Japanese culture encompasses many unique traditions and
conventions, including religion, social conventions, sports, as well as food
and drink.
Japan’s main two religions are Shintoism and Buddhism,
however, religion is rarely preached or mentioned, more so intertwined with
their social and cultural values than in the Western world. Despite this, many
people participate in religious rituals for birth, marriage and death and take
part in spiritual festivals all throughout the year. Shintoism and Buddhism
coexist as Shintoism is about the spirituality of this world and life, used for
prayers for a good harvest, marriage and birth, while Buddhism concerns itself
with the soul and afterlife, being turned to when it comes to funerals.
Social conventions that are present in the everyday life of
Japan include, bowing, taking off your shoes and eating. Bowing is used to say hello,
goodbye, thank you or sorry. However, handshakes have become more commonplace
as Western conventions have trickled into Japan. Another social convention in
Japan is taking off your shoes when entering a guesthouse, your home and
temples. Originally this was done to prevent outside dirt from entering these
buildings, these days, this reasoning is combined with the reason of that it is
a sign of respect. Another part of life in Japan that has many social
conventions accompanying it is eating. Before eating a meal, you are meant to
put your hand together and say, “Itadakimasu” (I humbly receive), and after the
meal, you are to say, “Gochiso sama deshita” (Thank you for the meal).
Regarding chopsticks, it is ill-advised to stick your chopsticks straight up in
the middle of a bowl of rice, as this is done by family members during
funerals, as well as passing food chopstick-to-chopstick, as this is performed
also by family members as well as friends for funerals. After cremating, the
family and friends pick the bones of the remains up with chopsticks and pass
the bone piece, so it is not advisable to do this to food 
Japan has four main traditional sports, as well as modern
ones such as baseball, which is extremely popular in Japan. Baseball was first
introduced to Japan by America towards the end of the nineteenth century. The
four main traditional sports of Japan are Sumo, Kendo, Karate, Aikido and Judo.
Sumo is considered the unofficial national sport of Japan. It has a history of
over 1,500 years and originated as a Shinto ritual. Despite growing into a
professional sport, remnants of this past remain, including the use of salt to
purify the ring as well as the shrine-like roof hanging above. Kendo is perhaps
Japan’s oldest martial art. Kendo can be described loosely as Japanese fencing.
The swords are made of bamboo and usually held together by leather slats. This
sport originated in the Kamakura period (1185-1333) with samurai, as they
needed to have practice for their swordsmanship. ‘Kenjutsu’ schools were
established to fulfill this purpose, and, with the influence of Zen Buddhism,
Kendo embraced a rather spiritual but also physical essence. Over time, the
swords being used were replaced with bamboo swords and thick, protective body
armour was introduced and it became a sport that is practised all throughout
Japan from all ages of participants. Karate is another form of martial arts, even more famous than kendo. Karate finds its origins in the Indian subcontinent, finding its way to Japan through China. Chinese traders brought karate to the Ryukyu Islands as early as the fourteenth century. Aikido is one of the less aggressive form of martial art that focuses on defence by redirecting the power and energy of the attacker. The ideal outcome being that neither the attacker nor the attacked is harmed. Aikido was founded by Ueshiba Morihei in the 1920’s. Lastly, Judo, possibly the most successful of marital arts in foreign countries, was created by Kano Jigoro in 1882. His inspiriation for judo being that he witnessed bullying at the English medium boarding school that he was attending in Tokyo at the time when he was fourteen years old. Jigoro wanted to be trained in jiu-jitsu, which is an ancient form of self-defence that was favoured by samurai, however, finding a teacher proved difficult. Eventually, he studied under two teachers, before going on to create his own school and dojo at Eisho-ji Temple in Tokyo, where judo would be created.
Regarding food and drinks, Japan has yakitori, ramen, udon,
sake, green tea and a lot more. Yakitori is skewered barbecued chicken meat. Pretty
much every part of chicken, even the liver and cartilage can be used for
yakitori. As with most Japanese dishes it is seasoned with either salt or sweet
soy sauce. Veering off to noodles, Udon is a traditional Japanese noodle made
by wheat. They’re soft white round noodles in soy sauce-based soups with some
topping. Another type of noodle in Japan is ramen, originally from China, the
noodles are thin and served with a variety of toppings in a hot soup. Concerning
drinks, sake is a Japanese rice wine, with its alcohol content at about 15-20%.
It can be enjoyed chilled or hot. A drink that can be enjoyed by all ages however,
is tea, an extremely popular drink in Japan, one type being Matcha tea. Matcha
tea is made from the highest quality tea leaves. These leaves are dried and made
into a fine powder which is then mixed with hot water. Matcha is the type of
green tea that is used in tea ceremonies.
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I think all the information in this is good but it would be nice to see it paragraphed differently, some of them are really long.
ReplyDeleteIt's really informative!
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