Difference between before and after about impression of Japan

Through this class "Visual Anthropology of Japan", my view toward Japan itself was changed. Before taking this class, I had not been interested in it very much because I had thought that I have lived in Japan since I was born, so I knew most of Japan. However, it was wrong. In this class, a problem that I was so surprised happened when I tried to answer international students' questions about Japan, such as Japanese culture, Japanese custom, Japanese events, and so on. The problem was that I understood the subject matter that they asked me, but I did not have ideas about their questions about Japan. So I was noticed that I did not have any ideas and information that I answered with confidence. Therefore, I will try to focus on not only overseas, but also Japan. Before this class, I preferred researching another countries to doing Japan, but now, I think I have to work on something about Japanese more, and I should answer their questions with a good explanation that they can be convinced.

Next, I tell you things that helped me understand smoothly during class were these textbooks that gave me some new ideas, advice, and thought. These books mainly said relationship between Anthropology and vision in Japan and various countries. Especially, yellow one include the story that foreign anthropologist went around and asked native people and wrote about fieldwork in this book. on the other hand, in the white one, there are articles about how to shoot people, Anthropology itself, and "Japanese Sign Language and Deaf Culture in Japan" that professor wrote, and so on.

A little bit before this class started, I began to be interested in Anthropology, but I did not know it deeply. I only knew a surface of Anthropology, so in the first day when this class started, I was confused because of the difference between Visual Anthropology and usual Anthropology. However, as this class went on, I gradually understood how related vision and Anthropology were and what Visual Anthropology was. I want to make use of the knowledge I learned from this course when I study abroad and take a course of Anthropology in University in America.

Posters

Unexpectedly, I found some posters when I watched around carefully to search for stuffs related this time subject "Japanese Politics". I usually don't care about this kind of posters, but there are a lot of posters here and there, especially the Hirakata Station. I researched on these posters and hound out something interesting.

These kinds of posters are issued when politic candidates run. Most of canddates use these to inform people who have the right to vote; it applys to people over 20 years old in Japan. These posters say what candidates do when they are selected as a representive and what persons they are. Some voters see these posters and decide which candidate they vote, so these posters are very important for candidates.

As I said before, posters are issued for attracting people to vote a certain candidate. However, where can we see these posters?? I do not need to say, but of course in the place where people get together or pass over because there is a high probability that people watch these posters. Therefore, I saw many posters around the Hirakata Station. To the contrary, I found some posters on the road where people seldom pass over. Although I asked some persons who were there why this poster put on this wall, they did not know why, either, so this problem are still un unsolved! In additoin, a bulletin board appears in the time of election. Now it is not the time of election, so I didn't take the picture of this, but I put the picture of bullteinboard (comes from http://www.chuokai-shiga.or.jp/228/koeisenkyoposuta-.html). As you can see, you can put posters on the bulltein board, so it is so useful that this kind bulltein board show up in the season of election.

At last, I tell something interesting about politics posters!

I got information form TV program before. The content is that you are punished if you scribble on these kinds of posters, so you might be taken into a jail if police see you do that. Be careful not to do that! However, when you can't help scribbing on politics posters, do that after confirming whether police is near around you!Good Luck! ..........it's joke! Don't try this thing!

That's all!

Japanese music

Before writing this time blog, I have one thing that I need to say. The one thing is that ...... As you know, We study Visual Anthropology in a class, but this topic is not related to visual, so I wonder whether I should write blog about this topic or not. However, I think this topic is maybe relevant to Anthropology, so please look over my this time topic!

In this time, I didn't hit on a good topic when I thought about what I wrote about in blog, so I checked other's blog and looked around my room to get any ideas. Finally I try to explain how much Japanese music receives influence from other countries' music The reason why I chose this topic was that I'm merely interested in this kind of things!

These days, there are a lot of Japanese songs that are sung by Japanese artists with English lyrics. When Japanese compose and write words for a song, I don't know why in detail, but they have a tendency to try to add English words by halves or write lyrics with all English. I think that Japanese music receives influence from the area where people speak with English, especially America. Therefore, I try to focus on the relationship between this country's music and Japanese music.

At first, before 1950, in Japan, American and UK musics were not pupular very much. After 1950, thses musics dramatically were popular there because the blues and folk songs were come from America and the other stuff related to music, such as musical movie and famous person. In that time, Japanese frist yearned for famous musicians who had long hair, and wore blue jeans like that. Through these things, American music gradually penetrated into Japanese music. Especially, punk rock music completely derived from American music. Now this kind of music is admitted by Japanese and punk rock song is admitted as one of the genres in Japan. However, until this kind of music was famous, it took a lot a lot of time. Why this king of music was famous is through Japanese punk rock band "Hi-Standard". At first, this band was also unpopular in Japan, but through that they went to America and go around there to perform his music, and finally this band was famous in America as well in Japan. Therefore, this band received the influence of American punk rock music, and they spread this goodness all over Japan! Second picture comes from http://kanpeki.inucara.net/search/Hi-STANDARD

Ekiden

The first image of this topic "Sports in Japan" was long-distance relay road race(Ekiden 駅伝) because I belonged to track and field team when I was a junior high and high school student, so I think I am more familiar with this theme not a little than any other students. However, my main event was not the long distance, but I had the experience of it. Therefore, I tried to focus on this theme.

Do you remember the movie "Kokoyakyu" that we watched last class? I think both "Kokoyakyu" and "Ekiden" have some similarities. In Kokoyakyu, baseball players in high school aim to take part in the special tournament in "Koshien"(甲子園）. Every player has the dream that they want to join this tournament and play in Koshien studium. Likewise, "Ekiden" has the similarity like "Kokoyakyu" explanation. Similar point is that runners for college students drive for participating in "Hakone Ekiden" (箱根駅伝） that is one of the very famous meetings. The final goal of baseball players in high school is Koshien and that of runners in college is Hokone Ekiden.

Next, I try to explain Ekiden itself easily.

Road relay is the event that some runners run with a form of relay, and are competed by time and speed. Each runner hands the sash that was handed by previous runner to the next runner. The team that has big delay from top team has to start with a spare sash because of using public road, although previous runner does not come to hand the sash. The distance that each of runners, total distance, and the number of section depend on each event. Runners run 42,195km with 6 sections(5km, 10km, 5km, 10km, 5km, 7,195km) in the criterion of international race defined by International Track and Field League.(The information is quoted from Wikipedia)

Japanese Wedding

The first impression was wedding when I was thinking about this topic, "Japanese Religion" because there are some types of wedding in Japan although most of Japanese belong to Japanese religion, such as Shinto or Buddhism, and I wanted to check what types of wedding is the most popular and how many types of wedding there are in Japan and how each wedding takes place. Therefore, in this time, I tried to focus on this topic.

There are mainly three types of wedding in Japan, "Christian wedding", "Shinto wedding", and "Buddhist wedding". Recently, Chiristian wedding is the most popular among Japanese because the rests of two types of wedding are very quiet and they have the image that Japanese traditional wedding is sober in terms of dress and the place where takes place.

Next, I explain two types of wedding, Christian wedding and Shinto wedding.

At first about Chiristian wedding, less than 1% of Japan's population is Christian, but young Japanese couples prefer to this wedding. The reason why Japanese prefer this one is that friends can be present at the wedding, unlike in the Shinto wedding. In general, progress of this wedding in Japan, a priest (or the person who wears the costume of priest; it means not real priest) preside at wedding. Mainly, first a groom enters and waits for a bride in front of priest. Next, the bride who wears wedding dress comes with her father and he gives her over to the groom. It means that the bride leaves her father and lives with the groom.

Next about Shinto wedding.

In general, only the groom, bride, their immdiate families, and go-between attend the religious part of a Shinto ceremony. After the priest prays to the deities, the groom makes marriage oath. Then, the groom and bride perform exchange of nupital cups (sansan-kudo, 三三九度). Next, they exchange rings with each other.

By these explanations, you can understand that Japanese do not care about what religion they belong to very much. Actually, there are a lot of people in Japan who do not know which religion they belong to as well as I. Therefore, I think Japanese should be interested in Japanese religion more.

Japanese dolls

In this time, I try to write about Japanese dolls because I think these dolls represent a Japanese traditional peculiar art.

Japanese dolls, symbolized clay figures and clay images, were used for religion and magic, and the use of these dolls gradually were changed into tools that children played with. Moreover, adults enjoyed appreciating these dolls. In Heian period, these dolls were very simple ones like dolls that were made by plant and grass for escape from the plague, but through technical development, these dolls refined and were changed into more elaborate ones than before.

The dolls displayed on the Girl's Festival days and the Imperial Palace doll as representive dolls in Japan were made by the synthesis of industrial arts technique at that time, these dolls almost were completed by the Edo era. In the Edo era, the world in Japan that was subject to samurai applyed national isolation. Japanese traditional culture was established under this situation foe 300 years. Today, Japanese have very typical custom to love and cherish dolls in daily life such as the Doll's Festival on March 3, the Boy's Festival and so on.

Moreover, the characteristic of dolls in this era remarkably had the point that the dolls were made with the image of dynastic beauty of Heian period in spite of samurai political power.The any kind od dolls in this period were bugun to make around the Imperial Palace and Kyoto, and these dolls were prevalent to parts of the prefecture.

Cherry blossoms

In this time, I had difficulty finding good topic about Japanese traditional culture because I think recently a large number of Japanese are not interested in their own culture, but interested in western or the others' country. Therefore, when I reflected what event was very popular and hot in spring, I came up with a cherry blossom viewing picnic, but this topic was posted by another Japanese student. However, I chose this topic because I have confidence to research and write much deeper ;)

At present, a cherry blossom viewing picnic means the situation that people drink sake, eat Japanese box lunch, and make a lot of noise, singing a song or screaming with joy without reasons under the cherry blossoms.

However, the reason of doing a picnic under cherry blossoms was different from preselnt type. The origin of it was originally a religious event to purify. By enjoying under the cherry blossoms, people drive out evil spilit and spend the time with God. Formerly, people did festivals under the flowers to wish autum's huge harvests and augured the harvest using flowers. Bloom of cherry was the proof of God's Advent, and something bad happened if cherry blossoms suddenly fell.

Globalization

In this time, I picked up the internationatization of "KFC's Colonel Sanders's statue" that is known to all over the world. In Japan, this statue is very famous to Japanese, and this statue expands to overseas more and more. I will try to explain why this statue was made and was put in front of the KFC.

At first, the reason why this statue was made is that this statue was made for KFC's event in Canada, but after this event, it was put into a warehouse. However, Japanese KFC officer who came to Canada to inspect KFC found this statue, and bought it back to Japan.

Next, the reason why this statue was put in front of KFC's store is that people in Japan identified KFC as a store that dealt with electorical fittings or a barbershop because completely nameless KFC used roofs and signboards painted srtips of red and white as a image color a long time ago. So, the Colnel Sanders's statue was put in front of KFC's store so that people would not mistake the KFC's store for the another store.

In addition, I will try to introduce the interesting information about KFC. The content of the interesting story is that people in Japan call KFC "Kentucky Fried Chicken". However, I said to my overseas friends "Let's go out to eat "Kentucky Fried Chicken" but at first they did not identify Kentucky Fried Chicken as KFC. After that, I asked them why they did not identiy. The reason why was that was that if this store is called Kentucky Fried Chicken, this store sells only chickens, so they call these stores onlhy KFC. However, Japanese tend to put together various things as a group. Therefore, Japanese call KFC Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Japanese characteristic

This time I will explain Japanese characteristic.

To Japanese, relationship betwwen persons is very important.

This picture was taken by me in Izakaya（居酒屋）, so there are three in this table.

Japanese generally get together ang go out somewhere. Some of Japanese go out and spend the time by him/herself, but most of them do with their friends because Japanese do not have a strong ego. Therefore, Japanese have a tendency that they cherish links between persons. By doing this, they can help one another when they have some problems. For example, they can ask their friends what to do next if they do not have any idea.

Although I said "Japanese cherish relations between persons", they are also particuliar about another. It is the number that is very important for Japanesewhen they do something. I asked my friends how many people you want to go out somewhere with. The result of this question was more than three. The reason of this answer is that if two go somewhere or eat out, they always have the other in their mind, but if more than three, they do not care about one another so much rather than two. Only reading this article might cause readers misunderstanding that Japanese can not enjoy by two, but if the two are very close and do not care about each other at all, they can do something with joy!!

Next picture shows Japanese couple in a house.

It represents a man who smokes and a woman who does housework.

Now the idea is obsolete, but this way of thinking was usual years ago; the men do not do anything about housework, but just watch TV, lying down because they have a very hard day in their office and their nerves are scattered by their boss, so they think that they want to relax even when they are in their house. On the other hand, the women do not work outside of house, but only do housework. This idea is completely Japanese stereotype. However, recently couple share housework and have jobs mutually. The Japanese way of thinking about what couple should be is changing gradually.

Special Water and the Way of Praying

This describes a water tub.

There is this in the shrine. The use of this water is not drinking, (but if you want to drink, it is O.K.!),but washing your hands before you pray to Japanese God for anything.

The reason why Japanese do that is to purge themselves of sin. When you pray to God, you absolutely put your hands together in front of your face. At the time, if your hands become corrupted and you pray to God with these hands, it is very rude at God in Japan. Therefore, you must wash your hands when you pray to Japanese God!! If you forget to do that, your wish does not come true!!

Next, I will explain the way of praying.I got the information from my grandmother.

At first, you throw in a coin into a offering box. Next, you have to bow once and clap your hands twice before you pray. After praying, you do not forget to bow once. That's all!!

Next time, you have the opportunity to go to the shrine, let's try do this!!

Toyohashi Shrine!!

This picture was taken in my hometown, too. It shows Toyohashi shrine.

Usually, nothing happen in this place, but once a year in October the festival is held there. At that time, neighbors come here and see a lot of fireworks. However, the fireworks that are played in this place are a little bit different. The way of fireworks is that people hold a cylinder tha t was rolled with rope and the fireworks are fired from the top of it. It is not that everybody can do this fireworks. People who can do fireworks only take part in chounaikai.

If you want to do fireworks, please join chounaikai!!

Park♪♪

This picture was taken in my hometown, Toyohashi, Aichi. Have you ever been to Aichi? ;)

This picture describes a park, but this park is not usual!! Usually this park is used by a lot of childen who come to the park with their mother rather than father. At that time, their mother talk with each other about neighbors while they watch thier children play. Especially, they talk about not so good content, in short, rumor!! The rumor easily spread over the town because they talk to their family about the information taht they get in this park, and their family speak to their friends.

So, please be careful not to do something bad when you come to my hometown!! ;)

Koinobori

This picture is carp-shaped streamer, in Japanese "koinobori". Koinoborio is a mark that there is a boy in a family and they tell the God that please protect him from somthing bad. In additoin, a carp is the creature that can live in any conditinon, even if they are ont only in a crean stream but also a pond. For this reason, display of koinobori means the wishes of family that children will grow up strong as a carp. Moreover, the Chinese tradition describes that the carp climbed in a fast river, rose in waterwall and transform into a dragon. These are the explanations of carp-shaped streamer!!

First Sunrise on January 1st in 2008

This is my first contribution about Japan!!

I will explain the left picture. This picture was taken on January 1st in 2008. As you see this picture, it is sunrise. However, it is not just usual sunrise, but special one because it is the reason why this was taken on Jan 1st. Why the sunrise on Jan 1st is special is Japanese think if you see the sunrise on Jan 1st, you have good things in that year. Therefore, in Japan, the sunrise on Jan 1st is viewed as a bringer of good luck. So if you come to Japan on Jan 1st, I recommend you to see the sunrise. You might have good things ;>