Japanese Culture

Japanese Culture

Japanese culture has been cultivating for the past millennia, with culture influenced by Chinese settlers. The culture has changed drastically over its life span, having solely Chinese influence during the ancient Jōmon period, to adopting many aspects of Western culture, such as entertainment and games. Today, Japan is one of the most prominent cultures, due to its global pop culture.

Language

The people of Japan speak Japanese, a unique language with a distinct language tone (a distinguishable accent). The language was based off three major works of Old Japanese. The eariest account of the language was from as Chinese document from 250 AD. Japanese is generally written as 3 different scripts, hiragana, deriving from Chinese cursive, katakana, from Chinese characters, and kanji, also from Chinese characters.

Art (music, visual art)

The Japanese music industry is the 2^nd largest in the world only after the U.S, and it’s timing is based off human breathing instead mathematical timing. Japanese music was a big part of their ancient culture and a successful industry today, with massive genera of music including J-Pop among other things. Local Japanese hits appear at Karaoke venues. There are two types of tradition Japanese music shōmyō (Buddhist music), and gagaku (court music).

Art has been a massive part of Japanese culture, with the Japanese using paint brushes even before they used Japanese as a language. Both the painting of pictures and calligraphy are both very traditional aspects of Japan’s culture. Sculpting was also an art form, mainly used to honor their gods.

Religion

Buddhism arrived in Japan at around the 6^th century (AD). The religion, having deep philosophical meaning, was not adopted by the public, in Japan, because many could not understand and get behind such new teachings. What did catch on, was the art created for the religion. These sculptures of Buddha, and art pieces of the supernatural, probably lead to the spread of the religion.

Architecture

Japanese architecture was greatly influenced by Chinese, but has many building types specific to Japan, such as temples, shrines, and castles. Some buildings are surrounded by traditional gardens called Zen Gardens.

Food

Japanese food has been developed for centuries, and is very popular around the world today. Many traditional foods are now iconic foods, such as sushi, noodles and teriyaki. It is said that the Japanese’ healthy diet lead to the prosperou