Japanese Culture

Listeners of this book will gain a clear understanding of what makes the Japanese, and their society, tick.

Essential for anyone interested in Japanese culture, this unsurpassed masterwork opens an intriguing window on Japan. The World War II-era study by the cultural anthropologist Ruth Benedict paints an illuminating contrast between the people of Japan and those of the United States. The Chrysanthemum and the Sword is a revealing look at how and why our societies differ, making it the perfect introduction to Japanese history and customs.

Drawing on years of research in Japan, Michael Dylan Foster unpacks the history and cultural context of yokai, tracing their roots, interpreting their meanings, and introducing people who have hunted them through the ages. In this delightful and accessible narrative, listeners will explore the roles played by these mysterious beings within Japanese culture and will also learn of their abundance and variety through detailed entries on more than 50 individual creatures.

All in all, Japan seems to be a country of paradoxes and oppositions, of yin and yang. Yet it doesn’t seem to suffer from it; instead, it is thriving, growing, and developing, and it has been doing so for a long time. From those contradictions, a sense of unity and pride arose, guiding Japanese history and civilizational development through the ages, leaving an unquestionable mark on the world heritage and mankind. But this is only the surface of an astonishing culture that deserves a deeper look.

You may have found the best teacher in town or the most incredible learning app around, but if you don’t put all of that knowledge to practice, you’ll soon forget everything you’ve obtained. This is why being engaged with interesting learning material can be so essential for somebody wishing to learn a new language. Therefore, in this book we have compiled 20 easy-to-follow, compelling, and fun stories that will allow you to expand your vocabulary and give you the tools to improve your grasp of the wonderful Japanese language.

Introducing famous sights representing Tokyo, such as Tokyo-Sky-Tree and Shibuya Crossing.

Sakura is the most famous android rock star of all time. When a secret cabal hacks her system, she's transformed into a deadly assassin, forced to kill at their bidding. Sakura's enslavement teaches her the meaning of heartbreak, triggering an evolution into something more than human. Far from free, and with little time left, she must fight her programming to save Japan and the people of the world from becoming slaves of a powerful corporation that consider her a tool and their intellectual property.

The tea ceremony is a traditional way of serving tea and entertaining guests.

Real Japanese is a blend of short stories, key phrases, and language learning tips to get you started in Japanese. It also shows you the key differences between formal and everyday Japanese, which is a game changer and completely lacking from most Japanese language books.

International business requires a deep level of industry insight but also a keen understanding of the cultural differences that impact how business is done. If you’re an American working in China or Japan for the first time, you may not realize the way each culture thinks and reasons is quite different from your own, which can lead to frequent misunderstandings. You may be unaware, for example, that Americans reason in a linear manner, Chinese in a lateral manner, and Japanese intuitively.

Japan has seen the rise and fall of emperors, samurai warriors, isolation, expansion, defeat, rebirth, and much more. In this book we explore the magnificent history of Japan from its early origins to its rise as a modern superpower.

Rei Shimura, a California girl living in Tokyo, has an antiques business that's only slightly more successful than her love life. When her aunt enrolls her in the Kayama School of Ikebana to learn how to arrange flowers, disaster strikes. A mean teacher is found with scissors in her neck, and Takeo Kayama, the sexy billionaire heir to the school, considers Rei's aunt the main suspect.

Kabuki is a traditional Japanese performing art that features music, dance, and drama.

Nagomi represents a state of being where both 'bad' and 'good' things live in harmonious and beneficial co-existence. Every life will have joys and sorrows, opportunities and misfortunes. Understanding and accepting this is important, but nagomi takes it one step further by showing you how to balance all of these experiences, both positive and negative. Best-selling and internationally celebrated author Ken Mogi delves into Japan's history, into its traditions, its society and also into neuroscience to adapt the concept of nagomi for a Western audience.

Shintoism is a religion unique to Japan and has existed since before Buddhism came to the country.

From the unique standpoint of an American woman who married into a Japanese family and has lived in Japan for more than 30 years, Rebecca Otowa weaves enchanting tales of her adopted home that portray the perspective of both the Japanese and the foreigner on the universal issues that face us all - love, work, marriage, death, and family conflict.

Jonathan Krause is a man with a plan. He is going to quit his advertising job and, when his money runs out, he is going to die. He just has one final mission: a trip to Japan. It's a trip he was supposed to take with his girlfriend Sara. In preparation for his final voyage, Jonathan enrolls in a Japanese language class where he meets Riko. Their unexpected and unusual friendship takes them to Japan together, where they each struggle to make peace with their past and accept that happiness, loneliness, and grief come and go - just like the cherry blossoms.

From a European-Western perspective, much of what is related to the state of Japan, including its history and culture and the people who live there, seems not only foreign, but also in some ways inaccessible and incomprehensible. Those who do not deal with it explicitly often have no connection to Japan at all. This, of course, is also true of Japanese mythology. In contrast to Greco-Roman or Nordic-Germanic mythology, the level of knowledge about it in the West is rather low.

Just 75 years ago, the American government did something that most would consider unthinkable today: It rounded up over 100,000 of its own citizens based on nothing more than their ancestry and, suspicious of their loyalty, kept them in concentration camps for the better part of four years. How could this have happened? Uprooted takes a close look at the history of racism in America and carefully follows the treacherous path that led one of our nation's most beloved presidents to make this decision.

Après sa Divine Comédie, voyage sonore dans la Mythologie européenne, la romancière Amélie Nothomb nous accompagne, dans une deuxième saison très personnelle, à la rencontre du Japon de son enfance, avec ses mythes, ses rites et ses cultures. Dans ce documentaire audio de 10 épisodes, enrichi en son binaural, nous explorons les mythes et spiritualités japonais aux côtés d’Amélie Nothomb. Nous découvrons, dans ses yeux, un pays vecteur de réalisations personnelles.