Hello all, and welcome to lesson two of Japanese Greeting Etiquette and Customs! This time, it will be on the main form of physical greeting in Japan, which is bowing. Bowing, in the Japanese culture is much more common rather than giving a casual handshake or a hug (for much more casual and friendlier occasions), like people of other nation usually do. Bowing, together with its implication is actually quite complicated, especially for foreigners like us to comprehend.
Most social situations in Japan have an appropriate greeting, and bowing has many …

Japan may be facing a declining birth rate, but not in the number of vending machines available in the country. In just no more than 4 years, there has been an additional of 100,000 more vending machines of all kinds available nationwide in Japan. In 2006, the number of vending machines was roughly 5.4 millions and in the year 2009, the figure has reached 5.5 million. Ratio is about one vending machine for every 20 people living in Japan.
Vending machines are called as ‘Jidou-hanbaiki‘ in Japan. These intelligent machines are …

One more aspect that the Japanese people of the old times have outsourced from their nearest neighboring countries is the zodiac system, which in nature has many linkages with Buddhism. The Japanese zodiac system is so much similar to that of the ancient Chinese zodiac system, but in truth that is it the same thing after all. The Chinese zodiac system is rather ‘karmatic’ in nature. Something that is very well related to Buddhism. Instead of the linear pattern of the western calendar, the Chinese zodiac system adopted a set …

When it comes to forms of addressing a person while you’re in Japan, you’ll probably come across the –san suffix pretty often. The word –san is added to the end of a person’s name as a sign of respect. As you know, Japanese is classified as an extremely polite people in social and cultural context, especially with people they are not acquainted to. In the everyday life of Japanese people, the word –san is used as an addressing suffix added to a person family.
This is pretty similar to the English …

Japan is faced by another problem that literally may not sound much like a threat but reality couldn’t be much bitter. One thing for sure that it is one unique problem that is not faced by many countries – it’s Japan increasingly aging population or koreika shakai. It seems like the number of centenarians in Japan has doubled in the past six years to more than forty thousands people. That doesn’t add up yet the total increase of people above the age 60 years.

Japan has one of the world’s longest …

If a single Japanese man from, let say the Tokugawa era, were to travel through time into the future, he would probably shocked with horror look on his face to see what modern Japan has to offer, especially in terms of fashion. Japan can be named as one of the main trendsetters of fashion in the world. If you’re looking for a little weirdness, freakiness with much creativity, I suggest for you to go look for Japanese youngsters in the subway and along the streets of Harajuku, Shinjuku or Shibuya.
Sometimes, …

In Japan, there is a special name for what we knew as ‘mafia’ or gangsters. They are called the yakuza. Yakuza can be considered as Japan’s organized criminals, divided into about 2,500 families or clans with possibily about more than 100,000 members altogether. Despite of their notorious demeanor and violent nature, their existence are accepted by the police and the Japanese society. The principal or top yakuza family would have to be the Yamaguchi-gumi. Others are like Sumiyoshi-kai, Inagawa-kai and Toa-kai.
Tracking their origin, the history of Yakuza may have been …