Japanese Culture

I have a question to Japanese people about culture. I have seen Japenese people hang a fish kite from a pole so that it flaps when the wind blows. What is the name of it and where can one get one like that? I think it looks cool.

As the former answerer mentioned, it’s called ?? (koi-nobori) or "carp streamer", where "koi" means "carp" and "nobori" means "banner, streamer" (this "nobori" doesn’t mean "climbing").

I found this site, where they seem to sell koi-nobori:
http://www.goodsfromjapan.com/interior-carp-streamers-c-249_107.html

You may want to search for others using "carp streamer" and "price" as the keywords.

Hope this helps.

What sre some good websites on Japan’s culture, writing, and language? I have been wanting to go to Japan (maybe even be a high school transfer student) but I am not that well educated on it. My mom is making me learn French for high school… (I am homschooled btw…) About how long do you think it would take me to learn Japanese if I spent about an hour on it daily?

erm.. this really varies from person to person, and also what kind of study methods you use. Hiring a tutor to teach you Japanese will definitely be faster than learning yourself.

The following below are all guesses based on my personal opinion of learning the language, formal study(class) and sometimes self-study for 2 years.
If you are self-learning from textbooks, I think you’ll be able to speak and understand basic(not complex) Japanese sentence in about a year or two. To reach fluency, it’ll probably take you another 3 years or so.
If you have a tutor, I think you’ll be able to reach quite a high level of fluency in about 2 years.

Well, I think for languages, you just have to be really consistent. Don’t think too much about the end result and just expose yourself to the language and learn it as much as possible. You will improve without yourself noticing and eventually you will get to your desired level of fluency.

EDIT: If you are looking for websites to learn from, the best I encountered is www.guidetojapanese.org. Japanesepod101.com is not bad too for listening practice as they have audio lessons

A teenage (Japanese) boy gets his British girlfriend pregnant (he’s living in Britain). They are both underage teenagers, but what would most likely happen to the boy? Just trying to see if different cultures would handle this situation. Real Japanese people’s replies are also welcome – thank you!

Contrary to popular belief, there is a wide variety of people in Japan with different ways of doing things and thinking about things.

I would say that in most situations that it would be up to the couple if they want to have an abortion or not. If so, it would be quietly done, probably without telling anyone at all, including family.

If they decided to keep the child, then they would discuss how to bring up the child. A likely scenario would be that the man would want to return to Japan where he knows he can get a full-time job to support his new family. It’s also more common in Japan for women to raise their kids at home, so it wouldn’t matter at first that the woman can’t get a job in Japan. Over time she would learn Japanese anyway, so when the kid’s older, she may choose to work.

That’s just one scenario though. Japanese in general are quite accepting people. It would be odd for someone’s teenage son to get his teenage girlfriend pregnant, but if it happened, and they chose to keep the kid, then so be it. Life goes on.

What are some controversies regarding Japanese culture/ traditions/ customs?
If you can kindly give a brief summary, that would be amazing!

What are some websites to learn about Japanese culture?

In addition to whaling, another issue is Hague Convention.

More than 90% of child custody after divorce is taken by mother in Japan because there is strong value that "Mothers should raise children". There is little concept of joint custody.

Many Japanese mothers have "abducted" (That’s how Western nations call it) their children to Japan after having a divorce with a foreign husband. But Japanese government have never joined or tried to join Hague Convention until recently.

Many Western nations have pressured Japan to join Hague Convention for years. Japanese government finally announced this spring that they are willing to join. But there’s been little progress since then.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hague_Convention_on_the_Civil_Aspects_of_International_Child_Abduction

I need to know some movies that demonstrate Japanese culture, even if they are fictional, and especially if they address Japanese architecture…Thanks.

Departures
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1069238/

Spirited Away
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0245429/

Im not Japanese. Or asian at all. But i love Anime,Manga, Old fashioned Traditional Japanese culture (Geishas etc). What do japanese people think of outsiders being interested in their culture? is it annoying? do we come off as "wannabes"? I dont want to offend anyone but i also want to express myself.

A lot of it is going to depend on how you present yourself as well as the people you are talking to. As with pretty much anyone else from any other culture, some of them love it and some of them hate it. My koto teacher seemed pretty delighted to have a dedicated foreign student. Several of my students and I bonded over a shared love of anime. The people I worked with had an overall positive reaction to my interest in things like kimono, and my supervisor even asked my advice about a kimono outfit once. The folks I know who run a kanzashi shop have always been very kind towards and interested in the foreigners who visit their shop and buy things. But I think it really helped that I tried to get to know these people first and didn’t just run up to them gushing about how awesome all things Japanese were. It probably also helped that an interest in Japan and Japanese culture was something of a prerequisite for having the job I had over there. And I think it’s important to remember that no matter how you present yourself and no matter how strong your interest is, there are going to be people both inside and outside of Japan who think that you’re a wannabe or weeabo just because you’re interested in Japanese things. The question, then, is how much you are going to let that bother you.

I like Japanese culture, and I also like Chinese culture a whole lot. Maybe it’s because of the apperance of the magical beings in that culture. How do I get more in tune with both cultures in all aspects?

Talk to people who are part of those cultures- different people can be part of different sub-cultures so theses so much to engage in. Theres only so much you can learn from a culture text-book style, so you got to experience them- perhaps visit those places. Cinema is a good way to go, but learning the languages (manderin, cantonese, japanese) would probably get you more in tune with the cultures.

I am 19-year-old girl who lives in Japan.
Please teach the Japanese culture in which it is interested though it announces by the theme "Japanese culture" at the school.

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I like Lisa See’s way of writing and love learning of the Chinese culture through her stories? Are they any writers who are like her but of Japanese culture?

I’ve been reading Haruki Murakami’s books. His books have male and female main characters, and they give you a good look at Japanese culture.

It’s mostly inspired by ancient Chinese culture, but can some aspects be Japanese, like some of the names?
My story takes place in a fictitious village.

It’s probably not that good of an idea…did you know that Japanese is actually a combination of two languages? The written language is basically copied from the Chinese, but the pronunciations are based on Korean. That’s why people confuse Chinese and Japanese while reading, but Korean and Japanese while speaking (or hearing). That’s also why when people hear Chinese, they think of "Ching Chang Chong" or something (not trying to be racist, or offensive- I’m actually Chinese. Half.) But when they think Japanese, they think like "Yamasuki Sakio" or something. That’s why it’s actually not a good idea to put Japanese names in, but Japanese culture is okay, because it’s pretty close to Chinese.