Download or read book Japanese A Cultural Portrait written by Robert S. Ozaki and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 2012-02-14 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In eleven informal essays, The Japanese: a Cultural Portrait explores the character of Japan and its people. Once famous for its "quaint charm", Japan is now strikingly western in appearance. Its rapid ascension to world prominence, many Westerners forget that Japanese habits, fears, and values are rooted in centuries of feudal agrarianism. This Japanese culture and history book reminds us that although the Japanese are capable of accepting enormous change, they can also be resolutely determined to remain Japanese. Their cultural makeup has not changed as rapidly as the nation's economic landscape. To illustrate these points, various topics are examined: Japan's first encounters with the West Japanese philosophies of government, law, and ethics The way that modern institutions like the bureaucracy and the corporation rely on a strong sense of group affiliation. The Japanese: A Cultural Portrait provides absorbing insight into how modernization has been accomplished without loss of national identity.
Download or read book Different People written by Donald Richie and published by Kodansha Amer Incorporated. This book was released on 1987 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers brief sketches of famous and ordinary Japanese citizens, including Yukio Mishima, Akira Kurosawa, Toshiro Mifune, and Nagisa Oshima.
Download or read book Japan written by Keiichi Takeuchi and published by Flammarion-Pere Castor. This book was released on 2004 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the end of the Pacific War in 1945 to the Tokyo Olympic Games in 1964, photography blossomed in Japan as the country underwent radical change. This is a comprehensive review of this period in Japanese photography offering a tribute to the nation's strength in the face of social upheaval.
Download or read book Frog in the Well written by Donald Keene and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Frog in the Well is a vivid and revealing account of Watanabe Kazan, one of the most important intellectuals of the late Tokugawa period. From his impoverished upbringing to his tragic suicide in exile, Kazan's life and work reflected a turbulent period in Japan's history. He was a famous artist, a Confucian scholar, a student of Western culture, a samurai, and a critic of the shogunate who, nevertheless, felt compelled to kill himself for fear that he had caused his lord anxiety. During this period, a typical Japanese scholar or artist refused to acknowledge the outside world, much like a "frog in the well that knows nothing of the ocean," but Kazan actively sought out Western learning. He appreciated European civilization and bought every scrap of European art that was available in Japan. He became a painter to help his family out of poverty and, by employing the artistic techniques of the West, achieved great success with his realistic and stylistically advanced portraits. Although he remained a nationalist committed to the old ways, Kazan called on the shogunate to learn from the West or risk disaster. He strove to improve the agricultural and economic conditions of his province and reinforce its defenses, but his criticisms and warnings about possible coastal invasions ultimately led to his arrest and exile. Frog in the Well is the first full-length biography of Kazan in English, and, in telling his life's story, renowned scholar Donald Keene paints a fascinating portrait of the social and intellectual milieus of the late Tokugawa period. Richly illustrated with Kazan's paintings, Frog in the Well illuminates a life that is emblematic of the cultural crises affecting Japan in the years before revolution.
Download or read book Five Gentlemen of Japan written by Frank Gibney and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 1997-05-15 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A newspaperman, an ex-Navy vice-admiral, a steel worker, a farmer, and the 124th Emperor of Japan himself--these are the fascinating heroes of Gibney's brilliant book about modern Japan. Strongly individual, every one of them, the five yet share the common inheritance of Japan's precocious but unstable past. Through their lives and attitudes, Gibney gives us an invaluable analysis of this new sovereign nation so suddenly thrown into the world's power conflicts. He helps us understand the historical and social forces which make Japan what she is today--the old contracts and loyalties from which each of the Five Gentlemen is struggling to break away from his country. Their courageous efforts to weld a new Japan from the remains of the old society, and to come to terms with the present, are as exciting as it is important.
Download or read book Landscapes and Portraits written by Donald Keene and published by Harvill Secker. This book was released on 1972 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Portrait of Japan written by Laurens Van der Post and published by . This book was released on 1968 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Inaka written by Various Authors and published by . This book was released on 2020-08-13 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inaka: Portraits of Life in Rural Japan is an affectionate but unsentimental immersion into the Japanese countryside ("inaka"). In eighteen chapters we undertake an epic journey the length of Japan, from subtropical Okinawa, through the Japanese heartland, all the way to the wilds of Hokkaido. We visit gorgeous islands, walk an ancient Buddhist pilgrimage route, share a snow-lover's delight in the depths of record snowfall, solve the mystery of an abandoned Shinto shrine, and travel in the footsteps of a seventeenth-century haiku master. But above everything, Inaka answers the question of what it's like to be a foreigner living in rural Japan, whether as a newly arrived English teacher in a small town or as someone who never left and decades later is integrated into the community. Although this anthology shows the beauty of rural Japan with its seasonal kaleidoscope of colors, foods, and traditions, its friendly farmers and fishermen sharing old customs and local histories, Inaka doesn't avoid detailing the downsides of rural life - the hypothermia-inducing housing, inconvenient superstitions, demographic decline, and unlikely noises. The combination of brilliant, experienced writers and up-and-coming talent makes Inaka a delight to read, and a must for anyone interested in life away from the crowded Japanese cities. Readers who know Japan well will find much to enjoy, and those new to the country dreaming of a trip or extended stay will be both encouraged and better prepared to map out their own adventures.
Download or read book Portraiture and Early Studio Photography in China and Japan written by Luke Gartlan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in this book investigate the early history and culture of the photography studio in China and Japan with particular attention to the genre of the studio portrait, and the ability of those portraits to devise modern, gendered, nationalistic, and public identities for its subjects.
Download or read book Bruce Gilden written by Bruce Gilden and published by . This book was released on 2021-11-30 with total page 125 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exceptional and gritty portrait of Japan and its people by the renowned Magnum street photographer Bruce Gilden.
Download or read book Portraits of Ch gen written by John M. Rosenfield and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume vividly describes the efforts of the Japanese monk Shunjōbō Chōgen (1121-1206) to restore major buildings and works of art lost in the brutal civil conflicts of the 1180s. Chōgen is best known for his role in recasting the Great Buddha (Daibutsu) at Tōdaiji in Nara, reconstructing the South Great Gate (Nandaimon), and making the famous guardian statues there. This study concentrates on these and other works of art and architecture associated with Chōgen, situating them in the turbulent political and social climate of Japan and in the larger spiritual contexts of East Asian Buddhism.
Download or read book Memories of Silk and Straw written by Junichi Saga and published by Kodansha Amer Incorporated. This book was released on 1990 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over 50 reminiscences of pre-modern Japan. This book presents an illustrationf a way of life that has virtually disappeared.
Download or read book Hiroh Kikai written by Hiroo Kikai and published by Steidl. This book was released on 2008 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1973, Kikai, began to photograph the people he encountered in Asakusa and by 1984, he had settled on a specific photographic approach. Kikai, calls this approach "game rules" and it has remained unaltered to the present. This book showcases a collection of these photographs.
Download or read book Precarious Japan written by Anne Allison and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2014-02-04 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In an era of irregular labor, nagging recession, nuclear contamination, and a shrinking population, Japan is facing precarious times. How the Japanese experience insecurity in their daily and social lives is the subject of Precarious Japan. Tacking between the structural conditions of socioeconomic life and the ways people are making do, or not, Anne Allison chronicles the loss of home affecting many Japanese, not only in the literal sense but also in the figurative sense of not belonging. Until the collapse of Japan's economic bubble in 1991, lifelong employment and a secure income were within reach of most Japanese men, enabling them to maintain their families in a comfortable middle-class lifestyle. Now, as fewer and fewer people are able to find full-time work, hope turns to hopelessness and security gives way to a pervasive unease. Yet some Japanese are getting by, partly by reconceiving notions of home, family, and togetherness.
Download or read book Portraits of Literacy Across Families Communities and Schools written by Jim Anderson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2005-05-06 with total page 645 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Designed to stimulate debate and critical thinking and to draw readers' attention to the ideological nature of literacy education across a broad range of literacy contexts, this book crosses traditional boundaries between the study of family, community, and school literacies to offer a unique global perspective on multiple literacies, from theory to case studies of various settings. These examples suggest ways that literacy practices should be created by simultaneously shaping relationships and identity, and by privileging particular literacy practices in particular situations. The dialogue within the book among chapter authors writing across traditionally distinct fields highlights the interconnections among diverse literacy sites and stimulates the pursuit of a more integrated and interdisciplinary approach to literacy education. The critical and dialogic approach serves to challenge and extend many conventional notions surrounding literacy education in communities, schools, and families. Portraits of Literacy Across Families, Communities, and Schools: Intersections and Tensions is particularly relevant for scholars and students in the area of literacy, broadly speaking, including family literacy, community literacy, adult literacy, critical language studies, multiliteracies, youth literacy, English as a second language, language and social policy, and global literacy. Additionally, the inclusion of studies derived from a variety of research methods and designs makes this is a useful text in research methodology courses that aim to present and analyze real-life examples of literacy research designs and methods.
Download or read book Pure Invention written by Matt Alt and published by Crown. This book was released on 2020-06-23 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The untold story of how Japan became a cultural superpower through the fantastic inventions that captured—and transformed—the world’s imagination. “A masterful book driven by deep research, new insights, and powerful storytelling.”—W. David Marx, author of Ametora: How Japan Saved American Style Japan is the forge of the world’s fantasies: karaoke and the Walkman, manga and anime, Pac-Man and Pokémon, online imageboards and emojis. But as Japan media veteran Matt Alt proves in this brilliant investigation, these novelties did more than entertain. They paved the way for our perplexing modern lives. In the 1970s and ’80s, Japan seemed to exist in some near future, gliding on the superior technology of Sony and Toyota. Then a catastrophic 1990 stock-market crash ushered in the “lost decades” of deep recession and social dysfunction. The end of the boom should have plunged Japan into irrelevance, but that’s precisely when its cultural clout soared—when, once again, Japan got to the future a little ahead of the rest of us. Hello Kitty, the Nintendo Entertainment System, and multimedia empires like Dragon Ball Z were more than marketing hits. Artfully packaged, dangerously cute, and dizzyingly fun, these products gave us new tools for coping with trying times. They also transformed us as we consumed them—connecting as well as isolating us in new ways, opening vistas of imagination and pathways to revolution. Through the stories of an indelible group of artists, geniuses, and oddballs, Pure Invention reveals how Japan’s pop-media complex remade global culture.
Download or read book Britain and Japan written by Hugh Cortazzi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-05-13 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The continuing success of this series, highly regarded by scholars and the general reader alike, has prompted The Japan Society to commission this fourth volume, devoted as before to the lives of key people, both British and Japanese, who have made significant contributions to the development of Anglo-Japanese relations. The appearance of this volume brings the number of portraits published to over one hundred. The portraits cover diplomats (from Mori Arinori to Sir Francis Lindley), businessmen (from William Keswick to Lasenby Liberty), engineers and teachers (from W. E. Ayrton to Henry Spencer Palmer), scholars and writers (from Sir Edwin Arnold to Ivan Morris), as well as journalists, judo masters and the aviator Lord Semphill. In all, there are a total of 34 contributions.
