Interesting Facts! #8

8. Japan’s anthem has the oldest words, written by an anonymous author in the ninth century.

The Japanese national anthem (kokka) is "Kimigayo" (君が代). When the Meiji period began in 1868 and Japan made its start as a modern nation, there was no Japanese national anthem. In fact the person who emphasized the necessity of a national anthem was a British military band instructor, John William Fenton.

The words were taken from a tanka (31-syllable poem) found in the Kokin-wakashu, a 10th-century anthology of poems. The music was composed in 1880 by Hiromori Hayashi, an Imperial Court musician and was later harmonized according to the Gregorian mode by Franz Eckert, a German bandmaster. "Kimigayo (The Emperor's Reign)" became Japan's national anthem in 1888. 

The word "kimi" refers to the Emperor and the words contain the prayer: "May the Emperor's reign last forever." The poem was composed in the era when the Emperor reigned over the people. During WWII, Japan was an absolute monarchy which moved the Emperor to the top. The Japanese Imperial Army invaded many Asian countries. The motivation was that they were fighting for the holy Emperor.  

After WWII, the Emperor became the symbol of Japan by the Constitution, and has lost all political power. Since then various objections have been raised about singing "Kimigayo" as a national anthem. However, at present it remains sung at national festivals, international events, schools, and on national holidays.

                                                                     -The more you know~

Interesting Facts! #7

7) A melon can sell for over $400 in Japan

-Japan has one of the highest prices for fruit and vegetables 

Fruits and vegetables are expensive because of Japan's land mass. Compared to the US or Canada, it's much, much smaller; hence, less land to farm on. It's also more difficult to grow stuff on mountainous terrain than it is in the flat plains of the Midwest. It may look like there's "plenty of land", but the country won't start turning itself into a island greenhouse for your vegetarian tastes. Also, Japan has one of the greatest human population densities in the world, meaning that each plot of land in Japan needs to feed more people. Also, Japan isn't very close to many fruit-producing countries. In the US, fruits and veggies are cheaper because a lot of it can be grown in-country, but they also have Latin America close by to send their exports. Japan is an ocean away, so shipping costs would be much greater, leading to higher prices for you at the supermarket.

                                                                            -The more you know~

Interesting Facts! #6

6.Originally, "kimono" was the Japanese word for clothing. But in more recent years, the word has been used to refer specifically to traditional Japanese clothing.

   

-Traditional Japanese clothing includes many different types; fundoshi, furisode, hakama, hanten, happi, jinbeit, gūnihitoe, kimono, obi (sashes), samue, sokutai, tomesode, uwagi, and yukata. These garments are made to suit the seasons in which they are worn. Clothing that has rustic hues and patterns, such as those that feature russet leaves, are preferred for autumn wear.

- For winter, people who are dressed in kimonos like to wear darker fabric and more layers. Sometimes, people may wear ten layers of clothing.

-More recently, the main difference between men and women's kimonos is the material used. Typically, men's kimonos are dark, subdued colors, like dark blue, black, brown, or green. Usually, these are also matte fabrics with some having slight patterns.

 -Nowadays, Japanese people rarely wear kimonos in everyday life, reserving them for such occasions as weddings, funerals, tea ceremonies, or other special events, such as summer festivals.

                                                                              -The more you know~

5 Interesting Facts about Japanese Hygiene

1. Stick deodorant is not available. Spray deodorant exists, but it's not commonly used.

2.Companies hire people to hand out small packages of tissues to pedestrians. But, get this, using tissues in public is considered rude.

3.People carry around a small towel to wipe the sweat from their foreheads.

4.Before taking a bath they must shower first. Members of a household use the same bath water.

5.Most toilets in japan have a built-in bidet system, called Wash-lets, for spraying water on your tush. These are the norms in houses and nicer restrooms. In some public bathrooms you may still find a traditional Japanese "floor toilet" where you will need to squat. Oy.

-The more you know~

Interesting Facts! #5

5. Japan has more than 50,000 People who are over 100 years old.

(reasons for this)

-The Japanese birthrate is so low that ADULT DIAPERS are sold more than baby diapers.The Japanese now have one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, and at the same time, one of the highest longevity rates. The population is dropping rapidly, and becoming increasingly weighted toward older people. By 2060, the government estimates, there will be just 87 million people in Japan; nearly half of them will be over 65.

-In Japanese tradition, marriage was more about duty than romantic love. Arranged marriages were the norm well into the 1970s, and even into the 1990s most marriages were facilitated by "go-betweens," often the grooms' bosses. Left to their own devices, Japanese men aren't sure how to find wives — and many are shying away from the hunt, because they simply can't afford it. Wages have stagnated since the 1990s, while housing prices have shot up. A young Japanese man has good reason to believe that his standard of living would drop immensely if he had to house and support a wife and children — especially considering that his wife likely wouldn't be working. Japanese husbands aren't much help either — they spend an average of one hour a day helping with the children and household chores, compared with three hours for husbands in the U.S. and Western Europe.

-In Japan, marriage usually ends a woman's working career, even though most women are well educated. Once they have a child, women face strong social pressure to quit their jobs and assume very traditional roles, serving both the husband and the child. Mothers who want to keep working are stigmatized and usually find that employers won't hire them. Child care is scarce and expensive, while Japan's brutal work culture often demands that employees work more than 50 hours a week.

-For years, they hid from the world, playing video games all night and sleeping all day, eating from a tray their mothers left outside their rooms. They are hikikomori, one of an estimated 1 million Japanese teens and young men who have become shut-ins, with virtually no human contact beyond their parents. Some of the hikikomori first withdraw because of some social embarrassment — bad grades, or a romantic rejection. The longer they drop out, the more shame they feel in a society where one's status and reputation are paramount and hard to change. Parents, and especially mothers, often enable the withdrawal.

                                                                                  -The more you know~

Interesting Facts! #4

4. Raised floors help indicate when to take off shoes or slippers. At the entrance to a home in Japan, the floor will usually be raised about 6 inches indicating you should take off your shoes and put on slippers. If the house has a tatami mat room its floor may be rasied 1-2 inches indicating you should to take off your slippers

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-Genkan (entrance) 玄関 げんかん are traditional Japanese entryway areas for a house, apartment, or building—something of a combination of a porch and a doormat. The primary function of genkan is for the removal of shoes before entering the main part of the house or building.Unless you live in an apartment. In this case, the genkan is probably so small, you can’t even see the genkan floor for the heap of shoes. Upon entering, you trip over the heap, which conveniently launches you out of your shoes and into the apartment. Forget the slippers.The genkan is also a holding spot for guests. It’s like a waiting room — standing room only. Many people are clearly not comfortable crossing the barrier into your house.

-A tatami (畳) is a type of mat used as a flooring material in traditional Japanese-style rooms.Tatami were originally a luxury item for the nobility.Tatami Mats take the place of a rug and are used in the same way.The most common place to find a room of tatami are bed rooms. Each mat is skillfully crafted and last up to 20 years.

                                                                 -The more you know~

Interesting Facts! #3

3.There are four different writing systems in Japan; Romaji, Katakana, Hiragana, and Kanji.

- When you first start learning Japanese, you most likely start out with romaji.The word rōmaji literally means "roman letters". Romaji is using an alphabet you already know to write and read Japanese. It's the representation of Japanese sounds using the western, 26-letter alphabet.

-Katakana (片仮名, カタカナ) the more angular form of kana (syllabic writing) used in Japanese, primarily used for words of foreign origin. Japanese has two forms of phonetic writing, hiragana and katakana. In modern Japanese, most writing is done in a mixture of hiragana and kanji (Chinese characters). Katakana tends to be used for gairaigo and onomatopoeia, while hiragana tends to be used for native Japanese words. 

-Hiragana (平仮名, ひらがな) the more cursive and more widely used form of kana (syllabic writing) used in Japanese, especially used for function words and inflections. Hiragana is the basic Japanese phonetic alphabet. It represents every sound in the Japanese language. Much like English where each character has a unique sound and the characters can be written one after the next to spell out a word. Learning hiragana is the first step in learning how to read and write Japanese - indeed it is the first of the three Japanese scripts that Japanese children learn.

-Kanji (漢字) a system of Japanese writing using Chinese characters. Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters (hanzi) that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana and katakana. The script was invented by the Chinese and adopted by the Japanese around the middle of the 6th century AD ( first introduced to Japan in the 5th or 6th century via Korea.) There's between 5,000 and 10,000 characters, but most of them are only used in people's names.

                                                                               -The more you know~