as being protectors of the poor and
weak against the tyranny of the elite. Nothing could be more further from the truth. This is
demonstrated in this small act we have put up. Samurai were battle-hardened; the Edo era
saw an extended time of peace, during which no major battles were fought, in this long
peace many Samurai become scholars, bureaucrats, administrators or leisurely gentlemen
rather than warriors.

References

Religion
Websites:
Wikipedia

Books:
Ancient Shinto
All about Buddhism
WD History Book

Language
Books:
Japan and wonders
WD History Book

Art
Websites:
How to make origami

Books:
Manga and Anime
Japanese Comics
Japan Art

Cuisine
Websites:
Ancient Japanese Cuisine

Books:
Sushi and more
Japanese recipe book
Chopsticks (not all of the book is about chopsticks!)
History of sweets

Military
Websites:
Wikipedia

Books:
Ancient Lores of the Samurai