News and media
www.japantimes.co.jp
www.neo-tokyo.com
www.japantoday.com
Among the online English-language newspapers, the
Mainichi Daily News
is the pick of the bunch, while the digital
Japan Times
has the advantage of searchable archives.
Neo-Tokyo
is a well-designed cultural magazine featuring quirky stuff on Japan as well as arts and society features.
Japan Today
features all the latest news in English from Japan and around the region, including business news, features and commentary.
Prices
Lists prices for a whole range of items, from cafAŠ latte to a tube of toothpaste. If it's not there, they'll find the price for you
Japan's major festivals and national holidays
Ganjitsu (or Gantan ): January 1. On the first day of the year everyone heads for the shrines to pray for good fortune (national holiday).
Yamayaki : January 15. The slopes of Wakakasu-yama, Nara, are set alight during a grass-burning ceremony.
Seijin-no-hi (Adults' Day): second Monday in January. Twenty-year-olds celebrate their entry into adulthood by visiting their local shrine. Many women dress in sumptuous kimono (national holiday).
FEBRUARY
Setsubun : February 3 or 4. On the last day of winter (by the lunar calendar), people scatter lucky beans round their homes and at shrines or temples to drive out evil and welcome in the year's good luck.
Yuki Matsuri : February 5-11. Sapporo's famous snow festival features giant snow sculptures.
National Foundation Day : February 11 (national holiday).
MARCH
Hina Matsuri (Doll Festival): March 3. Families with young girls display sets of fifteen dolls ( hina ningyo ) representing the Emperor, Empress and their courtiers dressed in ancient costume. Department stores, hotels and museums put on special exhibitions of antique dolls.
Spring Equinox : March 20 or 21 (national holiday).
Cherry-Blossom festivals : late March to early May. With the arrival of spring in late March, a pink tide of cherry blossom washes north from Kyushu, travels up Honshu during the month of April and peters out in Hokkaido in early May. There are cherry-blossom festivals, and the sake flows at blossom-viewing parties. Though every area has its own favoured cherry-blossom spots, the most celebrated are the mountains around Yoshino (near Kyoto), Tokyo's Ueno Koen and Hirosaki on the tip of northern Honshu.
APRIL
Hana Matsuri : April 8. Buddha's birthday is celebrated at all temples with parades, and a small statue of Buddha is sprinkled with sweet tea.
Takayama Matsuri : April 14-15. Parade of ornate festival floats ( yatai ), some with acrobatic marionettes.
Greenery Day : April 29 (national holiday).
MAY
Constitution Memorial Day : May 3 (national holiday).
Kokumin no Shukujitsu : May 4 (national holiday).
Kodomo-no-hi (Children's Day): May 5. The original Boys' Day now includes all children as families fly carp banners, symbolizing strength and perseverance, outside their homes (national holiday).
Aoi Matsuri (Hollyhock Festival): May 15. Costume parade through the streets of Kyoto, with ceremonies to ward off storms and earthquakes.
Tosho-gu Grand Matsuri : May 17. Nikko's most important festival, featuring a parade of over 1000 costumed participants and horseback archery to commemorate the burial of Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1617. Smaller-scale repeat performance on October 17.
Sanja Matsuri : Around May 18. Tokyo's biggest festival takes place in Asakusa. Over 100 mikoshi are jostled through the streets, accompanied by lion dancers, geisha and musicians.
JULY
Hakata Yamagasa : July 1-15. Fukuoka's main festival culminates in a five-kilometre race carrying or pulling heavy mikoshi , while spectators douse them with water.
Tanabata Matsuri (Star Festival): July 7. According to legend, the only day in the year when the astral lovers, Vega and Altair, can meet across the Milky Way. Poems and prayers are hung on bamboo poles outside houses.
Gion Matsuri : July 17. Kyoto's month-long festival focuses around a parade of huge floats hung with rich silks and paper lanterns.
Marine Day : July 20 (national holiday).
Hanabi Taikai : last Saturday in July. The most spectacular of the many summer firework displays takes place in Tokyo, on the Sumida River near Asakusa.
AUGUST
Nebuta and Neputa Matsuri : August 1-7. Aomori and Hirosaki hold competing summer festivals, with parades of illuminated paper-covered figures, like huge lanterns.
Tanabata Matsuri : August 6-8. Sendai holds its famous Star Festival a month after everyone else, so the lovers get another chance.
Obon (Festival of Souls): August 13-15, or July 13-15 in some areas. Families gather around the ancestral graves to welcome back the spirits of the dead and honour them with special Bon-odori dances on the final night.
Awa Odori : August 12-15. The most famous Bon odori takes place in Tokushima, when up to 80,000 dancers take to the streets.
SEPTEMBER
Respect-for-the-Aged Day : September 15 (national holiday).
Autumn Equinox : September 23 or 24 (national holiday).
OCTOBER
Okunchi Matsuri : October 7-9. Shinto rites mingle with Chinese- and European-inspired festivities to create Nagasaki's premier celebration, incorporating dragon dances and floats in the shape of Chinese and Dutch ships.
Sports Day : second Monday in October (national holiday).
Kawagoe's Grand Matsuri . October 14 and 15. One of the most lively festivals in the Tokyo area, involving some 25 ornate floats and hundreds of costumed revellers.
Jidai Matsuri : October 22. Kyoto's famous, if rather sedate, costume parade vies with the more exciting Kurama Matsuri , a night-time fire festival which takes place in a village near Kyoto.
NOVEMBER
Culture Day : November 3 (national holiday).
Shichi-go-san (Seven-five-three): November 15. Children of the appropriate ages don mini-kimono and hakama (loose trousers) to visit their local shrine.
Labour Thanksgiving Day : November 23 (national holiday).
DECEMBER
Emperor's Birthday : December 23 (national holiday).
Omisoka : December 31. Just before midnight on the last day of the year, temple bells ring out 108 times to cast out each of man's earthly desires and start the year afresh.
Note
: if any of the above national holidays fall on a Sunday, then the following Monday is also a holiday.
Toilets
Increasingly, you'll be confronted by a high-tech Western model, known as a Washlet, with a control panel to one side. It's usually impossible to find the flush button, and instead you'll hit the temperature control, hot-air dryer or, worst of all, the bidet nozzle, resulting in a long metal arm extending out of the toilet bowl and spraying you with warm water
Language lesson
| Toilet | toire/otearai |
| Male | otoko |
| Female | onna |
The tournament kicks off at Korea's Seoul Stadium on May 31 and climaxes at Japan's Yokohama International Stadium on June 30; each country will host 32 matches, with France, Japan and Korea automatically qualifying. Ticket prices, set in US$, range from US$60-150 for first-round matches to US$300-750 for the final. For ticket enquiries within Japan, call 03/3287-1199 or check the Web sites listed below.
In Japan, the ten venues hosting matches are Fukuroi in Shizuoka-ken, Kashima in Ibaraki-ken, Kobe , Niigata , Oita in Kyushu, Osaka , Rifu in Miyaki-ken, Sapporo , Urawa in Saitama-ken, and Yokohama ; special World Cup boxes in the guide give transport details to each of the World Cup stadia and list specific Web sites giving more information in English. In Korea, matches will be played in Chonju, Inchon, Kwangju, Pusan, Seogwipo, Seoul, Suwon, Taegu, Taejon and Ulsan.
JNTO has put out a useful guide with access information for all the venues. For more details on the games in Japan, check out the official Web site,
www.jawoc.or.jp/index_e.htm
, and for those in Korea look up
www.2002worldcupkorea.org
For general information on the World Cup go to FIFA's site,
www.fifa.com
, or check out
www.soccerphile.com
Buddhism
The Mahayana (Greater Vehicle) school of Buddhism, which believes in salvation for all beings jointly rather than the individual pursuit of nirvana , was introduced to Japan from China in the mid-sixth century. As with many things, Japan adapted this foreign import to suit its own culture and values. Buddha was accepted as a kami and, over the years, certain religious aspects were dropped or played down, for example celibacy and the emphasis on private contemplation.
But Buddhism did not travel alone to Japan; it brought with it Chinese culture. Over the next two centuries, monks, artists and scholars went to China to study religion, art, music, literature and politics, all of which brought great advances to Japanese culture. As a result, Buddhism became embroiled in the political struggles of the Nara and Heian eras, when weak emperors used Buddhist and Chinese culture to enhance their own power and level of cultural sophistication, and to reduce the influence of their Shintoist rivals. The balance of power between buddhas and kami also shifted: kami were regarded as being prone to rebirth, from which they could be released by Buddhist sutras. To this end, Buddhist temples were built next to Shinto shrines, and statues and regalia placed on Shinto altars to help raise the kami to the level of buddhas. Eventually, some kami became the guardians of temples, while buddhas were regarded as the prime spiritual beings.
Up until the end of the twelfth century, Japanese Buddhism was largely restricted to a small, generally aristocratic minority who had been initiated into the faith. However, at this time the dominant sect, Tendai , split into various new sects , notably Jodo, Jodo Shinshp, Nichiren and Zen Buddhism, which each appealed to different sections of the population. The first two in particular were simple forms of the faith which enabled Buddhism to evolve from a religion of the elite to one which also appealed to the population en masse. The Nichiren sect had a more scholastic approach, while Zen's concern for ritual, form and practice attracted the samurai classes and had a great influence on Japan's traditional arts. Almost all contemporary Japanese Buddhism developed from these sects, which are still very much in existence today .
From the fifteenth century, however, Shinto started making a comeback. In reaction to the absorption of the indigenous faith into this foreign religion, various Shinto sects revived the ascendancy of
kami
over buddhas, ending the idea that they were merely Japanese manifestations of buddhas. This process came to a head after the 1868 Meiji Restoration, when Shinto was declared the national faith. Most Buddhist elements were removed from Shinto shrines and destroyed, and Buddhism was suppressed until the end of World War II when religious freedom returned to Japan. Nowadays Buddhism and Shinto coexist peaceably once again and share the vast majority of their followers.
The principal Buddhist sects
Jodoshu , the Pure Land sect, was founded in 1133 by the monk Honen during a period of famine, treachery and clan warfare. He asserted that the world was inherently evil and that, as it was impossible to achieve Buddhahood in this life, people should concentrate on salvation in the afterlife. Faith in Amida Buddha (the Buddha of the Western Paradise) would lead to bliss in the next world. Scholastic study and religious ritual were unnecessary, making this sect popular with the uneducated masses. Instead, all that was necessary was daily prayer to Amida, often by chanting the nembutsu, "Namu Amida Butsu" (Praise to Amida Buddha). To set the pace, Honen would sometimes recite the nembutsu 60,000 times a day.
The Jodo Shinshu , "True Pure Land" sect, evolved after the radical philosopher-monk Shinran broke away from the Jodo sect around 1224. He believed that salvation was not just limited to the afterlife, but that by praying to Amida one could be saved in the present life, too. He rejected all religious ritual except prayer and held that saying the nembutsu just once was enough if said with sufficient sincerity. He also enraged the monks of other sects by dropping celibacy and meat-eating laws. This inevitably made Jodo Shinshu even more popular among ordinary folk, and it is one of the biggest Buddhist sects in Japan today.
By contrast, the Nichiren sect, named after its founder, had a very scholastic approach. Nichiren (1222-82) believed that truth, enlightenment and salvation can only come from studying Buddhist scriptures, particularly the "Lotus Sutra". He considered all other teachings and sects to be heretical. With their battlecry " Namu Myoho Renge Kyo " (Hail to the Lotus of Divine Law), his fanatical followers crusaded their cause almost to the point of violence. Nichiren, however, was also an astute observer of the political situation in mainland Asia. With masterful timing, he warned that unless people repented their sins and followed his sect they would suffer the wrath of the heavens in the form of a foreign invasion - the Mongol hordes attacked soon after . Never one to go quietly, Nichiren upset too many people with his fanatical preaching and was exiled on several occasions. At one point he was even sentenced to execution but, according to legend, won a reprieve - no doubt due to divine intervention - when the sword shattered on his neck.
More elaborate than its rivals, Zen Buddhism is far more concerned with ritual, form and practice than scholastic study. Instead, enlightenment and salvation can only come from within, and followers of the Soto school of Zen try to achieve this by meditating in the lotus position ( zazen ), attempting to empty the mind of all worldly thoughts and desires. Alternatively, followers of the Rinzai school try to achieve this by meditating on enigmatic riddles ( koan ), whose only answer is enlightenment; perhaps the most famous koan is "What is the sound of one hand?". Both methods serve the same purpose of taking the believer out of the material world and onto a higher plane where they can learn the nature of the Buddha.
Zen was first imported from China in the seventh century, though it didn't really get going until after 1192 when it was reintroduced by the monk
Eisai
. This time it found more success among the new military rulers, now based in Kamakura. Zen's austere practices, demanding individual action, strong self-discipline and a spartan lifestyle, struck a chord with the
samurai
, who supported the great Zen temples of Kamakura and, later, Kyoto. Zen's minimalist approach to life, coupled with Shinto's appreciation of nature, had a profound influence on Japan's traditional arts
and gardens. The
Zen rock gardens
, consisting of rocks placed in a "sea" of white rippled gravel, are designed to aid contemplation about everything and nothing: the whole universe and the tiny grain of sand that is an insignificant part of it. Although the individual rocks sometimes symbolize specific things - a tiger, tortoise, mountain or a crane, for example - Zen rock gardens are meant to be viewed many times without lending themselves to any one particular meaning.
Christianity
The port of Nagasaki was created in 1571 to trade with the Portuguese. It soon became a centre of Jesuit missionary activity, from where Catholicism spread rapidly throughout Kyushu. At first, the converts were tolerated by the authorities, and in the late 1570s the then ruler of Japan, the great, unifying general Oda Nobunaga , used Christianity, with all its material benefits, to win over his remaining influential opponents against the troublesome Buddhists. In 1582 he was succeeded by Toyotomi Hideyoshi who completed the unification of Japan. To Hideyoshi's mind the Christians had now served their purpose, and their increasing stranglehold on trade, coupled with a growing influence in secular affairs, was beginning to pose a threat. Persecution began in 1587 when Hideyoshi ordered the expulsion of all missionaries, though there was little immediate action; in fact the number of foreign missionaries increased temporarily with the arrival of Spanish Franciscan friars. In 1597, however, Hideyoshi struck again: six Franciscan priests and twenty local converts were crucified upside-down in Nagasaki.
Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu succeeded Hideyoshi in 1598. Though generally more tolerant of the Christian Europeans - principally in the interests of maintaining good trade relations - Ieyasu passed several edicts prohibiting Christianity after 1612. It was a short reprieve. Ieyasu's son, Hidetada , turned persecution into an art form when he came to power in 1618. Suspected Christians were forced to trample on pictures of Christ or the Virgin Mary to prove their innocence. If they refused, they were tortured, burnt at the stake or thrown into boiling sulphur; over 3000 local converts were martyred between 1597 and 1660.
Things came to a head with the Battle of Shimabara in 1637, when a Christian-led army rebelled against the local daimyo . Japan had been gradually closing itself off from the world during the 1620s, but this was the final straw. Christian worship in Japan was forbidden and the edicts were only finally repealed in the late nineteenth century. Amazingly, a sizeable number of converts in Kyushu continued to uphold their faith, disguised as onando buppo "back-room Buddhism", throughout this time. When foreign missionaries again appeared in Nagasaki in the mid-1860s, they were astonished to discover some 20,000 of these "hidden Christians" .
Today, Christians represent less than two percent of Japan's population. Though churches can be found even in small rural towns,
Christmas
is only celebrated as a brief commercial fling. Christianity - however superficially - has also had an impact on Japanese
weddings
. It is currently fashionable to get married in Western-style chapels, created solely for that purpose, partly because it appears exotic, and partly because it's less complex than the traditional Shinto ceremony.
The tea ceremony
Influenced by the culture of the
samurai
and
no
, the most important aspect of the tea ceremony is the
etiquette
with which it is performed. Central to this is the selfless manner in which the host serves the tea and the humble manner in which the guests accept it. Indeed, the inner spirit of the participants during the ceremony is considered more important than its ritual form. Guests are expected to admire the hanging scroll and flower arrangement decorating the tea room, and the cup from which they drink - all are valued for the skill of the craftsmen and their seasonal note or rustic simplicity. Today, the tea ceremony is popular mostly among young women; as with
ikebana
, it's deemed a desirable quality for a woman of marriageable age to acquire.
The arts of Zen
Monochromatic ink painting , known as suiboku-ga or sumi-e , portrayed meditative landscapes and other subjects in a variety of formats including screens, hanging scrolls and hand-scrolls, with a free and expressive style of brushwork that was both speedily and skilfully rendered. Haboku , or "flung-ink" landscapes, took this technique to its logical extreme by building up (barely) recognizable imagery from the arbitrary patterns formed by wet ink splashed onto highly absorbent paper. Sesshu (1420-1506), a Zen priest, was Japan's foremost practitioner of this technique.
Zen calligraphy similarly moved beyond the descriptive to emphasize spontaneity of expression in a style of writing that captured the essence of its subject matter, frequently based on poems and Zen sayings. Calligraphy of this type can be so expressively rendered as to be almost unreadable except to the practised eye. One of the most striking examples, by the monk Ryokan Daigu (1757-1831), is a hanging scroll with the intertwined symbols for heaven and earth. Ryokan's bold brushwork dramatically links the symbols of these two aspects of the cosmos to portray them as one sweeping and continuous force. Both the symbolism of this literal union and the unconventionality of the style in which the characters are rendered encapsulate the spirit of Zen.
A love of nature also lies at the very core of Zen. The qualities of abstraction and suggestion which characterized suiboku-ga were fittingly applied to the design of Zen gardens . Japanese gardens employ artifice to create an environment that appears more natural than nature itself. Trees and bushes are carefully pruned, colour is restricted and water channelled to convey, in one setting, the essence of the natural landscape. The word for landscape in Japanese is sansui , meaning "mountain and water". In Zen-inspired kare-sansui or "dry landscape" gardens, such as that of Ryoan-ji in Kyoto, these two elements are symbolically combined. Kare-sansui gardens consist only of carefully selected and positioned rocks in a bed of sand or gravel which is raked into water-like patterns. As vehicles for contemplation, such gardens convey the vastness of nature through the power of suggestion.
Cha-no-yu , or "the way of tea", also evolved out of Zen meditation techniques, and draws on the love of nature in its architectural setting and utensils. The spirit of wabi , sometimes described as "rustic simplicity", pervades the Japanese tea ceremony . The traditional teahouse is positioned in a suitably understated garden, and naturalness is emphasized in all aspects of its architecture; in the unpainted wooden surfaces, the thatched roof, tatami -covered floors and the sliding-screen doors ( fusuma ) which open directly out onto a rustic scene. As with the garden itself, colour and ostentation are avoided. Instead, the corner alcove, or tokonoma , becomes the focal point for a single object of adornment, a simple flower arrangement or a seasonal hanging scroll.
Tea ceremony
utensils
contribute to the mood of this refined ritual. Raku, Shino and many other varieties of roughcast tea bowls are admired for the accidental effects produced by the firing of the pottery. Water containers, tea caddies and bamboo ladles and whisks complement the tea wares and are themselves much prized for their natural qualities. The guiding light behind all this mannered simplicity was the great tea-master
Sen no Rikyu
(1521-91), whose "worship of the imperfect" had a long-lasting influence on Japanese artistic tastes.
Traditional instruments
A bamboo flute with five finger-holes - four on the front and one on the back - the shakuhachi has a full range of chromatic notes, obtained by adjusting the position of the flute and partially covering the holes. The colour of its tone, while always soft and pure, depends on the bamboo used. During the Edo period, it was played primarily in chamber ensembles with koto and shamizen , although more recently there's been a revival of the more ancient solo repertoire as an aid to meditation.
Biwa and Shamizen
A pear-shaped plucked lute with four or five strings, the biwa originated in China. It was played both in gagaku ensembles and solo, but had almost fallen out of use by the end of World War II, until Toru Takemitsu, Japan's most famous contemporary composer, started writing for it, precipitating a revival.
A three-stringed lute, the shamizen also came to Japan from China, via Okinawa, where it's known as a shansin . The earliest shamisen , music is credited to biwa players in the early seventeenth century and it has become one of the most popular instruments in Japanese music.
Koto
The Japanese long zither, or
koto
, usually has thirteen strings with moveable bridges and is played with fingerpicks. It is thought to have originated from the Chinese
zheng
and to have arrived in Japan in the eighth century. Similar instruments are found in Korea (
kayagum
) and Vietnam (
dan tranh
). Found in
gagaku
ensembles, it has developed a rich solo tradition. It is also used to accompany songs and in small "chamber music" ensembles, together with a second
koto
, a
shamizen
, or a
shakuhachi
.
Tokyo's crows
In 1999 the Tokyo Metropolitan Government received over five hundred complaints about the birds' behaviour. Their most common offence is scavenging among garbage bags and creating an unsightly mess, but they can also get pretty aggressive, especially during the March-June breeding season. Ueno Zoo lost fifteen prairie-dog pups last year and young children have been pecked on the head, but the most famous victim so far is Tokyo Governor Ishihara Shintaro, who was attacked while out golfing. He has since waged a campaign against the birds, culminating in an emergency task force sent into action over the summer of 2000 to tear down nests and destroy young chicks, with further culls planned.
The real answer, however, is to get rid of the rubbish that attracts the crows to the city in the first place. Since 1994 the authorities in Sapporo have been collecting garbage bags before dawn and then protecting the town's dumps with strong netting. It seems to be working - a recent study of their droppings suggested that the birds were returning to a more natural diet of insects, small rodents and fruit. A number of Tokyo wards have begun to experiment with similar schemes, but until they introduce a city-wide policy, the crows will just descend in ever larger numbers wherever they find easy pickings
The 1970s and 1980s
Tora-san was only a hit in Japan, but Ai-no-Corrida ( In the Realm of the Senses; 1976 ) by rebel filmmaker Oshima Nagisa created an international stir with its explicit sex scenes and violent content. Based on a true story, the film was about the intense sexual relationship between a woman servant and her master, that results in murder and a chopped-off penis. The censor demanded other kinds of cuts, which forced the director into a lengthy and ultimately unsuccessful legal battle. This was all the more galling for rshima, whose film gathered critical plaudits abroad, but remained unseen in its full version at home, at the same time as the major Japanese studios made their money from increasingly violent films and soft-core porn, called roman poruno .
By the late 1970s, Japanese cinema was in the doldrums. Entrance fees at the cinema were the highest in the world (they're still expensive), leaving the public less willing to try out offbeat local movies when they could see sure-fire Hollywood hits instead. The art-house filmmaker rshima turned in the prisoner-of-war drama Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence in 1983 and the decidedly quirky Max Mon Amour , three years later before retiring, content to build his reputation as TV pundit. Instead of investing money at home, Japanese companies, like Sony, went on a spending spree in Hollywood, buying up major American studios and film rights, thus securing software for video releases.
By the end of the 1980s, the one light on the horizon was Itami Juzo, an actor who turned director with the mildly satirical
Ososhiki
(
The Funeral
) in 1984. His follow up
Tampopo
(1986), a comedy about the attempts of a proprietress of a noodle bar to serve up the perfect bowl of ramen, set against the background of Japan's gourmet boom, was an international success, as was his
Marusa no Onna
(
A Taxing Woman
) in 1988. The female star of all Itami's movies, which poke gentle fun at Japanese behaviour and society, was his wife, the comic actress Miyamoto Nobuko.
The 1990s
Stepping into Itami's shoes as the darling of Japan's contemporary cinema scene is Takeshi Kitano , better known at home as Beat Takeshi, after his old comedy double act with Beat Kiyoshi in the Two Beats. Takeshi had already taken on a serious role in orshima's Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence when he starred in and also directed Sono Otoko, Kyobo no Tsuki ( Violent Cop ) in 1989. His next film 3-4 x 10 Gatsu ( Boiling Point ) was an equally bloody outing, but it was his more reflective and comic Sonatine (1993), about a gang war in sunny Okinawa, that had foreign critics hailing him as Japan's Quentin Tarantino.
Surviving a near fatal motorbike accident in 1994, Takeshi has gone on to broaden his movie range with the badly received comedy Minna Yatteruka (Getting Any?) and Kid's Return , a sober film about high-school dropouts. Given his still numerous TV appearances, it's amazing Takeshi has time to make movies, but 1997's Hanabi saw him back on form directing himself as a troubled cop pushed to breaking point.
Hanabi scooped up a Golden Lion at the Venice Festival in 1997, just as Kurosawa's Rashomon had done nearly fifty years previously. The legendary director, whose historical epics Kagemusha and Ran had blazed onto the screen in the 1980s, received a lifetime achievement Academy Award in 1990, the same year as he teamed up with George Lucas and Steven Spielberg to make the semi-autobiographical Yume ( Dreams ). His antiwar film Hachigatsu-no-Kyoshikyoku ( Rhapsody in August ; 1991), however, attracted criticism abroad for its somewhat one-sided treatment of the subject. Referred to respectfully as "Sensei" (teacher) by all in the industry, Kurosawa's final film before his death, aged 88 on September 6, 1998, was the low-key drama Madadayo (1993) about an elderly academic.
Meanwhile Kurusawa Kiyoshi has begun to make waves with his quirky genre pictures, such as The Excitement of the Do-Re-Mi-Fa Girls (1985), the Serpent Path (1998) and its sequel Eyes of the Spider (1998). The prolific Kurusawa also made Licence to Live in 1998, a poignant account of a 24-year-old man waking from a decade-long coma.
Other independent filmmakers making their mark with more daring subject matter include Tsukamoto Shin'ya who had an art-house hit with the sci-fi horror movie Tetsuo , about a man turning into a machine, and Yazaki Hitoshi who took a cool look at incest in Sangatsu-no-Raion ( March Comes in Like a Lion ). Two notable films focusing on ethnic minorities are Nakata Toichi 's Osaka Story (1994), charting the experiences of a gay Korean-Japanese film student returning from London to his family, and Masato Harada's Kamikaze Taxi , a gangster flick also about ethnic Japanese who grew up in Brazil and Peru returning to Japan. These films, plus the stylish futuristic drama Swallowtail Butterfly , by hot young talent Iwai Shunji , have attracted favourable attention on the international circuit.
Meanwhile, the biggest film of the 1990s, Princess Mononoke , was also the nation's all-time domestic box-office champ, proving the continued importance and popularity of animated films ( anime ) in Japan . The film went on to be released in the US, following in the successful dancesteps of Shall We Dance? . Director Suo Masayuki 's charming ballroom dancing comedy/drama swept up all thirteen of Japan's Academy Awards in 1996 and is the most profitable Japanese film ever released in America.
Pride, the Fateful Moment
, was the
cause-celebre
film of 1998. A critique of the war-crime trials held in Tokyo after World War II, this home-grown
Judgement at Nuremburg
sparked controversy because of its sympathetic portrayal of the Japanese and boorish depiction of the American occupiers. Police were stationed outside many theatres when it was first released. Among recent successes are two new Takeshi films, the low-key charmer
Kikujiro
, which wowed them at Cannes in 1999 and
Brother
(about a
yakuza
who goes to LA to avenge his brother's death), which screened at the 2000 Toronto Film Festival.
Eureka
by Aoyama Shinji, bagged an award at Cannes in 2000, and
Poppoya
(The Railman), swept up nine out of the fourteen gongs at the 2000 Japan Academy Awards.
The wild world of Japanese animation
Although Japan's first animated film was a cartoon short made in 1917, it wouldn't be until the 1960s, with the success of the "god of manga" Tezuka Osamu's Astroboy and Kimba, the White Lion that the industry began to take off. By the time international attention was grabbed in 1988 by Otomo Katsuhiro's dark sci-fantasy Akira, anime was firmly established, particularly on TV with series such as Mazinger Z and Bubblegum Crisis . Today the TV big hits such as Pokemon, Dragonball Z and Neon Genesis Evangelion are bolstered not just by spin-of movies and other products but also juggernaut marketing campaigns.
The film Ghost in the Shell (Kokaku Kidoutail) in 1995 - including cyborgs with jacks in their heads, bodies transferring down the telephone line, martial arts and a master terrorist called the Puppet Master - was the next overseas success and a strong influence on the Keanu Reeves flick The Matrix . At the softer end o the scale, animators Miyazaki Hayao and Takahata Isao teamed up under the banner of Studio Ghibli , which has spawned a string of charming family-oriented films including My Neighbour Totoro (1988), Kiki's Delivery Service (1989) and Porco Rosso (1992), about a swashbucking pig who literally flies.
Miyazaki's 1997 feature
Mononoke-hime
(
Princess Mononoke
), a violent fable with a strong environmental message, not only hit the big time in Japan (it remains the country's No 1 grossing film) but also in the all-important US market where the dubbed version featured the voices of Claire Danes, Minnie Driver and Billy Bob Thornton. There's minimal need to dub
Blood: The Last Vampire
- a film which has been called a cross between
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
and
The X Files
- since much of its dialogue is in English. Aimed squarely at the international market, this horror story, set in a US army base in Japan on the brink of the Vietnam War, was made by
Production IG
- one of Japan's hottest animation studios - using digital technology. The film's amazing visuals are a sign of how
anime
is developing, but the same company's
Jin Roh
, a tale of government conspiracy, blending sci-fi, thriller and romance themes, was created using traditional methods and stills looks fantastic.
G: Games and Gyaru
Japan's most popular game is baseball . While you'll hear a lot about O Sadaharu, the Yomuri Giants player who broke the home-run record of America's Hank Aaron, it's his old team mate Nagashima Shigeo who still hogs the limelight and has earned the nickname "Mr Giants". Nagashima had clocked up seventeen years as a star player by the time he retired in 1974; he has since made his mark as the Giants' manager, a sports commentator and all-round media personality.
If you want to catch the latest fads, check out the
Gyaru
, or
Ga
l, movement of fashion-victim girls staggering around in
atsuzoko butsu
(towering, thick-heeled boots), ultra-mini skirts, bleached hair, and bizarre make-up (also see
Yamamba
). This look is all the rage, despite those platform shoes, some up to 25-centimetre high, being implicated in several deaths as girls topple over on the street or fail to brake properly while driving. The Osaka police have gone as far as to ban people from driving in the boots.
H: Hello Kitty and Hanako
More trendy than cute is
Hanako
, the phenomenally successful style-bible magazine of young urban women. The popularity of the Australian pop artist Ken Donne in Japan is almost exclusively down to his work being featured regularly on the cover of Hanako, whose articles have whipped up a storm for many a consumer product or passing fashion.
R: Rusu sokkusu and robo-pets
Much more trendy are
robo-pets
, such as Sony's Aibo (
www.aibo.com
) and Sega's Puchii. This logical extension of the Tamagotchi craze
, combines the latest artificial intelligence software with a cute robot animal that interacts emotionally with its owner - just like a real pet, but without the mess and only the occasional battery for food. The latest model of Aibo can recognize its own name and up to fifty simple words, and even take photographs through a camera in its nose.
S: Salarymen and soaplands
Although it's perhaps not discussed as openly in Japan as in the West, sex generally comes with less hang-ups for the Japanese. One place a frisky salaryman might turn to for relief is a
soapland
, or massage parlour where the rubbing and other services are carried out by women under the guise of a Turkish bath. Soaplands were once called Turkish baths until the Turkish embassy complained that this was insulting to their wholly honourable bathing practices.
T: Taiga and trendy dramas
The antithesis of these
samurai
epics is the even more popular
trendy drama
, which run for a strict twelve-week season and concern themselves with contemporary issues, such as the trials and tribulations of modern career women or the risky (for Japan) topic of single mothers. One of the most daring and popular, racking up a third of the viewing audience when screened in 1992, was
I Have Been in Love With You For a Long Time
, whose plot revolved around the complex emotional triangle between uptight yuppie Fuyuhiko, his overbearing mother and Fuyuhiko's arranged-marriage (yes, these still happen) bride Miwa.
Y: Yakuza and Yamamba
Part of the reason that the seven major yakuza syndicates (who keep offices, like regular companies) have prospered is that they have acted as an alternative police force, containing petty crime and keeping violence within their own ranks. Favours, financial and otherwise, granted to high-ranking politicians and businesses, have also gained the yakuza protection and their romantic, samurai -value image has been boosted by countless movies.
It's highly unlikely that your path will cross with a yakuza , unless you take to hanging out in the dodgier areas of cities like Tokyo and Osaka. Younger gang members, called chimpira , can often be spotted by their tight perm hairdos, dark glasses and appalling dress sense. Other giveaway signs to look for are missing digits (amputation of fingers, joint by joint, is the traditional form of punishment for breaking the yakuza code) and full body tattoos.
Just as easy to spot, and not that much less scary, are the
Yamambas
, teenage girls who have adopted the Japanese witch-like look of bleached hair, white face make-up and funky gear (catch those
astuzoku
shoes again)
. These same slaves to fashion might also have a baby in tow, in which case they're referred to as
yan-mamas
(young mothers).
A Geisha scorned
In particular, Iwasaki Mineko, a grande dame of Gion who assisted Golden in his research and is widely thought to be the model for Memoirs' heroine Sayuki, believes she has cause for grievance. Iwasaki receives fulsome praise and thanks from Golden in the book's acknowledgements, yet when Memoirs was translated into Japanese, the former geisha was furious at what she considers a total betrayal. Iwasaki is miffed about a lot of small details, but it's one in particular that has made her claim that her reputation has been sullied. In Memoirs , Golden details the custom of mizuage , the time when a geisha has her virginity auctioned off to the highest bidder. Iwasaki says she never would have done such a thing.
However, Golden, rather ungallantly, has gone on record saying that Iwasaki had told him that her
mizuage
had been sold for ?100 million; Iwasaki denies this, but Golden counters that he has tapes of their conversations. There's talk of legal action and with 4 million copies sold, translations into 21 languages and a Spielberg movie in the works, the financial stakes are high.
Arts, culture and society
Alexandra Black , The Japanese House (Scriptum Editions). A beautifully illustrated study of Japanese architecture and interior aesthetics, tracing their history from the traditional teahouse to modern home design.
Shirley Booth , Food of Japan (Grub Street). More than a series of recipes, this nicely illustrated book also gives a lot of background detail and history of Japanese food. There's a useful list of suppliers of Japanese and macrobiotic food in the UK.
Nicholas Bornoff Pink Samurai (HarperCollins). Everything you ever wanted to know about the history and current practices and mores of sex in Japan, plus - at seven hundred-odd pages - plenty you'd rather not have known.
Ian Buruma A Japanese Mirror and The Missionary and the Libertine (Faber). The first book is an intelligent, erudite examination of Japan's popular culture, while The Missionary and the Libertine collects together a range of the author's essays, including pieces on Japan-bashing, Hiroshima, Pearl Harbor, the authors Mishima Yukio, Tanizaki Junichiro and Yoshimoto Banana and the film director rshima Nagisa.
Kittredge Cherry Womansword (Kodansha). Slightly dated but fascinating portrait of women in Japanese society as revealed through language. From "Christmas cake" (an unmarried woman) to "giant garbage" (a retired husband), Womansword makes linguistics both fun and thought-provoking.
Mark Coutts-Smith Children of the Drum (Lightworks Press). The life of Sado Island's Kodo drummers captured in powerful black-and-white images by a photographer who spent five years studying and working with the group.
Lisa Dalby , Geisha (Vintage). The real-life Memoirs of a Geisha . In the 1970s, anthropologist Dalby immersed herself in this fast-disappearing world and became a geisha. This is the fascinating account of her experience and those of her teachers and fellow pupils.
Lesley Downer The Brothers (Chatto & Windus). The Tsutsumi family are the Kennedys of Japan and their saga of wealth, illegitimacy and the fabled hatred of the two half-brothers is made gripping reading by Downer. Also look out for On the Narrow Road to the Deep North (Greensleeves Books), her book following in the footsteps of the poet Basho, and the new Geisha: the Secret Life of a Vanishing World (Headline).
Bruce S. Feiler Learning to Bow (Ticknor & Fields). An enlightening and entertaining read, especially for anyone contemplating teaching English in Japan. This book recounts the experiences of a young American on the JET programme, plonked into a high school in rural Tochigi-ken.
Norma Field In the Realm of a Dying Emperor (Pantheon). Field paints a vivid alternative portrait of contemporary Japan, as seen through the experiences of three people who broke ranks: Chibana Shoichi, who hauled down the Rising Sun flag in Okinawa; Nakaya Yasuko, a housewife who tried to stop the burial of her husband, a former Self-Defence Forces member, at a Shinto shrine; and Motoshima Hitoshi, ex-mayor of Nagasaki, who criticized Emperor Hirohito's role during World War II.
Edward Fowler San'ya Blues (Cornell University Press). Fowler's experiences living and working among the casual labourers of Tokyo's San'ya district makes fascinating reading. He reveals the dark underbelly of Japan's economic miracle and blows apart a few myths and misconceptions on the way.
Robin Gerster , Legless in Ginza (Melbourne University Press). A funny and spot-on account of the writer's two-year residence at Japan's most prestigious university, Tokyo's Todai. Gerster writes with a larrikin Aussie verve and notices things that many other ex-pat commentators ignore.
Gunji Masakatsu Kabuki (Kodansha). Excellent, highly readable introduction to Kabuki by one of the leading connoisseurs of Japanese drama. Illustrated with copious annotated photos of the great actors and most dramatic moments in Kabuki theatre.
Joe Joseph The Japanese (Penguin). Former Times correspondent sets down some thoughts on the nation, mainly gathered during the madly extravagant and unrepresentative bubble years of the late 1980s.
David Kaplan & Andrew Marshall The Cult at the End of the World (Arrow). Chilling account of the nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway by the AUM cult in 1995. The gripping, pulp-fiction-like prose belies formidable research by the authors into the shocking history of this killer cult and their crazed leader Asahara Shoko.
Donald Keene The Blue-Eyed Tarokaja (Columbia University Press). Wide-ranging anthology of literary essays, interviews and travel pieces by Donald Keene, one of the foremost authorities on Japanese literature.
Alex Kerr Lost Japan (Lonely Planet). Although it's part of the usually tedious "Japan's not what it once was" school of writing, this book won a prestigious literature prize when first published in Japanese, and the translation is just as worthy of praise. Kerr, the son of a US naval officer, first came to Japan as a child in the 1960s and has been fascinated by it ever since. This beautifully written and thoughtfully observed set of essays covers aspects of his life and passions, including Kabuki, art collecting and cities such as Kyoto and Osaka.
Richard McGregor Japan Swings (Allen & Unwin/Yen). One of the more intelligent books penned by a former Tokyo correspondent. McGregor sets politics, culture and sex in 1990s post-bubble Japan in his sights, revealing a fascinating world of ingrained money politics and shifting sexual attitudes.
Brian Moeran A Far Valley: Four Years in a Japanese Village (Kodansha International). An affectionate though far from rose-tinted view into the daily life of a Japanese village by a cultural anthropologist. Moeran spent four years with his family in a community of potters in deepest Kyushu, before their dreams were shattered in a totally unexpected and harrowing way.
Patricia Morely The Mountain is Moving (New York University Press). Though a bit heavy going in places, this study of the changing role of women in Japanese society is best for its interviews with and portraits of women who have broken with tradition.
John K. Nelson A Year in the Life of a Shinto Shrine (University of Washington Press). Fascinating insight into Japan's native animist religion based on this American ethnologist's research at Suwa-jinja in Nagasaki. Amid all the detail, Nelson also catches gossipy asides such as a trainee priest being told to be "careful not to fart during the ritual".
Gunter Nitschke Japanese Gardens (Taschen). A far less lavish book on gardens than Itoh Teiji's seminal work , but nonetheless informative, wide-ranging and beautifully illustrated.
Donald Richie Public People, Private People (Kodansha), A Lateral View (Japan Times) and Partial Views (Japan Times). These three books, all collections of essays by a man whose love affair with Japan began when he arrived with the US occupying forces in 1947, set the standard other expat commentators can only aspire to. Public People is a set of sketches of famous and unknown Japanese, including profiles of novelist Mishima and the actor Mifune Toshiro. In A Lateral View and Partial Views , Richie tackles Tokyo style, avant-garde theatre, pachinko , the Japanese kiss and the Zen rock garden at Kyoto's Ryoan-ji temple, among many other things.
Saga Junichi Confessions of a Yakuza (Kodansha International) This life-story of a former yakuza boss, beautifully retold by a doctor whose clinic he just happened to walk into, gives a rare insight into a secret world. Saga also wrote the award-winning Memories of Silk and Straw (Kodansha International), a collection of reminiscences about village life in pre-modern Japan.
Mark Schilling The Encyclopedia of Japanese Pop Culture (Weatherhill). Forget sumo, samurai and ikebana . Godzilla, pop idols and instant ramen are really where Japan's culture's at. Schilling's book is an indispensable, spot-on guide to late-twentieth-century Japan. Don't leave home without it.
Frederik L. Schodt Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga (SBP). In the sequel to his Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics , Schodt pens a series of entertaining and informative essays on the art of Japanese comic books, profiling the top publications, artists, animated films and English-language manga .
Joan Stanley-Baker Japanese Art (Thames and Hudson). Highly readable introduction to the broad range of Japan's artistic traditions (though excluding theatre and music), tracing their development from prehistoric to modern times.
David Suzuki & Oiwa Keibo The Japan We Never Knew (Allen & Unwin). Canadian broadcaster and writer Suzuki teamed up with half-Japanese anthropologist Oiwa to tour the country and interview an extraordinary range of people, from the Ainu of Hokkaido to descendants of the "untouchable" caste, the Burakumin. The result is an excellent riposte to the idea of a monocultural, conformist Japan.
Robert Twigger , Angry White Pyjamas (Indigo). The subtitle "An Oxford poet trains with the Tokyo riot police" gives you the gist, and although Twigger's writing is more prose than poetry, he provides an intense forensic account of the daily trials, humiliations and triumphs of becoming a master of Aikido. Even if you're not into martial arts, it's worth picking up.
Rey Ventura
Underground in Japan
(Cape). The non-Caucasian
gaijin
experience in Japan is brilliantly essayed by Ventura, who lived and worked with fellow Filipino illegal immigrants in the dockyards of Yokohama.
Travel writing
Isabella Bird Unbeaten Tracks in Japan (Virago). After a brief stop in Meiji-era Tokyo, intrepid Victorian adventurer Bird is determined to reach parts of Japan not trampled by tourists. She heads north to Hokkaido, taking the time to make acute, vivid observations along the way.
Alan Booth The Roads to Sata (Penguin) and Looking for the Lost (Kodansha). Two classics by one of the most insightful and entertaining modern writers on Japan, whose talents were tragically cut short by his death in 1993. The first book sees Booth, an avid long-distance walker, hike (with the aid of many a beer) from the far north of Hokkaido to the southern tip of Kyushu, while Looking for the Lost , a trio of walking tales, is by turns hilarious and heartbreakingly poignant.
Josei Drew A Ride in the Neon Sun (Warner Books). At nearly 700 pages, this isn't a book to pop in your panniers, but full of useful tips for anyone planning to tour Japan by bike.
Will Ferguson , Hokkaido Highway Blues (Cannongate). Humorist Ferguson decides to hitch from one end of Japan to the other, with the aim of travelling with the Japanese, not among them. He succeeds (despite everyone telling him - even those who stop to pick him up - that Japanese never stop for hitch-hikers), and in the process turns out one of the best ever books of travel writing about the country. Funny and ultimately moving.
Donald W. George & Amy Greimann Carslon (eds) Travelers' Tales Guides: Japan Travelers' Tales, Inc). A necessarily selective sampler of the best writers who ever penned a Japan travel piece. From Lafcadio Hearn to Donald Richie, Alan Booth and Pico Iyer.
Pico Iyer Video Nights in Katmandu and The Lady and the Monk (Black Swan). The first book, by this former Time correspondent, has a brilliant essay on baseball and the incongruities of modern Japan. Iyer obviously fell in love with Japan, a fact reflected in the beautifully written The Lady and the Monk , devoted to a year he spent studying Zen Buddhism and dallying with a married woman in Kyoto. It's a rose-tinted, dreamy view of the country, which he has since followed up, in a more realistic way, with his excellent and thought-provoking The Global Soul (Bloomsbury).
Donald Richie
The Inland Sea
(Kodansha),
Lafcadio Hearn's Japan
(Tuttle) and
Tokyo
(Reaktion Books). The first is Richie's writing at its very best. A subtle, elegiac travelogue, in the form of a diary, first published in 1971, that totally captures the timeless beauty of the island-studded Inland Sea. The second is an anthology, edited by Richie, of one of the best-known and respected foreign writers who lived in Japan in the late nineteenth century. Includes sections from the classic
Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan
, among Hearn's other works. In
Tokyo
, Richie captures the essence of the city he has lived in for more than fifty years. One of the best introductions you could read.
Japan national tourist organization
Brazil Av Angelica, 2466 S/131-13 andar HigienA?polis, CEP01228-000, SA?o Paulo (tel 011/214-6487, www.japao-infotur.org.br ).
Canada 165 University Ave, Toronto, ON, M5H 3B8 (tel 416/366-7140, jnto@interlog.com ).
China 6F, Chang Fu Gong Office Building, 26 Jianguomenwai Dajie, Chaoyang-qu, Beijing 100022 (tel 010/6513-9023); Suite 3704-05, 37F, Dorset House, Taikoo Place, Quarry Bay, Hong Kong (tel 2968-5688).
France 4 rue de Ventadour, 75001 Paris (tel 01.42.96.20.29).
Germany Kaiserstrasse 11, 60311 Frankfurt am Main (tel 069/20353).
South Korea 10F, Press Centre Offices, 25 Taepyongno 1-ga, Chung-gu, Seoul (tel 02/732-7525).
Thailand 19F, Ramaland Building, 952 Rama 4 Rd, Bangrak District, Bangkok 10500 (tel 02/233-5108).
UK Heathcoat House, 20 Savile Row, London W1X 1AE (tel 020/7734 9638, www.jnto.go.jp ).
USA
One Rockefeller Plaza, Suite 1250, New York, NY 10020 (tel 212/757-5640,
info@jntonyc.org
); 401 North Michigan Ave, Suite 770, Chicago, IL 60611 (tel 312/222-0874,
jntochi@mcs.net
); 360 Post St, Suite 601, San Francisco, CA 94108 (tel 415/989-7140,
sfjnto@webjapan.com
); 515 Figueroa St, Suite 1470, Los Angeles, CA 90071 (tel 213/623-1952,
info@jnto-lax.org
).
Map outlets
It's a rare honour to be invited to someone's home in Japan and you should always take a small gift . Fruit, flowers, chocolates or alcohol (wine, whisky or brandy) are safe bets, as is anything from your home country, especially if it's a famous brand-name. The gift should always be wrapped, using plenty of fancy paper and ribbon if possible. If you buy something locally, most shops gift-wrap purchases automatically and anything swathed in paper from Mitsukoshi or one of the other big department stores has extra cachet.
Japanese people love giving gifts, and you should never refuse one if offered, though it's good manners to protest at their generosity first. Again it's polite to give and receive with both hands, and to belittle your humble donation while giving profuse thanks for the gift you receive. However, it's not the custom to open gifts in front of the donor, thus avoiding potential embarrassment.
If you're fortunate enough to be invited to a wedding , it's normal to give money to the happy couple. This helps defray the costs, including, somewhat bizarrely, the present you'll receive at the end of the meal. How much you give depends on your relationship with the couple, so ask a mutual friend what would be appropriate. Make sure to get crisp new notes and put them in a special red envelope available at stationers. Write your name clearly on the front and hand it over as you enter the reception.
Tipping
is not expected in Japan, and if you press money on a taxi driver, porter or bellboy it can cause offence. So, if someone's been particularly helpful, the best approach is to give a small gift, or present the money discretely in an envelope.
Automated shopping
Their prime attraction of vending machines is obviously convenience, but they also allow people in this highly self-conscious society to buy things surreptitiously - condoms, sex aids and alcohol are obvious examples; Japanese law prohibits the sale of alcohol to anyone under 20 years old. But since mid-2000, concern over rising levels of alcoholism and under-age drinking has led to a voluntary restriction by alcohol vendors. It's estimated that around seventy percent of machines have been taken out of action or restocked with soft drinks, but it remains to be seen how long such altruism lasts
Sumo
Despite their formidable girth, top rikishi (wrestlers) such as Takanohana and his recently retired brother Wakanohana enjoy the media status of supermodels. But, in a neat reversal of Japan's appropriation of baseball and export of pro-players to the US league, three of sumo's most revered stars were born abroad - both the top-ranked yokuzuna Konishiki (aka the "dump truck") and Akebono, who retired in 1998 and 2001 respectively, were born in Hawaii, while the up-and-coming American-Samoan Musashimaru won four basho in 1999.
Accounts of sumo bouts ( basho ) are related in Japan's oldest annals of history when it was a Shinto rite connected with praying for a good harvest. By the Edo period, sumo had developed into a spectator sport and really hit its stride in the post-World War II period when basho started to be televised. The old religious trappings remain, though: the gyoji (referee) wears robes not dissimilar to those of a Shinto priest and above the dohyo hangs a thatched roof like those found at shrines.
At the start of a bout the two rikishi wade into the ring, wearing only mawashi aprons, which look like giant nappies. Salt is tossed to purify the ring, the rikishi hunker down and indulge in the time-honoured ritual of psyching each other out with menacing stares. When ready, each rikishi attempts to throw his opponent to the ground or out of the ring using one or more of 48 legitimate techniques. The first to touch the ground with any part of his body other than his feet, or to step out of the dohyo , loses.
When not fighting in tournaments, groups of
rikishi
live and train together at their
heya
(stables), the youngest wrestlers acting pretty much as the menial slaves of their elder, more experienced colleagues. If you make an advance appointment, it's possible to visit some
heya
to observe the early-morning practice sessions; contact the TIC in Tokyo
for details. For all you could want to know and more on the current scene, plus how to buy tickets, check out the official
Web site
of sumo's governing body Nihon Sumo
Kyokai
, at
www.sumo.or.jp/index_e.html
Aikido
The
International Aikido Federation
, 17-18 Wakao, Shinjuku-ku (tel 03/3203-9236), is around ten minutes by bus from the west exit of Shinjuku Station in Tokyo. You'll also find the
Aikikai Hombu Dojo
at the same address and telephone number, where visitors are welcome to watch practice sessions.
Beaches, surfing and diving
Incredibly, Japan's market for surf goods is the world's largest, and when the surfers aren't hauling their boards off to Hawaii and Australia, they can be found braving the waves at various home locations. Top spots include the southern coasts of Shikoku and Kyushu. Closer to Tokyo, pros head for the rocky east Kujukuri coast of the Chiba peninsula, while the beaches around Shonan, near Kamakura, are fine for perfecting your style and hanging out with the trendiest surfers. Check out www.outdoorjapan.com for more information on surfing locations around Japan.
Diving
in Japan is expensive, but if you want to explore under the oceans, the best places to head are Okinawa
, around the island of Sado-ga-shima, near Niigata, and off the Izu Peninsula, close to Tokyo.
The new religions
The biggest such organization is Soka Gakkai (Value Creation Society). It was founded in 1937 by schoolteacher Makiguchi Tsunesaburo, who emphasized the importance of educational philosophy alongside the day-to-day benefits of religion. Under the umbrella of Nichiren Buddhism, Soka Gakkai's structure was formalized after World War II, focusing on tightly knit groups engaged in educational work, social activities and large-scale jamborees aimed at finding fulfilment in the present. With its proselytizing mission and broad appeal to people of all ages and classes, Soka Gakkai now claims around twenty million members. The movement also has a nominally independent political branch, the Komeito or "Clean Government Party" founded in 1964 as a backlash to corruption in Japanese politics. With its vast and effective grass-roots network, Komeito has long been a significant group within Japan's opposition parties and since October 1999 has formed part of the ruling LDP-Conservative coalition government.
At the other end of the scale,
AUM Shinrikyo
(AUM Supreme Truth), now officially known as Aleph, was founded in 1986 by a blind yoga teacher,
Asahara Shoko
. Claiming to be a Buddhist sect, adherents believed that the world would end in 1997 and that only AUM members would survive. At its height, the cult boasted 10,000 members in Japan and 30,000 abroad, mainly in Russia. Little known to most of his followers, however, Asahara's prime goal was world domination, but the truth started to emerge after the 1995 Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway. Fortunately, the police stopped AUM before Asahara could carry out his plans, but the group's activities stunned the Japanese population and raised fears that Japan may no longer be the safe and harmonious country it once was.
Religion, ritual and culture
Later the rocks, ponds and islands largely lost their religious symbolism, but were used instead to evoke famous Japanese beauty spots or scenes from literary masterpieces. At first these idealized landscapes provided the venue for elegant boating parties as depicted in The Tale of Genji but, as the gardens and their ponds became smaller, evolved into the classic stroll-gardens . Designed to be appreciated on foot, these secular, Edo-period gardens comprise various tableaux which unfold as the viewer progresses through the garden, and often "borrow" the surrounding scenery to enlarge the space. Many superb stroll-gardens still exist in Japan, but among the most stunning are Takamatsu's Ritsurin-koen, Suizenji-koen in Kumamoto and Koraku-en near Okayama.
Back in the ninth century, Shingon Esoteric Buddhism
promoted the idea that paradise could be achieved on earth, by the grace of Amida Buddha. Thus were
paradise gardens
born, in which temples strove to create their own version of Amida's Pure Land, or Jodo, featuring a pond, islands and rocks in a completely manufactured "natural" setting, such as Uji's magnificent
Byodo-in
. By contrast, in the fifteenth century the severe precepts of Zen Buddhism favoured highly austere "
dry gardens
" (
kare-sansui
), in which the entire universe is reduced to a few rocks, white-rippled gravel and one or two judiciously placed shrubs
. Kyoto's
Daisen-in
and
Ryoan-ji
are magnificent examples of this type of garden, which were designed solely to facilitate meditation and lead the viewer to enlightenment.
The religious influence
The introduction of Buddhism into Japan from China in the sixth century had a profound effect on Japanese arts. The process of transmitting this foreign religion to Japan led to the copying of Buddhist sutras, the construction of temples as places of worship and of study, and the production of Buddhist paintings and sculptures. The temples themselves, with their red-lacquered exteriors, tiled roofs supported by elaborate bracketing and tall pagodas, were in stark stylistic contrast to the architecture of Shinto. They represented visually the superimposition upon Japan's native traditions of a different set of beliefs and values.
Some of Japan's earliest Buddhist sculptures can be found at Horyu-ji (near Nara) and take their inspiration from Chinese and Korean sculpture of an earlier period. Though many statues have been moved to Tokyo's National Museum, the temple is still a magnificent museum of early Buddhist art. Its bronze Shaka (the Historic Buddha) Triad by Tori Bushii, a Korean-Chinese immigrant, dates back to 623 and reflects the stiff frontal poses, archaic smiles and waterfall drapery patterns of fourth-century Chinese sculpture. At the same time, Horyu-ji's standing wooden Kudara Kannon, depicting the most compassionate of the bodhisattvas, is delicately and sensitively carved to emphasize its spirituality. Another contemporary example of Buddhist sculpture, possibly also by a Korean immigrant, is the seated Miroku Bosatsu (Future Buddha) at Chugu-ji, within the Horyp-ji complex. With one leg crossed and his head resting pensively on one hand, it is a model of the grace and serenity associated with Asuka-era (552-650) sculpture.
As with Christian art, Buddhist iconography draws on a wealth of historic and symbolic references. The legends associated with Buddhism and the attributes of buddhahood are represented in the mudra , the hand gestures of the Buddha, his poses and in the objects he holds. Similarly, as with the heightened spirituality of the bodhisattvas which often flank the Buddha and the exaggerated realism of the fearsome-looking guardian figures at the entrance to the temple compound, the style in which such sculptures are rendered is frequently an aspect of their function. While the sweetness and calm of the bodhisattvas may direct thoughts "heaven"-wards, the bulging eyes, tensed muscles and aggressive poses of the guardian figures are intended to ward off evil and to protect both the Buddha and the temple.
During the early years of Buddhism in Japan and the periods of closest contact with China (the seventh to tenth centuries), Japanese styles of Buddhist art mimicked those current in China or from her recent past. However, a gradual process of assimilation took place in both painting and sculpture until during the Kamakura era
the adaptation of a distinctly Japanese model can be observed in Buddhist art.
Mingei: The folk craft tradition
While Japanese folk crafts flourished during the Edo era, the mass production techniques of the machine age led to a fall in the quality of textiles, ceramics, lacquer and other craft forms. The art critic and philosopher Yanagi Soetsu (1889-1961) worked from the 1920s to stem this tide and to preserve the craft products of the preindustrial age. Yanagi established the Mingei-kan, or Japanese Folk Crafts Museum, in Tokyo's Meguro district in 1936 to display Japanese folk crafts of every description. But the revival of the mingei tradition also celebrated works by living artist-craftsmen as well as regional differences in style and technique. The potters Hamada Shoji (1894-1978) and the Englishman Bernard Leach (1887-1979) were most famously associated with the mingei movement, as was the woodblock print artist, Munakata Shiko (1903-1975).
A wide range of traditional handicrafts are still being produced today all over Japan.
Yuzen
-style kimono dyeing and
kumihimo
braid craft are associated with Kyoto;
shuri
weaving techniques with Okinawa;
Hakata ningyo
, or earthenware dolls, with Fukuoka; and Kumano brushes with Hiroshima. Pottery, lacquerware, wood, bamboo and handmade paper products of every description continue to preserve the spirit of
mingei
in contemporary Japan.
Classical and theatrical music
Unlike Western classical music, themes aren't stated and repeated. Instead, the rhythms are based on breathing and the result is a form that sounds avant-garde - sometimes discordant, sometimes meditative. Less is more in gagaku .
Japan's most famous theatrical form, No , was synthesized in the fourteenth century from religious pantomimes, folk theatre and court music. No, which combines oratory, dance and singing in a highly stylized manner, is still performed and continues to influence both Japanese and foreign theatre and music. There are solo singers, small choruses singing in unison and an instrumental ensemble of fue (bamboo flute), the only melodic instrument other than the voice, two hourglass drums and a barrel drum.
Bunraku
puppetry came after No, and was one of the sources of the colourful and sensual
Kabuki theatre
, which emerged in the early seventeenth century. Its combination of No narratives, chanting and music based on the
shamisen
(three-string lute), flute and drums led to a more lively and popular musical style. This boosted the popularity of the new
nagauta
style of
shamisen
playing, which in turn influenced popular styles to come, including folk music.
Min'yo - folk music
Like many traditional musics, the form is tightly controlled by various guilds, a system called iemoto . Long apprenticeships are the norm for musicians, and family-based teaching systems guarantee something is passed on to the next generation. Shamisen master and singer Kiyohide Umewaka, whose father started a key guild in the 1950s, says the dedication required to master the form means that there are few professional players. His father taught top min'yo singer Sanae Asano and the spellbinding young shamisen player Shin'ichi Kinoshita, the latter having played a major part in the shin-min'yo (new min'yo ) wave led by singer Ito Takio, well known for his passionate singing style and willingness to experiment.
Traditional drumming from Sado island , where the Earth Festival (a percussion-based event) is held annually, has now become famous internationally. Ondekoza, the original group of drummers, and its off-shoot, Kodo, are capable of playing very powerful, rootsy gigs with just the various Japanese drums (from the big daiko to small hand-drums), but the bands do often utilize other instruments.
One of the very best places to catch traditional music in action in Japan is at a local festival, or
matsuri
. At
Obon
, an ancient Buddhist festival to celebrate the ancestors
, locals get down to a
Bon odori
(Bon dance). Check out the music of Shang Shang Typhoon which incorporates various kinds of festival music into its shows and even has its own festival every year, held just outside Tokyo. Wherever you go, you'll be dancing, and you'll be dragged up by the local granny if you try to sit it out. Dances are often centred around a bamboo tower with a big drum in the centre, moving to either tapes or live
min'yo
of classic
Bon
dances. You may catch the
mikoshi
procession, where young men dressed in what look like jockstraps struggle to carry a portable shrine. Such festivals are all about music, cementing community bonds and having a good time - Japan-style.
Postwar pop
Hibari, a precocious child who could memorize long poems and mimic adult singers, was versatile. Her voice could handle the natural voice singing style or jigoe , as well as the wavering folk style or yuri . Her powerful, sobbing kobushi vocal technique created a highly charged atmosphere, but she was also talented enough to cover jazz, min'yo , Latin, chanson and torch songs in the thousand recordings she made before her death at 52 in 1989. In many ways, she was Japan's most well-known, and loved, popular cultural icon of the twentieth century: not only did she appear in 160 films, she was also the undisputed queen of enka .
Meanwhile, as Hibari was starting her career, American songs were spreading across Japan, helped by the Allied occupying forces. Japanese composers like Ryuchi Hattori picked up on the trends with the shuffle-rhythm inspired Tokyo Boogie Woogie , even managing a shamisen version. Other styles like bluegrass, rockabilly, Hawaiian (a second boom), doowop, R&B and jazz all developed quickly.
In the 1950s, Japanese Latin music was established, although its roots were laid down at least twenty years previously. During the Fifties and early Sixties, many Cuban-style bands like the Tokyo Cuban Boys were formed; tango and Latin singer Fujisawa Ranko is still remembered for her South American tours. Tango remains popular in Japan and there is even an original Latin rhythm, the dodompa . The tradition has been kept strong with the recent success of Orquesta de la Luz.
Kayokyoku
gradually became associated with styles that used traditional scales, like
enka
, while the more Western-sounding pop became known as
Japanese pops
. This latter form was defined by songs like
Sukiyaki
and by the many Western-style groups that developed in the 1960s, known as Group Sounds. Japanese pops mirrored all the Western moves - Beatles imitators, rock, folk-rock, folk and psychedelia were all flavour of the day.
Enka - Japan's soul music
Enka (from enzetsu , meaning public speech, and ka , meaning a song) is more than 100 years old, and, despite what some younger Japanese say, it is still enormously popular in Japan. Originally it was a form of political dissent, disseminated by song sheets, but it quickly changed in the early twentieth century as it became the first style to truly synthesize Western scales and Japanese modes. Nakayama Shimpei and Koga Masaowere were the trailblazing composers. Koga's first hit in 1931, Kage Wo Shitaite (Longing For Your Memory), remains a much-loved classic.
Enka seems to be everywhere in Japan. Special television programmes like Enka no Hanamichi pump it out, and you'll hear it in restaurants and bars And, of course, it received a major boost with the invention of karaoke, which helped to spread the genre's popularity both with younger Japanese and foreigners. The classic image is of enka queen Hibari Misora decked out in a kimono, tears streaming down her face as she sobs through Koga's Kanashi Sake (Sad Sake), with typically understated backing and single-line guitar. Hibari had the nakibushi (crying melody) technique and a stunning vibrato-like Kobushi which makes the listener's hair stand on end.
When Hibari died in 1989, Harumi Miyako inherited her position as the top singer, though she has retired at least once. She is famed for her growling attack and the song Sayonara . Many enka stars have long careers, and veterans like Kitajima Suburoare are still going strong, but there's a new generation led by Mori Shin'ichi, Yashiro Aki, Kobayashi Sachiko and the multi-talented Itsuki Hiroshi. Recently, a number of upcoming Korean singers have been making waves (Hibari was of Japanese/Korean ancestry). Watch out for Gill Jehee as the next big star.
No
enka
fan can pass up a visit to Rizumu (Rhythm), Kobayashi Kazuhiko's ancient record shop in Ueno, Tokyo. Located under a railway arch in the Ameyoko market, the brightly displayed shop is a treasure-trove of memorabilia with music stacked floor to ceiling. Kobayashi-san, quick to notice foreigners' growing interest, has even romanized the titles so you can find that haunting
enka
number you can't get out of your head.
Forests
While around 67 percent of Japan is still forested, about 40 percent of this comprises commercial plantations and Japan has come precariously close to losing some of its most spectacular areas of natural forest. The "old-growth" beech forests (that is, stands of ancient trees, but not necessarily untouched virgin forest) of the Shirakami Mountains in northwest Honshu, for example, came under direct threat in the 1980s from a government proposal to build a logging road right through them. Citizens' groups, together with the Nature Conservation Society of Japan (NCSJ), mounted a huge campaign to demonstrate the forest's immeasurable ecological and national value. As a result, the government reconsidered the plan and the forest is now designated a UNESCO World Heritage site.
The activities of Japanese paper and timber companies in the old-growth and primary forests (those subjected to only minimal human disturbance) of neighbouring countries is a huge concern for environmentalists worldwide. In Australia, for example, one such company operates a wood-chipping mill that is fed by old-growth eucalyptus trees at a rate of several football fields a day under a twenty-year licence granted by the Australian government. The wood is sold for twenty cents a tonne to make tissues, fax paper and newspapers for the Japanese market. Various Australian environmental groups - Chipstop, Friends of the Earth and The Wilderness Society - have joined forces with the Japan Tropical Forest Action Network (JATAN) among others to petition the Australian government and the Japanese paper industry to use wood chips from sustainable sources instead
Nuclear power
Book Passage , 51 Tamal Vista Blvd, Corte Madera, CA 94925 (tel 1-800/999-7909 or 415/927-0960, www.bookpassage.com ).
The Complete Traveller Bookstore , 199 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 (tel 212/685-9007).
Map Link , 30 S La Petera Lane, Unit #5, Santa Barbara, CA 93117 (tel 805/692-6777, www.maplink.com ).
The Map Store Inc , 1636 Eye St, Washington, DC 20006 (tel 1-800/544-2659 or 202/628-2608).
Open Air Books and Maps , 25 Toronto St, Toronto, ON, M5C 2R1 (tel 416/363-0719).
Phileas Fogg's Books & Maps , #87 Stanford Shopping Center, Palo Alto, CA 94304 (tel 1-800/533-FOGG).
Rand McNally , 444 N Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL 60611 (tel 312/321-1751); 150 E 52nd St, New York, NY 10022 (tel 212/758-7488); 595 Market St, San Francisco, CA 94105 (tel 415/777-3131); call 1-800/333-0136 ext 2111 for other locations, or for maps by mail order; online at www.randmcnally.com
Sierra Club Bookstore , 6014 College Ave, Oakland, CA 94618 (tel 510/658-7470, www.sierraclubbookstore.com ).
Travel Books & Language Center , 4437 Wisconsin Ave, Washington, DC 20016 (tel 1-800/220-2665).
Ulysses Travel Bookshop , 4176 St-Denis, MontrAŠal, PQ H2W 2M5 (tel 514/843-9447, www.ulyssesguides.com ).
World Wide Books and Maps
, 1247 Granville St, Vancouver, BC V6Z 1E4 (tel 604/687-3320).
Australia
Worldwide Maps and Guides , 187 George St, Brisbane (tel 07/3221 4330)
Mapland , 372 Little Bourke St, Melbourne (tel 03/9670 4383)
Perth Map Centre , 1/884 Hay St, Perth (tel 08/9322 5733)
Travel Bookshop
, Shop 3, 175 Liverpool St, Sydney (tel 02/9261 8200)
Japanese addresses
Japanese addresses are therefore written in reverse order from the Western system. However, when written in English, they usually follow the Western order; this is the system we adopt in the guide. For example, the address 2-12-7 Kitano-cho, Chuo-ku, Kobe-shi identifies building number 7, somewhere on block 12 of number 2 chome in Kitano district, in Chuo ward of Kobe city. Most buildings bear a small metal tag with their number (eg 2-12-7, or just 12-7), while lampposts often have a bigger plaque with the district name in kanji and the block reference (eg 2-12). Note that the same address can also be written 12-7 Kitano-cho 2-chome, Chuo-ku.
Though the system's not too difficult in theory, actually
locating an address
on the ground can be frustrating. The consolation is that even Japanese people find it tough. The best strategy is to have the address written down, preferably in Japanese, and then get to the nearest train or bus station. Once in the neighbourhood, start asking; local police boxes (
koban
) are a good bet and have detailed maps of their own areas. If all else fails, don't be afraid to phone - often someone will come to meet you. And fairly soon technology should come to the rescue with hand-held personal navigation systems, much like those for cars, which are currently under development.
Maps
Note that
maps on signboards
in Japan, such as a map of footpaths in a national park, are usually oriented the way you are facing. So, if you're facing southeast, for example, as you look at the map, the top will be southeast and the bottom northwest.
Britain and Ireland
Daunt Books , 83 Marylebone High St, London W1M 3DE (tel 020/7224 2295, fax 7224 6893); 193 Haverstock Hill, London NW3 4QL (tel 020/7794 4006).
Easons Bookshop , 40 O'Connell St, Dublin 1 (tel 01/873 3811).
Fred Hanna's Bookshop , 27-29 Nassau St, Dublin 2 (tel 01/677 1255, www.hannas.ie ).
Heffers Map and Travel , 20 Trinity St, Cambridge CB2 1TJ (tel 01223/586 586, www.heffers.co.uk ).
James Thin Melven's Bookshop , 29 Union St, Inverness IV1 1QA (tel 01463/233500, www.jthin.co.uk ).
John Smith and Sons , 26 Colquhoun Ave, Glasgow G52 4PJ (tel 0141/221 7472, fax 248 4412, www.johnsmith.co.uk ).
The Map Shop , 30a Belvoir St, Leicester LE1 6QH (tel 0116/2471400).
National Map Centre , 22-24 Caxton St, London SW1H 0QU (tel 020/7222 2466, www.mapsnmc.co.uk ).
Newcastle Map Centre , 55 Grey St, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 6EF (tel 0191/261 5622 www.newtraveller.com ).
Stanfords , 12-14 Long Acre, London WC2E 9LP (tel 020/7836 1321); also British Airways offices at 156 Regent St, London W1R 5TA (tel 020/7434 4744).
The Travel Bookshop , 13-15 Blenheim Crescent, London W11 2EE (tel 020/7229 5260, www.thetravelbookshop.co.uk ).
Waterstone's
, 91 Deansgate, Manchester M3 2BW (tel 0161/837 3000, fax 835 1534,
www.waterstonesbooks.co.uk
).
New Zealand
Mapworld , 173 Gloucester St, Christchurch (tel 03/374 5399, fax 374 5633, www.mapworld.co.nz ).
Online travel bookstores
Adventurous Traveler A www.adventuroustraveler.com
Amazon A www.amazon.co.uk and www.amazon.com
Literate Traveler
A
www.literatetraveller.com
Web sites
fj.life.in-japan
These are the best newsgroups for posting a question or browsing for interesting threads
Japan national tourist organization
Though no longer as comprehensive as it was, JNTO's
Japan Travel Updates
is still the best single place to start looking for general travel-related information. The databases are most immediately useful, particularly the train and flight timetables as well as links to accommodation resources.
Links
www.jinjapan.org
jin.jcic.or.jp/navi/index.html (Japan Web Navigator)
Stanford University's
Jguide
has a vast, well-organized list of sites. Otherwise, the
Japan Information Network
comprises a number of useful and interesting sites, among them the Japan Web Navigator, with a more manageable array of links.
Tokyo
Without doubt, Tokyo's biggest and best site remains Tokyo Q. It contains a weekly round-up of current news and upcoming arts events, as well as the latest restaurant listings and links to some of the city's more quirky sites. If you can't find what you're looking for there, try
Tokyo Meltdown
at
www.bento.com/tleisure.html
, with a link to the
Tokyo Food Page
Culture
www.jinjapan.org/trends
www.jinjapan.org/kidsweb/index.html
Kabuki for Everyone
is a good introduction to this classical artform, with video and sound clips, play summaries and so forth. For a more contemporary view, keep up to date with what's going on at
Trends in Japan
, covering arts and entertainment as well as businesss, sports, fashion and much more. Anyone travelling with children should take a look at
Kids Web Japan
. In addition to simple background information, folk legends and general cultural titbits, it offers an insight into what's currently cool at school in Japan.
Oshogatsu
By the time New Year's Eve arrives, everyone's exhausted. So nowadays, at 9pm, the whole nation flops down to watch a three-hour TV extravaganza of the best - and less memorable - pop groups from the previous year. Those with only mild hangovers might slurp a bowl of toshi-koshi soba , extra-long noodles symbolizing longevity, which traditionally form the last meal of the year, and then hurry off to the nearest shrine or temple to join the crowds waiting to make their first offerings of the New Year. Temple bells ring out 108 times to cast out the 108 human frailties; the last chime heralds the New Year and a clean slate.
The first shrine visit ( hatsu-mode ), the first meal, the first drive - each activity in the new year must be performed properly and safely to ensure good luck. On the first day, families share a celebratory meal , prepared earlier since no-one's supposed to work for the first three days, consisting of symbolic foods. It starts with a toast of sweet sake mixed with medicinal herbs, designed to confer long-life, followed by a feast including herring roe (prosperity and fertility), black beans (good health), chestnuts (success) and mochi . These sticky-rice cakes are usually served with vegetables in a special soup ( ozoni ); they may not look - or taste - much, but mochi are said to ensure strength, stamina and, again, longevity.
The traditional
New Year's greeting
is
akemashite ome gozaimasu
, and it's customary for adults to give the children of friends and family envelopes containing several thousand yen in crisp notes.
Meetings and greetings
Japanese people tend to dress smartly, especially in cities. Though as a tourist you don't have to go overboard, you'll be better received if you look neat and tidy, and for anyone hoping to do business in Japan, a snappy suit is de rigueur. It's also important to be punctual for social and business appointments .
Whenever Japanese meet, express thanks or say goodbye, there's a flurry of bowing . The precise depth of the bow and the length of time it's held for depend on the relative status of the two individuals - receptionists are sent on courses to learn the precise angles required. Again, foreigners aren't expected to bow, but it's terribly infectious and you'll soon find yourself bobbing with the best of them. The usual compromise is a slight nod or a quick, half-bow. Japanese more familiar with Western customs might offer you a hand to shake, in which case treat it gently - they won't be expecting a firm grip.
Japanese names are traditionally written with the family name first, followed by a given name, which is the practice used throughout this book (except where the Western version has become famous, such as Issey Miyake). When dealing with foreigners, however, they may well write their name the other way round. Check if you're not sure because, when addressing people , it's normal to use the family name plus - san ; for example, Suzuki-san. San is an honorific term used in the same way as Mr or Mrs, so remember not to use it when introducing yourself, or talking about your friends or family. As a foreigner, you can choose whichever of your names you feel comfortable with; inevitably they'll tack a - san on the end. You'll also often hear - chan as a form of address; this is a diminutive reserved for very good friends, young children and pets.
An essential part of any business meeting is the swapping of
meishi
, or
name cards
. Always carry a copious supply, since you'll be expected to exchange a card with everyone present. It's useful to have them printed in Japanese as well as English; if necessary, you can get this done at major hotels.
Meishi
are offered with both hands, facing so that the recipient can read the writing. It's polite to read the card and then place it on the table beside you, face up. Never write on a
meishi
, at least not in the owner's presence, and never shove it in a pocket - put it in your wallet or somewhere suitably respectful. Business meetings invariably go on much longer than you'd expect and rarely result in decisions. They are partly for building up the all-important feeling of trust between the two parties, as is the after-hours entertainment in a restaurant or karaoke bar.
K: Karaoke
In the mid-1980s, the whole industry, which earns ?1 trillion a year, was boosted by the debut of the
karaoke box
, a booth kitted out with a karaoke system and rented out by groups or individuals wanting to brush up on their singing technique. These boxes have proved particularly popular with youngsters, women and families who shied away from the smoky small bars frequented by salarymen that were the original preserve of karaoke. Amazingly, research has shown that the introduction of karaoke has coincided with a significant drop in the number of drunks taken into protective custody by the police, salarymen drinking less, rather than more, as they relax over a rousing rendition of
My Way
.
L: Love hotels
Although there are plenty of manga that cater to less wholesome tastes, with sexual violence against women being top of the perversions list, comic books are frequently used to explain complicated current affairs topics, such as trade friction problems between the US and Japan, and to teach high-school subjects. Manga are targeted at all age groups and it's common to see a cross-section of society reading them.
More than big business, manga have become a recognized art form, many incorporating a startling quasi-cinematic style of close-ups and jump cuts. Top artists are respected the world over. The "god of manga" was Tezuka Osamu , creator of Astro Boy and Kimba, the White Lion in the 1960s, who went on to pen more challenging fare such as the adventures of the mysterious renegade surgeon Black Jack and the epic wartime saga Adorufu ni Tsugu (Tell Adolf) . Successful manga artists, such as Miyazaki Hayao , have also helped boost the enormous popularity of animated movies ( anime ). Miyazaki's biggest hit has been Nausicaa , a sci-fi series set in a post-nuclear holocaust world.
One of Japan's top retail success stories is
Muji
, short for Mujirushi Ryohin (No-brand quality goods), an offshoot of the giant Seiyu supermarket group, with over 200 branches now around Japan and Europe. Launched in 1980, the stores, which stock practical household goods, clothes, stationery and foods in simple packaging and monotone colours, prospered from the backlash against the designer-label craze that gripped Japan during the boom years of the 1980s. The irony is that the starker economic realities of the following decade, plus a rediscovery of the beauty of simple design, have made Muji's goods desirable commodities in their own right.
N: Nihonjinron
OL
is short for office lady, the female clerical workers considered "flowers of the workplace" by their sexist bosses, who need them around to make tea and generally brighten the place up for dull salarymen. If unmarried by the age of 25 and not safely tucked up at home, then an OL is like a Christmas cake, useless after the holiday. It's not quite as grim as this for career-minded women today, but the recession has not helped increase their chances of promotion as businesses have chopped back on hiring females in the first place.
P: Pachinko, Purikura and Pokemon
The aim of pachinko is for the balls to fall into the right holes so more balls can be won. These are traded in for prizes, such as cigarette lighters and calculators. Although it's illegal for the parlours to pay out cash, there's always a cubbyhole close by where prizes can be exchanged for money, a charade that the authorities have long turned a blind eye to. The initial cost of indulging in this mechanized mayhem can be as little as ?100 for 25 ball bearings; just remember to take your earplugs, too.
One of the latest consumer crazes that is firmly headed for pachinko -like success is purikura (print club), digital photo booths which combine your mug shot with a vast selection of designs on a sheet of sixteen mini-stickers. Launched by Sega Corp in 1995, there are now well over 20,000 booths around Japan, and no self-respecting teenager is without their album of swapped stickers, with many adults getting in on the act, too, jazzing up their business cards with the personalized purikura . The machines, found in all major shopping areas, are well worth searching out; for a couple of hundred yen you'll have a neat pop-art souvenir of Japan.
Need we say anything about
Pokemon
? In case you've been in a cave for a couple of years, Pokemon stands for
poketto monsty
(pocket monster) and as any eight-year-old can tell you there are some 150 of them, all with silly names, such as Polywig and Wigglytuffs, and fantastic powers. It all started as a video game and has flourished into a multimedia phenomenon, now with its own shop (the Pokemon Centre, Kawasaki Teitoku Building, 3-2-5 Nihonbashi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo).
Q: Quiz shows
There are estimated to be around a thousand such ultra-nationalist groups in Japan, and to a startling extent, the police turn a blind eye (and deaf ear) to their activities. Politicians and the media who openly criticize the ideals and institutions they hold dear, such as the imperial household, set themselves up for some kind of nasty retribution. To most people, though,
uyoku
are an embarrassment best ignored.
Business, economics and politics
Robert M. March Working for a Japanese Company (Kodansha). One of the best studies on what it's really like inside Japan's corporate powerhouses by an Aussie management consultant who's done thorough research.
Miyamoto Masao Straitjacket Society (Kodansha). As the subtitle hints, this "insider's irreverent view of bureaucratic Japan" is quite an eye-opener. Unsurprisingly, Miyamoto was fired from the Ministry of Health and Welfare, but his book sold over 400,000 copies.
Omae Ken'ichi The Borderless World (Fontana). One of Japan's top management consultants airs his free-market theories of how national economic borders are melting away in the wake of multinational business success. A useful insight into the thoughts of a man whose views have influenced many important businesses and political leaders.
Jacob M. Schlesinger Shadow Shoguns (Simon & Schuster). Cracking crash course in Japan's political scene, scandals and all, from Wall Street Journal reporter Schlesinger, who spent five years at the newspaper's Tokyo bureau and whose wife was an aide to current top politician Ozawa Ichiro.
Peter Tasker Inside Japan (Penguin). First published in 1987, at the height of the boom years, but still recommended reading. This is a highly readable and intelligent examination of Japanese business and society by a British financial analyst who has made Japan his home since 1977.
Karel Van Wolferen
The Enigma of Japanese Power
(Macmillan/Tuttle). The 1993 version is the most recent edition of what has become a standard text on the triad of Japan's bureaucracy, politicians and business, and the power gulf between them. A weighty, thought-provoking tome, worth wading through.
Guides and reference books
Mark Brazil A Birdwatcher's Guide to Japan (Kodansha). Though hard to find, this is the essential guide for travelling birdwatchers: Brazil has an encyclopedic knowledge of Japan's birds and the places they can be found. Particularly good for those looking for birds and other wildlife in Okinawa, Western Kyushu, around Tokyo, and especially eastern Hokkaido.
Jan Brown Exploring Tohoku (Weatherhill). Detailed and well-written guide to Japan's back-country by a long-term resident and obvious enthusiast. Provides plenty of historical and cultural information as well as practical snippets.
John Carroll Trails of Two Cities (Kodansha). Enjoyable and informative walking guide to Yokohama and Kamakura by a long-time resident. Full of fascinating historical detail and local insights.
Judith Clancy Exploring Kyoto (Weatherhill). One of the better Kyoto guides, whose thirty well-researched walking tours (each with an accompanying map) cover both the famous sights and the less well-known byways of this ancient city.
Diane Durston Old Kyoto (Kodansha) and Kyoto: Seven Paths to the Heart of the City (Mitsumura Suko Shoin). Few people can get under the skin of this enigmatic city as well as Diane Durston. In Old Kyoto she seeks out the best traditional craft shops, restaurants and ryokan, while her more recent book explores seven neighbourhoods where Kyoto's special magic still survives.
Enbutsu Sumiko Old Tokyo: Walks in the City of the Shogun (Kodansha). Tokyo's old Shitamachi area is best explored on foot and Enbutsu's guide, illustrated with characterful block prints, helps bring the city's history alive.
Harry Guest Traveller's Literary Companion to Japan (In Print). Explore Japan in the company of the country's literary greats and a host of foreign writers. Regional essays with selected extracts are backed up by author bios, booklists and a brief romp through the historical and cultural background. The essential travel accessory.
Brian Harrel ed. Cycling Japan (Kodansha). Harrel also edits the biking newsletter Oikaze and this highly practical guide tells you everything you need to know for a biking trip around the country, with plenty of personal accounts. If nothing else, try the Yamanote Countryside Ride, a 45-kilometre loop around Tokyo, which is guaranteed to reveal many of the city's forgotten gems.
Anne Hotta with Ishiguro Yoko A Guide to Japanese Hot Springs (Kodansha). Over 160 onsen, including 25 within easy reach of Tokyo, are detailed in this indispensable guide for bath lovers, as well as the cultural history of natural hot-water pursuits in Japan.
Paul Hunt Hiking in Japan (Kodansha). Hunt demonstrates that there's far more to mountain climbing in Japan than scaling Fuji-san. His detailed hikes cover all the top destinations from Kirishima in Kyushu to Daisetsu-zan in Hokkaido, by way of the fabulous Japan Alps.
Itoh Teiji The Gardens of Japan (Kodansha). Huge coffee-table book covering all the great historical gardens, including many not generally open to the public, as well as contemporary design. A comprehensive overview with splendid photos.
Thomas F. Judge and Tomita Hiroyuki Edo Craftsmen (Weatherhill). Beautifully produced portraits of some of Shitamachi's traditional craftsmen still working in the backstreets of Tokyo. A timely insight into a disappearing world.
Rick Kennedy Good Tokyo Restaurants (Kodansha). By an author who's sampled thousands of restaurants during his many years in Tokyo, so he knows what he's talking about. Not as wide-ranging, or as up-to-date, as other guides, but very reliable.
John and Phyllis Martin Tokyo: A Cultural Guide to Japan's Capital City, Kyoto: A Cultural Guide to Japan's Ancient Imperial City and Nara: A Cultural Guide to Japan's Ancient Capital (Tuttle). Three excellent books designed around walking tours of Japan's most historic cities, which go well beyond the usual sights.
Ed Readicker-Henderson The Traveller's Guide to Japanese Pilgrimages (Weatherhill). A practical guide to Japan's top three pilgrim routes: Hiei-zan (near Kyoto); the 33 Kannon of Saigoku (a broad sweep from the Kii peninsula to Lake Biwa); and following the steps of Kobo Daishi round Shikoku's 88 temples.
T.R. Reid Ski Japan! (Kodansha). If you're planning a ski trip in Japan, don't leave without having first read through this witty and informative guide that profiles 93 of the best resorts in the country. Understandably, ski-mad Reid prefers to be on rather than off the slopes, so don't expect much in the way of accommodation or apres-ski recommendations.
Robb Satterwhite What's What in Japanese Restaurants (Kodansha). Handy guide to all things culinary you'll encounter during your adventures in Japanese food and drink. Written by a Tokyo-based epicure who also manages the excellent Tokyo Food Page on the Web. The menus annotated with Japanese characters are particularly useful.
Mary Sutherland and Dorothy Britton National Parks of Japan (Kodansha). With gorgeous photos and a thoroughly researched text, this is the essential guide to all 28 of Japan's National Parks, covering wildlife, plants, natural and cultural history. A quick glance gives ample reason to seek out the breathtaking and varied natural beauty of the wilder parts of this amazing chain of islands.
Tajima Noriyuki Tokyo: A Guide to Recent Architecture (Ellipsis). A compact, expertly written and nicely illustrated book that's an essential accompaniment on any modern architectural tour of the capital.
TokyoQ 2000-2001 Annual Guide to the City (Stonebridge Press). Spin-off from the fine Web site, this handy slim volume is worth picking up for those extra titbits of information that only living in the city provides.
Marc Treib & Ron Herman A Guide to the Gardens of Kyoto (Shufunotomo). Handy, pocket-sized guide to more than fifty of the city's gardens, with concise historical details and step-by-step descriptions of each garden.
Gary D'A Walters Day Walks Near Tokyo (Kodansha). Slim volume of strolls and hikes all within easy reach of the capital to help get you off the beaten tourist path. The maps are clear, as are the practical details and directions.
Diane Wiltshire Kanagawa & Jeanne Huey Erickson
Japan for Kids
(Kodansha). Immensely practical guide covering everything from vocabulary for the labour ward, to where to rent a Santa. Aimed mainly at expat parents living in Tokyo, but also full of practical tips and recommendations for visitors with kids.
Classic literature
Matsuo Basho The Narrow Road to the Deep North (Penguin). The seventeenth-century haiku poetry master chronicles his journey through northern Japan, pausing to compose his thoughts along the way.
Murasaki Shikibu The Tale of Genji (Penguin/Tuttle). Claimed as the world's first novel, a lyrical epic of the lives and loves of a nobleman spun by a lady of the Heian court around 1000 AD.
Natsume Soseki Botchan, Kokoro and I am a Cat (Tuttle). In his comic novel Botchan , Soseki draws on his own experiences as an English teacher in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Matsuyama. The three volumes of I am a Cat sees the humorist adopting a wry feline point of view on the world. Kokoro - about an ageing sensei trying to coming to terms with the modern era - is considered his best book.
Sei Shonagon The Pillow Book (Penguin). Fascinating insight into the daily life and artful thoughts of a tenth-century noblewoman, translated by Ivan Morris.
Tanizaki Jun'ichiro
Some Prefer Nettles and The Makioka Sisters
(Tuttle). One of the great stylists of Japanese prose, Tanizaki's finest book is often considered to be
Some Prefer Nettles
, about a romantic liaison between a Japanese man and a Eurasian woman. However, there's an epic sweep to
The Makioka Sisters
which documents the decline of a wealthy merchant family in Osaka.
Contemporary fiction
Van C. Gessel & Tomone Matsumoto (eds.) The Showa Anthology (Kodansha International). This collection of short stories is essential reading if you want to get up to speed with the best in contemporary Japanese fiction. The anthology covers the Showa era (1926-1989) and includes a number of stories not previously translated into English.
Ishiguro Kazuo An Artist of the Floating World (Faber) and A Pale View of the Hills (Faber). Nagasaki-born author who's lived in Britain since 1960. A Pale View , his first novel, is a haunting tale set in Nagasaki which unravels the vaguely expressed horrors of the atomic bombing against the backdrop of a dislocated postwar society. An Artist of the Floating World takes a look at the rise of Japanese militarism in this century through the eyes of an ageing painter. It won the Whitbread Book of the Year for 1986.
Maruya Saiichi Singular Rebellion (Kodansha). Comedy of manners about a middle-aged salaryman who shacks up with a bimbo model, only to find himself also sharing house with granny, just out of jail for murder.
Mishima Yukio After the Banquet, Confessions of Mask, Forbidden Colours, The Sea of Fertility (all Penguin/Kodansha). Novelist Mishima sealed his notoriety by committing ritual suicide after leading a failed military coup in 1970. He left behind a highly respectable, if at times melodramatic, body of literature, including some of Japan's finest postwar novels. Themes of tradition, sexuality and militarism run though many of his works.
Miyabe Miyuki All She Was Worth (Kodansha). When a young man's fiance goes missing, a trail of credit-card debts and worse turns up. There's more to this clever whodunnit set in contemporary Tokyo than immediately meets the eye.
Murakami Ryu Almost Transparent Blue, Sixty-nine and Coin Locker Babies (Kodansha). Murakami burst onto Japan's literary scene in the mid-1980s with Almost Transparent Blue , a hip tale of student life mixing reality and fantasy. Sixty-nine is his semi-autobiographical account of a 17-year-old stirred by the rebellious passions of the late 1960s, set in Sasebo, Kyushu; while Coin Locker Babies is his most ambitious work, spinning a revenger's tragedy about the lives of two boys dumped in adjacent coin lockers as babies.
Oe Kenzaburo Nip the Buds Shoot the Kids (Kodansha), A Personal Matter (Tuttle) and A Healing Family (Kodansha). Oe won Japan's second Nobel Prize for literature in 1994 and is a writer who aims, in his own words, to "push back the rising tide of conformity". Nip the Buds , his first full-length novel published in 1958, is a tale of lost innocence concerning fifteen reformatory school boys evacuated in wartime to a remote mountain village and left to fend for themselves when a threatening plague frightens away the villagers. A Personal Matter sees Oe tackling the trauma of his handicapped son Hikari's birth, while A Healing Family catches up with Hikari thirty years later documenting his trials and triumphs. Never an easy read, but always startlingly honest.
Yoshimoto Banana
Kitchen, Lizard and Amrita
(Faber). Trendy thirty-something novelist whose quirky, lyrical style and odd stories have struck a chord with modern Japanese youth and overseas readers.
Japan in foreign fiction
James Clavell Shogun (Dell). Blockbuster fictionalized account of Englishman Will Adams' life in seventeenth-century Japan as an adviser to Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu.
Lisa Dalby , The Tale of Murasaki (Chatto & Windus). The eleventh-century Japanese author Murasaki Shikibu and her Tale of Genji inspire this imaginative novel that takes the reader inside Kyoto's ancient imperial court.
Ian Fleming You Only Live Twice (Pan). Bondo-san on the trail of arch-enemy Blofeld in trendy mid-sixties Tokyo and the wilds of Kyushu, assisted by Tiger Tanaka and Kissy Suzuki.
William Gibson Idoru (Penguin). Love in the age of the computer chip. Cyberpunk novelist Gibson's sci-fi vision of Tokyo's hi-tech future - a world of non-intrusive DNA checks at airports and computerized pop icons (the idoru of the title) - rings disturbingly true.
Arthur Golden Memoirs of a Geisha (Vintage). Rags to riches potboiler following the progress of Chiyo from her humble beginnings in a Japanese fishing village through training as a geisha in Kyoto to setting up her own teahouse in New York. Full of accurate details and colourful characters.
Steven Heighton Flightpaths of the Emperor (Granta). Entertaining and thought-provoking collection of short stories by a young award-winning Canadian writer, most based in downtown Osaka where Heighton once taught English like the character in some of the tales.
Dianne Highbridge , In the Empire of Dreams (Allen & Unwin). In this series of loosely connected short stories, Australian expat Highbridge focuses on the experiences of young women - all, bar one, expats - attempting to make a life in Japan. Evocative descriptions and some insights, but few surprises as Highbridge ticks off the issues, from mixed marriages to the gaijin who find it impossible to leave.
Gavin Kramer Shopping (Fourth Estate). British lawyer Kramer's zippy first novel is on the bleak side, but captures the turn-of-Millennium zeitgeist of Tokyo, where schoolgirls trade sex for designer labels and gaijin flounder in a sea of misunderstanding.
John David Morley Pictures from the Water Trade (Flamingo). The subtitle, An Englishman in Japan , says it all as Morley's alter-ego, Boon, crashes headlong into an intense relationship with demure, yet sultry Mariko in an oh-so-foreign world. Along the way, some imaginative observations and descriptions are made.
Ruri Pilgrim , Fish of the Seto Island Sea (HarperCollins). Account of three generations of the author's family, starting with her great-grandparents in the 1870s. The book's greatest interest lies in its dramatic backdrop of the war - which the family comes through remarkably in-tact, albeit in very straitened circumstances - and the deep-seated changes taking place in Japanese society as a result of both the war and the subsequent American occupation.
Peter Tasker
Silent Thunder
(Orion/Tuttle). Top British financial analyst Tasker's first stab at fiction is a fun, throwaway thriller, with Bond-like set pieces and some lively Japanese characters, especially Mori, his down-at-heel gumshoe. Much better than the follow-up
Buddha Kiss
, although Tasker seems to have found his form again with the latest snappy read,
Samurai Boogie
.
Fish
Ocean currents play a crucial role in this diversity. Warm water flowing round Taiwan and up through the Ryukyu island chain splits into two upon reaching the island of Kyushu. The branch flowing north into the Sea of Japan, between Japan and China, is known as the Tsushima-shio, while the Kuro-shio or "Black current" follows the more easterly route. Bearing down from the north, hitting Hokkaido's northern and eastern shores, comes the cold, nutrient-rich Oya-shio or Kuril current. Where it meets the Kuro-shio off northeastern Honshu, abundant plankton and the mingling of cold- and warm-water species create one of the richest fishing grounds in the entire world.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that Japan consumes thirty percent of the world's fresh fish. To offset problems caused by
over-fishing
, the Japanese fishing fleet has been cut by a quarter in recent years. This has not, however, stopped the import of fish into Japan from other Southeast Asian countries which, for their own economic reasons, are less concerned about protecting fish stocks.
Yakushima: subtropical rainforest
The value of Yakushima as an environmental resource has long been recognized, starting with the establishment of an Academic Reference Forest Reserve in 1924. Now it enjoys the highest protection available - approximately 21 percent of the island is designated a UNESCO World Heritage site. This covers the central mountainous area around Miyanoura-dake (1935m) and the other 45 lesser peaks clustered around. From these peaks, fast-flowing rivers run to the sea, carving out deep valleys lined with rhododendrons and firs. Towards the coast, evergreen oaks give way to subtropical banyan trees and chinquapins (a type of chestnut).
But, undoubtedly, the jewel in the crown of Yakushima is its ancient forests of Japanese cedars, known as
Yaku-sugi
. These giants, whose trunks reach several metres in diameter, have been standing for at least one thousand years, and the oldest for an incredible three thousand. Indeed, locals refer to any that are under one thousand years as
ko
- or baby sugi.
Conservation efforts
Endangered species , of which there are 206, are listed in the Red Data Book of Japan , which was compiled in 1991 due to direct threats to population numbers from hunting, habitat degradation and environmental pollution. The list includes the Iriomote wild cat ( Felis iriomotensis ), endemic to Okinawa's Iriomote-jima , of which only an estimated one hundred remain, the short-tailed albatross ( Diomedea albatrus ) and the Japanese otter ( Lupus lupus ) of Shikoku, both of which were once thought to be extinct. Recently, an animal very similar to a Japanese wolf, thought to have been extinct in 1905, was photographed in central Kyushu.
Conservation efforts come in the form of breeding and feeding programmes, habitat improvement and research projects. In an example of Russo-Japanese co-operation, researchers from both countries attached transmitters to fourteen sea eagles and tracked them by satellite to discover their migratory routes and feeding grounds. Unfortunately, however, many such conservation programmes fall far short of their goals largely due to an ineffective government system. According to the Mammalogical Society of Japan, over half of the endangered mammals on the list are close to extinction.
At a grass roots level, volunteer groups and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) play a key role both in campaigning and in carrying out government projects, one arena in Japan where women are extremely active. These programmes have brought some success. The
Japanese crane
(
Grus japonensis
), a magnificent tall-standing bird highly celebrated in Japan for its grace and beauty and as a symbol of longevity, has benefited from volunteer-based feeding programmes in the Shiretoko region of Hokkaido. As a result, the numbers have increased from a mere 33 birds in the 1950s to a stable population of around six hundred today. Ironically, the Japanese crane is one of the birds most commonly seen in Japan - on the back of the thousand yen note.
Environmental concerns
One major by-product of any such heavily industrialized consumer society is waste , of which the country produces a staggering 440 million tons a year. Waste disposal costs the tax-payer a small fortune. Burning it releases poisonous dioxins and working out where to dump it is a logistical nightmare in such a densely populated country.
A common "solution" is to use garbage for land reclamation and landfill, often with disastrous results. One such project, completed in 1997, destroyed part of Japan's largest wetland area in Isahaya, Nagasaki Prefecture. Fortunately, the protests surrounding Isahaya saved Japan's second-largest and most important wetland area at Fujimae near Nagoya. Despite the city authorities stating that there would be "no impact" should the area be used for garbage disposal, this time the Environment Agency stepped in with a landmark move to disapprove of the plan, which was promptly cancelled.
Japan is a technologically advanced and therefore energy-efficient country. Take, for example, production by Toyota and Honda of the "hybrid" cars which run off a more efficient, less polluting combination of electric and internal combustion motors. Furthermore, government tax incentives and subsidies supporting the use of solar power have led directly to a forty-percent growth within the industry. Nevertheless, Japan consumes an estimated 5.6 percent of the world's total
energy
, of which over half comes from coal, a by-product of which is carbon dioxide. Under the Kyoto protocol agreed at the 1997 meeting on climate change (COP3), Japan is required to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by six percent by the year 2010.
Shoes and slippers
Once inside, remove your slippers before stepping onto
tatami
, the rice-straw flooring, and remember to change into the special
toilet slippers
lurking inside the bathroom door when you go to the toilet.
Bathing
Key points to remember are that everyone uses the same water and the bathtub is only for soaking. It's therefore essential to wash and rinse the soap off thoroughly - showers and bowls are provided, as well as soap and shampoo in many cases -
before
stepping into the bath. Ryokan and the more upmarket public bathhouses provide small towels, though noone minds full nudity. Lastly, the bath in a ryokan and family home is filled once each evening, so never pull the plug out.
Some general pointers
The meaning of "yes" and "no" can in themselves be a problem, particularly when asking questions . For example, if you say "Don't you like it?", a positive answer means "Yes, I agree with you, I don't like it", and "No" means "No, I don't agree with you, I do like it". To avoid confusion, try not to ask negative questions - stick to "Do you like it?". And if someone seems to be giving vague answers, don't push too hard unless it's important. There's a good chance they don't want to offend you by disagreeing or revealing a problem.
Finally, you'll be excused for not
sitting
on your knees, Japan-style, on the
tatami
mats. It's agony for people who aren't used to it, and many young Japanese now find it uncomfortable. If you're wearing trousers, sitting cross-legged is fine; otherwise, tuck your legs to one side.
Taxes, duty-free and discount stores
Foreigners can buy duty-free items (that is, without consumption tax), but only in certain tourist shops and the larger department stores. Perishable goods, such as food, drinks, tobacco, cosmetics and film, are exempt from the scheme, and most stores only offer duty-free if the total bill exceeds A?10,000. The shop will either give you a duty-free price immediately or, in department stores especially, you pay the full price first and then apply for a refund at their "tax-exemption" counter. The shop will attach a copy of the customs document ( warriin ) to your passport, to be removed by customs officers when you leave Japan. Note that regulations vary for foreign residents, and also that you can often find the same goods elsewhere at a better price, including tax, so shop around first.
Some of the best places to look for cut-price goods are the
discount stores
, which have mushroomed since the Japanese economy began to falter. You'll find them mainly around train stations (the "A?100" shops, where everything costs just that, are easy to spot), selling mostly household items and unusual souvenirs. But perhaps the most interesting discount stores are those offering electrical goods and cameras
, which you'll find in nearly all major cities.
Books and music
Foreign-label
records, cassettes
and
CDs
are generally slightly cheaper than their local counterparts, and may well cost less than you would pay at home. Furthermore, major record stores such as Tower Records, HMV and Virgin Megastore have a tremendous selection - everything from Japanese classical and folk music to world music, rock, dance and garage.
Baseball
In addition to the two professional leagues, Central and Pacific, each with six teams, there's the equally (if not more) popular All-Japan High School Baseball Championship. You might be able to catch one of the local play-offs before the main tournament, which is held each summer at Koushien Stadium near Osaka; check with the tourist office for details.
In the professional leagues, the teams are sponsored by big businesses, immediately apparent from their names, such as the Yakult (a food company) Swallows and Yomiuri (a newspaper conglomerate) Giants. The victors from the Central and Pacific leagues go on to battle it out for the supreme title in the seven-match Japan Series every autumn.
Tickets
for all games are available from the stadia or at advance ticket booths. They start at ?1000 and go on sale on the Friday two weeks prior to a game. For more information on Japan's pro-baseball leagues, check out the Web site on
www.inter.co.jp/Baseball/
Soccer
Top footballers have been bought in from around the world (Gary Lineker was the star draw of the initial season) and with the World Cup scheduled to be held in Japan and Korea in 2002
, the game's continued popularity is assured. For full details of the J-League in English, including match reports, check out the Web site at
www.j-league.or.jp
Judo
The umbrella organization,
Japan Karatedo Federation
, 6F, 2 Nippon Zaidan Building, 1-11-2 Toranomon, Minato-ku, Tokyo (Mon-Fri 9am-5pm; tel 03/3503-6640), can advise on the main styles of karate and where you can best see practice sessions or take lessons. The closest subway station is Toranomon.
Kendo
The cost of a ski trip need not be too expensive. Lift passes are typically ?4000 per day, or less if you ski for several days in a row; equipment rental averages around ?4000 for the skis, boots and poles; whilst accommodation at a family-run minshuku compares favourably to that of many European and American resorts.
Transport to the slopes is fast and efficient; at one resort (Gala Yuzawa in Niigata) you can step straight off the Shinkansen onto the ski lifts. Ski maps and signs are often in English, and you're sure to find some English speakers and, at the major resorts, gaijin staff, if you run into difficulties.
The main drawback of skiing in Japan is that top resorts can get very crowded, especially at weekends and holidays; if you don't want to ski in rush-hour conditions, plan your trip for midweek. In addition, the runs are, on the whole, much shorter than in Europe and US. Compensating factors, however, are fast ski lifts, beautiful scenery - especially in the Japan Alps area of Nagano - and the opportunity to soak in onsen hot springs at night. Snowboarding is currently very fashionable, especially among younger skiers, and is now allowed at most major resorts, although it's best to check with local tourist offices first.
Recommended resorts for beginners include Gala Yuzawa and trendy Naeba , both reached in under two hours from Tokyo by Shinkansen. Nozawa Onsen also has good beginners' runs, but its off-the-beaten-track location makes it a better bet for more experienced skiers. Appi Kogen and Zao in northern Honshu and Hakuba in Nagano are considered the Holy Trinity of Japanese ski resorts. Shiga Kogen is another mammoth resort in Nagano, parts of which were used for competitions during the 1998 Winter Olympics. If you're after the best powder-snow skiing without the crowds, head north to Hokkaido, to the world-class resorts of Furano and Niseko . There are also many slopes easily accessible on a day-trip from Sapporo.
All the major travel agents offer ski packages , which are worth looking into, with Tokyo's Beltop Travel (tel 03/3211-6555, www.beltop.com ) having plenty of experience setting up deals for the expat community. Youth hostels near to ski areas often have excellent-value packages, too, including accommodation, meals and lift passes, and can arrange competitive equipment rental; see Furano and Niseko in Hokkaido and Togakushi , and Norikura Kogen Onsen in Nagano-ken.
There are several comprehensive annual
guides
in Japanese listing all resorts, providing detailed maps of the runs and lists of all the facilities; one of the best is Ski Mapple, published by Shobunsha. For English-language information, invest in the spot-on
Ski Japan!
by TR Reid (?2300; Kodansha). On the Web, check out
www.skijapanguide.com
Mountaineering and hiking
Hiking trails , especially in the national parks, are well marked. Campsites and mountain huts open during the climbing season, which runs from June to the end of August. The efficient train network means that even from sprawling conurbations like Tokyo you can be in beautiful countryside in just over an hour. Top hiking destinations from the capital include the lakes, mountains and rugged coastline of the Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park to the southwest and Nikko to the north. Also west of the capital is the Chichibu-Tama National Park and the sacred mountain Takao-san, particularly lovely when the leaves change colour each autumn; for details of hiking in these areas and 31 others across Japan, pick up a copy of the excellent Hiking in Japan by Paul Hunt (?2000; Kodansha).
The Web site
www.outdoorjapan.com
also has useful ideas and information if you plan to go hiking or camping in Japan.
The birth of Japan
The other gods banished Susanoo to the underworld. Then, in an effort to coax Amaterasu out of the cave, they performed a comical dance involving a spear. Upon hearing the somewhat ribald laughter, Amaterasu's curiosity got the better of her and she poked her head out to see the fun. Enticed out a little further by a beautiful jewel, Amaterasu was then captivated by a bronze mirror. While she was preoccupied, the gods quickly sealed the cave entrance and sunlight returned to the world.
In time, Amaterasu's grandson,
Ninigi
, was sent down to rule Japan. She gave him three gifts which were to be his
imperial regalia
: a bronze mirror, a sword and a curved jewel. Here myth finally merges into proto-history, when
Jimmu
, said to be Ninigi's great grandson, became the
first emperor
of Japan on the first day of spring 660 BC.
Shinto
Throughout most of Japanese history, Shinto did not play a particularly important role in state politics. This all changed, however, after the Meiji Restoration of 1868 when Shinto was revived as the dominant religion, largely to re-establish the cult of the emperor, while Buddhism was suppressed. Thus started the most sinister episode of Japan's religious and political life: State Shinto .
State Shinto ushered in a period of
extreme nationalism
which lasted from around 1890 to 1945. During this period, Japan's mythological origins
were taught as historical fact and people were encouraged to believe that all Japanese were descended from the imperial line. At the same time, the traditional values of loyalty, inner strength and self-denial expressed in
bushido
(the way of the warrior) were promoted as desirable personal qualities. Such sentiments were milked by the 1930s military regime to foster a national sense of superiority. Ultimately, this potent cocktail created a highly dedicated nation on the eve of World War II. After the war, Emperor Hirohito was forced to renounce his divinity, to become a merely titular head of state, and the State branch of Shinto was abolished.
Shinto shrines
Perhaps the most distinctive feature of a shrine is the torii which marks the gateway between the secular and the spiritual world. Traditionally, these were plain and simple wooden constructions consisting of two upright pillars and two crossbeams. Gradually various styles, such as the distinctive red paint, evolved on the same basic design until there were over twenty different types of torii . Nowadays, they are also made of stone, metal and concrete, in which case they tend to remain unpainted. Though the origins are obscure, torii means "bird perch" and they were a common form of secular gateway before 1884, after which their use was restricted to shrines.
Inside the compound, you often find pairs of human or animal statues on the approach to the shrine building: austere dignitaries in ancient court costume laden with weapons are the traditional Japanese guardians, though you'll also find lion-dogs ( koma-inu ), or large, ferocious-looking Nio borrowed from Buddhist temples. Others may be animal-messengers of the kami , such as the fox-messenger of Inari, the deity of good harvests.
Somewhere in the compound you'll often see a sacred tree , denoted by a twisted straw rope, shimenawa , sporting zigzags of white paper, tied around it. In the past these trees were believed to be the special abode of some kami . Now they're just an expression of divine consciousness which, like other aspects of the surrounding nature, help to bring people's minds out of the mundane world and enter into that of the kami .
Finally, you come to the shrine building itself. At the entrance there's a slotted box for donations and a rope with a bell or gong at the top. Some say the bell is rung as a purification rite to ward off evil spirits, others that it's to attract the kami 's attention. You'll also notice another shimenawa delineating the kami 's sacred dwelling place. Inside each shrine there's an inner chamber containing the shintai (divine body). This is a sacred object which symbolizes the presence of the kami and is kept under lock and key - if ever seen, it loses its religious power. The sacred objects of some shrines are known to be mirrors . In front of the chamber an offering table holds the gohei , a symbolic offering consisting of a stick with more white-paper zigzags attached, and the purification wand ( haraigushi ). This is either a wand of thin paper strips and flax, or a sprig of the sacred sakaki , an evergreen tree. Sometimes there's also a mirror between the table and the inner chamber. The mirror is of great mythological and religious importance since it symbolizes not only the stainless mind of the kami , but also the fidelity of the worshipper since it reflects everything truthfully. In some cases the mirror itself can be the sacred object; for example, the mirror that Amaterasu gave Ninigi is supposedly held in the inner chamber of Ise-jingp - Japan's most sacred shrine.
A large shrine may also comprise many other buildings, such as subordinate shrines, an oratory, ablution pavilion, offering hall, shrine office and shop, priests' living quarters, treasure house and sometimes even a platform for sacred dances, a
No
drama stage or a sumo arena. It's worth noting that in some cases there will be no shrine building as such, but simply a
torii
and a straw rope around a tree or rock to indicate a
kami
's dwelling place. At its most extreme, whole mountains are considered to be sacred. This meant that, until the last century, women were not allowed on certain mountains. Now only two are out of bounds to women throughout the year: Ushiro-yama in Okayama-ken and the summit of Sanjo-ga-Take, near Nara, both under the preserve of the Shugendo sect
.
Shinto rites and festivals
When visiting a shrine you should try to fulfil at least three of the four elements of worship. Of these, purification is perhaps the most important as it indicates respect for the kami . Traditionally, anyone suffering from an illness or open wound, menstruating women or those in mourning are considered impure and are not supposed to enter the shrine. At the ablution pavilion (a water trough near the entrance), ladle some water over your finger tips and then pour a little into your cupped hand and rinse your mouth with it; afterwards, spit the water out into the gutter below. Now purified, you can proceed to the shrine itself and the offering . This normally consists of throwing a coin in the box - a five yen coin is considered luckiest - though a special service warrants a larger sum wrapped in formal paper. Depending on the occasion, food, drink, material goods or even sacred dances ( kagura , performed by female shrine attendants) or sumo contests are offered to the kami .
The third element is prayer . Pull the rope to ring the bell, bow slightly once, then deeply twice, pray, bow deeply two more times, clap your hands twice at chest level and end with two last bows, deep and then slight. The final element of worship is the sacred feast , which usually only follows a special service or a festival. It sometimes takes the form of consuming the food or drink offered to the kami - once the kami's had its symbolic share. The feast starts with a formal toast of sake and often ends up in great merriment and karaoke.
At the shrine shop you can buy charms ( omamori ) against all manner of ills, fortune papers ( omikuji ), which people then twist round tree branches to make them come true, and wooden votive tablets ( ema ) - write your wishes on the tablet and tie it up alongside the others.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Shinto for the visitor is its lively and colourful
festivals
. All shrines have at least one annual festival which is well worth hunting out. During the festival, the
kami
is symbolically transferred from the inner chamber to an ornate palanquin. This is its temporary home while young men hurtle around the local area with it so that the
kami
can bless the homes of the faithful. The passion with which they run, turning it this way and that, jostling it up and down shouting "
wasshoi, wasshoi
" has to be seen to be believed, especially in rural towns where festivals are usually conducted with more gusto. All this frantic action is said to make the
kami
happy, and it is highly contagious: long after the palanquin has returned to the shrine the merriment continues with the help of copious amounts of alcohol and the odd karaoke machine or two.
Buddhist temples and worship
Some temples also have a pagoda in their compound. Pagodas are usually either three or five stories high with a roof dividing each storey and a metal spire on top. They are Chinese versions of stupas, the Indian structures built to enshrine a relic of the Buddha, and historically used to be the main focus of Buddhist worship. Depending on the temple's size, you might also see other buildings such as a study hall ( ko-do ), scripture or treasure houses, living quarters and a temple shop. Zen temples, especially the colourful temples of Kyoto, are also famous for their stunningly beautiful rock and landscape gardens which are designed to aid meditation .
Buddhism has no festivals or rites to match Shinto, preferring instead simple prayer and chants, the unforgettable smell of smouldering incense, and offerings of food, flowers or money. Its mystic forte are the Zen monks meditating in a lotus position, breathing slowly, emptying their minds and being periodically hit with bamboo sticks to stop them from falling asleep - for which they thank their aggressors.
The most important occasion in Japan's Buddhist calendar is
Obon
(late July to mid-August) when spirits return to earth and families traditionally gather to welcome them back to the ancestral home.
O-higan
, which falls on the spring and autumn equinox (usually March 21 and Sept 23), is again a time to visit ancestors' graves. But probably the biggest celebration is
Shogatsu
(New Year), though it's as much a Shinto event as a Buddhist one. A long public holiday enables plenty of time for merriment and sake drinking, though remember to remain sober enough to visit the local temple or shrine to pray for good fortune in the coming year.
Shugendo
Following Shinto practice, Shugendo's mountain priests, yamabushi , believe that the mountains are centres of sacred power. They go through elaborate initiation rites, austerities and self-denial to acquire this sacred power which they can then use to heal and bless common people. Their practices include meditation, mountain hiking, sitting in smoke-filled rooms, sumo wrestling, and partial denial of food, sleep and daily ablutions. These are designed to train both body and spirit, and are a metaphor for the soul's uncomfortable journey from death to rebirth.
Shugendo was quite popular until the 1868 Meiji Restoration when it, along with other forms of Buddhism, was suppressed. Nevertheless, pockets of this mysterious faith can still be found, notably on
Dewa-sanzan
in north Honshu
where some of the ancient practices survive. One of the most lively events is the
Shoreisai
(Pine Festival), held on the night of New Year's Eve. Two groups of priests hurl abuse at each other (made all the more colourful by large quantities of sake) and engage in various contests to divine whether the coming year will bring good harvests.
Folk religion
One manifestation of such beliefs is the six-day calendar (sometimes incorporated into normal calendars) in which one day is considered good for all endeavours, another day is considered bad, and the other days are either good or bad at certain times for certain things. Similar notions govern the naming of children . Not only the time and place of birth affects the character and destiny of a person, but also their name. Before deciding on a given name, therefore, parents may consult a hiriji (holy man, or priest) about the number of pen strokes required to write the chosen characters. A bad combination of name, time and place of birth may result in a life of persistent misfortune.
There is also a more mythological side to Japanese folk religion involving a whole host of gods , guardians and demons . The ones to have on your side are the Seven Lucky Gods , Shichi Fuku-jin , often seen sailing in a boat on New Year greetings cards to wish good fortune for the coming year. Of these, the best-loved are Ebisu , the god of prosperity, identified by his fishing rod and sea-bream; Daikoku , the god of wealth, carries a treasure-sack over one shoulder and a lucky hammer; the squat Fukurokuju , god of longevity, is marked by a bald, egg-shaped head; while the jovial god of happiness, Hotei , sports a generous belly and a beaming smile.
Characters to avoid, on the other hand, are the
oni
, a general term for demons and ogres, though
oni
aren't always bad. At
Setsubun
(Feb 3 or 4) children can be seen running round throwing soya beans all over the place, shouting "
oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi
", meaning "out with the demons, in with good luck".
Tengu
are mischievous mountain goblins with red faces and very long noses, while
kappa
are a bit like a small troll and live under bridges. If anything goes missing while you're hiking, you can probably blame one of these as they both like to steal things, including animals and children. If it's your liver that's missing, however, it will definitely be a
kappa
; he likes to extract them from people's bodies through the anus, so watch out.
Sumo
Sumo's connections to its religious past are easy to see. For example, the referee's elaborate
costume
is strikingly similar to that worn by Shinto priests, while the wrestlers'
mawashi
belt, with its tassels reminiscent of Shinto's purification wand, developed from the loincloth,
fundoshi
, worn at Shinto festivals.
The bout
itself is almost all ritual ceremony, with the actual wrestling often lasting only a matter of seconds. As soon as they enter the ring, the wrestlers (
dohyo
) purify themselves by rinsing their mouths with water, in the Shinto manner, and throwing salt into the ring to ward off evil. They usually do the latter three or four times, stamping their feet on the floor and psyching each other out in-between. Sumo wrestlers are highly respected in Japan and are expected to behave with the decorum befitting a religious event. So, despite the evil looks they exchange before lunging at each other, it's very bad form for a wrestler to display emotions of anger or frustration at losing - the gods may still be watching.
Ikebana
Originally, the emphasis was on presenting materials and forms in ways which imitated their natural state. While the materials remained natural, the
ideology
evolved to employ three leading sprays which signify the sky, earth and humankind; the sprays are arranged to express the harmonic balance of these elements in nature. The four main
styles
of ikebana are the self-explanatory
shokai
(living flowers), the formal
rikka
(standing flowers),
noribana
(heaped flowers), and the more naturalistic
nage-ire
(thrown in). Within each of these there are many
schools
, such as Ikenobo in Kyoto and Tokyo's Sogetsu, as well as avant-garde groups which use non-natural materials (iron, glass and so on) to the same harmonious effect.
The Heian era 794-1185
Court life in Heian Japan revolved around worldly pleasures and aesthetic pastimes, and the period is renowned for its artistic and cultural innovation. Kana , or the phonetic syllabary, was developed during this time and was employed in the composition of one of Japan's greatest literary masterpieces, The Tale of Genji , or Genji Monogatari . Lady Murasaki's portrayal of the effeteness and insularity of the Heian-court nobility eloquently described the artistic pursuits which dominated their daily life. The poetry and incense competitions, the arts of painting, calligraphy and gardening, and the elaborate rituals of court dress were all aspects of Heian aesthetic refinement.
A new painting format, the emaki or picture scroll , also evolved during the Heian era. The narrative hand-scroll allowed for the picture and story to unfold as the viewer unrolled and observed its contents. Emaki depicted romances, legends and historical tales, of which the most famous is an illustrated edition of The Tale of Genji , published around 1130. The painting technique used, known as Yamato-e , employs flat blocks of colour with a strong linear focus and boldness of style which was uniquely Japanese. At the same time, the decorative arts reached a similarly high level of sophistication. Inlaid lacquerware, using the maki-e technique (sprinkling the surface with gold or silver powder) and finely crafted bronze mirrors employed surface designs to equally dramatic effect.
The lavishness of Heian taste is reflected in
Buddhist painting
and
sculpture
of this period. New sects of Buddhism gave rise to the diagrammatic
mandala
, schematic depictions of the Buddhist universe, while religious sculpture became more graceful and sensual, with gilded, delicately featured deities marking the transition to an aristocratic form of Buddhist art. The large, gilded wooden image of Amida in Uji's
Byodo-in
(near Kyoto) is a representative example. Here the serene, seated Buddha is set against a backdrop of elaborate openwork carving with gilded angels and swirling cloud patterns animating the scene. The overall effect is one of splendid sumptuousness.
Samurai culture
This new realism made itself felt in the portrait painting and picture scrolls of the Kamakura era (1185-1333), most graphically in the Handbook on Hungry Ghosts , now held in Tokyo's National Museum. Highly individualized portraits of military figures and Zen masters also became popular, as did lively narrative tales focusing on the cult of war and Buddhist legends. Kamakura sculpture similarly combined a high degree of realism with a dynamic energy, reflecting the emergence of popular Buddhist sects which appealed more directly to the common people. The two giant guardian figures at Nara's Todai-ji, fashioned by the sculptors Unkei and Kaikei in 1203, are outstanding examples of this vigorous new style.
However,
samurai
culture had a more direct impact on the development of the decorative arts. Military armour was made in quantity during the Kamakura era and the
art of the sword
became an important area of artistic production for centuries to follow. The long and short sword of the
samurai
, the sword guard (
tsuba
), scabbard and elaborate fittings and ornaments are all considered achievements of Japanese metalwork design. While sword production in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was concentrated in the provinces of Bizen and Mino (today's Okayama and Gifu), by the Edo era (1600-1868), Edo and Osaka had become leading centres of sword-making. Sword smiths were noted for their skill in forging and for the meticulousness of finish which they applied to the blades. Through the peaceful years of the Edo era, however, swordfittings came to be associated with the decorative rather than the practical. Sword furniture from this time might be either simple and abstract, or draw on representational themes from nature, religion and everyday life.
Feudal arts and architecture
Some of the most notable emblems of the power and wealth of the feudal lords ( daimyo ) were their castles . These reached their apogee in the sixteenth century as the warlords jockeyed for power. The castles were large in scale, surrounded by moats and elaborate defence works, and were constructed of wood on top of monumental stone foundations. Though obviously built for defence, their uncompromising solidity is offset by multistorey watchtowers looking like so many layers of an elaborate wedding cake with their fanciful, multiple roofs. Himeji-jo (White Egret Castle), west of Osaka, is an outstanding example of Japan's unique style of castle architecture.
Under the patronage of the feudal hierarchy, Japanese art reached its most opulent during the
Momoyama era
(1573-1600). The scale of feudal architecture created a new demand for decorative
screen paintings
, which were used to adorn every storey and were either fixed on walls,
fusuma
or folding screens (
byobu
). From the late sixteenth century, the Kyoto-based
Kano School
of artists came to dominate official taste. Their screens combined the bright colours and decorative boldness of
Yamato-e
with the more subtle compositional features of
suiboku-ga
. Subjects were mainly drawn from nature and from Japanese history and legend, while the extensive use of gold leaf added a shimmering brightness to the dark interior spaces of the great Momoyama castles, palaces and temples.
Kano Eitoku
and his grandson,
Kano Tan'yu
, were the school's most famous exponents and their works can still be seen in Kyoto's Daitoku-ji and
Nijo-jo
. This latter is the only surviving palace from the Momoyama era. Originally part of a castle complex, its sweeping roof lines and intricately carved and ornamented gables show a lavishness and boldness of style appropriate to its subsequent use as the Tokugawa shoguns' Kyoto base.
The Edo era 1600-1868
Edo-era arts flourished under these new patrons. In painting , while the Kano school continued to receive official support from the shoguns, other schools explored different styles and found different masters. Artists such as Tawaraya Sotatsu (died around 1643) and Ogata Korin (1658-1716) stand out for reviving aspects of the Yamato-e tradition and injecting new decorative life into Japanese painting. Sotatsu's famous golden screen paintings based on The Tale of Genji dramatically adapt the subject matter and style of Heian-era emaki to this larger format. Korin's most noted works include the "Irises" screens, now held in Tokyo's Nezu Museum, which take an episode from a Heian-era novel, The Tale of Ise , and reduce its content to the striking patterns of flatly conceived blue irises and green leaves against a shimmering gold background.
In patronizing the arts, merchants sought not only reflections of their own affluence but also of their lifestyle. Paintings which depicted the often bawdy pleasures of city life came into vogue. The lively entertainment districts of Edo, Osaka and Kyoto, with their brothels, teahouses and Kabuki theatres, were depicted in painted screens and scrolls. This new genre of painting, ukiyo-e , or "pictures of the floating world", devoted itself to the hedonistic pastimes of the new rich. By the early eighteenth century, ukiyo-e were most commonly produced as hand-coloured woodblock prints which became gradually more sophisticated in their subtle use of line and colour as mass-printing techniques developed.
Catering to popular taste, late-eighteenth-century artists such as Harunobu, Utamaro and Sharaku portrayed famous beauties of the day and Kabuki actors in dramatic poses. Explicitly erotic prints known as shunga (spring pictures), were also big sellers, as were humorous scenes of daily life ( manga ), the forerunners of today's comics. Hokusai (1760-1849), perhaps the most internationally famous ukiyo-e artist, was originally known for his manga, but went on to create one of the most enduring images of Japan, The Great Wave , as part of his series the Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji . Followed by the equally popular Fifty-Three Stages of the Tokaido , by Hiroshige (1797-1858), these later landscape prints were instantly popular at a time when travel was both difficult and restricted.
The decorative arts reached new heights of elegance and craftsmanship during the Edo era. Varieties of Imari- and Kutani-ware porcelain (from Kyushu and Ishikawa-ken) were made in large quantities for domestic consumption and later for export. Inlaid lacquerware was executed in bold and simple designs. Honami Koetsu (1558-1637) and Ogata Korin (1658-1716) were leading lacquer artists of the period, as well as celebrated painters and calligraphers - their design skills translated readily across different materials and craft forms. One of Koetsu's most famous lacquer works, an inkstone box in the Tokyo National Museum, reflects these combined talents with its inlaid-lead bridge and silver calligraphy forming integral parts of the overall design. Korin carried on this tradition with his own black-lacquer, inkstone box; its jagged, lead and silver bridge across a bed of inlaid gold and shell irises translates his earlier "Irises" screens into a three-dimensional format.
Textile
production, meanwhile, was centred in the Nishijin district of Kyoto where silk cloth was made both for the Shogunate and the imperial court. Luxurious effects were achieved using elaborate embroidery and weaving techniques, which became works of art in themselves. Paste-resistant
yuzen
dyeing developed in Kyoto in the late seventeenth century. This complicated process involved multiple applications of rice-starch paste and dyes by hand to capture subtle, multicolour painted effects. The resulting patterns were often embellished with embroidery or gold and silver foil. Fine examples of kimono of the period can be seen in Japan's museums but
ukiyo-e
provide numerous illustrations of this aspect of "the floating world".
Western influences
The reopening of Japan by Commodore Perry in 1854 and the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1867 launched a period of massive social and cultural change. With the restoration of the emperor Meiji to power and a new government in place in Tokyo from 1868, a process of modernization and Westernization was embarked upon which transformed the face of Japan and of the visual arts.
The opening of the treaty ports furnished a new subject matter for woodblock print artists who produced marvellous portraits of big-nosed Westerners in Yokohama and other ports. Meiji modernization provided additional themes as the opening of the first railway, spinning factory and many other advances were recorded for posterity. Western advisers assisted in the design and construction of European-style buildings , some of which can still be found scattered around Japanese cities, while others have been relocated to the Meiji Mura Open-Air Museum near Nagoya.
In the early years of the Meiji era (1868-1912), traditional Japanese and Chinese styles of painting were rejected by many artists in favour of Western styles and techniques. Artists such as Kuroda Seiki (1866-1924) and Fujishima Takeji (1867-1943) studied in Paris and returned to become leaders of Western-style painting ( Yoga ) in Japan. Realism, Impressionism and other Western art movements were directly transplanted to the Tokyo art scene. More conservative painters, such as Yokoyama Taikan (1868-1958) worked to establish Nihon-ga , a modern style of Japanese painting, drawing on a mixture of Chinese, Japanese and Western techniques.
Western influence on the arts expanded greatly in the Taisho era (1912-1926) with
sculpture
, as well as painting, closely following current trends. In the postwar period, Japanese artists looked again to Europe and America but more selectively took their inspiration from a range of avant-garde developments in the West. Art in Japan today can be seen as a blend of Japanese and international currents. Sources of tradition can no longer be identified purely with the East or the West.
The performing arts
The 240 plays of the No repertoire are divided into five categories. Waki-no (or kami-no ) depict deities in stories of rejoicing; shura-mono portray famous warriors in tales of suffering and torment; and kazura-mono depict young and beautiful women in a gentle setting. The fourth group comprises kyojo-mono (mad-women pieces) and genzai-mono , depicting mad men or obsessed women. In the final category, kiri-no are fast-paced plays featuring supernatural beings, gods or demons. Though a traditional programme contains a selection from each group, with three or four kyogen interludes, most programmes nowadays consist of only two No plays and one kyogen .
The principal character in No plays is known as the shite , and may be either a ghost, mad person, or a superhuman or animal creature. The secondary character, the waki , on the other hand always represents people living in the present. Shite characters generally wear a mask, of male, female or demon type, which conceals the actor's presence and allows the characterization to dominate. The actor's skill lies in transcending the conventions of archaic language, mask and formalized costume to convey the dramatic tensions inherent in the play. Dance elements and musical effects aid directly in this process and draw on the folk entertainment tradition from which No is derived. Famously inaccessible to some, No is capable of achieving tremendously subtle and evocative effects.
By comparison, the kyogen interludes primarily aim at amusement and providing a counterpoint to the No drama. As with No, kyogen performers are all male and assume a variety of roles, some of which are completely independent of the No play, while others comment on the development of the main story. The language used is colloquial (though of sixteenth-century origin) and compared to the esoteric poetry of No, far more accessible to a contemporary audience. There is a greater emphasis on realistic portrayal in kogen and the actors only occasionally wear masks. Humour is achieved through exaggerated speech and formalized acting techniques and movements. Essentially a dialogue play between two characters or groups of actors, kyogen makes use of wit and satire to balance the mood of No.
While No is classical and restrained, Kabuki , Japan's popular theatre, is colourful, exuberant and full of larger-than-life characters, a highly stylized theatrical form which delights in flamboyant gestures and elaborate costumes, make-up and staging effects. While the language may still be incomprehensible, the plots themselves deal with easily understandable, often tragic themes of love and betrayal, commonly taken from famous historical episodes.
Kabuki originated in the early 1600s as rather risque dances performed by all-female troupes. The shogun eventually banned women because of Kabuki's association with prostitution, but their replacement - young men - was no more successful and in the end Kabuki actors were predominantly older men, some of whom specialize in female roles. It developed as a more serious form of theatre in the late sixteenth century when Kabuki was cultivated chiefly by the merchant class. It gave theatrical expression to the vitality of city life and to the class tensions between samurai , merchants and peasants which informed the plots of so many plays. As an indication of the popularity of Kabuki, powerful images of famous actors were a favourite theme of Edo-era ukiyo-e prints.
Bunraku , Japan's puppet theatre, was another product of Edo-era culture and exerted a strong influence on Kabuki, even providing many of its plots. Bunraku developed out of the joruri storytelling tradition, in which travelling minstrels recited popular tales of famous heroes and legends, accompanied by the biwa (Japanese lute) or shamisen (three-stringed guitar). Adapted to the stage in the early seventeenth century, Bunraku made use of stylized puppets, one-half to one-third the size of humans, to enact the various roles. The great Osaka playwright Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1724), often referred to as "the Shakespeare of Japan", is responsible for around one hundred Bunraku plays, many of which are still performed in Japan today. The most famous plays in the Bunraku repertoire include Chikamatsu's Sonezaki Shinju (The Love Suicides at Sonezaki), based on a true story, and Kokusen'ya Kassen (The Battles of Coxinga), about a legendary pirate.
Three operators take part in a
Bunraku performance
, while a chanter, using a varied vocal range, tells the story to the accompaniment of
shamisen music
. The main puppeteer is in full view of the audience and uses his left hand to manipulate the face and head, with his right controlling the puppet's right arm. One assistant operates the left arm while another moves the puppet's legs; both dressed in black, these moving shadows simply disappear into the background. The skill of the puppeteers - the result of lengthy apprenticeships - contributes to the high degree of realism in the performance, and the stylized movements can result in great drama. Indeed, Kabuki actors employed some puppet-like gestures from Bunraku to enhance and enliven their own acting techniques.
Contemporary theatre
The contemporary theatre scene also embraces the diverse spectacles of Takarazuka , a Rockettes-like all-female musical review company originating from Osaka in the early 1900s , and Buto (or Butoh), the abstract and improvisational dance form established in the 1950s; the name derives from ankoku buto , meaning "dance of utter darkness". Buto developed from the work of dancers Hijikata Tatsumi and Ono Kazuo, drawing on the traditions of Kabuki and No as well as contemporary American dancers such as Martha Graham. It jolted the establishment with the performers' stark, white make-up and the spectacle of aggressive eroticism borne of instinctive gestures and movements. Though it remains a marginal art form in Japan, Buto's haunting beauty has recently found greater appreciation in Europe and America.
Formerly known as angura (underground theatre), the experimental theatre of the 1960s has had an ongoing impact through the wide range of shogekijo-engeki (small-theatre drama) companies which cater to the interests and tastes of Japan's younger generation. Drama students from the University of Tokyo formed Yume no Yumin-sha in 1976, while their counterparts at Waseda University established Daisan Butai in 1981. Both young theatre groups focus on the preoccupations and social problems of the shin-jinrui , Japan's materially privileged postwar generation. Outside of Tokyo, another more experimental group, Dumb Type , was founded in 1984 by Fine Art students from Kyoto City University of Arts. Their multi-media performances make use of installations and video and computer art to explore aspects of human behaviour.
In addition to these, there are many other theatre groups in Japan creating original works, neo-Kabuki productions and adaptations of Western musicals. At the same time, the more mainstream work of the director
Ninagawa Yukio
has won a considerable following outside Japan. Ninagawa has directed both traditional Japanese plays and Western productions at home and abroad, and in a sense bridges the theatrical conventions of East and West.
Ancient Roots
Japanese scholars tend to say all music prior to the Meiji reformation of 1868 is traditional, but within that definition there are different styles from each epoch. Early history (400-1200) produced religious and court styles. In the years to 1500, as society became more militarized, theatrical genres like No drama developed and itinerant monks chanted long historical narratives to the biwa , a Japanese lute whose origins can be traced back to the Silk Road in Central Asia.
Between 1500 and 1868, Japanese rulers imposed a period of near total isolation , and outside influences were minimized. Old instruments like the koto (a kind of zither) continued to develop repertoire, as did the shakuhachi bamboo flute. However, it was the three-stringed plucked lute, the shamisen , that came to represent new styles, reflecting the development of a sophisticated pre-modern urban culture.
The
shamisen
provided the perfect musical accompaniment for popular styles, dance and drama, as well as the narrative folk styles often called
min'yo
. The
nagauta shamisen
style for Kabuki theatre also developed at this time, as did the
sankyoku
, the typical instrumental ensemble of the time -
koto, shamisen, shakuhachi
and
kokyu
(a bowed fiddle). Very popular during the Edo period (1600-1868) were the many kinds of folk songs about work, love and so on. Singers were accompanied by
shamisen, shakuhachi
, drums and flutes.
Developing modern styles
Two short song forms - shoka and gunka - developed during the Meiji period. Shoka are songs composed to introduce Western music and singing to schools. Gunka are military songs with strong Japanese elements, acting as a prototype for later Japanese-Western syntheses like enka . Popular from the Sino-Japanese war to World War II - when Western forms like jazz were banned - you can still hear these patriotic songs blaring from the trucks of right-wing activists in Tokyo.
At the turn of the century, another immensely popular song form was ryukoka ("songs that are popular") which developed from street entertainers in the Osaka region, and was set to a shamisen backing. Japan's first recording stars, Kumoemon Tochuken and Naramuru Yoshida, were ryukoka performers and their throbbing vocal styles prefigured important popular forms to come.
With Western culture - movies and music - now flooding Japan, local musicians started to catch on. The Hatano Jazz Band were the first Japanese to play jazz , following a trip to the USA in 1912. Tango, foxtrot, rumba, Tin Pan Alley, blues and Hawaiian all followed. The potential for a fusion between Japanese and Western music was most fully realized by two composers, Nakayama Shimpei and Koga Masao , both of whom were major figures in the development of Japanese popular songs. Sometimes using the Japanese yonanuki pentatonic scale with Western arrangements, Shimpei hit the bigtime with Kachusha no uta (Katherine's Song), while Koga pioneered the use of single-line guitar accompaniment (standard for many enka songs ) in the 1931 hit Sake wa Namida ka Tameiki ka (Sake is a tear or a sigh). Koga also used the yuri ornamentation from traditional music in this song.
The resultant style became known as
kayokyoku
, a catch-all term for Japanese popular songs that originated in the 1930s but only came into use after World War II. Roots bands like Shang Shang Typhoon that emerged in the late 1980s use a similar approach to create songs from a mixture of Japanese pop and traditional, Latin, reggae and Asian styles.
Japanese rock
Rock blossomed as the Seventies advanced, forcing styles like enka to move to a more middle-aged audience. A new generation was about to be turned upside down by Kina Shoukichi , a little-known Okinawan rocker, with his band Champluse (the name comes from the name of a traditional Okinawan stir-fry). Kina , the son of legendary min'yo singer and sanshin player Shouhei, combined Okinawan min'yo and rock on his song Hai Sai Oji-san (Hello Uncle), which became so famous that it is used today as a drill song for high-school baseball games.
The Asian rock sound, as defined by Champluse, was further developed by bands like Carol, Harada Shinji and RC Succession. The Southern All Stars , whose way of singing Japanese as if it were English helped them to become Japan's biggest-selling band in the late 1980s, were another influential group. This period also produced a wave of "alternative" rock acts like Tama and Little Creatures, as well as Shonen Knife and the Boredoms.
But the most successful international and domestic band of the 1980s has to be Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO), formed by Haruomi Hosono, Sakamoto Ryuchi and Takahashi Yukihiro. Heavily influenced by German band Kraftwerk and computer game ditties, YMO's brand of technopop inspired many followers, notably The Plastics and Melon. Sakamoto went on to a highly visible and successful international career, both as a soloist and as an Oscar-winning film-score composer. Haruomi, certainly regarded in Japan as a pioneer in searching for exotic sounds to incorporate into his music, has been working in diverse fields - soundtracks, songwriting for idol singers, music documentaries for TV and work with artists from James Brown and Ry Cooder to Tunisian singer Amina Annabi. His massive influence on the new roots generation in Japan cannot be underestimated.
What informs Haruomi's work - the search for an identity - is a major preoccupation of roots bands like Shang Shang Typhoon and The Boom. Haruomi became one of the first Japanese musicians to look south to the islands of Okinawa for inspiration: in 1980 both Haruomi and Ry Cooder performed on Kina Shoukichi's second, Okinawan-influenced album, Bloodline . Recently he has been working with Bill Laswell, as well as on albums with singers like Koshi Miharu and Moritaka Chisato.
Sandii and the Sunsetz
were another band that savoured international success in the 1980s. Led by powerful singer Sandii and composer/producer Kubota Makoto, the band blended reggae and Okinawan music into its mix. But shortly after the band split up, Kubota turned his attention to producing Asian popular music, working with Indonesians like Queen Elvy Sukaesih and Detty Kurnia, as well as Singaporean comedian/singer Dick Lee. Kubota's most recent work has been with dance star Monday Michiru, The Boom and, on his own label, Sushi, with the Madagascan band Njava.Since her debut in 1980 (
Eating Pleasure
, with Hosono Haruomi), Sandii has moved easily across a broad range of styles. Kubota's interest in creating "an Asian pop style for the 1990s" is in strong evidence in Sandii's recent albums which feature the
champur
-style
dangdut
dance form (with house and dance beats in the mix), lots of Asia-Pacific and Brazilian songs and a voice that can carry anything from torch songs to reggae and Japanese pop. Sandii has also returned to her roots with three superb Hawaiian albums, the last of which features American guitarist Bob Brozman. Wildly successful, the albums have fuelled another boom in Hawaiian music.
The Roots Boom
But the most significant development has been the rise of local roots bands since the late 1980s, when bands like Shang Shang Typhoon (SST), The Boom, and Okinawan artists and bands such as Rinkenband, Nenes, Kina, Daiko Tetsuhiro and Amuro Namie broke onto the scene. Inspiration came from both within Japan (Okinawa and local popular culture) and outside (World Music).
The second coming of the Okinawans was heralded by frenetic sell-out gigs of the Rinkenband in 1990, and a short time later by the ecstatic comeback of Kina and Champluse (sometimes spelt Champloose). Okinawan traditional music blended with bright pop caught everyone's attention. Okinawans' relationship to mainstream Japanese culture could be compared to the "Celtic" movement in Europe: they have a keen sense of their own identity and, in an increasingly homogenized Japan, a lively folk culture.
The Okinawan's method of taking their local traditions and updating them with other forms of music has been reflected in a wave of new bands. Soul Flower Union , led by Nakagawa Takahashi, blend acoustic guitars, Okinawan and chindon (street) music, which advertises products or shops with drums and saxophones. Nakagawa wrote the hit Mangetsu no Yube (A Full Moon Evening) with Yamaguchi Hiroshi of The Heat for the victims of the Kobe earthquake. Unfortunately, SFU's music was considered too strange by its record company so the band released its own debut, Asyl Ching-Dong , on its own label. It features prewar tunes, and is strongly influenced by Okinawan master Daiku Tetsuhiro. SFU has several satellite units that play in acoustic or more rock-influenced styles, and are starting to get noticed overseas. Recent work has included gigs with Irish musicians like Donal Lunny and Dolores Keane.
Another updated local form is kawachi ondo , an old narrative folk style from the central Kansai region. Its rapid-fire, rap-like vocal delivery is somewhat similar to Thailand and Laos' mor lam . Traditionally, kawachi ono's wild men, dressed in colourful kimono, perform at local bon odori (summer festivals) around the country. The leading modern exponent, Kawachiya Kikusuimaru , burst onto the scene with a hit single for a TV commercial about part-time workers (known as "freeters"). He released several classy albums that included Indonesian, reggae and rock elements. He has been quiet of late, releasing only a wonderful (but long-deleted) collection of reggae covers - a tribute to Bob Marley called Bob Marley Ondo 97 - that included a cover of I Shot The Sheriff .
None of these bands, however, has had the pop chart success of The Boom , one of the earliest roots bands, who have been on the go since the mid-1980s. Led by Miyazawa Kazufumi , or Miya, the Boom started off as a ska/two-tone band, but quickly moved onto other styles and incorporated them into a heady brew. In 1993, they had the biggest-selling single in the country (1.5 million copies) with Shima Uta (Island Songs). It used an Okinawan melody and sanshin riffs, set to hard drums and rock guitar. Considered a modern classic, the song garnered the Japanese equivalent of the Grammy for Best Song.
Subsequently, the Boom moved into Indonesian music, giving it a similar treatment. Brazilian and Latin featured on the albums Far East Samba and Tropicalism . The latter disc saw the various elements from previous albums blending and maturing, and the band is certain to progress and achieve international prominence. Miya also has a blossoming solo career. He writes for Sakamoto, Kina, Dick Lee and even reggae singer Yami Bolo. In 1998 he released two albums, one in London, Sixteenth Moon , and the other, Afrosick (as in "homesick"), in Brazil, alongside such luminaries as Carlinos Brown.
If you want to hear some of these artists
The Rough Guide to Japanese Music
CD (World Music Network, UK) is a fine introduction to the Japanese music scene. It includes Soul Flower Mononoke Summit's Kobe earthquake song and Kubota Makoto and his band playing Kina's classic
Hai Sai Oji-San
, plus a strong Okinawan presence and classical and traditional artists.
The sound of the deep, deep south
Music has been integral to the island's culture and social life for centuries; it's said that peasants carried their musical instruments into the rice fields, ready for a jam session after work. The folk tradition is very much alive, and in some villages umui (religious songs) are still sung at festivals to honour ancestors. Work songs that reflect communal agriculture techniques can still be heard, and various kinds of group and circle dances, some performed exclusively by women, can be found in the smaller islands.
Popular entertainment is known by the general term zatsu odori (common dance), though everyone calls these songs shima uta (island songs). The best-known style, one no wedding would be complete without, is called katcharsee . Set to lively rhythms laid down by the sanshin , which plays both melody and rhythm, and various drums, the dance is performed with the upper body motionless and the lower body swaying sensuously, accompanied by graceful hand movements that echo similar dances in Thailand and Indonesia.
The Asian connection can be clearly seen in the history of the sanshin . This three-stringed lute began life in China and was introduced to Okinawa around 1392. Local materials were quickly exhausted so that Thai snakeskin was used for the soundbox and Filipino hardwood for the neck. Once introduced to mainland Japan, the sanshin became bigger, produced a harder sound and was renamed the shamisen , one of the quintessential Japanese instruments.
A more recent influence on Okinawan music has come via the US military presence. Local musicians started to copy American pop styles in the 1950s, sometimes mixing in folk music. One major star whose music developed in this way was Kina Shoukichi who formed the band Champluse while still at high school, thus opening the way for a new generation of Okinawan rockers, including ex-band members Nagama Takao , famous for his fast-action sanshin playing, and Hirayasu Takashi .
Another contemporary Okinawan musician to watch out for is
China Sadao
, who records his own solo
min'yo
and brought the all-female group
Nenes
to international fame. Nenes have played with Ry Cooder, Michael Nyman, George Winston, among others, and recorded their most recent album with Talvin Singh. China has a club,
Shima Uta Live House
, in Ginowan
, which is one of the best places in the islands to see Okinawan roots music. Other hot acts include
Parsha Club
, led by Ara Yukito, who mix jazz funk, rock and dance with Okinawan
min'yo
, and the former child prodigy
Nakano Ritsuko
(aka Rikki).
Fauna and flora
The Southeast Asiatic tropical zone extends from Taiwan up into the Ryukyu island chain (Okinawa). Wildlife typically associated with this zone includes the flying fox, crested serpent eagle, variable lizard and butterflies of the Danaidae family. Animals that belong to the Korean and Chinese temperate zone inhabit the deciduous forests of Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu, the most common of which are the racoon dog, sika deer and mandarin duck. If you're lucky, you'll see the rarer yellow marten, badger and flying squirrel, while - looking out to sea in central Honshu - you may also spot sea lions and fur seals. The Siberian sub-arctic zone covers the coniferous forests of Hokkaido, inhabited by the brown bear, rabbit-like pika, hazel grouse, common lizard, arctic hare and nine-spined stickleback, amongst others.
In addition, the archipelago contains a number of endemic species such as the Japanese macaque, Japanese dormouse, copper pheasant, giant salamander, primitive dragonfly, Pryer's woodpecker and Amami spiny mouse, all of which are now relatively rare. Japan is also home to a number of "living fossils", animals whose characteristics differ from more developed species- such as the critically endangered Amami rabbit and Iriomote wild cat (both native to the Ryukyu Islands), the frilled shark and the horseshoe crab of Sagami Bay, off Kamakura. Another animal worthy of mention is the freshwater spider crab, the world's largest crustacean, with an awe-inspiring clawspan of up to 3.7m.
Unless you get off the beaten track, contact with wildlife may well be limited to a less inspiring selection of English sparrows, pigeons, cockroaches and the ubiquitous crow. Smaller urban areas (and indeed the suburbs of the larger ones) do, however, offer plenty of hidden treasures for the wildlife enthusiast. Racoon dogs , or tanuki , with their waddling gait, come out at night to forage for food. They are an integral part of Japanese folklore, in which they are believed to have supernatural powers and make all sorts of mischief; they are always depicted as big-bellied, with huge testicles and a bottle of sake. Foxes, too, are widespread and were believed to possess people - fox (or Inari) shrines are found across the country.
Monkeys
are also common in some areas, such as Wakinosawa
and Shiga Kogen
, while
wild boar
occasionally make an appearance in outer urban areas, though fortunately these forbidding-looking creatures avoid human contact and are generally heard but not seen. Kites, cranes, herons, cormorants and migratory seagulls can often be seen around lakes and rivers, while the steamy summer brings an onslaught of insects, none more so than the
semi
, or
cicada
, whose wailing provides a constant background symphony.
Pollution
More recently, victims of
air pollution
from factories, power plants and national highways have won important lawsuits or reached out-of-court settlements against local authorities and industrial corporations. In November 2000, for example, the Nagoya District Court ordered the state and ten enterprises to pay a total of nearly 300 million yen in compensation to pollution victims and ordered that emissions along a stretch of national highway should be substantially reduced.
Hope for the future
Global Village , c/o People Tree, 3-7-2 Jiyugaoka, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 152 (tel 03/3705-0233, gv@globalvillage.or.jp ).
Green Action , Suite 103, 23-75 Tanaka Sekidencho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 60 (tel 075/701-7223, amsmith@gol.com ).
Japan Eco Tourism Society , 4-6-4 Shibaura, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108 (tel 03/5439-6046, www.ecotourism.gr.jp ).
Japan Environmental Exchange 6-30-2 Higashi-machi, Jindaiji, Chofu-shi, Tokyo 182 (tel 0424/88-8943, wagtail@alles.co.jp ).
Japan Tropical Forest Action Network (JATAN), Dorumi 801, 5-29-7 Sendagaya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 151 (tel 03/5367-2865, www.jca.apc.org/jatan ).
Nature Conservation Society of Japan , 3F Yamaji-sanbancho Building, 5-24 Sanbancho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102 (tel 03/3265-0521F www.nacsj.or.jp ).
Wild Bird Society of Japan , 2-35-2, Minamidaira, Hino, Tolyo 191 (tel 042/593-6871, www.wing-wbsj.or.jp ).
WWF Japan , 6F Nihonseimei Akabanebashi Building, 3-1-14 Shiba, Minato-ku, Tokyo 105 (tel 03/3769-1711, wwfjapan.aaapc.co.jp ).
Additional Web sites : www.econippon.org/en/index.html
EcoNippon is a well-designed site sponsored by the Rainforest Action Network, with links to other NGOs, citizens' groups and government sites.
www.eic.or.jp/eanet/en/index.html
The Environment Agency 's site is predictably dry, but contains masses of detail on the legal framework, projects, reports and statistics as well as a decent range of official links.
www.jca.apc.org/janic
Japanese NGO
Center for International Cooperation
(JANIC) provides a run-down of NGOs working in Japan.
Pre-World War II
The earliest Japanese films also looked towards the traditional performing arts, such as classical dance and Kabuki, for their subject matter, although in 1905 cameras were sent to the Asian mainland to record the Russo-Japanese War. By the outbreak of World War I in Europe, there were nine film-production companies in Japan, the largest being Nikkatsu which released fourteen films a month from its two studios. Western ways of film-making were catching on and it became increasingly common for actresses to take roles previously played by oyama (female impersonators).
The contemporary landscape of Tokyo was a popular choice for films which adopted modern, realistic themes ( gendaigeki ). However, the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 shifted movie production for a time to Kyoto , which with its old architecture was the perfect backdrop for jidaigeki , or period dramas. Both forms were in turn influenced by the art of Western film-making, in particular German Expressionism, while at the same time retaining a quintessential Japanese style.
The 1930s were the boom years for early Japanese cinema with some five hundred features being churned out a year, second only in production to the United States. One of the era's top directors, who would not gain international recognition until the mid-1950s, was Mizoguchi Kenji (1898-1956). His initial speciality was the jidaigeki melodramas, based in Meiji-era Japan, but he is best known in the West for his later lyrical medieval samurai dramas, such as Ugetsu Monogatari (1954). During the 1920s and 1930s, however, Mizoguchi also turned his hand to detective, expressionist, war, ghost and comedy films, becoming the best-known director of realist gendaigeki . As Japan fell deeper into the ugliness of nationalism and war, Mizoguchi embraced traditional concepts of stylized beauty in films such as 1939's Zangiku Monogatari ( The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums ).
Also developing his reputation during the pre-World War II period was perhaps Japan's greatest film director Ozu Yasujiro, whose
Tokyo Monogatari
(
Tokyo Story
) is a permanent fixture on many critic's best-film lists. In the 1930s, Ozu was taking his cues from the West, making films such as
Dragnet Girl
, about rebellious youths. By the time he made his first talking film
The Only Son
in 1936 - the story of a country woman who visits her feckless son in Tokyo - Ozu was considered one of Japan's leading directors.
The 1950s and 1960s
Local talent broke through in 1950 when Kurosawa Akira 's brilliant Rashomon hit the screen, subsequently garnering a Golden Lion at the following year's Venice Film Festival and an honorary Oscar. This story of a rape and murder told from four different points of view - including most ingeniously from the dead nobleman, via a medium - made a star of lead actor Mifune Toshiro and ushered in a decade considered to be the golden age of Japanese film.
In 1954 Kurosawa again teamed up with Mifune to make the classic Shichinin-no-Samurai ( The Seven Samurai ), about a band of ronin (masterless samurai ) coming to the rescue of a village community plagued by bandits. If the story sounds familiar that's because it was copied by Hollywood in The Magnificent Seven (1960), just as another of Kurosawa's samurai drama's, Yojimbo (1961), was the basis for Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars . The story snatching was not all one-way. Kurosawa borrowed themes and plots from Dostoevsky, Gorky and Shakespeare, Throne of Blood (1957) being based on Macbeth and Ran (1985) on King Lear .
Ozu's masterpiece Tokyo Monogatari was another highlight of the 1950s. This simply told, yet quietly emotional tale of an elderly couple's visit to Tokyo to see their grown-up children and the cold reception they receive from everyone except their widowed daughter-in-law, has become a classic of world cinema.
At the other end of the artistic spectrum, the 1950s saw the birth of one of Japan's best-known cinema icons, Godzilla , or Gojira as he was known on initial release in 1954. The giant mutant, whose Japanese name combined gorilla ( gorira ) and whale ( kujira ), was very much a product of fears surrounding nuclear proliferation, rather than the camp monster megastar he would later become. At ?60 million Gojira was one of the most expensive films of its time, with an all-star cast headed by Shimura Takeshi, who went on to star in Kurosawa's Shichinin-no-Samurai . Despite the monster being killed off in the grand finale, the movie's success led to an American release, with added footage, in 1956 under the title Godzilla , King of the Monsters . Over the next four decades Godzilla kept on returning to do battle with, among others, King Kong, giant shrimps, cockroaches and moths, and a smog monster.
Gangster movies also gained popularity in the 1960s as Japanese studios began pumping out violent, yet highly romanticized films about the
yakuza
. Known as
ninkyo eiga
(chivalry films), these movies were usually played like modern-day
samurai
sagas, the tough, fair
yakuza
being driven by a code of loyalty or honour. One of the major actors to emerge from these movies is Takakura Ken, who has since starred in Western films including Ridley Scott's
Black Rain
.
Japanese classics
Black Rain (Imamura Shohei; 1989). Not to be confused with the US yakuza flick, this serious drama traces the strains put on family life in a country village after the Bomb is dropped on Hiroshima.
Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956). Originally released two years earlier in Japan as Gojira , the giant mutant lizard, born after a US hydrogen bomb test in the Bikini Atoll, was such a hit that extract footage was added for the American market. Raymond Burr plays the journalist telling in flashback the event that led to Godzilla running amok in Tokyo. Over twenty more tackily enjoyable Godzilla films followed, only for the whole series to be overshadowed by the overkill of the 1998 US remake.
Nijushi-no-Hitomi ( Twenty Four Eyes ; Kinoshita Keisuke; 1954). One of Japan's most-loved films about the events leading up to, during and after World War II, as seen through the eyes of a first-grade female teacher and pacifist on the island of Shodo-shima. The twelve cute children in rishi-san's class make up the 24 eyes. Shamefully sentimental most of the time, the film is ultimately touching and memorable for the luminous performance of Takahime Hideko as the teacher.
Tokyo Monogatari
(
Tokyo Story
; Ozu Yasujiro; 1954). The most popular of Ozu Yasujiro's films, although it will appear laborious to audiences brought up on fast-moving MTV images. An elderly couple travel to Tokyo from their seaside home in Western Japan to visit their children and grandchildren. The only person who has any time for them is Noriko, the widow of their son Shoji killed in the war. On their return, the mother falls ill and dies. Ozu's themes of loneliness and the breakdown of tradition are grim, but his simple approach and the sincerity of the acting make the film a genuine classic.
Modern Japanese cinema
Kamikaze Taxi (Masato Harada; 1995). A gangster story with a twist; amongst the violence and double-crossing, it deals with the issue of ethnic Japanese returning to Japan from South America and being discriminated against as foreigners. Watch out for Yakusho Koji in a very different role from his ballroom-dancing salaryman in Shall We Dance?
Kid's Return (Takeshi Kitano; 1996). In a quieter mode, Takeshi Kitano turns his attention to a couple of high-school dropouts in Tokyo, one of whom becomes a boxer while the other joins the yakuza . Although it supposedly has autobiographical elements, Kitano remains behind the camera for this one.
Kikujiro (aka Kikujiro no Natsu, Kikujiro's summer, Takeshi Kitano, 1999). Well received at Cannes, this is a comedy in which the actor/director stars as the eponymous Kikujiro, a gruff gangster with a heart of gold, befriended by an eight-year-old boy who's in search of his missing mother.
Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence (Orshima Nagisa; 1982). Pop stars David Bowie and Sakamoto Rypichi, as well as thesps Tom Conti and Jack Thompson, star in this powerful POW drama based on Sir Laurens van der Post's book The Seed and the Sower . The art-house version of Bridge on the River Kwai just about sums it up. Look out for Takeshi Kitano in his first major role as a brutal camp sergeant.
Minbo-no-Onna ( The Gentle Art of Japanese Extortion ; Itami Juzo; 1992). A grand Tokyo hotel, hoping to host an international summit meeting, has to deal with the yakuza first. Enter the director's wife, Miyamoto Nobuko, playing a feisty lawyer, who's more than a match for the preening gangsters.
Marusa-no Onna ( A Taxing Woman ; Itami Juzo; 1988). Fascinating comedy about the battle of wills and wiles between a scrupulous tax collector (Miyamoto Nobuko) and her quarry, a love-hotel owner with two sets of books. The follow up Murasa-no-Onna II (A Taxing Woman's Return) is a darker, more prescient tale of the links between politicians, developers and a creepy religious cult.
Osaka Story (Nakata Toichi; 1994). Nakata Toichi ticks off many difficult contemporary issues in his film which follows the homecoming of a gay, Korean-Japanese film student to his Osaka-based family. His staunchly Korean father expects him to take over the business and get married, but the son has other ideas.
Ososhiki ( The Funeral ; Itami Juzo; 1984). Itami's first film as a director is a wry comedy about a grieving family bumbling their way through the obscure conventions of a proper Japanese funeral. The young couple learn the "rules" by watching a video and the Buddhist priest turns up in a white Rolls Royce. Like most of his films, Ososhiki springs from Itami's personal experience and is all the funnier and more telling for that.
Shall We Dance? (Suo Masayuki; 1996). More than just a Japanese version of the Aussie hit Strictly Ballroom , Suo's film is firmly set in the reality of everyday lives. Yakusho Koji plays a quietly frustrated middle-aged salaryman whose spark returns when he takes up ballroom dancing. He has to keep it secret from his family and work colleagues, though, because of the social stigma attached. At turns touching and hilarious, Shall We Dance? also makes Blackpool, the ballroom dancer's far-off mecca, appear glamorous.
Sonatine (Takeshi Kitano; 1993). An accomplished film seeing the director playing a tired gangster, hightailing it to the sunny isles of Okinawa and getting mixed up in more mob feuds, before blowing his brains out on the beach. The mixture of quirky comedy and violence had Western critics lining up to compare him to Quentin Tarantino.
Swallowtail Butterfly (Iwai Shunji; 1997). In this chic sci-fi thriller, Chinese prostitute/pop star Glico and her lover Hyou, a Shanghai immigrant, are set adrift in "yen town" a futuristic gaijin ghetto in Tokyo.
Tampopo (Itami Juzo; 1985). Tampopo, the proprietress of a noodle bar, is taught how to prepare ramen that has both sincerity and guts, in this comedy about Japan's gourmet boom. From the old woman squishing fruit in a supermarket to the gangster and his moll passing a raw egg sexily between their mouths, this is a film packed with memorable scenes guaranteed to get the tummy rumbling.
Violent Cop
(Takeshi Kitano; 1989). Takeshi Kitano's first film as a director sees him starring as a cop in the
Dirty Harry
mould, bent on revenge. As its title indicates, this is not a film that pulls its punches in the violence department.
Foreign films featuring Japan and the Japanese
Bladerunner (Ridley Scott; 1982). Although it's set in the Los Angeles of the future rather than Tokyo, this seminal sci-fi thriller takes its cues directly from contemporary Japan; the sets are practically indistinguishable from a rainy night in Shinjuku's Kabukicho, from the blazing neon to the giant video screens.
Bridge on the River Kwai (David Lean; 1957). Famous prisoner-of-war movie with army major Alec Guinness going bonkers as the Japanese extract blood, sweat and tears from the plucky Brits building a bridge in Thailand's jungle.
Empire of the Sun (Stephen Spielberg; 1987). Based on the J. G. Ballard book, Spielberg's serious film explores the Japanese occupation of Shanghai through the eyes of a young boy. An impressive cast, including John Malkovich and Miranda Richardson, only partly distract from the leaden storytelling.
Mishima (Paul Schrader; 1985). Art-house take on the bizarre and fascinating life of Japan's contemporary literary giant Mishima Yukio, who committed ritual suicide after leading a failed military coup in 1970.
Paradise Road (Bruce Beresford; 1997). Respectable addition to the POW drama genre, this time told from the female point of view. A starry cast, including Glenn Close, Pauline Collins, Cate Blanchett and Juliana Marguiles, form a vocal orchestra to keep their flagging spirits up in the face of multiple indignities. Based on a true story.
The Pillow Book (Peter Greenaway; 1996). In this dazzling hi-tech adaptation of the Sei Shonagon classic, the action is updated to contemporary Hong Kong. The beautiful images capture the essence of the book, even if the story of a woman who gets her kicks by writing on the bodies of her lovers flags at times.
Rising Sun (Peter Kaufman; 1993). Based on Michael Crichton's rabble-rousing book about murder and corporate skullduggery, this slick thriller has its moments, most of which involve Sean Connery as the Zen-like detective teamed up with Wesley Snipes' LA cop to crack the case of the dead blonde on the boardroom table. Ultimately simplistic tale of Japanese business practices and manners.
Until the End of the World (Wim Wenders; 1993). Rambling Millennium angst road movie with an interesting premise, but gets bogged down during its Australian Outback section. The Japan scenes, contrasting frantic Tokyo and the soothing countryside, are among the best. Also stars the great actor Ryp Chishp, who played the father in Ozu's Tokyo Story .
The Yakuza (Michael Hamilburg; 1975). Robert Mitchum takes on the Japanese mafia after a friend's daughter is kidnapped in this Hollywood attempt to cash in on the popularity at the time of martial arts and violence.
You Only Live Twice
(Lewis Gilbert; 1967). Sean Connery's fifth outing as 007 has Bondo-san grappling with arch-enemy Blofeld and sundry Oriental villains in Tokyo and the countryside. Fun escapism, packed with glamorous girls and cool gadgets, including a mini-helicopter in a suitcase (with rocket launchers, of course).
A: AUM Shinrikyo (Aleph) and Aribi-ya
In what is shaping up to be Japan's longest ever trial, several of the cult's key figures have now been sentenced to death, but judgement on the supreme leader, Asahara Shoko , is yet to be passed. Born Matsumoto Chizuo, the virtually blind guru began the "Supreme Truth" cult in the late 1980s - a period dubbed "rush hour of the gods" because of the proliferation of new religions in Japan at the time. At its height in the early 1990s, AUM had 40,000 members in several countries and nearly a billion dollars in assets, earned from, among other things, one-million-yen fees for rituals involving potions made of Asahara's dirty bathwater (called Miracle Pond), his blood, and even his beard clippings.
When AUM failed to get its members elected to the Diet in 1990, Asahara began to use his wealth and power for far more sinister aims. Suspicion had long been mounting against AUM before the tragic events of March 1995, but even after the Tokyo attack it took the authorities two months to arrest the elusive Asahara. In the meantime, the National Police Agency chief was the victim of an attempted assassination, in broad daylight, by an AUM member who escaped on a bicycle. Most of AUM's top dogs were eventually arrested, several immediately confessing their part in the terrorist attack. When the cult's compound near Mount Fuji was raided, a vast arsenal of weapons and chemicals was discovered, as well as Asahara calmly meditating in his pyjamas.
Most alarmingly, since the Tokyo massacre and the trial, AUM, now renamed Aleph , has survived and continues to grow. It still counts 500 hard-core devotees who live in cult-owned facilities. Its earnings from its chain of shops, selling cut-price computers, is in excess of ?70 million. They've even started a pop band called Perfect Emancipations.
One business that has taken off during Japan's recent recession is that of the
Aribi-ya
- or those who sell alibis. In a society obsessed with appearances,
aribi-ya
provide all that's necessary if you want to be seen as someone else. For example, if you need a fake business card, pay stubs, receptionist to answer your nonexistent business phone, even a fictitious boss to make a speech at your wedding, the
aribi-ya
can do it. The idea is nothing new; for years cable-radio stations have been providing alibi channels that, among other background noises, broadcast the buzz of traffic so you can make believe you're calling from a street telephone rather than a love hotel to tell the wife you'll be home late. And if you forget the all-important
omiyage
(present) from that out-of-town business trip you were supposed to have taken, then there's always the gift shop at the major railway station stocking suitable souvenirs from all over the country.
D: Doraemon and dango
Construction is one of Japan's biggest businesses and has become a major tool in economic planning since World War II, supervised by the Ministry of Construction. So much public money is available for work that the practice of
dango
, or bid rigging, is rife. Contracts are often carved up within the industry with bribes to smooth the way. Even though the Fair Trade Commission has tried on many occasions to stop the practice, there have been very few prosecutions.
E: Enjo Kosai
Although they kowtow to Japan's strict laws when it comes to photographs of naked bodies, masking over pubic hair, other shots generally leave nothing to the imagination. There's certainly no squeamishness about shots of dead bodies, or parts of them, as one famous photograph of a railway employee carrying the head of a suicide victim away from the tracks showed.
Flash
claimed its own victim in 1997 when film director Itami Juzo committed suicide when he heard the magazine was planning an expose of his love life.
I: Idols and iMode
The top male heart-throb is Kimura Takuya , a fresh-faced member of the boy-band SMAP, who has gone on to star in many a trendy drama . Norika Fujiwara , aka the J-phone girl after the ads she's made for the mobile phone company, is the female idol of the moment, replacing the Okinawan chanteuse Amuro Namie, whose star has faded a bit since she's become a mum. The one true idol-survivor is Matsuda Seiko , a pop star of the 1980s who refused to give up her career when she married and has since survived a high-profile divorce, becoming a role model for many downtrodden housewives.
If you see people fiddling with their ketai (mobile phone) chances are, these days, that they're using
iMode
. This service, offered by Japan's largest mobile phone company NTT DoCoMo, is an ultra-sophisticated WAP (wireless application program) Internet connection; once the phone is on, you're online. There are over 4000 dedicated iMode services (including ones in English), covering email, games, shopping, horoscopes, restaurant guides and much more. Some ten million people have signed up already.
J: Juku
It's estimated that some forty percent of children go to juku at some stage, with attendance pretty much compulsory for those who wish to get into the country's top universities. Kids start as young as five years old at these cram schools, prepping for the "examination hell" to be endured at each stage of their education until they reach university, where they can finally relax (degree study is often treated like a three-year holiday between school and career).
The pressure put on kids to get good results and to fit into the homogenized society nurtured by the education system has led to the disturbing phenomenon of
ijime
, or bullying, which results in several deaths a year, often from suicide. There's also been a sharp increase in incidents of violence at schools, and although the figures are low compared to other industrialized countries, they're worrying enough for the government to have made educational reform, emphasizing creativity and respect for the individual, a priority.
Electrical goods and cameras
If you're keen to buy, check the best deals you can get at home before leaving since the item may not be much cheaper in Japan thanks to the strong yen. It's also important to make sure that the goods are compatible with your domestic electricity system; the Japanese power supply is 100V, but export items usually have a voltage switch that can adapt the appliance to your own system. If English-language instructions, after-sales service and guarantees are important, stick to export models which are sold mostly in the stores' duty-free sections. It's worth shopping around first and, though you may not get it, always ask for a discount.
Similarly, Japanese
cameras
and other photographic equipment are among the best in the world. Shinjuku, in Tokyo, is the main centre, where you can pick up the latest models and find discontinued and secondhand cameras at decent prices.
Clothes
Finding clothes that fit is becoming easier as young Japanese are, on average, substantially bigger-built than their parents, and foreign chains tend to carry larger sizes.
Shoes
, however, are more of a problem. Some stores do stock bigger sizes; Washington shoe shops are usually a good bet, though the women's selection is pretty limited. You'll also find outlets, such as Tokyo's ABC Mart, specializing in more casual imported brands, but you'll be hard-pressed to find anything over a size 10.
The Annual Sumo Tournaments
It's virtually impossible to book the prime ringside seats in advance, but quite feasible to bag reserved seats in the balconies (they cost around ?7000, for which you'll also get a bag of souvenirs) or the cheapest unreserved seats (?2100), which go on sale on the door on the day of the tournament at 9am. To be assured of a ticket you'll need to line up well before that, especially towards the end of a basho . Matches start for the lower-ranked wrestlers at 10am and at this time it's OK to sneak into any vacant ringside seats to watch the action close up; when the rightful owners turn up, just return to your own seat. The sumo superstars come on around 4pm and tournaments finish at around 6pm.
Apart from the sumo association's Web site (see
www.sumo.or.jp/index_e.html
), you can buy tickets at the convenience store Lawson. If you can't get a ticket, NHK televises each
basho
daily from 3.30pm, and you can tune into FEN on 810 KHz for a simultaneous English commentary.
The beginnings
The more sophisticated Yayoi culture (300 BC-300 AD), which displaced the Jomon, is characterized by a finer-quality, reddish-brown wheel-turned pottery, which was first discovered at Yayoi, near today's Tokyo. Their pots were more diverse in shape and function but simpler in decoration, with the incision of straight, curved and zigzagged lines and combed wave patterns. Yayoi also saw the introduction of iron and bronze to Japan, which led to the production of iron tools, while bronze was reserved for ritual objects. The most distinctive Yayoi bronze objects are the dotaku or straight-sided bells which have been linked with agricultural rituals and burial practices.
The following
Kofun era
(300-710 AD) is defined by the number of huge burial mounds (
kofun
) built during the period. The tombs were generally bordered by a series of low-fired clay cylinders, or
haniwa
, topped with delightful representations of animals, people, boats and houses. Though probably related to ancient Chinese burial practices, the
haniwa
show a distinctively Japanese artistic form.
The national parks
A recent development has been the growth in eco - tourism initiatives being established in and around the national parks, from whale-watching, white-water rafting and hiking to volunteering at nature reserves. Most of the tours and facilities are run by either local community members or otherwise dedicated individuals who act as "interpreters" of the ecological and cultural landscapes of the local area.
Akan National Park , Hokkaido . Contains three vast volcanic craters surrounded by primeval forests of silver fir. Lake Akan is home to the unique marimo weedballs, which float beneath the surface of the lake on sunny days.
Aso-Kuju National Park , Kyushu . Home to the world's largest volcanic crater, part of which is still active, complete with lunar landscapes. Two-thirds of Kyushu is covered with lava from this huge volcano.
Chichibu-Tama National Park , Honshu. Only three hours west of Tokyo, this is a haven for city dwellers. Its hills, gorges and valleys give rise to the Tama river that flows through Tokyo.
Iriomote National Park , Okinawa . Features lush, virgin jungle, cascading waterfalls, white beaches and spectacular underwater life. Home to the rare Iriomote wild cat. The dense jungle has served to resist human encroachment.
Kushiro and Shiretoko National Parks , Hokkaido . Protected under the Ramsar agreement, Kushiro's wetlands are of massive ecological importance. Shiretoko is home to the Japanese crane and Stellers sea-eagle.
Rikuchu Kaigan National Park , Honshu. Comprises a narrow strip of Japan's northeast coast, famous for its stretch of white trachyte quartz sand known as Jodogahama, or Paradise Beach, and rugged cliffs. It is a bird-watchers' heaven.
Yakushima National Park
. A World Heritage site protected for its primary and old-growth forests. Part of the Kirishima-Yaku National Park.
Whaling
Activism in Japan, strong though it is, is approached in an entirely different way from in the West; the Japanese do not respond well to direct action. To cite one example, the Kyoto based antinuclear group Green Action, after failing to drum up much interest for a campaign against the British Sellafield plant, which sends reprocessed nuclear fuel to Japan, started the "Save Peter Rabbit's Homeland" campaign. They were inundated with support - it was nothing less than a stroke of genius.
Global awareness
is also increasing as groups monitor and negotiate with companies operating abroad. Among one of the success stories, the Tokyo group Rain Forest Action Network (RAN) successfully campaigned against two subsidiaries of the Mitsubishi industrial giant practising unsustainable logging in Sarawak, Malaysia. After extensive negotiations the subsidiaries involved finally agreed to stop using old-growth pulp or products and change to existing plantation timber.
The films of Kurosawa Akira
Ran (1985). This much-lauded, loose adaptation of King Lear is a true epic with thousands of extras and giant battle scenes. The daughters become sons, although the Regan and Goneril characters survive in the form of the gleefully vengeful wives Lady Kaede and Lady Sue.
Rhapsody in August ( Hachigatsu-no-Kyoshikyoku ; 1991). One of Kurosawa's more recent films is notable for an unlikely performance by Richard Gere as a Japanese-American visiting relations in Nagasaki and feeling sorry for the Atomic bombing.
Rashomon (1950). The film that established Kurosawa as an exceptional director in the West and brought Japanese cinema to worldwide attention. A notorious bandit, the wife he perhaps rapes, the man he perhaps murders and the woodcutter who perhaps witnesses the events each tell their different story of what happened in the woods. Fascinatingly open-ended narrative and a memorably physical performance by Mifune Toshiro as the restless bandit make this a must-see movie.
The Seven Samurai ( Shichinin-no-Samurai ; 1954). A small village in sixteenth-century Japan is fed up of being raided each year by bandits so it hires a band of samurai warriors for protection. There's little else to the plot of Kurosawa's entertaining period drama, later remade in Hollywood as The Magnificent Seven .
Yojimbo
(1961). Mifune Toshiro stars in one of Kurosawa's best-known
samurai
sagas as a
ronin
who arrives in a dusty town, is greeted by a dog carrying a human hand, and discovers he's walked in on a bloody feud. The
ronin
pits both sides against each other, kills off the bad guys and restores peace to the town.
C: Comedy
The Kansai area around Osaka has traditionally produced the nation's best comics
. Internationally famous now for his movies is "Beat"
Takeshi Kitano
, one half of the old
manzai
act The Two Beats, and still a regular host and guest on quiz and light entertainment shows. The current top performers are Ishibashi Taka-aki and Kinashi Noritake, aka the
Tunnels
, who have recently eclipsed long-running stars Matsumoto Hitoshi and Hamada Masatoshi, a comedy duo known as
Downtown
. They won a loyal following for their dazzling improvisational show
Gaki no Tsukai ya Arahende!! (This Is No Job For Kids!!
). Other funny guys you'll find hard to avoid on prime-time telly are U-chan and Nan-chan.
W: Worlds and Will
Toyota's cute Will Vi car, described as looking like "Cinderella's pumpkin carriage", is just one piece in the marketing jigsaw that is the
Will
concept. Designed to capture the attention of the lucrative twenty-something female market, the car comes as part of a colour-co-ordinated lifestyle package that includes household goods produced by Matsushita, beauty products by Kanebo, even holidays and cans of beer. Check it all out at the showroom on Tokyo's Omotesando or their Web site
www.willshop.com
Z: Zoku and zodiac
Dobutsu Uranai
(zoological fortune-telling) is the latest manifestation of Japan's fascination with the
zodiac
and superstition. This twist on the traditional zodiac symbols consists of twelve cute animal designs by popular cartoonist Kubo Kiriko. His book has sold millions of copies and been translated for markets in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Korea. If you read Japanese, the official Web site (
www.animarhythm.com
) can tell you which animal you are and tell your fortune.
Organizations
JAL Japan Airlines
JAS Japan Air System
JNTO Japan National Tourist Organization, the government's overseas tourist office.
JR Japan Railways.
JTB Japan Travel Bureau.
SDF (Self-Defence Forces) Japan's army, navy and airforce, established in 1954 purely for national defence, though now also used for international peacekeeping operations.
TIC
Tourist Information Centre with English-speaking staff.
Airports
www.kansai-airport.or.jp respectively
Both Narita and Kansai International airports run their own home pages, complete with flight information, floor plans and the lowdown on local access
Festivals
Matsuri (meaning both "festival" and "worship") can take many forms, from stately processions in period costume to sacred dances, fire rituals, archery contests, phallus worship or poetry-writing competitions. The best are riotous occasions where mikoshi (portable shrines) are shouldered by a seething, chanting crowd, usually fortified with quantities of sake and driven on by resonating drums. Don't stand back - anyone prepared to enter into the spirit of things will be welcome. However, if you are heading for any of the famous festivals, make sure you've got your transport and accommodation sorted out well in advance.
Though not such a lively affair, by far the most important event in the Japanese festive calendar is the New Year festival of renewal, Oshogatsu . It's mainly a time for family reunions, and most of the country - bar public transport - closes down for at least the first three days of the year, with many people taking the whole week off work (roughly December 27 to January 4). Whilst Japanese traditionally celebrated the lunar New Year, since the Meiji government adopted the Western calendar in 1873, the festivities have been moved to January 1. According to the Japanese system of numbering years, starting afresh with each change of emperor, 2001 is the thirteenth year of Heisei - Heisei being the official name of Emperor Akihito's reign.
In recent years, several non-Japanese festivals have been catching on, with a few adaptations for local tastes. Only women give men gifts on
Valentine's Day
(February 14), usually chocolates, while on
White Day
(March 14) men get their turn to give their loved ones more chocolates (white, of course), perfume or racy underwear. Another import is
Christmas
, celebrated in Japan as an almost totally commercial event, with carols, plastic holly and tinsel in profusion and, for some reason, endless recitals of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
Christmas Eve
, rather than New Year, is
the
time to party and a big occasion for romance - you'll be hard-pressed to find a table at any restaurant or a room in the top hotels.
Art, crafts, and souvenirs
Tokyo and Kyoto are also well-known for their regular flea markets , usually held at shrines and temples . You need to get there early for the best deals, but you might come across some gorgeous secondhand kimono, satin-smooth lacquerware or rustic pottery among a good deal of tat. Keep an eye out, too, for unusual items in the discount stores, which can yield amazing gizmos for next to nothing.
Japan's most famous craft is its ceramics ( tojiki ). Of several distinct regional styles, Imari-ware (from Arita in Kyushu) is best known for its colourful, ornate designs, while the iron-brown unglazed Bizen-ware (from near Okayama) and Mashiko's simple folk-pottery are satisfyingly rustic. Other famous names include Satsuma-yaki (from Kagoshima), Kasama-yaki (from Ibaraki) and Kyoto's Kyo-yaki. Any decent department store will stock a full range of styles, or you can visit local showrooms. Traditional tea bowls, sake sets and vases make popular souvenirs.
Originally devised as a means of making everyday utensils more durable, lacquerware ( shikki ) has developed over the centuries into a unique artform. Items such as trays, tables, boxes, chopsticks and bowls are typically covered with reddish-brown or black lacquer and either left plain or decorated with paintings, carvings, sprinkled with eggshell or given a dusting of gold or silver leaf. Though top-quality lacquer can be hideously expensive, you'll find a whole range of lesser pieces at more reasonable prices. Lacquer needs a humid atmosphere, especially the cheaper pieces made on a base of low-quality wood which cracks in dry conditions; inexpensive plastic bases won't be affected.
Some of Japan's most beautiful traditional products stem from folkcrafts ( mingei ), ranging from elegant, inexpensive bamboo-ware to wood-carvings, toys, masks, kites and a whole host of delightful dolls ( ningyo ). Peg-shaped kokeshi dolls from northern Honshu are among the most appealing, with their bright colours and sweet, simple faces. But look out also for the rotund, round-eyed daruma dolls, made of papier-mache, and fine, clay Hakata-ningyo dolls from Kyushu.
Traditional Japanese paper ( washi ), made from mulberry or other natural fibres, is fashioned into any number of tempting souvenirs. You can buy purses, boxes, fans, oiled umbrellas, lightshades and toys all made from paper, as well as wonderful stationery. Indeed, some washi is so beautifully patterned and textured that a few sheets alone make a great gift.
Original woodblock prints , ukiyo-e , by world-famous artists such as Utamaro, Hokusai and Hiroshige, have long been collectors' items fetching thousands of pounds. However, you can buy copies of these "pictures of the floating world", often depicting Mount Fuji, willowy geisha or lusty heroes of the Kabuki stage, at tourist shops for more modest sums. Alternatively, some art shops specialize in originals, both modern and antique.
Kimono , the traditional Japanese dress, are still worn for special occasions and every department store has a corner devoted to ready-made or tailored kimono. However, it's far more economical to look for secondhand or antique versions at tourist shops or in the kimono sales held by department stores, usually in spring and autumn. Sumptuous wedding kimono make striking wall hangings, as do obi , the broad, silk sash worn with a kimono. A cheaper, more practical alternative is the light, cotton kimono, yukata , which are popular as dressing gowns; you'll find them in all department stores. To complete the outfit, you could pick up a pair of zori , traditional straw sandals , or their wooden counterpart, geta .
Other attractive textiles include noren , a split curtain hanging in the entrance to a restaurant or bar; cotton tenugui (small hand towels), decorated with cute designs; and the large, square, versatile wrapping cloth, furoshiki .
Whilst the chunky, iron kettles, a speciality of Morioka in northern Honshu, are rather unwieldy mementos, the area also produces delicate furin , or wind chimes , in a variety of designs. Damascene is also more portable, though a bit fussy for some tastes. This metal inlay-work, with gold and silver threads on black steel, was originally used to fix the family crest on sword hilts and helmets, though nowadays you can buy all sorts of jewellery and trinket boxes decorated with birds, flowers and other intricate designs. Pearls , however, are undoubtedly Japan's most famous jewellery item, ever since Mikimoto Kokichi first succeeded in growing cultured pearls in Toba in 1893. Toba is still the centre of production, though you'll find specialist shops in all major cities selling pearls at fairly competitive prices.
Finally, there are a host of
edible souvenirs
. Items that might tempt you include
rice-crackers
(
sembei
), vacuum-packed bags of
pickles
(
tsukemono
), and Japanese
sweets
(
okashi
), such as the eye-catching
wagashi
. Made of sweet, red-bean paste in various colours and designs,
wagashi
are the traditional accompaniment to the tea ceremony.
Tea
itself (
ocha
) comes in a variety of grades, often in attractive canisters, while
sake
is another inexpensive gift option, and occasionally comes in interesting-shaped bottles.
Directory
CIGARETTES One of Japan's bargain buys, cigarettes are available in a vast range of brands - usually from vending machines - at around A?250 a pack.
CONTRACEPTIVES The Pill has recently been legalized in Japan, but is available only on prescription and costs around A?3000 a packet; it's better to bring them with you. The "morning-after" pill is also available on prescription, but it's more difficult to find a clinic offering it. Local-brand condoms are widely sold in pharmacies and vending machines.
ELECTRICITY The electrical current is 100v, 50Hz AC in eastern Japan including Tokyo, and 100v, 60Hz AC in western Japan including Nagoya, Kyoto and Osaka. Japanese plugs have two flat pins and, although they are identical to North American plugs, you'll need a transformer to use any foreign appliances safely.
EMERGENCIES In order to get a quick response from the national police emergency number (tel 110) or the ambulance and fire services (tel 119), you'll need to speak some Japanese. JHelp.com (tel 0120-461997) is a 24hr English-language toll-free service, while the Tokyo English Lifeline (TELL; tel 03/3968-4099) is open for calls daily 9am-4pm and 7-11pm. In the last resort, contact the Prefecture's Foreign Advisory Service .
JAPANESE CALENDAR Although Japan uses the Western system of dates for months and days, for years it more commonly uses its own Imperial system. This calculates the number of the year from the accession of the last emperor. Each emperor is assigned a special name. For example, Hirohito's reign (1926-89) is called Showa. The current Emperor Akihito began counting his reign, called Heisei, in 1989, so 2001 was Heisei 13.
LAUNDRIES A laundry service is available in all types of accommodation, with most cheaper hotels and hostels having coin-operated washing machines and dryers. All Japanese neighbourhoods also have coin laundries ( koin randorii ), often open long hours, which charge between A?200 and A?300 per wash and A?100 for around ten minutes of drying time. Virtually all Japanese washing machines use cold water.
LEFT LUGGAGE Usually only at the largest train stations in big cities will you find left-luggage rooms, though all train stations, many subway stations and some department stores and shopping centres have coin lockers where you can stash your luggage. These come in a range of sizes, charging from A?300 to A?600 for a day's storage.
PHOTOGRAPHY All major brands of film are available across Japan at relatively cheap prices, especially if bought in bulk from the discount camera shops in the big cities. If you want special types of film, it's best to stock up here, too, before setting off to Japan's more remote areas, where the choice is more limited. Worth considering are disposable cameras, which come in a vast range of sizes and types (with or without flash; panoramic; sepia-tinted or black-and-white images; advance photo system), cost from as little as A?700 and make great presents.
PUBLIC TOILETS All trains and subway stations, parks, department stores and large hotels have public lavatories; ask for the otearai or toire , pronounced "toy-ray". Note that, hotels and department stores excepted, there is rarely toilet paper, so carry around some tissues; the small packs carrying advertising that are dished out free at busy stations and shopping districts are ideal.
STUDENT CARDS It's a good idea to bring along an International Student Identity Card (ISIC), since many museums and other tourist facilities charge lower prices for students.
TAMPONS While you won't find foreign brands such as Tampax in Japan, larger chemists sell locally produced tampons and pads.
TAXES A departure tax (known locally as a "passenger service facility charge") of A?2650 is levied on all adults leaving from Kansai International airport (children aged 2-11 years pay A?1330).
TIME ZONES The whole of Japan is nine hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time, so at noon in London, it's 9pm in Tokyo. Japan is fourteen hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time in the US. There is no daylight saving, so during British Summer Time, for example, the difference drops to eight hours.
TIPS Tipping is not a Japanese custom and nobody expects it. The only exception is at high-class Japanese inns, where it's good form to leave A?2000 for the room attendant, but only if the money is put in an envelope and handed over discreetly.
WEIGHTS AND MEASURES
The only exception to Japan's use of the metric system is its measurement of rooms, usually quoted in
jo
, the size of one
tatami
. It's worth noting that
tatami
size varies around the country, Tokyo having the smallest size at 1.76m by 0.88m.
Religion, belief and ritual
The most important factor that allowed faiths to combine is that Shinto, a naturalistic religion, does not possess one all-powerful deity, sacred scriptures or a particular philosophy or moral code. It holds that its followers must live their lives according to the way or mind of the kami (gods), and that the kami favour harmony and co-operation. Therefore, Shinto tolerates its worshippers following other religions, and they find it an easy step to combine Shinto's nature worship with the worship of an almighty deity, such as that in Christianity, or with the philosophical moral code of Buddhism.
According to Shinto, the relationship between people and their tutelary kami is like that between parent and child. Generations have been born and lived under the protection of the kami . When they die, the Japanese become kami , so not only are their ancestors kami , but they themselves will become so, creating, in theory, an inherent and unbreakable relationship down the generations.
Festivals are a common sight in Japan and many Shinto customs are still manifest in everyday life, from marriage ceremonies to purifying building plots and new cars. Nevertheless, few Japanese today are aware of anything other than the basic tenets of either Shinto or Buddhism and many would not consider themselves "religious" as such. Instead, Shinto and Buddhist ideas are so deeply ingrained in everyday life that, in general, there is little sense of conscious involvement. This means that, while many people do not practise any faith on a daily basis, they find it quite natural to pray at a shrine or temple during annual festivals or on a sightseeing trip. And, as elsewhere, people tend to become more involved in religion, particularly Buddhism, during their later years.
Peter Grimshaw
Art and architecture
This enormous wealth of artistic expression reflects the wide variety of sources of inspiration and patronage over the centuries. Periods of aristocratic rule, military supremacy and merchant wealth all left their mark on Japanese arts, building on a rich legacy of religious art, folk traditions and the assimilated cultural influences of China and Korea. More recently, the West became a model for artists seeking to join the ranks of the avant-garde. Today it's difficult to speak of prevailing tendencies, as Japanese artists both draw on traditional sources and take their place amongst international trends.
What does span the centuries, however, is a love of nature, respect for the highest standards of craftsmanship and the potential for finding beauty in the simplest of things. These qualities pervade the visual arts of Japan but are also reflected in aspects of the performing arts where the actor's craft, costume and make-up combine with the stage setting to unique dramatic effect. The official designation of valued objects and individuals as "National Treasures" and "Living National Treasures" acknowledges the extent to which the arts and artists of Japan are revered.
One of the joys of visiting Japan, however, is in experiencing the ordinary ways in which the Japanese aesthetic enters into everyday life. The presentation of food, a window display or the simplest flower arrangement can convey, beyond the walls of any museum, the essential nature of Japanese art.
Marie Conte-Helm
Music
With a value of well over six billion dollars, Japan has the second-largest music market in the world, after the USA. The advent of satellite TV, with its many music channels, has fuelled music mania among young Asians, and karaoke in particular is wildly popular.
Unfortunately, the overriding image of Japanese contemporary music is one of instantly forgettable pop. Teenagers are trained, manufactured and recorded as idoru kashu , or idol singers. Boy bands like Smap or Hikaru Genji and cutsie female singers like duo Wink offer watered-down Western pop with Japanese lyrics, their hooklines often sung in meaningless English.
Such surface noise aside, nowhere in Asia can you find such a wide range of music : from ancient Buddhist chanting and court music to folk and old urban styles, from localized popular forms such as kayokyoku and enka to Western classical and jazz - plus every kind of pop you'd find in the West.
John Clewley
Environmental issues
This can partly be explained by the desire to control, or attempt to control, the violent natural forces at play - devastating earthquakes, tidal waves, monsoons, volcanoes - and partly the economic and political might of the construction industry. In the words of one of Japan's leading activists, Yamashita Hirofumi, "Japan's postwar development has had a disastrous impact on the natural environment". Whatever the reason, it comes as something of a shock. After all, this is the nation justly famous for its cherry blossom and fiery autumn colours, which announces the changing seasons on the national news and which prides itself on its heightened aesthetic awareness.
However, nature does still play a pivotal role in Japanese life, as well as its literature, art and religion. Spectacular areas of unspoilt natural beauty are still to be found and there's a growing awareness of the need to safeguard them. The best require a little effort to reach, but even the largest cities contain important havens in their parks and shrine gardens.
Catherine Whyte
(With thanks to Maggie Suzuki and Richard Wilcox)
Additional material by Jan Dodd
Film
Apart from the scandal surrounding rshima Nagisa's explicit
Ai-no-Corrida
, the movie scene generally languished during the 1970s, while in the 1980s, Japanese corporations were more intent on ploughing bubble-era profits and investment into Hollywood production companies rather than home-grown product. The 1990s saw a minor resurgence with the international popularity of the films of Itami Juzo, Takeshi Kitano and runaway success of Suo Masayuki's
Shall We Dance
?, which has become the sixth highest-earning foreign-language film ever at the American box office.
Pop culture
The West's familiarity with contemporary Japan - Muji's chic "no-brand" products, Sony's electronic gadgets, Godzilla movies, Yoko Ono - is very slender compared to the thousands of other goods, cultural phenomena and people that are unknown and totally mystifying to the average
nama-gaijin
(raw foreigner). The following is a general A to Z primer for the visitor who would like to appear clued up. More serious students should avail themselves of the wit and wisdom in Mark Schilling's illuminating
The Encyclopedia of Japanese Pop Culture
(Weatherhill).
Books
Drawing on over a thousand years of literature and navel-gazing, the Japanese also love writing about their own country and culture. The vast bulk of translated works widely available in the Britain and the US are novels, spanning from the courtly elegance of
Genji Monogatari
(
The Tale of Genji
) to the contemporary fiction of Nobel Prize winner Oe Kenzaburo and the Generation-Y author Yoshimoto Banana. Such books are often released by Kodansha, one of the world's biggest publishers, and Charles E. Tuttle, a long-established imprint for specialist books on Japan. Both these publishers have an excellent range of reference and coffee-table books on all aspects of Japanese culture, from architecture and gardens to food and martial arts, which are best bought at major bookstores in Japan, such as Kinokuniya and Maruzen. Look out also for the series of pocket-size booklets by JTB on many different aspects of Japanese culture. Books published by Kodansha, Tuttle and JTB are usually cheaper in Japan, but other books won't be, so buy them before your journey.
Glossary
aikido "The way of harmonious spirit". A form of self-defence performed without weapons, now recognized as a sport.
Amida Nyorai Amida Buddha will lead worthy souls to the Western Paradise (the Pure Land).
banzai The traditional Japanese cheer, meaning "10,000 years".
basho Sumo tournament
Benten or Benzai-ten . One of the most popular folk-goddesses, usually associated with water.
bodhisattva or bosatsu . A Buddhist intermediary who has forsaken nirvana to work for the salvation of all humanity.
Bunraku Traditional puppet theatre.
Buto (or Butoh) Highly expressive contemporary performance art.
cha-no-yu, chado or sado The tea ceremony. Ritual tea drinking raised to an art form.
cho or machi Subdivision of the city, smaller than a - ku .
chome Area of the city consisting of a few blocks.
daimyo Feudal lords.
-dake Mountain peak, usually volcanic.
Dainichi Nyorai or Rushana Butsu The Cosmic Buddha in whom all buddhas are unified.
donjon Castle keep.
dori Main road.
Edo Pre-1868 name for Tokyo.
ema Small wooden boards found at shrines, on which people write their wishes or thanks.
fusuma Paper-covered sliding doors, more substantial than shoji , used to separate rooms or for cupboards.
futon Padded quilt used for bedding.
gagaku Traditional Japanese music used for court ceremonies and religious rites.
gaijin Foreigner.
geisha Traditional female entertainer accomplished in the arts.
genkan Foyer or entrance hall of a house, ryokan and so forth, for changing from outdoor shoes into slippers.
geta Traditional wooden sandals.
genki A useful (and often used) Japanese word meaning friendly, lively and healthy.
haiku Seventeen-syllable verse form, arranged in three lines of five, seven and five syllables.
hanami "Flower-viewing", most commonly associated with spring outings to admire the cherry blossom.
hashi or -bashi Bridge.
hiragana Phonetic script used for writing Japanese in combination with kanji .
ijinkan Western-style brick and clapboard houses.
ikebana Traditional art of flower arranging.
Inari Shinto god of harvests, often represented by his fox-messenger.
-ji Buddhist temple.
jigoku The word for Buddhist "hell", also applied to volcanic mud pools and steam vents.
-jinja or -jingp Shinto shrine.
Jizo Buddhist protector of children, travellers and the dead.
-jo Castle.
Kabuki Popular theatre of the Edo period.
kami Shinto deities residing in trees, rocks and other natural phenomena.
kamikaze The "Divine Wind" which saved Japan from the Mongol invaders . During World War II the name was applied to Japan's suicide bombers.
kanji Japanese script derived from Chinese characters.
Kannon Buddhist goddess of mercy. A bodhisattva who appears in many different forms.
katakana Phonetic script used mainly for writing foreign words in Japanese.
kawa or - gawa River.
ken Prefecture. The principal administrative region, similar to a state or county.
kendo The "way of the sword". Japan's oldest martial art, using wooden staves, with its roots in samurai training exercises.
kimono Literally "clothes", though usually referring to women's traditional dress.
-ko Lake.
koban Neighbourhood police box.
koen or gyoen Public park.
Kogen Plateau.
ku Principal administrative division of the city, usually translated as "ward".
kura Traditional storehouse built with thick mud-walls as protection against fire, for keeping produce and family treasures.
kyogen Short, satirical plays, providing comic interludes in No drama.
machi Town or area of a city.
maiko Apprentice geisha.
manga Japanese comics.
matcha Powdered green tea used in the tea ceremony.
matsuri Festival.
Meiji Period named after Emperor Meiji (1868-1912), meaning "enlightened rule".
Meiji Restoration The Restoration (1868) marked the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate, when power was fully restored to the emperor.
mikoshi Portable shrine used in festivals.
minshuku Family-run lodgings, similar to bed-and-breakfast, which are cheaper than ryokan.
mon Gate, usually to a castle, temple or palace.
mura Village.
netsuke Small, intricately carved toggles for fastening the cords of cloth bags.
ningy o Japanese doll.
Nio or Kongo Rikishi Two muscular, fearsome Buddhist kings ( ten ) who stand guard at temple gates, usually one open-mouthed and one closed.
No Highly stylized dance-drama, using masks and elaborate costumes.
noren Split curtain hanging in shop and restaurant doorways to indicate they're open.
notemburo Outdoor hot-spring pool, usually in natural surroundings.
obi Wide sash worn with kimono.
odori Traditional dances performed in the streets during the summer Obon festival. The most famous is Tokushima's Awa Odori .
onsen Hot spring, generally developed for bathing.
pachinko Vertical pinball machines.
pond-garden Classic form of garden design focused around a pond.
romaji System of transliterating Japanese words using the roman alphabet.
ronin Masterless samurai .
rotemburo Outdoor hot-spring pool, often in the grounds of a ryokan.
ryokan Traditional Japanese inn.
salarymen The thousands of suited office-workers who keep Japan's companies and ministries ticking over.
samurai Warrior class who were retainers of the daimyo .
san or -zan Mountain.
sento Neighbourhood public bath.
seppuku Ritual suicide by disembowelment, often wrongly referred to as hara-kiri in English.
Shaka Nyorai The historical Buddha, Sakyamuni.
shamisen Traditional, three-stringed instrument played with a plectrum.
shima or -jima Island.
Shinkansen Bullet train.
Shinto Japan's indigenous religion, based on the premise that gods inhabit all natural things, both animate and inanimate.
Shitamachi Low-lying, working-class districts of east Tokyo, nowadays usually referring to Asakusa and Ueno.
shoji Paper-covered sliding screens used to divide rooms or cover windows.
shogun The military rulers of Japan before 1868, nominally subordinate to the emperor.
shukubo Temple lodgings.
soaplands Euphemistic name for bathhouses offering massages and, frequently, sexual services.
stroll-garden Style of garden design popular in the Edo period (1600-1868), comprising a series of tableaux which unfold as the viewer walks through the garden.
sumi-e Ink paintings, traditionally using black ink.
sumo Japan's national sport, a form of heavyweight wrestling which evolved from ancient Shinto divination rites.
taiko Drums.
tatami Rice-straw matting, the traditional covering for floors.
-tera , o-tera or -dera Buddhist temple.
tokonoma Alcove in a room where flowers or a scroll are displayed.
torii Gate to a Shinto shrine.
ukiyo-e Colourful woodblock prints or paintings which became particularly popular in the late eighteenth century.
waka Thirty-one syllable poem, arranged in five lines of five, seven, five, seven and seven syllables.
washi Traditional, handmade paper.
Yakushi Nyorai The Buddha in charge of physical and spiritual healing.
yakuza Professional criminal gangs, somewhat akin to the Mafia.
yama Mountain.
yamabushi Ascetic mountain priests.
yukata
Loose cotton robe worn as a dressing gown in ryokan.
Where to go
Few cities in the world can compare to Tokyo in terms of its scale and the sheer range of attractions, from the serene calm of the premier shrine Meiji-jingu to the frenetic, eye-boggling fish market Tsukiji. Here you'll find some of the world's most ambitious architecture, most stylish shops and most outrageous restaurants and bars. Frequent tragedies, both natural and man-made, have destroyed much of historical Tokyo and yet the past lingers, in the alleys around the temple Senso-ji and in the elegant imperial gardens now open to the public.
Even on the shortest trip to Tokyo you should consider taking in surrounding attractions, in particular the historical towns of Nikko to the north, where the amazing Tosho-gu shrine complex is set amid glorious mountain forests, and Kamakura to the south with its giant statue of the Buddha and tranquil woodland walks. To the west stands Japan's eternal symbol Mount Fuji , best visited during the climbing season from June to September, and the beautiful hot-spring (onsen) resort of Hakone around the lake Ashi-no-ko.
Mountains, lakes and hot-spring resorts continue north from Tokyo to the very tip of Honshu island. This district, known as Tohoku, sees surprisingly few visitors, but its sleepy villages and nicely laid-back cities deserve greater attention. While the region has little in the way of top-tier sights, the Golden Hall of Hiraizumi more than justifies the journey, and can easily be combined with the islet-sprinkled Matsushima Bay or Tono , where a more traditional way of life survives among the fields and farmhouses. Northern Honshu is also known for its vibrant summer festivals , notably those of Sendai, Aomori, Hirosaki and Akita, and for its sacred mountains. Of these, Dewa-sanzan , on the Japan Sea coast, is home to a colourful sect of ascetic mountain priests, while souls in purgatory haunt the eerie wastelands of Osore-zan , way up on the rugged Shimokita Peninsula.
North across the Tsugaru Straits from here, Hokkaido is Japan's final frontier, home to the Ainu, the country's indigenous people, and popular for its outdoor sports. Daisetsu-zan National Park , dominating the centre of the island has excellent hiking trails over mountain peaks and through soaring rock gorges carved into incredible shapes. For remoteness it's hard to beat the Shiretoko National Park in the far northeast, covering the spindly peninsula of volcanoes and primeval forests that juts out into the Sea of Okhotsk. To the northwest, the lovely islands Rebun-to and Rishiri-to are ideal summer escapes, while in the south, the Shikotsu-Toya National Park , includes two beautiful lakes, onsen and the baby volcano Showa Shin-zan.
Hokkaido's most historic city is Hakodate , with its hundred-year-old wooden houses, churches built by expat traders and lively fish market. Most of the appealing capital Sapporo is thoroughly modern, particularly the raging nightlife centre Suskino, but two older attractions are worth catching: the original Sapporo Brewery and the Historical Village of Hokkaido, a park with over sixty buildings from the island's frontier days. Winter is also a fantastic time to visit Hokkaido to catch Sapporo's amazing Snow Festival ( Yuki Matsuri ) in February, ski at top resorts or take a boat through the drift ice off the port of Abashiri.
Skiing, mountaineering and soaking in hot springs are part of the culture of Central Honshu (Chubu), an area dominated by the magnificent Japan Alps . Either the old castle town of Matsumoto or Nagano , with its atmospheric temple of pilgrimage, Zenko-ji, can be used as a starting point for exploring this region. Highlights include the tiny mountain resort of Kamikochi , accessible only from April to November, and the immaculately preserved Edo-era villages of Tsumago and Magome , linked by a short hike along the remains of a three-hundred-year-old stone-paved road. On the Gifu-ken side of the mountains, Takayama deservedly draws many visitors to its handsome streets lined with merchant houses and temples built by generations of skilled carpenters. In the remote neighbouring valleys you'll find the rare A-frame thatched houses of Ogimachi, Suganuma and Ainokura , remnants of a fast disappearing rural Japan and all designated World Heritage Sites.
On the Japan Sea coast, the historic city of Kanazawa is home to Kenroku-en, one of Japan's best gardens, and is the departure point for the charming fishing villages along the wild coastline of the Noto-hanto , a peninsula to the northeast. Also accessible from Kanazawa, you can join a working community of Zen Buddhist monks at Eihei-ji , a beautiful temple in total harmony with its wooded surroundings. Chubu's southern coast is heavily industrialized, although the major city of Nagoya has a few minor points of interest, including the Tokugawa Art Museum, and the pretty castle-town of Inuyama, which holds summer displays of the ancient skill of ukai , or cormorant fishing. Also worth visiting is Meiji Mura, a vast outdoor museum of turn-of-the-twentieth-century architecture.
South of the Japan Alps, the Kansai plains are scattered with ancient temples, shrines and the remnants of imperial cities. The most famous of these former capitals is Kyoto , where at first the sheer wealth of sights can be overwhelming. The city's prime attractions are its magnificent temples and palaces, filled with superb statuary or exquisite painted screens, and surrounded by the most glorious gardens. Kyoto is also Japan's premier cultural centre, home to its most refined cuisine and most classy ryokan, while the city's hidden corners make casual wandering a delight. Nearby, Nara is a more manageable size but no slouch when it comes to venerable monuments, notably the great bronze Buddha of Todai-ji and Horyu-ji's unrivalled collection of early Japanese statuary. The surrounding region contains a number of still-thriving religious foundations, such as the highly atmospheric temples of Hiei-zan and Koya-san . Over on the east coast, Japan's most revered Shinto shrine, Ise-jingu , consists of a collection of austere buildings shaded by towering cryptomeria trees.
Not all Kansai is quite so rarefied, however. The opening of Kansai International airport has given a boost to the fast-moving, slightly unconventional metropolis of Osaka . Apart from its easy-going atmosphere and boisterous nightlife, the city's main attractions are its fabulous aquarium, a superbly restored castle and a hard-hitting civil rights museum. Further west, the port of Kobe , now with 1995's earthquake firmly set behind it, offers a gentler cosmopolitan atmosphere, but is no match for Himeji , home of Japan's must see castle as well as some impressive modern gardens and buildings.
History hangs heavy on Western Honshu (Chugoku) and not just in its most visited city, the reborn Hiroshima . The Kanmon Straits separating Honshu from Kyushu witnessed one of Japan's most crucial naval battles, Dannoura, in the twelfth century, while in the northern coastal town of Hagi disgruntled samurai sparked the Meiji Restoration some 600 years later. The most rewarding sights are on the area's southern San-yo and northern San-in coasts.
After Hiroshima, on the southern coast, it's worth pausing at Okayama to stroll around one of Japan's top three gardens, Koraku-en, and the appealingly preserved Edo-era town of Kurashiki . The beauty of the Inland Sea, dotted with thousands of islands, is best appreciated from spots such as the idyllic fishing village of Tomo-no-Ura, Nao-shima or the port of Onomichi . If you have time, don't miss out on the islands themselves, especially Shodo-shima, Ikuchi-jima and Miya-jima - home to one of the country's most famous symbols, the waterbound red torii gate at the ancient shrine of Itsukushima-jinja. All have a relaxed atmosphere, a world apart from the metropolitan bustle of mainland Japan.
Crossing to the San-in coast, the castle town of Hagi retains some handsome samurai houses and atmospheric temples, only surpassed by the even more enchanting Tsuwano , further inland. Home to the pantheon of Shinto deities, one of Japan's most venerable shrines, Izumo Taisha, lies roughly mid-point along the coast, near the watery capital of Matsue , which has the region's only original castle. The pine-forested sand spit at Amanohashidate , one of Japan's top scenic spots, extends at the far eastern end of the region, and is easily accessible from both Kyoto and Osaka.
You don't need to visit all 88 temples on Japan's most famous pilgrimage to enjoy the best of Shikoku , the country's fourth largest island. Apart from dramatic scenery in the Iya valley and along the often rugged coastline, the places to aim for are Matsuyama , with its imperious castle and splendidly ornate Dogo Onsen Honkan - one of Japan's best hot springs; the lovely garden Ritsurin-koen in Takamatsu ; and the ancient shrine at Kotohira , one of the most important in the Shinto religion. Japanese tourists know these places well, but you're unlikely to run into many other gaijin on Shikoku.
The southernmost of Japan's four main islands, Kyushu is probably best known as the target for the second atomic bomb, which exploded over Nagasaki in 1945. This surprisingly attractive, cosmopolitan city quite rightly acts as Kyushu's prime tourist focus, but it's worth devoting a few extra days to exploring the island's more far-flung sights. Hikers and onsen enthusiasts should head up into the central highlands, where Aso-san 's smouldering peak dominates the world's largest volcanic crater, or to the more southerly meadows of Ebino Kogen . So much hot water gushes out of the ground in Beppu , on the east coast, that it's known as Japan's hot-spring capital, complete with jungle baths, sand baths and wonderfully tacky amusement centres. Major cities such as Kagoshima and Kumamoto offer more conventional castles, museums and craft centres, while Fukuoka takes pride in its innovative modern architecture and an exceptionally lively entertainment district.
Last but not least,
Okinawa
comprises more than a hundred smaller islands stretching in a great arc from southern Kyushu to within sight of Taiwan. Okinawa was an independent kingdom until the early seventeenth century and traces of its distinctive culture still survive. The beautifully reconstructed former royal palace dominates the capital city,
Naha
, but to really appreciate the region you need to make for the remoter islands. Though not undiscovered, this is where you'll find Japan's most stunning white-sand beaches and its best diving, particularly around the subtropical islands of Miyako, Ishigaki and Iriomote.
Information, maps and web sites
Within Japan, JNTO operates four Tourist Information Centres ( TIC ), all of which have English-speaking staff. These offices are located in central Tokyo, Tokyo's Narita airport, Kansai International airport and Kyoto (see individual city accounts for details). They provide a similar range of information as JNTO's overseas offices, covering the whole of Japan as well as their local area, and can usually answer all sorts of individual queries. Not surprisingly, you may have to queue at busy times. The offices in Narita, Kyoto and Kansai airport provide accommodation booking services (no commission), while the Tokyo TIC is located next door to the Welcome Inn Reservation Centre . Though the staff will help sort out routes and timetables, they can't make travel reservations, nor usually sell tickets to theatres, cinemas and so on (some occasionally have discounted tickets on offer); instead, they'll direct you to the nearest appropriate outlet. It's worth noting that much of their printed English-language information isn't always available in the regions, so stock up while you can.
Local tourist offices with English-speaking staff are called " i " centres , of which there are now nearly one hundred in 67 towns and cities, usually located in or close to the main train station. In practice, the amount of English information available - whether written or spoken - is a bit hit-or-miss, but at least the staff should be able to assist with local maps, hotel reservations (some charge a small commission) and simple queries. Next level down are the ordinary tourist information offices, where there's little chance of getting English-language assistance. Nevertheless, they can usually supply maps, transport information and, sometimes, help with accommodation.
If you're stuck, JNTO runs the excellent Japan Travel-Phone (daily 9am-5pm; toll-free tel 0088-224800), which provides English-language information and assistance, not only on travel-related topics. You can call from any grey or green public phone - insert a phone card or A?10 piece to get the dial tone - except within Tokyo and Kyoto, where you should phone the appropriate TIC at a local call rate (A?10 per minute).
Another useful source of English-language information is the Goodwill Guides , groups of volunteer guides located in nearly thirty cities mostly in central and western Japan. The guides' services are free - although you're expected to pay for their transport, entry tickets and any meals you have together - and the language ability obviously varies. But they provide a great opportunity to learn more about Japanese culture and to visit local restaurants, shops and so forth with a Japanese speaker. The TICs have a list of groups and their contact details, or the local information office should be able to help with arrangements; try and give at least two days' notice.
A number of cities also operate a
Home Visit System
, where English-speaking Japanese families welcome foreigners into their homes for a couple of hours, usually after the evening meal. Again, arrangements can be made through the local "i" centre or TIC a few days in advance.
Opening hours, national holidays and festivals
Banks open on weekdays from 9am to 3pm, and close on Saturdays, Sundays and national holidays. Post offices tend to work 9am to 5pm on weekdays, closing at weekends and also on national holidays, though a few open on Saturdays from 9am to 3pm. Central post offices, on the other hand, stay open till 7pm in the evening, open on Saturdays from 9am to 5pm and on Sundays and holidays from 9am to 12.30pm. Larger offices are also likely to operate an after-hours service for parcels and express mail, sometimes up to 24 hours at major post offices.
The majority of museums close on a Monday, but stay open on Sundays and national holidays; last entry is normally thirty minutes before closing. There's almost invariably an admission charge to museums and other tourist sights. In the Guide we give the cost of an adult entry ticket; school-age children and students usually get reduced rates, which may be up to half the adult price.
While most museums and department stores stay open on
national holidays
, they usually take the following day off instead. However, during the New Year festival (January 1-4), Golden Week (April 29-May 5) and Obon (the week around August 15), almost everything shuts down. Around these periods every form of transport and accommodation will be booked out weeks in advance, and all major tourist spots will be besieged.
Social conventions and etiquette
The Japanese treat most foreigners with incredible, even embarrassing, kindness. There are endless stories of people going out of their way to help, or paying for drinks or even meals after the briefest of encounters. That said, foreigners will always remain "outsiders" (
gaijin
), no matter how long they've lived in Japan or how proficient they are in the language and social niceties. On the positive side this can be wonderfully liberating; you're expected to make mistakes, so don't get too hung up about it. The important thing is to be seen to be trying. As a general rule, when in doubt simply follow what everyone else is doing.
Shopping and souvenirs
Historically, the epicentre of commercial frenzy is Tokyo's Ginza, to such an extent that the name has become synonymous with shopping street; you'll find "little Ginzas" all over Japan. However, the mechanics of shopping are the same throughout: all prices are fixed, except in flea markets and some discount electrical stores where bargaining is acceptable. Few shops take credit cards and fewer still accept cards issued abroad, so make sure you have plenty of cash. All except the smallest purchases will be meticulously wrapped.
In general, shop
opening hours
are from 10am to 7pm, or 8pm. Most close one day a week, not always on Sunday, and smaller places tend to shut on national holidays. Nearly all shops close for at least three days over New Year. If you need anything
after hours
, you'll find 24-hour convenience stores in most towns and cities, often near the train station. These sell a basic range of toiletries, stationery and foodstuffs, at slightly inflated prices: Lawson, Family Mart, AM/PM and Seven-Eleven are the most common.
Sports and outdoor activities
Martial arts , such as aikido, judo and karate, all traditionally associated with Japan, have a much lower profile than you might expect. Tokyo with its many dojo (practice halls) is the best place in the country in which to view or learn these ancient sports. The TIC at Yurakucho in Tokyo has a full list of dojo that allow visitors to watch practice sessions for free.
If you're interested in attending any sporting event, check the local media, such as the Japan Times and Tokyo Classified , for details. To get tickets it's best, in the first instance, to approach one of the major advance ticket agencies: Ticket Pia, for example, can be found in most main cities. In Tokyo, Ticket Pia also has an English-language telephone booking line (tel 03/5237-9999). Major games and events sell out quickly, so a second approach is to go directly to the venue on the day and see if you can get a ticket from the box office or a tout outside; expect to pay well over the odds, though, if it's a popular game.
In terms of participation sports, golf is the most popular, with some fourteen million golfers in Japan, and more courses and driving ranges than you can swing a club at. The current recession has taken the shine off the sport being used for business meetings and as a status symbol, but fees for playing a round remain out of the reach of all but the most dedicated visiting golf fan.
More accessible outdoor activities in this mountainous, volcanic country are
skiing
during the winter and
hiking
and
mountain climbing
during the summer. If you're interested in such pursuits, it's worth getting in touch with the Tokyo-based
International Adventurers Club
(IAC) or its sister club for the Kansai region, the
International Outdoor Club
(IOC), both of which provide informal opportunities to explore the Japanese countryside and mountains in the company of likeminded people. The Web sites
www.skijapanguide.com
and
www.outdoorjapan.com
are also mines of useful information.
Films to look out for
Many small investors were encouraged to plough their savings into the market, the most notorious being Onoue Nui , who became known as the "Bubble Woman". At one point, Onoue was, on paper, one of the richest people in the world, her share holdings, financed by stupendous loans, worth ?1.13 trillion. Even more incredible than the fact that the banks were happy to lend such large amounts to a small-time restaurant owner, were the midnight seances Onoue held with brokers to choose her stocks.
By 1990, the unthinkable was happening. Stocks were devaluing and the extent of brokerages' perfidy - including dealings with gangsters and guarantees of no losses to major clients - was becoming clear. Onoue was one of the first to come a cropper, going bankrupt and standing trial for fraud in 1992. The fallout from bad debts racked up by the banks has since brought several seemingly impregnable financial institutions down and continues to threaten several more. The most recent high-profile crash was that of the venerable department store Sogo
V: Virtual pets and pop stars
Death or ageing is not something that Japan's first virtual pop star , Date Kyoko, has to worry about. The computer-animated character was created in 1996 to fit a precise marketing profile and had an instant hit with her first CD. Although no more enduring than other bubble-gum pop singers, Date's "talents" are an ironic comment on her flesh and blood counterparts whose voices are as electronically altered and images as carefully packaged as those of the cyber-songstress.
To confirm the craze, Date has been joined by a bevy of other cyber-idols, including Ai, Shizuru and Yuki Terai
History
Ian Buruma The Wages of Guilt (Random House). Buruma's skilful comparison and explanation of how and why Germany and Japan have come to terms so differently with their roles in World War II.
John Dower , Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Aftermath of World War II (Allen Lane/Penguin Press). This accessible Pulitzer Prize winner looks at the impact of the American occupation on Japan and concludes it had a fundamental and long-lasting effect. First-person accounts and snappy writing bring the book alive.
John Hersey Hiroshima (Penguin). Classic account of the devastation and suffering wrought by the first A-bomb to be used in war.
George Hicks The Comfort Women (Souvenir Press). The story of one of the more shameful episodes of World War II, when the Japanese forced women to become prostitutes (euphemistically known as "comfort women") for the army, that was only officially admitted by the government in the 1990s.
Richard Hughes Foreign Devil (Century). The veteran Australian journalist arrived in Japan in 1940, eighteen months before Pearl Harbor, and came back in 1945 to turn his enormous talent (and wit) to commenting on postwar Japan and the Far East. Goes behind the scenes with Fleming-san to research You Only Live Twice .
Mishima Akio Bitter Sea (Kosei). The Kyushu port of Minamata is now a byword in Japan for the devastating impact of industrial pollution. This dramatic account of the poisoning of Minamata's citizens and their long, painful battle for compensation, was penned by a former journalist, turned environmentalist.
Sir George Samson Japan: A Short Cultural History (Tuttle). Condensed from the former diplomat's scholarly three-volume epic - but by no means concise - this is one of the standard texts on Japan's past.
Edward Seidensticker Low City, High City (Tuttle) and Tokyo Rising: The City Since the Great Earthquake (Tuttle). Seidensticker, a top translator of Japanese literature, tackles Tokyo's history from its humble beginnings to the Great Kanto quake of 1923 in the first book and follows up well with a second volume focusing on the capital's postwar experiences.
Oliver Statler Japanese Inn and Japanese Pilgrimage (Tuttle). In the first book, a ryokan on the Tokaido road provides the focus for an entertaining account of over four hundred years of Japanese history. In Japanese Pilgrimage , Statler applies his talents to bringing alive the history of the 88-temple hike around Shikoku.
Richard Storry A History of Modern Japan (Penguin). Ideal primer for basics and themes of Japanese history.
Kenneth Strong Ox Against the Storm (Japan Library). The revealing story of one man's fight against the Meiji Government on behalf of peasants affected by copper pollution. A larger-than-life character, Tanaka Shozo was a fierce champion of democracy and people's rights, as well as one of Japan's first conservationists.
Richard Tames A Traveller's History of Japan (Windrush Press). This clearly written and succinct volume romps through Japan's history and provides useful cultural descriptions and essays.
Marvin Tokayer and Mary Swartz The Fugu Plan (Weatherhill). Semi-fictionalized tale, based on incredible true-life events, which saw over 5000 Jews being allowed into Japan during World War II and protected first in Kobe and later in Japanese-occupied Shanghai.
Paul Waley Tokyo: City of Stories (Weatherill). An intimate, anecdotal history of the capital, which delves into Tokyo's neighbourhoods uncovering some fascinating stories in the process.
Mark Weston
Giants of Japan
(Kodansha International). Mark Weston puts flesh on the bones of history with these short, lively biographies of the movers and shakers - including a handful of women - who helped create the Japan of today. The 37 portraits range from emperors to industrialists and poets to film directors.
Murakami Haruki
Many of Murakami's books are set in Tokyo, drawing on his time studying at Waseda University in the early 1970s and running his own jazz bar in Kokubunji, a place that became a haunt for literary types and, no doubt, provided inspiration for his jazz-bar-running hero in the bittersweet novella South of the Border, West of the Sun . He's back living in Tokyo now, but has spent large parts of his career abroad, including five years teaching in the US, at both Princeton University and Boston's Tufts University. The contemporary edge to Murakami's writing, which eschews the traditional cliches of Japanese literature, has been fuelled by his work as a translator of books by John Irving, Raymond Carver, Truman Capote and Paul Theroux among others.
A good introduction to Murakami is
Norwegian Wood
(Harvill), a tender coming-of-age love story between two students, that has sold over five million copies in both of its volumes. The truly bizarre A Wild Sheep Chase and its follow-up
Dance Dance Dance
(both Harvill/Kodansha), are funny but disturbing modern-day fables, dressed up as detective novels. His best book is considered to be
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
(Harvill), a hefty yet dazzling cocktail of mystery, war reportage and philosophy.