I received one reply to my previous post on the issue of ‘Ohaguro’ or Black Teeth Custom, which was once a very popular custom in the ancient Japan. The question pertain to the reason as to why the practice was banned in the Meiji period, well, instead of replying straight, I find this is a very interesting issue to discuss and research on and so I did, and decided to write a post on it. By the way, you can read more on the introduction from my previous post titled …

Almost every nation has their taxes to pay, including Japan. The national Japanese domestic tax system is administered by the National Tax Administration in Japan, a semi-independent body of the Ministry of Finance, of which oversees a total of 12 regional taxation bureaus and 517 local tax offices. Whereby their tax policy and international tax negotiation are handled by an internal bureau of the Ministry of Finance called Tax Bureau. However, for tax matters, a general framework is established by the Local Tax Law, which is overseen by the Local …

Akoh Gishi Sai or “The Forty-Seven Loyal Retainers in Akoh” is one of the many festivals in Japan, which is traditional in nature.
If you’ve heard of the samurai movie ‘Chushingura’, then you have all the reason to know about Akoh Gishi Sai. If you are a follower of the Japanese culture, history and lifestyle, you will probably have noticed the extent of loyalty in their lives. Being loyal to one’s Country, King, Lords, Masters and Parents is basic knowledge and ethic in the Japanese people since the ancient times. Although …

In Japan, customs and traditions still prevails to these days.
Even though the current society has been much modernized, there are still substantial traditional and customary impact in their daily lives. For social purposes, age is reckoned in both relative and absolute terms. Relative age is set by order of birth: one is senior, peer, or junior to someone else. Japanese often claim that theirs is a uniquely “vertical” society, pervaded by rules of seniority. Seniority rules, however, are common to modern institutions such as schools, corporations, and bureaucracies in all …

Japan is known as land of the rising sun, and they have a good reason to be called with this nickname. The sun in the Japanese history is something that is worshiped as a deity. As a matter of fact, the chief divinity in the Shinto pantheon is the sun goddess, Amaterasu Omikami. Through this, you can guess to what extend is the sun for the Japanese people in the olden times.
The sun can also be seen from the national flag of Japan or more popularly known in Japan as …

Are you wondering of how people in Japan celebrate Halloween? But the question is whether they do celebrate it or not, right?
Well, it’s really hard to say but the rising cosplay trends in Japan may have something to contribute to the celebration of Halloween in Japan. However, one of the common activities on the event are the ones usually held in Tokyo Disneyland and Osaka Universal Studio every year and there will always be a surprising number of people, usually young adults and teenagers who participated in the events.
In …

Here are the basic information of the indigenous Japanese religion, Shinto and Shintoism.
Japanese in short can be described as natural practitioners of polytheism. Since the earliest history of Japan and the ancient people of Japan, they have been worshiping a number of Gods that are largely related to nature, such as the Sun Goddess, God of the Sea, God of lightning and many more. This natural spirituality of the Japanese people is called as Shinto or ‘Way of the Gods’. The similar term or description first appears in the historical …