Hey, how much do you know about Japan and Japanese?? Maybe you know a capital city is Tokyo, our prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, Ichiro and...what? Do you know anything about our culture? Oh yeah, you guys know we use chopsticks for eating...bow each other and...what? Do you know any Japanese language? Okay, let me tell you about my country, people, our culture and also Japanese language.

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General Informaion
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Average temperatures--between 6Ž and 22Ž
In summer, tenperature is very high like maybe over 30Ž.
It is very humid. Very Very hot in summer!, which I hate. We have rainy season in June to July.
In winter, north parts of Japan have much snow, but my area(I live in Osaka) doen't have much snow.
So if it snowed in Osaka, it would melt away quickly and would not have any snow left.

Seasons of Japan--We have four seasons:
Spring--from April to June
Summer--from July to October
Fall--from late October or November to December
Winter--from December to March

Longest river--River Shinano(228mi) in Nigata prefecture (green part)
Longest lake--Lake Biwa(260mi) in Shiga prefecture (purple part)
Highest mountain--Mt. Fuji(12,388ft) in b/w Shizuoka (sky blue part) and Yamanashi prefecture (red part)

We have earthquakes, volcanoes and typhoons. Much of Japan consists of high mountains with narrow valleys in between. Sixty-eight percentages of Japan is mountainous. Kinki areas (Hyougo, Osaka, Kyoto, Nara, Shiga, Wakayama & Mie) had a huge earthquake called "Hanshin Daishinsai" about eight years ago. It recorded M 7.

Language--Japanese

Religions--It has two religions, Shinto and Buddhism. But many people say they have no special belief, most practice both Shinto and Buddhist customs and rituals. For example, most wedding ceremonies are performed according to Shinto ritual, while funerals usually follow Buddhist practice. Some people are Christianity. We have Chiristmas but it's not really big holiday here, rather it is for lovers and kids. I think our customs are a mixture of these religions.

Transportation--There are trains, subways, cars, buses, taxies, airplanes and ships. My prefecure(Osaka) has two airports: Kansai International Airport and Itami airport (mainly domestic flights).


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Japanese culture
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We have traditional art: Kabuki, Bunraku, Flower arrangement, Tea ceremony, Paper folding, Woodblock printing, Traditional crafts, Traditional music etc.

Kabuki (Traditional drama performed by male actors)
It was developed in the 17th century. Kabuki has lots of actions, and the costumes and sets are very elaborate. Kabuki uses complex stage settings including a runway that brings the action closer to the audience. It is performed by male actors.

Bunraku
Bunraku is a traditional puppet theater. It was first performed in the 16th century. The puppets are about half of human size and look like real humans. Each puppet is operated by three people who you can see on the state. Those three people may be dressed in black, with black background.

Flower arrangement (also called Ikebana)
Japanese flower arrangement dates from the 15th century. There are many styles of flower arrangement. The arrangements follow strict rules for representing heaven, earth and people. Some styles are extremely simple, others are extravagant or complicated. In other words, flower arrangement is to display artistically, not just to put flowers neatly in a vase-like dish.

Tea ceremony (Chanoyu)
The tea ceremony in Japan goes back some 800 years. Buddist monks used tea to help them concentrate during meditation. The are many kinds of rules. The host prepares and serves tea and food to guests in the tea ceremony today.

Woodblock Printing
This is one of many styles of Japanese painting. Ukiyoe is a well-known woodblock printing style, developed in the 17th century. Ukiyoe prints depict people and scenes from nature, daily life and the theater world. School children learn to make simple woodblock prints. Some people use this technique to create their own New Years' cards. The technique requires all the wooden pieces to be carefully fitted together like a huge, three-dimentional puzzle.

Sports
We have many kinds of sports; baseball, martial arts such as Kendo, Karate, judo etc, snow sports such as ski, skate, snow board etc, water sports such as swimming, golf, sumo wresting and soccer are popular and known to Japanese people.

One of Martial arts, Judo is now a part of the Summer Olympic games. Sumo wresting is a well-known Japanese traditional sport. Two very huge wrestlers, wearing only thick, heavy, belted loincloths made of cotton or silk called "mawashi", try tio throw each other down or pus earch other out of straw ring. The bouts usually last less than a minute, and sometimes end in the blink of an eye. Each bout starts with rituals like throwing a handful of salt into the ring as a sign of purification. Sumo wrestlers are hugely popular and train for many years, beginning in their mid-teens. This is also 2000-year-old national sport.

At school, we can enjoy playing baseball, basketball, tennis, volleyball and soccer. In summer, we have swimming classes. In winter, we have marathon classes, but children who live in snowy area have ski or skating classes.

I guess baseball is the most popular sports in Japan. We have professional teams and also national high school tournaments are held in spring and summer. Many people are glued to their televisions and radios during the summer time.

Japan is also proud of its amatur athletes and Olympic competitions. Tokyo Summer Olympics was held in 1964. Sapporp Winter Olympics was hosted in 1972. Nagano Winter Olympics was held in 1998. In 2002, Japan hosted World Cup Soccer jointly with the Republic of Korea.


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@Addition
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How to use chopsticks

Not only Japanese but also Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and others use chopsticks when eating.
When you go to Asian countries, you need to use chopsticks. Let's master it if you do not know how to use them properly.

There are only four steps to remember:

1. Tuck under thumb and hold firmly.
2. Add second chopstick, hold it as you would a pencil.
3. Hold first chopstick in original position, move the second one up and down.
4. Now you can pick up anything!

Is it easy? or difficult? If you feel very comfortable with chopsticks, you must love Asian foods! If you feel hard with them, just keep practicing!

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Japanese language
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There are standard language and dialects. For example, Osaka-ben, Akita-ben, Kyushu-ben, Touhoku-ben, Okinawa-ben and so on are so-called dialects in Japanese. "Ben" means speech or dialect. When you hear Japanese from TV or radio and see Japanese on newspapers, margazines or books, that Japanese should be standard Japanese. People who live in Tokyo area speak standard Japanese. I speak Osaka-ben and feel difficult to speak perfect standard Japanese. I guess I am used to speak Osaka-dialect very much.

Comparison between Osaka-ben and standard Japanese:

"Aho" is not a so strong word for Osaka area people, however, "Baka" might be a bit strong word for them.
Tokyo area people conversely find comfortable with "Baka" and uncomfortable with "Aho".

Characteristics of Osaka-ben are friendly, causal,talkative, rude and so forth. Many Japanese people like our dialect.

Japan has three writing styles, which are "Kanji", "Hiragana" and "Katakana". Japanese originally adopted "Kanji" from Chinese. The Japanese characters are similar, but a little different to the Chinese characters. Japanese proper nouns, which are like names and names of places are usually written in Kanji. There are also some unusual examples that import English (non-Chinese) are sometimes written in Kanji.

For instance,

Club-- ‹δŠy•”(Kanji) or@ƒNƒ‰ƒu(Katakana)
Tobacco-- ‰Œ‘(Kanji) or ƒ^ƒoƒR(Katakana)

The main diference between Japanese and Chinese is that Japanese mixes three different writing styles, while the Chinese only has one writing style. Hiragana came from a simplified forms of Kanji. Hiragana has 50 characters made up of usually one consonant and one vowel. Katakana was created taking parts of Kanji, which has the same sounds. We use these characters writing for animals, plants, foreign people and places names. We also use words that came from English and other non-Kanji languages. Katakana is also used for onomatopoeia and other sound representations.

Many people ask me "What is my name in Japanese?" or "What is your name in Japanese?". Japanese people can write their names in those three styles. However, foreign people, in general, do not have any Kanji charaters in their names. So their names would be represented by Katakana, to give almost yhe same pronounciation. Only traditional Japanese or Chinese names are written in Kanji.

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@Japanese living@
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