Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Japan, Post Ten



Animals in Japan

I love animals, especially dogs and cats. The Japanese have pets just as we do--but tourists rarely see them. Nowhere did I see stray dogs in the streets, such as most other countries have.

Cats are good luck in Japan. The beckoning cat in the photo at the top of this post is seen everywhere in every size. He can be found in versions supposed to bring wealth, health, and a happy family. Don't confuse him with Hello Kitty, who is also everywhere at the moment, but is just a current commercial fad.


The old traditional beckoning cat may have been based on actual cats--like this plump and cheery fellow who greeted us one day.


The famous Japanese koi (carp) are found in every lake and pond, and even in one of our hotel lobbies. People feed them, and they perform a feeding frenzy every time, no matter how many tourists have already fed them that day.


One of the places we visited was the island of Nara, where deer run free and beg from the tourists. One deer came up behind one of our group and stole a map of the island out of his back pocket.


The deer wander all over the island, and there is an abundance of wildlife in every park all over the country. They make just another aspect of the beauty of Japan.



__________________________________

Learn to Speak Japanese

How to import a car from Japan. Click here.

Click here for Seven Reasons to Visit India.

This series of posts on my trip to Japan begins here.

The journal of my trip to India and Nepal begins here.

The series of posts on my trip to Italy begins here.

Geezer-Chick's guest blog on York, England is here.

MATERIAL CONNECTION DISCLOSURE: You should assume that the author of this blog has an affiliate relationship and/or another material connection to the providers of goods and services mentioned in this message and may be compensated when you purchase from a provider. You should always perform due diligence before buying goods or services from anyone via the Internet or offline.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Japan, Part Nine


Japanese Temples, Part Two

The three major religions in Japan are Shinto, Buddhism, and Confucianism, although the latter is far more a philosophy than a religion. Other religions are also common, including Christianity--but the Japanese rarely belong to only one religion. In fact, most Japanese will claim that they are not religious at all, and a few minutes later stop to pray at an office shrine.


Here is a Bahaii temple, one of the many other religions represented in Japan.

We learned that since WWII the Japanese have become smitten with the Christian wedding ceremony, so frequently people who continue practicing Shinto and Buddhism (almost everyone practices both) get married in a Christian church. That's the best example I know to show that the Japanese have a very different attitude toward religion from that of westerners.


Because there are no funerals in Shinto, Buddhism provides them. No one seems bothered by the difference between the importance of ancestors--implying that their spirits remain in shrines or around the family home in some kind of conscious awareness and individuality--and the Buddhist belief in reincarnation.

To my knowledge, the Japanese attitude toward religion is unique, and I don't think westerners will ever really understand it.



__________________________________

Learn to Speak Japanese

How to import a car from Japan. Click here.

Click here for Seven Reasons to Visit India.

This series of posts on my trip to Japan begins here.

The journal of my trip to India and Nepal begins here.

The series of posts on my trip to Italy begins here.

Geezer-Chick's guest blog on York, England is here.

MATERIAL CONNECTION DISCLOSURE: You should assume that the author of this blog has an affiliate relationship and/or another material connection to the providers of goods and services mentioned in this message and may be compensated when you purchase from a provider. You should always perform due diligence before buying goods or services from anyone via the Internet or offline.

Japan, Part Eight



Japanese Temples, Part One

Japan is a land of many religions, although the three primary ones are Shinto, Buddhism, and Confucianism. Most Japanese participate in more than one.


There are Shinto shrines everywhere, little shrines in homes and offices, and in the streets and countryside, where people stop to offer prayers about any problem in their lives.


Torii, the gates of Shinto temples, are found in the streets, marking the way to the nearest temple, where anyone is welcome. One place we visited is called "Thousand Torii," a thousand gates.


Anyone who shows proper respect is welcome in a Shinto temple. Before entering, you remove your shoes and wash your hands and face at the fountain always provided. Inside you invoke the various gods, or kami, like the fox god. Shinto is all about life--it marks the stages in a person's life from childhood to old age, but there are no Shinto funerals. It is believed that the dead would pollute the temples ... even though some people become kami after death.

For funerals, the Japanese turn to Buddhism. More about that next week.
__________________________________

Learn to Speak Japanese

How to import a car from Japan. Click here.

Click here for Seven Reasons to Visit India.

This series of posts on my trip to Japan begins here.

The journal of my trip to India and Nepal begins here.

The series of posts on my trip to Italy begins here.

Geezer-Chick's guest blog on York, England is here.

MATERIAL CONNECTION DISCLOSURE: You should assume that the author of this blog has an affiliate relationship and/or another material connection to the providers of goods and services mentioned in this message and may be compensated when you purchase from a provider. You should always perform due diligence before buying goods or services from anyone via the Internet or offline.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Japan, Part Seven



Japanese Castles

Japan was first united under a single ruler almost two thousand years ago, and the first recorded ruler was a woman, Himiko. That information, however, comes from Chinese travelers to Japan in the second or third century. Japanese history traditionally begins with the first emperor, Jimmu, a descendant of the sun goddess, Amaterasu. Be that as it may, Japan has had the same royal family for over 1500 years. Rarely have they held real power--through most of Japan's history they have been accorded great respect, but various warlords have fought over the real political power.

The most famous warriors were the samurai--the military class who were hired as mercenaries when the Fujiwara government collapsed in the eleventh century--and the shoguns, who became powerful in the 14th century.


I must admit to not being as familiar with Japanese history as I might be, so even as I enjoyed the beauty of the castles we visited I did not have people and events in my head to connect them to as I do when I visit castles in Europe. The castle you see here is Himeji, generally considered to be the most beautiful castle in Japan.


Castles, as opposed to palaces, are fortresses whose primary function is defense. Some castles house leaders' families, while others are simply garrisons for soldiers. In Europe, castles are combinations of purely utilitarian defensive areas, design unaffected by esthetics, and areas designed to house and delight the families of the rulers who live there. In Japan, no part of a castle is utilitarian ugly--all parts are beautiful and esthetically balanced.


As you see here, Japanese castles have in common with European castles that they are usually built on hilltops, for defense purposes. One of the things we learned about Japanese castles is that the architecture on the inside does not match the architecture on the outside: the exterior hides the fact that there is one more story on the inside than is evident from the outside, masking whichever floor housed the family.

Another difference between European and Japanese castles is that Japanese castles are completely finished on the inside, with wooden floors and paneling. European castles tend to be mostly bare stone, with rooms for family hung with tapestries to lend color and cut the cold. Narrow stone spiral staircases are found in the walls, difficult to climb but easy to defend. Japanese castles have wooden staircases inside the rooms--but some of them are on ropes, so they can be hauled up from above. Different methods to achieve the same purpose of defense against intruders.
__________________________________

Learn to Speak Japanese

How to import a car from Japan. Click here.

Click here for Seven Reasons to Visit India.

This series of posts on my trip to Japan begins here.

The journal of my trip to India and Nepal begins here.

The series of posts on my trip to Italy begins here.

Geezer-Chick's guest blog on York, England is here.

MATERIAL CONNECTION DISCLOSURE: You should assume that the author of this blog has an affiliate relationship and/or another material connection to the providers of goods and services mentioned in this message and may be compensated when you purchase from a provider. You should always perform due diligence before buying goods or services from anyone via the Internet or offline.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Japan, Part Six


Hiroshima

Hiroshima is the Japanese city where the first atomic bomb was dropped on August 6, 1945. We, the United States, dropped it, and a few days later we dropped another on Nagasaki, the only times in history that atomic weapons were ever used in warfare. Strange as it may seem, the bombing saved millions of Japanese lives by putting an end to World War II in the Pacific (it had already ended in Europe with the surrender of Germany).

The bombings took over a quarter of a million lives within two months, and many more in the years following from the effects of radiation. Yet, according to the information at the memorial museum, they saved millions of Japanese lives.


You see, Japan would not surrender, in spite of the fact that the U.S. and our allies were bombing their cities daily with conventional weapons. They were hugely outnumbered, and could not win--especially as the Soviet Union had just declared war against them--but they were determined to fight to the last person. It took the shock value of a new technology far beyond anything anyone had seen before to convince the Japanese command to surrender.


It is strange for an American to visit Hiroshima. Everything in the museum and the guidebooks is from the Japanese point of view. They never question our motives or morals, much as we may do so ourselves. Hiroshima today is a thriving modern city, but there are a number of memorials, plus the ruin of the Prefectural Industrial Promotional Hall, now known as the A-Bomb Dome. Despite being less than 500 feet from ground zero, this building survived because of having been built to withstand earthquakes. However, most of Hiroshima was completely flattened.



The museum tells the story of that summer day. Because it was a potential target for the atom bomb, Hiroshima had been spared the regular bombing raids on other Japanese cities. The Enola Gay was accompanied by only two other planes, so although people saw the Amreican planes approaching, they thought it was a commonplace reconnaisance mission and were not afraid. So they went about their business until the flash and the firestorm, and sudden death.

There were far more Japanese tourists than foreigners visiting the city and the museum, and they were moved to tears much as Americans are when visiting the 911 ground zero in New York. But there is no blame placed--it is, if the English translations are to be trusted, more as if that horrible lesson were necessary for the Japanese people to change their ways and turn away from war and conquest.


Outside the museum, there are numerous monuments and gardens, all devoted to peace. Where once there was horror and destruction and pain and death, there is now beauty and life. Where once there was a nation of warriors, there is now a nation of pacifists.

Next time: palaces of the warlords.

__________________________________

How to import a car from Japan. Click here.

Click here for Seven Reasons to Visit India.

This series of posts on my trip to Japan begins here.

The journal of my trip to India and Nepal begins here.

The series of posts on my trip to Italy begins here.

Geezer-Chick's guest blog on York, England is here.

MATERIAL CONNECTION DISCLOSURE: You should assume that the author of this blog has an affiliate relationship and/or another material connection to the providers of goods and services mentioned in this message and may be compensated when you purchase from a provider. You should always perform due diligence before buying goods or services from anyone via the Internet or offline.