Japan Unchanged Culture

ENSO

Ensō is a Japanese “circle” that is hand-drawn in one or two uninhibited brushstrokes and used in Zen Buddhism to express a moment when the mind is free to let the body create. The circle symbolises many things: strength, the circle of life, connection, letting go of expectations and the beauty in imperfection an open or incomplete circle represents the beauty of imperfection, while when the circle is whole, it represents the idea of perfection.

神 道

Shintoism

Shinto (literally “the way of the gods”) is Japan’s native belief system and predates historical records. The many practices, attitudes, and institutions that have developed to make up Shinto revolve around the Japanese land and seasons and their relation with the human inhabitants. Expressions of Shinto beliefs toward nature include the recognition of a divine spirit (kami) in venerable old trees, large mountains, and tall waterfalls, as well as celebrations of the highlights of each season. (This reverence is often expressed by the placement of a small shrine next to the natural element being celebrated or garlanding it with a white rope.)

Traditionally, Shinto also involves purification rites and customs to overcome the polluting effects of death and decay. However, Shinto does not espouse a moral code, lacks religious scriptures, and does not conceive of a life after death.

Itsukushima Shrine

island dedicated to

What Is Shintoism?

Shintoism revolves around the kami, supernatural entities believed to inhabit all things. The link between the kami and the natural world has led to Shinto being considered animistic. The kami are worshiped at kamidana household shrines, family shrines, and jinja public shrines. The latter are staffed by priests, known as kannushi, who oversee offerings of food and drink to the specific kami enshrined at that location. This is done to cultivate harmony between humans and kami and to solicit the latter’s blessing. Other common rituals include the kagura dances, rites of passage, and seasonal festivals. Public shrines facilitate forms of divination and supply religious objects, such as amulets, to the religion’s adherents.

Shinto places a major conceptual focus on ensuring purity, largely by cleaning practices such as ritual washing and bathing, especially before worship. Little emphasis is placed on specific moral codes or particular afterlife beliefs, although the dead are deemed capable of becoming kami. The religion has no single creator or specific doctrine, and instead exists in a diverse range of local and regional forms.

鳥 居

Fushumi Inari Shrine “Head shrine of God of rice”

Tori gate to island dedicated to water god

仏

教

The Great Buddha “At Kōtoku-in, Kamakura”

Buddhism

Buddhism originated in India in the 6th century BC. It consists of the teachings of the Buddha, Gautama Siddhartha. Of the main branches of Buddhism, it is the Mahayana or “Greater Vehicle” Buddhism which found its way to Japan.

What Is Buddhism?

Buddhism was officially transmitted to Japan in 525, when the monarch of the Korean kingdom of Baekje sent a mission to Japan with gifts, including an image of the Buddha, several ritual objects, and sacred texts. Buddhism’s journey from India to China, Korea, and Japan had taken about a thousand years.

The arrival of Buddhism,which is quite different from kami worship, the ancient native belief system—created political struggles between pro- and anti-Buddhist groups. Eventually, Both shintoism and Buddhism merged togeather to form a realtionship that kept buddha at a higher Spot then the kamis and both the system were established working togeather, But you could also say buddhism pravailed to some extent as japan now has population that is mostly buddhist and teachings of buddha is vastly followed,Buddhism also brought with it a political structure, advanced technologies, and sophisticated cultural practices—including music, dance, a new writing system, and above all, elaborate Buddhist art—that would revolutionize many aspects of Japanese life.

教

Little monk statues

“At Yoshino mountain”

Buddhist monk praying

仏

tower dediicated to buddhism

神 社

Byodoin temple “Temple of equality”

Jinja

A Shinto shrine (jinja, archaic: shinsha, meaning: “place of the god(s)”) is a structure whose main purpose is to house (“enshrine”) one or more kami, the deities of the Shinto religion

What Are Shrines?

Shinto is polytheistic and revolves around the kami, supernatural entities believed to inhabit all things. The link between the kami and the natural world has led to Shinto being considered animistic. The kami are worshiped at kamidana household shrines, family shrines, and jinja public shrines. The latter are staffed by priests, known as kannushi, who oversee offerings of food and drink to the specific kami enshrined at that location. This is done to cultivate harmony between humans and kami and to solicit the latter’s blessing. Other common rituals include the kagura dances, rites of passage, and seasonal festivals. Public shrines facilitate forms of divination and supply religious objects, such as amulets, to the religion’s adherents.

Shinto places a major conceptual focus on ensuring purity, largely by cleaning practices such as ritual washing and bathing, especially before worship. Little emphasis is placed on specific moral codes or particular afterlife beliefs, although the dead are deemed capable of becoming kami. The religion has no single creator or specific doctrine, and instead exists in a diverse range of local and regional forms.

水 様

Takio shrine “Waterfall god”

旅 館

Ryogan “At sakodo japan”

Ryokan

A ryokan is a type of traditional Japanese inn that typically features tatamimatted rooms, communal baths, and other public areas where visitors may wear yukata and talk with the owner.

What Is Ryokan?

A ryokan is a type of traditional Japanese inn that typically features tatamimatted rooms, communal baths, and other public areas where visitors may wear yukata and talk with the owner. Ryokan have existed since the eighth century A.D. during the Keiun period, which is when the oldest hotel in the world, Nishiyama Onsen Keiunkan, was created in 705 A.D. Another old ryokan called Hōshi Ryokan was founded in 718 A.D. and was also known as the world’s second oldest hotel. Such inns also served travelers along Japan’s highways.

Because of their emphasis on traditional style and atmosphere, ryokan may appear rigid and intimidating for the first-timer unfamiliar with the procedures and etiquette. In reality they are a special and relaxing experience that everyone should take the opportunity to try.

田 富

Tatami matts

着 物

Kimono

“Festive clothing”

Kimono

The word kimono literally translates as “thing to wear”, and up until the 19th century it was the main form of dress worn by men and women alike in Japan.

What Is Kimono?

The kimono, labelled the “national costume of Japan”,is the most well-known form of traditional Japanese clothing. The kimono is worn wrapped around the body, left side over right, and is sometimes worn layered. It is always worn with an obi, and may be worn with a number of traditional accessories and types of footwear. Kimono differ in construction and wear between men and women.

After the four-class system ended in the Tokugawa period (1603-1867), the symbolic meaning of the kimono shifted from a reflection of social class to a reflection of self, allowing people to incorporate their own tastes and individualize their outfit. The process of wearing a kimono requires, depending on gender and occasion, a sometimes detailed knowledge of a number of different steps and methods of tying the obi, with formal kimono for women requiring at times the help of someone else to put on. Post-WW2, kimono schools were built to teach those interested in kimono how to wear it and tie a number of different knots.

A number of different types of kimono exist that are worn in the modern day, with women having more varieties than men. Whereas men’s kimono differ in formality typically through fabric choice, the number of crests on the garment (known as mon or kamon) and the accessories worn with it, women’s kimono differ in formality through fabric choice, decoration style, construction and crests.

帯

Obi “Yukata tying cloth”

浴 衣

Yukata

Yukata is an informal kimono worn specifically in the spring and summer, and it is generally less expensive than the traditional kimono. Because it was made for warm weather, yukata are almost entirely made of cotton of an often lighter weight and brighter color than most kimono fabrics. It is worn for festivals and cherry blossom viewing ceremonies.

Yukata “Summer clothing”

和 食

washoku “Traditional japanese cuisine”

Washoku

Traditional japanese cuisines are widely renouned for its unique ingredients, innovative flavours and its distinct sense of culture and history. The best Japanese food tells a story through its creative use of ingredients, shaping the dining experience into something both enjoyable and eye-opening.

Traditional Japanese Cuisines

Japanese food has been greatly influenced by Chinese and Korean food cultures due to their geographical proximity. Japan also has a lot of small islands and the closest island to Korea is only about 100km away. Therefore during prehistoric times people migrated to Japan bringing with them utensils and food that helped to develop Japanese cuisine. For example, the use of chopsticks and bowls came from China. Rice that is typically eaten in traditional Japanese food is considered to have its roots from northeast Asia and did not properly spread out until the Yayoi period. Food such as fermented fish “zushi” were more prefred leading to wastage of rice hence they combined the two and the dish “shushi” came into existence. Tofu and Japanese sweets are known to be influenced by China as well. During the Nara period, tea was also introduced (Sosnoski 1996). In other words during prehistoric times migration mainly from China and Korea helped to develop a more complex cuisine in Japan.

Another factor to consider is religion. Japan has maintained and practiced Buddhism and Shinto where both religions share the ideas of naturalism, purity and elaborate offerings of food. Due to this idea, Japan has created many dishes based on freshness and balance. Japanese culture is known to borrow food from other countries and make it their own creating a new style. Dishes such as tempura, Tonkatsu,onigiri have their roots from various places.

In others words Japanese food developed through time by the influence of other countries such China, Korea, and some European countries. Religion play also an important role to developed the idea of naturalism, purity and elaborate dishes.

す し

Ramen “Traditional japanese broth noodels”

本漢 字

Nihogo

Nihogo (Japanese language) is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by Japanese people and primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language. Japanese belongs to the Japonic or Japanese-Ryukyuan language family.

Nihogo “National japanese language”

本 書

道

Japanese Writing System

The Japanese writing system consists of three different character sets: kanji (several thousands of Chinese characters), and hiragana and katakana (two syllabaries of 46 characters each; together called kana). Japanese texts can be written in two ways: In Western style, i.e. in horizontal rows from the top to the bottom of the page, or in traditional Japanese style, i.e. in vertical columns from the right to the left side of the page. Both writing styles exist side by side today.

Japanese is an agglutinative, mora-timed language with relatively simple phonotactics, a pure vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and a lexically significant pitch-accent. Word order is normally subject–object–verb with particles marking the grammatical function of words, and sentence structure is topic–comment. Sentence-final particles are used to add emotional or emphatic impact, or form questions. Nouns have no grammatical number or gender, and there are no articles. Verbs are conjugated, primarily for tense and voice, but not person. Japanese adjectives are also conjugated.

Shodo is used for japanese calligraphy to write nihogo in a traditional way, an ink-dipped brush is used artistically to write kanji and kana characters, however, remains a traditional part of Japan’s culture. Works of shodo are admired for the composition of their characters—especially those that are as accurate as a lithograph. Special ink called Sumi is used to create a calligraphic art.

Pronounciation

In comparison with other languages, Japanese knows relatively few sounds, and pronunciation poses little problems to most learners. The biggest difficulty are accents, which do exist, but to a much lower extent than in the Chinese language. In addition, there are relatively many homonyms

Shodo

“Traditional japanese calligraphy”

Japanese festivals are traditional festive occasions often celebrated with dance and music in Japan. Many festivals have their roots in traditional Chinese festivals, but have undergone extensive changes over time to have little resemblance to their original form, despite sharing the same name and date. There are also various local festivals (e.g. Tobata Gion) that are mostly unknown outside a given prefecture.

An important element of Japanese festivals are processions, in which the local shrine’s kami (Shinto deity) is carried through the town in mikoshi (palanquins). It is the only time of the year when the kami leaves the shrine to be carried around town. Many festivals also feature decorated floats (known regionally under various names, such as dashi, yatai, danjiri, etc.), which are paraded through the town, accompanied by drum and flute music by the people sitting on the floats. Every festival has its own characteristics. While some festivals are calm and meditative, many are energetic and noisy.

Japanese festivals are always celebrated as a grand event with each prefecture holding its own small festivals that include foodstalls, gamestalls, various shops that are run alongside the festival.

り

Matsuri

japanese festivals”

SAKURA VIEWING

LANTERN MATSURI

SNOW

HAKATA DONKATU

HAKATA DONKATU

ADORI KISHIWAKA DANJHIR

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JAPAN culture unchaged

Copyright on publication © 2022 by Mrugank patadia

First Printing, 2022,

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, disturbed, or trasnmitted in a form or by any means, including photocopying. recording or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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JAPAN a country with one of the most distinctive way of living and culture that has been constructed throughout the years, Consisting a culture so pulchritudinous, Each element of its has a deep rooted meaning which have enabled them to create a culture that is attracts a lot of curious cultural enthusiasts.