The Japanese Mind: Understanding Contemporary Japanese by Roger J. Davies, Osamu Ikeno

By Roger J. Davies, Osamu Ikeno

In The eastern Mind, Roger Davies deals Westerners a useful key to the original elements of eastern tradition. Readers of this ebook will achieve a transparent knowing of what fairly makes the japanese, and their society, tick.

Among the themes explored: aimai (ambiguity), amae (dependence upon others' benevolence), amakudari (the nation's descent from heaven), chinmoku (silence in communication), gambari (perseverence), giri (social obligation), haragei (literally, ôbelly artö; implicit, unstated communication), kenkyo (the visual appeal of modesty), sempai-kohai (seniority), wabi-sabi (simplicity and elegance), and zoto (gift giving), in addition to discussions of child-rearing, own area, and the jobs of ladies in eastern society. contains dialogue subject matters and questions after each one chapter.

All in all, this publication is an easy-to-use creation to the distinguishing features of jap society; a useful source for anyone—business humans, tourists, or students—perfect for direction adoption, but additionally for someone attracted to jap tradition.

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By Roger J. Davies, Osamu Ikeno

In The eastern Mind, Roger Davies deals Westerners a useful key to the original elements of eastern tradition. Readers of this ebook will achieve a transparent knowing of what fairly makes the japanese, and their society, tick.

Among the themes explored: aimai (ambiguity), amae (dependence upon others' benevolence), amakudari (the nation's descent from heaven), chinmoku (silence in communication), gambari (perseverence), giri (social obligation), haragei (literally, ôbelly artö; implicit, unstated communication), kenkyo (the visual appeal of modesty), sempai-kohai (seniority), wabi-sabi (simplicity and elegance), and zoto (gift giving), in addition to discussions of child-rearing, own area, and the jobs of ladies in eastern society. contains dialogue subject matters and questions after each one chapter.

All in all, this publication is an easy-to-use creation to the distinguishing features of jap society; a useful source for anyone—business humans, tourists, or students—perfect for direction adoption, but additionally for someone attracted to jap tradition.

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The Gun by Fuminori Nakamura

By Fuminori Nakamura

In Tokyo a faculty student's discovery and eventual obsession with a stolen handgun awakens whatever darkish within him and threatens to devour not just his lifestyles but in addition his humanity. Nakamura's jap debut is a noir-spun story that probes the violence inherent to aesthetics.

On a evening stroll alongside a Tokyo riverbank, a tender guy named Nishikawa stumbles on a lifeless physique, beside which lies a gun. From the instant Nishikawa makes a decision to take the gun, the realm round him blurs. understanding he possesses the weapon brings an intoxicating feel of objective to his boring college life.

But quickly Nishikawa's own entanglements turn into without warning advanced: he reveals himself romantically concerned with ladies whereas his organic father, whom he's by no means met, lies demise in a health center. via all of it, he can't cease pondering the gun--and the 4 bullets loaded in its chamber. As he spirals into obsession, his concentration is ate up through one proposal: that owning the gun is not any longer enough--he needs to fireplace it.

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By Fuminori Nakamura

In Tokyo a faculty student's discovery and eventual obsession with a stolen handgun awakens whatever darkish within him and threatens to devour not just his lifestyles but in addition his humanity. Nakamura's jap debut is a noir-spun story that probes the violence inherent to aesthetics.

On a evening stroll alongside a Tokyo riverbank, a tender guy named Nishikawa stumbles on a lifeless physique, beside which lies a gun. From the instant Nishikawa makes a decision to take the gun, the realm round him blurs. understanding he possesses the weapon brings an intoxicating feel of objective to his boring college life.

But quickly Nishikawa's own entanglements turn into without warning advanced: he reveals himself romantically concerned with ladies whereas his organic father, whom he's by no means met, lies demise in a health center. via all of it, he can't cease pondering the gun--and the 4 bullets loaded in its chamber. As he spirals into obsession, his concentration is ate up through one proposal: that owning the gun is not any longer enough--he needs to fireplace it.

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Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852-1912 by Donald Keene

By Donald Keene

Whilst Emperor Meiji all started his rule, in 1867, Japan was once a splintered empire, ruled by means of the shogun and the daimyos, who governed over the country's greater than 250 decentralized domain names and who have been, typically, bring to an end from the skin international, staunchly antiforeign, and dedicated to the traditions of the previous. sooner than lengthy, the shogun surrendered to the emperor, a brand new structure used to be followed, and Japan emerged as a contemporary, industrialized state.

Despite the size of his reign, little has been written concerning the unusually obscured determine of Meiji himself, the 1st emperor ever to fulfill a eu. such a lot historians speak about the interval that takes his identify whereas slightly declaring the fellow, assuming that he had no genuine involvement in political beliefs. Even jap who think Meiji to were their nation's maximum ruler could have difficulty recalling a unmarried own accomplishment that will account for the sort of excellent attractiveness. well known Japan pupil Donald Keene sifts the on hand proof to offer a wealthy portrait not just of Meiji but additionally of quick and infrequently violent swap in this pivotal interval in Japan's history.

In this shiny and engrossing biography, we stream with the emperor via his early, conventional schooling; take part the formal processions that familiar the younger emperor along with his nation and its humans; discover his habit in court docket, his marriage, and his relationships with a variety of consorts; and persist with his maturation right into a "Confucian" sovereign devoted to simplicity, frugality, and tough paintings. Later, in the course of Japan's wars with China and Russia, we witness Meiji's fight to reconcile his own dedication to peace and his nation's more and more militarized event of modernization. Emperor of Japan conveys in gleaming prose the complexity of the guy and provides an unequalled portrait of Japan in a interval of particular curiosity.

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By Donald Keene

Whilst Emperor Meiji all started his rule, in 1867, Japan was once a splintered empire, ruled by means of the shogun and the daimyos, who governed over the country's greater than 250 decentralized domain names and who have been, typically, bring to an end from the skin international, staunchly antiforeign, and dedicated to the traditions of the previous. sooner than lengthy, the shogun surrendered to the emperor, a brand new structure used to be followed, and Japan emerged as a contemporary, industrialized state.

Despite the size of his reign, little has been written concerning the unusually obscured determine of Meiji himself, the 1st emperor ever to fulfill a eu. such a lot historians speak about the interval that takes his identify whereas slightly declaring the fellow, assuming that he had no genuine involvement in political beliefs. Even jap who think Meiji to were their nation's maximum ruler could have difficulty recalling a unmarried own accomplishment that will account for the sort of excellent attractiveness. well known Japan pupil Donald Keene sifts the on hand proof to offer a wealthy portrait not just of Meiji but additionally of quick and infrequently violent swap in this pivotal interval in Japan's history.

In this shiny and engrossing biography, we stream with the emperor via his early, conventional schooling; take part the formal processions that familiar the younger emperor along with his nation and its humans; discover his habit in court docket, his marriage, and his relationships with a variety of consorts; and persist with his maturation right into a "Confucian" sovereign devoted to simplicity, frugality, and tough paintings. Later, in the course of Japan's wars with China and Russia, we witness Meiji's fight to reconcile his own dedication to peace and his nation's more and more militarized event of modernization. Emperor of Japan conveys in gleaming prose the complexity of the guy and provides an unequalled portrait of Japan in a interval of particular curiosity.

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Kamikaze: A Japanese Pilot's Own Spectacular Story of the by Yasuo Kuwahara, Gordon T. Allred

By Yasuo Kuwahara, Gordon T. Allred

Initially released in 1957, this enduring classic—the first-ever English publication cowritten by means of a jap suicide pilot—remains a touching and insightful check out the area of the kamikaze. This version, now thoroughly revised, displays the precious perception and point of view received by way of the writer because the time of the book’s preliminary book. From the age of 15, Yasuo Kuwahara started a lifetime of army carrier that incorporated affliction via brutal easy education, partaking in ferocious aerial wrestle opposed to the Allies, and heading off a suicide venture whilst an atomic bomb used to be dropped in Hiroshima, close to his homeland. From being handpicked for kamikaze provider to discovering the self-discipline to die for the emperor, this historical past offers a firsthand account of the attention-grabbing lifetime of a kamikaze fighter pilot.

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By Yasuo Kuwahara, Gordon T. Allred

Initially released in 1957, this enduring classic—the first-ever English publication cowritten by means of a jap suicide pilot—remains a touching and insightful check out the area of the kamikaze. This version, now thoroughly revised, displays the precious perception and point of view received by way of the writer because the time of the book’s preliminary book. From the age of 15, Yasuo Kuwahara started a lifetime of army carrier that incorporated affliction via brutal easy education, partaking in ferocious aerial wrestle opposed to the Allies, and heading off a suicide venture whilst an atomic bomb used to be dropped in Hiroshima, close to his homeland. From being handpicked for kamikaze provider to discovering the self-discipline to die for the emperor, this historical past offers a firsthand account of the attention-grabbing lifetime of a kamikaze fighter pilot.

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Governing Insecurity in Japan: The Domestic Discourse and

Because the finish of the chilly battle, Japan's safeguard setting has replaced considerably. whereas, at the worldwide point, the us continues to be Japan's most vital defense companion, the character of the partnership has replaced due to moving calls for from the USA, new foreign demanding situations similar to the North Korean nuclear programme and the quick upward push of China.

At an identical time, Japan has been faced with new, non-traditional protection threats comparable to overseas terrorism, the unfold of infectious ailments, and worldwide environmental difficulties. at the household point, demographic switch, labour migration, fiscal decline, place of work lack of confidence, and a weakening effect of coverage projects problem the sustainability of the approach to life of many eastern and feature ended in a heightened experience of lack of confidence one of the eastern public.

This booklet specializes in the family discourse on lack of confidence in Japan and is going past army safeguard. The chapters disguise matters similar to Japan s growing to be notion of nearby and international lack of confidence; the altering function of army forces; the perceived probability of chinese language international funding; societal, cultural and labour lack of confidence and the way it's plagued by demographic alterations and migration; in addition to nutrition lack of confidence and its demanding situations to wellbeing and fitness and public coverage. every one bankruptcy asks how the japanese public perceives those insecurities; how those perceptions impression the general public discourse, the most stakeholders of this discourse, and the way this impacts state-society family and govt rules. "

Governing lack of confidence in Japan offers new insights into jap and foreign discourses on safeguard and lack of confidence, and the ways that safety is conceptualized in Japan. As such, it will likely be of curiosity to scholars and students engaged on jap politics, safety stories and foreign relations.

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Because the finish of the chilly battle, Japan's safeguard setting has replaced considerably. whereas, at the worldwide point, the us continues to be Japan's most vital defense companion, the character of the partnership has replaced due to moving calls for from the USA, new foreign demanding situations similar to the North Korean nuclear programme and the quick upward push of China.

At an identical time, Japan has been faced with new, non-traditional protection threats comparable to overseas terrorism, the unfold of infectious ailments, and worldwide environmental difficulties. at the household point, demographic switch, labour migration, fiscal decline, place of work lack of confidence, and a weakening effect of coverage projects problem the sustainability of the approach to life of many eastern and feature ended in a heightened experience of lack of confidence one of the eastern public.

This booklet specializes in the family discourse on lack of confidence in Japan and is going past army safeguard. The chapters disguise matters similar to Japan s growing to be notion of nearby and international lack of confidence; the altering function of army forces; the perceived probability of chinese language international funding; societal, cultural and labour lack of confidence and the way it's plagued by demographic alterations and migration; in addition to nutrition lack of confidence and its demanding situations to wellbeing and fitness and public coverage. every one bankruptcy asks how the japanese public perceives those insecurities; how those perceptions impression the general public discourse, the most stakeholders of this discourse, and the way this impacts state-society family and govt rules. "

Governing lack of confidence in Japan offers new insights into jap and foreign discourses on safeguard and lack of confidence, and the ways that safety is conceptualized in Japan. As such, it will likely be of curiosity to scholars and students engaged on jap politics, safety stories and foreign relations.

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My Awesome Japan Adventure: A Diary about the Best 4 Months by Rebecca Otowa

By Rebecca Otowa

PICKED AS the most effective BOOKS OF 2013 by way of THE organization OF BOOKSELLERS FOR CHILDREN!

A ideal advent to jap tradition for children, My outstanding Japan Adventure is the diary of an American 5th grader who travels to Japan to spend 4 fascinating months with a eastern family members as an alternate scholar. He documents all his adventures during this diary in order that he can inform his buddies again domestic approximately what he did and observed in the course of his time in Japan. With the aid of a jap foster brother and sister he visits a Ninja village, attempts new meals, learns brush portray, and will get the interior scoop on lifestyle in a jap college. Readers of every age will love experiencing existence in Japan from a kid's aspect of view!

Dan's adventures comprise: My First Week of faculty, vacationing a Ninja Village, enjoyable with Origami, training Aikido, Making Mochi, and masses more… As a multicultural children's booklet, My remarkable Japan Adventure is ideal for children who are looking to discover one other tradition and feature enjoyable within the approach!

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By Rebecca Otowa

PICKED AS the most effective BOOKS OF 2013 by way of THE organization OF BOOKSELLERS FOR CHILDREN!

A ideal advent to jap tradition for children, My outstanding Japan Adventure is the diary of an American 5th grader who travels to Japan to spend 4 fascinating months with a eastern family members as an alternate scholar. He documents all his adventures during this diary in order that he can inform his buddies again domestic approximately what he did and observed in the course of his time in Japan. With the aid of a jap foster brother and sister he visits a Ninja village, attempts new meals, learns brush portray, and will get the interior scoop on lifestyle in a jap college. Readers of every age will love experiencing existence in Japan from a kid's aspect of view!

Dan's adventures comprise: My First Week of faculty, vacationing a Ninja Village, enjoyable with Origami, training Aikido, Making Mochi, and masses more… As a multicultural children's booklet, My remarkable Japan Adventure is ideal for children who are looking to discover one other tradition and feature enjoyable within the approach!

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A Shrinking Society: Post-Demographic Transition in Japan by Toshihiko Hara

By Toshihiko Hara

This is often the booklet to target a brand new phenomenon rising within the twenty-first century: the quickly getting older and lowering inhabitants of a well-developed kingdom, particularly, Japan. The that means of this phenomenon has been effectively clarified because the attainable historic final result of the demographic transition from excessive beginning and dying premiums to low ones. Japan has entered the post-demographic transitional section and should be the fastest-shrinking society on the earth, top different Asian nations which are experiencing an analogous drastic alterations. the writer used the historic facts, compiled through the Statistic Bureau, Ministry of inner Affairs and Communications in 2006 and inhabitants projections for published in 2012 by means of the nationwide Institute of inhabitants and Social safeguard learn, to teach the earlier and destiny improvement of the dependency ratio from 1891 to 2060. Then, using the inhabitants lifestyles desk and web replica price, the results of accelerating lifestyles expectancy and declining fertility at the dependency ratio have been saw individually. eventually, the ancient relationships between women’s survival premiums at reproductive age, the theoretical fertility price to take care of the alternative point and the recorded overall fertility price (TFR) have been analyzed. ancient remark confirmed TFR adapting to the theoretical point of fertility with a definite time lag and reminiscent of women’s survival premiums at reproductive age. Women’s expanding lifespan and survival charges may have prompted selection making to reduce the danger of childbearing. whether the theoretical fertility expense meets the substitute point, women’s perspectives of minimizing the danger may perhaps stay unchanged simply because for ladies the cost–benefit imbalance in childbearing continues to be too excessive in Japan. in response to the findings, the writer discusses the sustainability of jap society on the subject of nationwide funds, social safeguard reform, relatives guidelines, immigration rules and neighborhood polices.

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By Toshihiko Hara

This is often the booklet to target a brand new phenomenon rising within the twenty-first century: the quickly getting older and lowering inhabitants of a well-developed kingdom, particularly, Japan. The that means of this phenomenon has been effectively clarified because the attainable historic final result of the demographic transition from excessive beginning and dying premiums to low ones. Japan has entered the post-demographic transitional section and should be the fastest-shrinking society on the earth, top different Asian nations which are experiencing an analogous drastic alterations. the writer used the historic facts, compiled through the Statistic Bureau, Ministry of inner Affairs and Communications in 2006 and inhabitants projections for published in 2012 by means of the nationwide Institute of inhabitants and Social safeguard learn, to teach the earlier and destiny improvement of the dependency ratio from 1891 to 2060. Then, using the inhabitants lifestyles desk and web replica price, the results of accelerating lifestyles expectancy and declining fertility at the dependency ratio have been saw individually. eventually, the ancient relationships between women’s survival premiums at reproductive age, the theoretical fertility price to take care of the alternative point and the recorded overall fertility price (TFR) have been analyzed. ancient remark confirmed TFR adapting to the theoretical point of fertility with a definite time lag and reminiscent of women’s survival premiums at reproductive age. Women’s expanding lifespan and survival charges may have prompted selection making to reduce the danger of childbearing. whether the theoretical fertility expense meets the substitute point, women’s perspectives of minimizing the danger may perhaps stay unchanged simply because for ladies the cost–benefit imbalance in childbearing continues to be too excessive in Japan. in response to the findings, the writer discusses the sustainability of jap society on the subject of nationwide funds, social safeguard reform, relatives guidelines, immigration rules and neighborhood polices.

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Gone to Ground: One woman's extraordinary account of by Marie Jalowicz Simon

By Marie Jalowicz Simon

Berlin 1941. Marie Jalowicz Simon, a nineteen-year-old Jewish lady, makes a rare choice. throughout her, Jews are being rounded up for deportation, compelled labour and extermination. Marie takes to the air the yellow famous person and vanishes into the city.

In the years that keep on with, Marie lives lower than an assumed id, relocating among virtually twenty various secure homes. She is pressured to simply accept shield anyplace she will locate it, and plenty of of these she stayed with anticipated prone in go back. She remains with overseas employees, devoted communists or even confident Nazis. Any fake circulation may result in arrest. consistently at the circulate, by no means convinced who should be depended on and the way a long way, it used to be her quick-witted decision and the main outstanding and hair-raising strokes of success that ensured her survival.

This is Marie's amazing tale, informed in her personal voice with unflinching honesty after greater than fifty years of silence.

Marie Jalowicz Simon was once born in 1922 and got here from a middle-class Jewish relatives. She escaped the ghettos and focus camps that claimed the lives of such a lot of different Jews throughout the moment international conflict, via residing in hiding in Berlin. After the struggle she taught classics and philosophy on the Berlin Humboldt collage, yet infrequently spoke approximately her previous. presently earlier than her demise in 1998, her son recorded her telling her tale for the 1st time. This ebook relies at the tapes he recorded.

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By Marie Jalowicz Simon

Berlin 1941. Marie Jalowicz Simon, a nineteen-year-old Jewish lady, makes a rare choice. throughout her, Jews are being rounded up for deportation, compelled labour and extermination. Marie takes to the air the yellow famous person and vanishes into the city.

In the years that keep on with, Marie lives lower than an assumed id, relocating among virtually twenty various secure homes. She is pressured to simply accept shield anyplace she will locate it, and plenty of of these she stayed with anticipated prone in go back. She remains with overseas employees, devoted communists or even confident Nazis. Any fake circulation may result in arrest. consistently at the circulate, by no means convinced who should be depended on and the way a long way, it used to be her quick-witted decision and the main outstanding and hair-raising strokes of success that ensured her survival.

This is Marie's amazing tale, informed in her personal voice with unflinching honesty after greater than fifty years of silence.

Marie Jalowicz Simon was once born in 1922 and got here from a middle-class Jewish relatives. She escaped the ghettos and focus camps that claimed the lives of such a lot of different Jews throughout the moment international conflict, via residing in hiding in Berlin. After the struggle she taught classics and philosophy on the Berlin Humboldt collage, yet infrequently spoke approximately her previous. presently earlier than her demise in 1998, her son recorded her telling her tale for the 1st time. This ebook relies at the tapes he recorded.

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My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki

By Ruth Ozeki

The excellent fiction better half to The Omnivore's Dilemma and In protection of Food

Now that Michael Pollan's New York Times bestsellers have unfolded a countrywide discussion approximately the place meals rather comes from, conscientious readers all over the place probably want to consume My yr of Meats. while documentarian Jane Takagi-Little eventually lands a role generating a eastern tv express that simply occurs to be backed through the yankee meat-exporting undefined, she starts off to discover a few unsavory truths approximately love, fertility, and a truly harmful hormone referred to as DES. A modern day tackle Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, veteran filmmaker Ruth Ozeki's novel has been hailed as "rare and provocative" (USA Today) and "up-to-the-minute" (Chicago Tribune).

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By Ruth Ozeki

The excellent fiction better half to The Omnivore's Dilemma and In protection of Food

Now that Michael Pollan's New York Times bestsellers have unfolded a countrywide discussion approximately the place meals rather comes from, conscientious readers all over the place probably want to consume My yr of Meats. while documentarian Jane Takagi-Little eventually lands a role generating a eastern tv express that simply occurs to be backed through the yankee meat-exporting undefined, she starts off to discover a few unsavory truths approximately love, fertility, and a truly harmful hormone referred to as DES. A modern day tackle Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, veteran filmmaker Ruth Ozeki's novel has been hailed as "rare and provocative" (USA Today) and "up-to-the-minute" (Chicago Tribune).

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