Download or read book The Bizarre and the Wondrous from the Land of the Rising Sun written by Boye De Mente and published by Cultural-Insight Books. This book was released on 2010-12-22 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Bizarre and the Wondrous from the Land of the Rising Sun highlights unique aspects of Japan-ancient and modern-that have made the country fascinating to Westerners since they first stumbled upon the islands in 1543. These unusual attractions range from high-tech robots that do such things as act as tourist guides and perform delicate surgery, to festivals that go back more than two thousand years and strike many foreign visitors as being bizarre. Among the celebrations that could be labeled as bizarre are annual fertility festivals that feature authentic-looking replicas of the male penis carved in wood, from purse-size versions to ones that are over two meters long and weigh up to 800 pounds. The best known of the fertility festivals is the one staged each March 15 by the Tagata Shrine near the city of Nagoya. The largest wooden penis is carved anew each year, and after the ceremony is kept on display in the main shrine building until the following year when it is sold to private buyers. On the day of the festival the large version of the erect male organ is pulled through the streets on a wheeled cart by up to 12 men to the delight of raucous crowds and child-bearing-age women who try to touch the replica in order to increase their chances of becoming pregnant. Other penis replicas are edible versions made like candy and cookies that are sold to visitors as snacks and souvenirs to take home. Also on the incredible side is a legend that the young Jewish man now known and worshipped by Christians as Jesus Christ the son of God did not die on the cross-that, in fact, he lived and died in Herai Village in Japan. According to the Christian Bible Jesus was born in Israel. There is no further mention of him in the Bible until he is 12 years old when he appears at a Jewish synagogue and lambasts the rabbis for their un-Christian like behavior. The next mention of Jesus in the Bible is when he is in his early 30s and shows up at the Jordan River to be baptized by John, a well-known Jewish preacher. According to the Japanese legend, Jesus and his brother Isukiri spent most of those missing years in Japan, returning to Judea when Jesus was 34 years old. The story goes on to say that after he was betrayed to the Roman authorities he fled back to Japan, and it was his brother who was crucified. The story adds that Jesus married a Japanese girl, became a rice farmer, and lived the rest of his life in Herai [later renamed Shingo]. There is a tomb in Herai that has long been known as the burial place of Jesus [Jehova], the son of Mary. In the book, De Mente goes on to explain how the legend and the tomb became known to present-day Japanese authorities and was publicized in English for the first time in 1935. De Mente says he learned about the story in Tokyo in the early 1950s when he was editor of a monthly cultural magazine, including seeing a photograph of documentary evidence from a museum in Herai. Other fascinating stories in the book include how the infamous secret agents and assassins known as ninja [neen-jah] became a major part of Japanese history; why and how Japan became the first nation in the world to have a national network of roadside inns spaced one day's march apart; why the Japanese are so skilled at producing arts and crafts of extraordinary beauty; why single Japanese girls and men have a hard time hooking up; why Japan's izakaya are more fun than Irish pubs; why rice and other vegetables grow on top of buildings; how the Japanese came up with a new reason for wearing clothes...and some 50-plus other fascinating stories.
Download or read book Celebrating Life Customs around the World 3 volumes written by Victoria R. Williams and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2016-11-21 with total page 1427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book documents hundreds of customs and traditions practiced in countries outside of the United States, showcasing the diversity of birth, coming-of-age, and death celebrations worldwide. From the beginning of our lives to the end, all of humanity celebrates life's milestones through traditions and unique customs. In the United States, we have specific events like baby showers, rites of passage such as Bat and Bar Mitzvahs and "sweet 16" birthday parties, and sober end-of-life traditions like obituaries and funeral services that honor those who have died. But what kinds of customs and traditions are practiced in other countries? How do people in other cultures welcome babies, prepare to enter into adulthood, and commemorate the end of the lives of loved ones? This three-volume encyclopedia covers more than 300 birth, life, and death customs, with the books' content organized chronologically by life stage. Volume 1 focuses on birth and childhood customs, Volume 2 documents adolescent and early-adulthood customs, and Volume 3 looks at aging and death customs. The entries in the first volume examine pre-birth traditions, such as baby showers and other gift-giving events, and post-birth customs, such as naming ceremonies, child-rearing practices, and traditions performed to ward off evil or promote good health. The second volume contains information about rites of passage as children become adults, including indigenous initiations, marriage customs, and religious ceremonies. The final volume concludes with coverage on customs associated with aging and death, such as retirement celebrations, elaborate funeral processions, and the creation of fantasy coffins. The set features beautiful color inserts that illustrate examples of celebrations and ceremonies and includes an appendix of excerpts from primary documents that include legislation on government-accepted names, wedding vows, and maternity/paternity leave regulations.
Download or read book Japan written by Boye De Mente and published by Cultural-Insight Books. This book was released on 2012 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dramatic changes have occurred in Japan's way of doing business since the late 1980s and early 1990s when its economic juggernaut was literally stopped in its tracks. The rapid rise of global competition and te fact that the Japanese real estate and financial industries copied the doomed American practices added to Japan's woes.
Download or read book na written by and published by Cultural-Insight Books. This book was released on with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book CHINA Understanding and Dealing with the Chinese Way of Doing Business written by Boye De Mente and published by Cultural-Insight Books. This book was released on 2012-02-29 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: China has emerged on the world scene as a major economic and political force that appears destined to surpass the United States-a portent of the future that goes well beyond anything the U.S. has faced before. The business practices of today's China are a mixture of traditional values and customs combined with Western concepts and practices that, despite bumps in the highway, are propelling the country forward at warp speed. This book addresses both the traditional and modern-day aspects of how business is done in China, and offers valuable insights in how to deal with them effectively. It also covers aspects of China's appearance on the international scene and the globalization of its economy that are political in nature. It is an ideal handbook for businesspeople, consultants, educators, and students.
Download or read book The Twilight Zone written by Kenneth Reynolds and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2014-05-01 with total page 757 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From 1959 to 1964, a chilling new anthology series held audiences captive with tales of horror, delight, and mystery. Rod Serling changed the face of television with The Twilight Zone, a groundbreaking series that enticed viewers to tap into the wonders of a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. When they accepted that cryptic invitation, viewers found themselves in The Twilight Zone. Now, one of those minds transported to strange new worlds extends his invitation to you as well. Join author Kenneth Reynolds on a detailed journey through each of the 156 episodes of Serlings classic series. Featuring detailed plot synopses, analysis, and commentary, The Twilight Zone: Rod Serlings Wondrous Land invites you into a new world of imagination. It thoroughly studies and analyzes every episode, emphasizing important dialogue and concluding with a list of the episodes applicable themes and lessons. Featuring commentary from several Twilight Zone actors, this guide offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the making of this landmark series. Unlock the door of your imagination with The Twilight Zone: Rod Serlings Wondrous Land.
Download or read book Sulhan written by Richard Gorman and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2017-02-05 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explore a deep, rich and truly fantastical world where charm and legend are woven into the very fabric of reality. Exploration, intrigue, conflict and adventure await you at every turn. Opportunity and danger and stalk your path from the soaring solar towers of Imperial Mandar and the demon haunted wastes of war shattered Izahar to the labyrinthine nightmare ziggurats of Horounisal and beyond. Between these covers you'll discover - - Unique, challenging and extraordinary character races - A vast array of monstrous and magical phenomena - Engrossing backgrounds for a host of major cultures - A coherent and comprehensive cosmography, geography, climate, history and ecology - An adventure packed introductory campaign setting - A collection of detailed regional maps - More fun than you can poke a stick at! Sulhan is a unique Fantasy setting written for the Horizons fantasy role-playing game but easily adaptable to other rules systems.
Download or read book Bizarre Notes and Queries a Monthly Magazine of History Folk lore Mathematics Mysticism Art Science Etc written by and published by . This book was released on 1888 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book In the House Upon the Dirt Between the Lake and the Woods written by Matt Bell and published by Soho Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A newly-wed couple escape a busy confusion of their homeland for a distant and almost uninhabited lakeshore. They plan to lead a simple life there, fishing the lake, trapping the nearby woods and building a house upon the dirt between where they can raise a family. But as their every pregnancy fails, the child-obsessed husband begins to rage at this new world: the song-spun objects somehow created by his wife's beautiful singing voice, the giant and sentient bear that rules the beasts of the woods... A powerful exploration of the limits of parenthood and marriage.
Download or read book Marine Chaplain 1943 1946 written by George Woodward Wickersham and published by Merriam Press. This book was released on 1998-10 with total page 674 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Campaign Book written by Ken Cliffe and published by . This book was released on 1990-09 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Poisonwood Bible written by Barbara Kingsolver and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller • Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize • An Oprah's Book Club Selection “Powerful . . . [Kingsolver] has with infinitely steady hands worked the prickly threads of religion, politics, race, sin and redemption into a thing of terrible beauty.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review The Poisonwood Bible, now celebrating its 25th anniversary, established Barbara Kingsolver as one of the most thoughtful and daring of modern writers. Taking its place alongside the classic works of postcolonial literature, it is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in Africa. The story is told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it—from garden seeds to Scripture—is calamitously transformed on African soil. The novel is set against one of the most dramatic political chronicles of the twentieth century: the Congo's fight for independence from Belgium, the murder of its first elected prime minister, the CIA coup to install his replacement, and the insidious progress of a world economic order that robs the fledgling African nation of its autonomy. Against this backdrop, Orleanna Price reconstructs the story of her evangelist husband's part in the Western assault on Africa, a tale indelibly darkened by her own losses and unanswerable questions about her own culpability. Also narrating the story, by turns, are her four daughters—the teenaged Rachel; adolescent twins Leah and Adah; and Ruth May, a prescient five-year-old. These sharply observant girls, who arrive in the Congo with racial preconceptions forged in 1950s Georgia, will be marked in surprisingly different ways by their father's intractable mission, and by Africa itself. Ultimately each must strike her own separate path to salvation. Their passionately intertwined stories become a compelling exploration of moral risk and personal responsibility.
Download or read book Sophie s World written by Jostein Gaarder and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2007-03-20 with total page 735 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.
Download or read book Tropical Fish Hobbyist written by and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 696 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Demonizing the Queen of Sheba written by Jacob Lassner and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1993-12-14 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the centuries, Jewish and Muslim writers transformed the biblical Queen of Sheba from a clever, politically astute sovereign to a demonic force threatening the boundaries of gender. In this book, Jacob Lassner shows how successive retellings of the biblical story reveal anxieties about gender and illuminate the processes of cultural transmission. The Bible presents the Queen of Sheba's encounter with King Solomon as a diplomatic mission: the queen comes "to test him with hard questions," all of which he answers to her satisfaction; she then praises him and, after an exchange of gifts, returns to her own land. By the Middle Ages, Lassner demonstrates, the focus of the queen's visit had shifted from international to sexual politics. The queen was now portrayed as acting in open defiance of nature's equilibrium and God's design. In these retellings, the authors humbled the queen and thereby restored the world to its proper condition. Lassner also examines the Islamization of Jewish themes, using the dramatic accounts of Solomon and his female antagonist as a test case of how Jewish lore penetrated the literary imagination of Muslims. Demonizing the Queen of Sheba thus addresses not only specialists in Jewish and Islamic studies, but also those concerned with issues of cultural transmission and the role of gender in history.
Download or read book Poems by Emily Dickinson written by Emily Dickinson and published by . This book was released on 1890 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Nowhere Emporium written by Ross MacKenzie and published by Floris Books. This book was released on 2015-03-05 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the mysterious Nowhere Emporium arrives in Glasgow, orphan Daniel Holmes stumbles upon it quite by accident. Before long, the 'shop from nowhere' -- and its owner, Mr Silver -- draw Daniel into a breathtaking world of magic and enchantment. Recruited as Mr Silver's apprentice, Daniel learns the secrets of the Emporium's vast labyrinth of passageways and rooms -- rooms that contain wonders beyond anything Daniel has ever imagined. But when Mr Silver disappears, and a shadow from the past threatens everything, the Emporium and all its wonders begin to crumble. Can Daniel save his home, and his new friends, before the Nowhere Emporium is destroyed forever? Scottish Children's Book Award winner Ross MacKenzie unleashes a riot of imagination, colour and fantasy in this astonishing adventure, perfect for fans of Philip Pullman, Corneila Funke and Neil Gaiman.
