1. Japanese Ethnography Study Rogelio Mendez & Laura Rodriguez

2. Japan’s History  Has been around before the current era.  Has had man rulers, from councils to shoguns, throughout several periods.  Had a major role during WW II, but today the U.S. and Japan are important economic partners.

3. Japan’s Culture  Religion  Arts  Food  Education

4. Japan’s Religion  Shinto: Japan’s major religion.  Buddhism: Second largest, death is honored through the Buddhist religion.  Christianity: Brought by European traders.

5. Japan and the Arts  Flowers and nature are important to their forms of art.  “No” is a form of theater, Pine tree painted into the background is the only prop on the stage.  Kabuki is the more well-known form of theater.

6. Wine and Dine in Japan  Sushi  Ramen  Seaweed

7. Japan’s Educational System  Borrow from Chinese Confucianism: Cultivation and Wisdom.  Children are taught reverence for learning.  Foreign observers saw some problems with the old system.

8. Japan’s Ed. System Continued  During the mid-1980’s their government decided to change their “broke” system.  Eight areas were looked at.  The three level of educational bureaucracy went through some changes as well.

9. Japanese Teachers  They are highly revered and well paid for their services.  They have great health and retirement plans.  Not enough jobs to go around for all hopeful teachers. (1 assignment for every six teachers.

10. Near and Dear to my Heart  Nintendo brought back the video game craze with their famicom (NES)  SquareEnix, Konami, Nintendo, Sega, Etc all create world-played games.  I’m addicted to Tetris DS as of today.