Rangaku is the term used for “Dutch Learning” and started the Japaneses curiosity about the west from finding an anatomy book. From there it moved to all sorts of subjects some examples are: Political Science, Astronomy, Medicine, Physical Science and Cooking, and many more.

The Dutch were the first westerners to find Japan and they had limited access from 1640 on. Seeing as how the Japanese had never met anyone like the Dutch they were very curios, and so were the Dutch of the Japanese. In general most of what the Japanese learned about the west was from the Dutch traders and priests.

What really kicked off Rangaku, or “Dutch learning”, was when some Japanese doctors obtained an anatomy book that had highly detailed drawings of the internals of human bodies. This was very interesting to the Japanese as apparently they had never done an autopsy to learn what the insides of a person looked like. So they decided to do an autopsy on a dead criminal, and learned these books were exact. This spawned helped spawn a great curiosity of the west.

From there it lead into almost every subject imaginable. It was also quite easy for the Japanese people to learn since 70 to 80% of Japanese were literate so as soon as books were translated from dutch they were sent off into Japan for people to learn from, that is a little over reaching but close’ish.

Much like everything else things evolve and so has/did Rangaku. Naturally with the curiosity of the Japanese about the west the same is true of the west about the Japanese. Eventually it lead down the road to Commodore Perry’s visit and forcing open Japan to trade.

One of the best positives of Japan starting to learn about the west was their intensity of it. The leaders setup groups of people to study and learn all about the west. By the time Commodore Perry forced open Japan they already knew about the politics and ways of the rest of the world so they were able to make effective decisions about opening Japan, trade agreements, and general good decisions for the future.

I found this topic quite interesting. While it is not earth shattering information it is just one of those little tidbits of history which makes things fun. So many things I take for granted with US history that I have learned, even the littlest of things, it is fun to start learning the little things of Japanese history. I hope to do more posts like this in the future.

The question now is have you read of this before or know much about it?

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Japan has a lot of family names and it kind of makes it hard to remember names because I haven’t grown up with them. However, it is important to start learning names to better remember names and get along using the language. The Japan Times released an article with the top 100 most common family names in japan.

Here are the top 10 please visit the the article for all the rest.

1. Sato
2. Suzuki
3. Takahashi
4. Tanaka
5. Watanabe
6. Ito
7. Yamamoto
8. Nakamura
9. Kobayashi
10. Kato

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The Ainu are considered the natives to Japan, similar to Native Americans being the original peoples to the United States. They are actually very similar to the Native Americans because their culture/economy was based around farming, hunting, fishing and gathering; along with having their own language, culture, and religious distinctions.

The Ainu were originally concentrated throughout the Honshu and Hokkaido islands. They called Hokkaido Ainu Moshir, which was annexed by the Japanese in 1868 to prevent the intrusion of Russians. This fact alone is interesting because according to a historical census in Russia there were over 1000 people that claimed Ainu as their main language. This means the Ainu not only were in Japan, but also parts of Russia as well, even though now most Ainu do live in Japan. Now, most Ainu live in Hokkaido on the southern and eastern coasts.

There are probably less than 100 people whom speak Ainu left, so basically the language is about to go extinct. The Ainu language has next to no correlation to Japanese and is part of the reason the language is going extinct because most people try to record the language using a Japanese writing system, since there isn’t one, and words are getting changed because of it.

There are a few distinctions in the culture too. For one the Ainu tend to be more hairy, I am guessing this is because they live in a colder climate longer the hair helps keep them warmer, total speculation on my part. This is mentioned because after a certain age the men stop shaving, and grow out there beards and mustaches. The women on the other hand keep their hair trimmed around their shoulders. As for food, ironically enough, all their food is cooked. They don’t eat raw foods like sushi, which in my ignorance would have thought is where Japan started eating sushi. I do have to say their system of accountability is quite intriguing and should maybe be incorporated again, in some places. Basically, a group of people, like jurors, sit in judgment of an action and the only punishment is basically how severely you get beaten. However, if you murder someone your nose and ears were cut off and the tendons in your feet where severed.

The religion is animist, which one can construe as Shintoism that most Japanese favor today. Basically everything has a spirit or god, similar to Greek mythology. The most important of spirits is fire, or earth. Most Ainu believe they will ascend to kamui mosir (land of the gods)

With all this said the Ainu haven’t exactly had the easiest of lives. To roughly sum up they were forced into assimilating into Japanese culture with a law made in 1899. Under the law they were denied the right to continue traditional practices and forced to learn the Japanese language. Biggest hit of all was they were only allowed to have 0.15% of they land they originally had. Basically, look a bit at American history with Native Americans transplant that onto the Japanese and Ainu. It wasn’t until 1997 that the Ainu started getting some rights back, and are still discriminated against. Finally, in 2008 the Japanese Diet officially recognized the Ainu as the indigenous people of Japan and rescinded the laws of 1899.

I hope you enjoyed this post. I have a strong passion that understanding history of a region helps you better understand the modern culture. I plan to do more history posts in the future. Please let me know what you think and how I can improve as history is not my strong point.

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Yesterday, there was announcement that TV Asahi and TBS are going to YouTube to stream their video content to users. They are wanting to use the popularity and the backbone of YouTube to offer quality service to viewers. However, I am not sure if something is getting lost in translation or not because what I am reading is “Streaming” and what I am seeing on their pages is news segments. Granted they are technically streaming its not a true live stream, anyway.

This is a great opportunity to get some real world content almost live since they seem be posting it the same day the news segments happen.

TBS

TBS is joining with just its news content, but as read while reading up it is free for now there are reports that they want to monetize on it later. Here is a link to their Channel on youtube and a video too.

TBS Youtube Channel

TV Asahi

TV Asahi too is adding their news stuff too, but it seems they are going to be going a step further and offering non-news content eventually too. I am definitely going to keep an eye on the non-news channel for sure.

ANN News – TV Asahi News Channel
TV Asahi – Non-News Channel

This is exciting, at least for me, because it is an opportunity to watch news broadcasts in decent quality and kind of stay up with everything, and actually know how to control what I am watching. I have tried to visit Japanese news sites before and get lost trying to watch stuff. I recommend watching stuff on these channels to take advantage of learning more about Japan and working on Japanese comprehension.

News Sources:
YouTube Streams TV Asahi, TBS – The Japan Times Online
Japan YouTube Blog

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The title is a bit misleading, but serves our purposes as a starting point. First I want to bring up that I am an Eagle Scout in the “Boy Scouts of America” and strongly believe in the values, skills and life lessons I have learned in Boy Scouts having been in it for almost 20 years now. Now that you have a bit of perspective of why I am writing this lets look a bit into “what” scouting is about.

What is Scouting

If scouts could be summed up in a couple a few sentences I would have to say it is a program that offers youth an opportunity to learn about the world and interact with others from people their own age to adults. Skills in outdoors, communications, and leadership are developed over several years of interaction with all types of people and through the school of hard knocks. It helps prepare young people to better prepare themselves for the future by presenting similar situations to them that they would come up against later in life.

To illustrate how Scouting can better prepare you for the future i’d like to call on a personal example instead of trying to rely on some abstract explanation. In scouting you must serve in a leadership role be-it a small group or the whole group. I served a few terms as the senior youth leader in which I had to plan and run the meetings and delegate accordingly. This involved more paper work and co-ordination than anything else. I had to make sure I found who could do what and helped to co-ordinate so they could do what they needed, usually teaching something. This is not unlike running a company you spend more time doing administrative tasks over what your business actually does.

So how has this helped me for the future. Well the easiest example would be that I am currently helping to start a Japanese Language Club at my local college and it is mostly paperwork and coordinating with people to make sure we are doing things right. I can easily step into this role and fulfill it because of the direct benefits of Scouting.

Hopefully that helps you gauge an idea of the benefits of scouting. So lets move on.

History of Scouting in Japan

Pre-World War II

The first Boy Scout Troop was formed in Japan in 1909 at a school, but quickly disappeared when the teacher left that school. Many more troops sprang up here and there accross japan for the next 13 years, but there was no real guiding force behind them. In 1922 Boy Scouts of Japan was officially formed and became a true organization. Scouting in Japan came to be noticed by the public after the Great Kanto earthquake in 1923 when Scouts help to rebuild, and the statesman who was incharge of the rebuilding process was able to bring word of Boy Scouts to the general public during his travels around Japan.

World War II

Scouting almost died during World War II and shortly there after during the occupation as former military personal were scrutinzed and not given much lee-way in what they could do. Later though things relaxed and Scouting flourished in Japan once more with membership growing to 80,000 members in only a few short years.

Today

SAJ celebrated its 75th Anniversary of founding of the National Scout Association in 1997, and hosted the second Asia-Pacific Regional Top Leaders’ Summit Conference in Gotemba and Tokyo.

Scouting in Japan has grown steadily and established an eminent place for itself in social education for young people. The aim of the Scout Association of Japan is to help young people become responsible humanitarian citizens, who can appreciate and practice loyalty, courage and self-respect in an international perspective. With the support of volunteer leaders, the Scout movement in Japan provides fun filled, challenging programs, with an emphasis on developing each young person’s character, health, abilities and sense of service to others.

The Scout Association of Japan is a non-political, voluntary movement, with open subscription. The geographic structure of Japanese Scouting is the Council, generally conforming to prefecture boundaries. Japanese Scouting also exists abroad, in communities with large native Japanese populations, such as Amsterdam, Netherlands and Singapore.

Earlier I said the title was a bit misleading. I say that because Boy Scouts of Japan re-named to Scout Association of Japan, and abbreviated as SAJ. SAJ then opened the doors to the girls/female youth in all Sections in 1995.

Structure of Scouting Program in Japan

The United States as 3 sections to it. Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts and Venturing, with venturing being a bit of a side thing more than an integral part. However the SAJ has 5 parts to it.

Beaver Scouts
This is for the youngest group. It mostly exists to form new relationships with others and have fun learning basic skills and team work. A couple of activities might be basic arts and crafts to visiting the zoo with fellow Beaver’s.

Cub Scouts
Cub Scouts is for the bit more mature so might extend activities to include more complex arts and crafts along with camping skills at a basic level and start to introduce them to things they will come accross in Boy Scouts.

Boy Scouts
At this point the scout has a basic understanding of camping skills and other related skills along with the ability to participate and accomplish things with others. So now starts the path of learning leadership and further develop camping skills beyond setting up a tent and eating.

Venture
This is more advanced part of scouting where you will take everything you have learned and usually start to lead larger groups of people in various activities as you work towards Fuji Scout. You learn to deal with all kinds of people as by this age many people have matured to a point where attitudes are easily distinguishable. Along with all this you will probably start participating in activities going beyond just camping in the woods from white watering kayaking to Extended Backpacking trips, or even Mountain Climbing, via cliff faces.

At this level you work towards Fuji Scout which is the highest rank in SAJ equivalent to Eagle Scout in the United States. As I understand it not many Scouters are able to earn the rank of Fuji Scout much like the rank of Eagle where only 2% of all total scouts earn Eagle Scout. I read somewhere that as of 1998 only 3000 people had earned Fuji Scout. I was unable to find information that I could read regarding total numbers of scouts in Japan.

Rover
This level is a personal growth section where one grows through service to scouting, their family, and their community.

Scout Motto, Promise/Oath, and laws

The scouting program in Japan is broken up into 2 distinct parts. Cub Scouts and “Regular Scouts”. Cub scouts are your elementary age kids (Beaver and Cub) while Regular Scouts are Middle School to High School aged (Scout, Venture and Rover). Each level has a motto which is something that is quick and meaningful that you should try to do everyday. The promise, or oath, which is something that you will strive to do in life. And laws which you should follow to be the best you can. I’ll list these now.

Scouts

Motto

• Be prepared

Promise

• On my honor, I promise I will do my best to do my duty to God/Buddha and the country, and to obey the Scout Laws, to help other people at all times, and to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.

Laws

• A Scout is
  1. Faithful
  2. Friendly
  3. Courteous
  4. Kind
  5. Cheerful
  6. Thrifty
  7. Courageous
  8. Thankful

Cub Scouts

Motto

• Always, Be in High Spirits

Promise

• I promise to behave honestly and steadily, and to follow the pack laws

Pack Laws

• Cub Scouts
  1. Obey
  2. Look After Themselves
  3. Work Together
  4. Help Younger Ones
  5. Do Good Deeds

Ranks

Each rank builds on each other and are merit based. You must earn the ranks they are not awarded based on age. Here they are in order.

1. Tenderfoot (Tenderfoot)
2. 2nd Class (Ni-kyu)
3. 1st Class (Ikkyu)
4. Chrysanthemum (kiku)
5. Fuji Scout (Comparable to Eagle Scout)

Noteable Scouts

• Ryutaro Hashimoto, the 82nd and 83rd Prime Minister of Japan
• Yukio Hattori, the fifth president of the Hattori Nutrition College, commentator on the Japanese cooking competition program Iron Chef
• Soichi Noguchi, Japanese astronaut
• Makoto Raiku, mangaka (Zatch Bell!)

Conclusion

There is much much much more detail I could go into, but I think this is a good overview to go beyond the general boy scouting is for youth explanation. The basic structure and purpose is important to understand to really understand what scouting is about. There is one thing to remember though, at the end of the day beyond all the politics beyond all the bickering that may happen; at the end of they Scouting is about one thing and one thing only helping the youth of today become good responsible adults in the future. That is a truly noble and great goal for all.

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Note/Disclaimer: This is a post that is meant to give a quick overview of some of Tochigi and not full detail of everything. Tochigi is much like a state in the US with a rich past, present, and future to come. I can’t possibly cover everything and getting the tip of everything would be a book. As I learn Japanese better I will fill this in more.

Name: Tochigi
Island: Honshū
Population: 2,011,313
Capital: Utsunomiya
Major Cities: Ashikaga, Kanuma, Mōka, Nasukarasuyama, Nasushiobara, Nikkō, Ōtawara, Oyama, Sakura, Sano, Shimotsuke, Tochigi, Yaita

History

The late 7th century, Tochigi formed Shimotsuke Province. During which time Shimotsuke-Yakushi temple was built, making it the Buddhist capital of the Kanto Region.

In the early 15th century, Ashikaga University was re-established, holding over 3000 students by the 16th century. It is the oldest “university/college” in Japan. Saint Francis Xavier introduced Ashikaga to the world as the best university in Japan.

In the late 19th century the Tokugawa Shogunate fell and the new government established the prefectures. The prefectural capital was established in the city of Tochigi after the unification of Utsunomiya Prefecture and Tochigi Prefecture in 1873. However the capital was transferred to Utsunomiya.

Culture

Tochigi has many traditional festivals and events such as Nikkō Tōshō-gū’s 1000 Samurai Procession and Horseback Archery Festival, and the city of Tochigi’s Autumn Festival where doll floats are pulled around the city once every five years.

Climate

The climate of Tochigi may be classified as a humid temperate zone with broad variations in temperature. Winters are arid with dry winds, while summers are humid with frequent thunderstorms.

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So I was leisurely flying around Tokyo area and decided to snap some picture that were kind of interesting.  One thing that I ended up getting images of are schools.  There are A LOT of schools so I snapped a few of them to show.  I think they are kind of interesting.  Also, when I say there are A LOT I mean there are A LOT. Take a look for yourself.

I know the images are a little wide for my theme, but I didn’t want to spoil the full size so I went with the larger size anyway.

Now if you know me I am from middle of United States and haven’t left my house so I thought I should explain how I was able to fly around Japan.   It is truely amazing how many people don’t know about Maps.Bing.com (also known as live maps or Virtual Earth). Virtual Earth released pretty much about the same time as Google Maps, but like a couple of weeks after.  What is more interesting is a lot of the features Google Maps now has Virtual Earth started with.  At first Microsoft created http://preview.local.live.com. That is basically Street View which Google has, but was created long before Google did theirs.  However, Microsoft scrapped it due to privacy issues.  At the same time they were experimenting with Birds Eye View which is less invasive and allows Areal shots at an angle for you to figure out streets and buildings etc.  Microsoft hired pilots to criss-cross the skys snapping pictures at 45 degree angles all over the world, and they are constantly adding more cities to the database.

That is a brief summary of how I was able to fly around Tokyo from home, and a bit of technology history of which probably no one cares, but I find very interesting.  So now for the pictures.

Here is a picture of Toys R Us in Japan. This was amazing tome because i never thought there would be one in Japan. I never know it was an international store. Also even more amazing when I first hit birds eye view this is what popped up.

Here is an image of an industrial place that if i didn’t know I was looking at Japan I would never have known. Just goes to show we aren’t all that different.

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To get started with J-Pop you first need to actually do some listening to j-pop. Visit my post on “Online Japanese Music Radio Stations” to get started listening right now.

Next is to get started listening and finding artists you like. I asked on twitter if people had any suggestions on what they like J-Pop wise. Here are their replies.

So lets list them all here to remove duplicates. As a note some of these artists are pop-rock. I took out the pure rock ones.

Arashi
M-flo
Monkey Majik
Girl Next Door
l’arc~en~ciel
halcali
Greeeen
Leo Imai
Janne da arc
Perfume
Buono!
Hikaru Utada
Nichika
Yui

As you can probably see there are quite a few and this is a great set to start with and have something in common with others to talk about. So now we have a list of artists lets take a listen to some of their music. Below are you tube videos of some of their music to get started with so you can know how they sound.

Arashi

M-flo

Monkey Majik

Girl Next Door

l’arc~en~ciel

halcali

Greeeen

Leo Imai

Janne da arc

Perfume (Because I like Perfume the most here are 2 songs )

Buono!

Hikaru Utada

Nichika

Yui

There are some songs and bands for you. The next step is to get the CD/Album whatever and listen and learn more about them to start branching out beyond those to really start reaching into JPop. Hopefully, this is a good primer to get you more into J-Pop.

I want to give a special thanks to the following people for there suggestions
MagicalEmi (http://shoujo-manga.com/)
Yonasu (http://yonasu.com)
rjhoolan
turhangross (http://omgitsturhan.com/)

Please if you have others you suggest leave them in the comments and have fun with the music.

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Note/Disclaimer: This is a post that is meant to give a quick overview of some of Kanagawa and not full detail of everything. Kanagawa is much like a state in the US with a rich past, present, and future to come. I can’t possibly cover everything and getting the tip of everything would be a book.

Name: Kanagawa
Island: Honshū
Population: 8,965,000
Capital: Yokohama
Major Cities: Atsugi, Ayase, Chigasaki, Ebina, Fujisawa, Hadano, Hiratsuka, Isehara, Kamakura, Kawasaki, Minamiashigara, Miura, Odawara, Sagamihara, Yamato, Yokohama, Yokosuka, Zama, Zushi

History

Kanagawa prefecture has a history going back to the prehistoric age. You can find over 7500 different prehistoric sites in the area from shell and tomb mounds to tunnel tombs. It is considered to be a great place to settle for the ancient peoples of japan because it faces two different bays and has two different mountain ranges towards the inland. It has the best of both worlds and with its mild climate it makes it easy to settle there.

Kanagawa was at the hear to the opening of Japan to the western world. For many years the west came to Kanagawa’s shores and demanded japan open up so they could trade. For a long time japan stuck with its strict seclusion policies, but finally when American Navy officer Commodore Matthew Perry came Japan finally caved and signed the Treaty of Peace and Amity which opened up Japan to the rest of the world.

Essentially Kanagawa was taken down 3 times from earthquake to the Manchurian Incident, and finally by Air Raids in the late 1940′s during World War II. However, through all that Kanagawa became a hot spot for growth of the western culture and modernization of Japan the area grew rapidly in numbers and in wealth. This was a place where many democratic reforms took place and a lot of social changes were made some for the best some not. Overall Kanagawa has one of the most interesting histories in Japan.

Culture

I am sorry to say that I am going to ahve to do this in a seperate post at a later date.  I think I found a couple of good sites, but they are in Japanese and my skills aren’t on par to be able to read them yet.  As I learn more I will post on this.  I am truely sorry.

Climate

Kanagawa has a mild climate because of the mountain ranges to the west and the Pacific Ocean to the east. They kind of fight each other to keep the area in a mild state year round. The avreage tempurature is 16.1C (61 F) with the highest at 35C (95F) and lowest at -0.5C (31.1F).

Interesting Facts

Kanagawa has 6 sports teams

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Note/Disclaimer: This is a post that is meant to give a quick overview of some of Saitama and not full detail of everything. Saitama is much like a state in the US with a rich past, present, and future to come. I can’t possibly cover everything and getting the tip of everything would be a book.

Name: Saitama
Island: Honshū
Population: 6,938,006
Capital: Saitama
Major Cities: Ageo, Asaka, Chichibu, Fujimi, Fujimino, Fukaya, Gyōda, Hannō, Hanyū, Hasuda, Hatogaya, Hidaka, Higashimatsuyama, Honjō, Iruma, Kasukabe, Kawagoe, Kawaguchi, Kazo, Kitamoto, Kōnosu, Koshigaya, Kuki, Kumagaya, Misato, Niiza, Okegawa, Saitama, Sakado, Satte, Sayama, Shiki, Sōka, Toda, Tokorozawa, Tsurugashima, Wakō, Warabi, Yashio, Yoshikawa

History

Historically the Saitama land was very fertial and allowed for lots of farming to help provide a majority of the food for the kanto region. However, recently with the growth of Tokyo Siatama has become more of a suburb of Tokyo, but is a major player in that they have several connections directly to downtown Tokyo which helps them. The population has tripled since 1960 for this reason.

Culture

Chichibu Night Festival This festival is held by Chichibu Shrine annually on 2 December and 3 December, and has been held for more than 300 years. It is famous for the parade of six traditional wooden floats , and is counted as one of the three big traditional float festivals in Japan.

Kobaton is the prefectural mascot, a Eurasian collared dove, which is also the prefectural bird. Kobaton was made originally as the mascot of the fifty- ninth annual national athletic meeting held in the prefecture in 2004, and was inaugurated as mascot of the prefecture in 2005 with an inauguration ceremony and a letter of appointment from the governor. A wheelchair-using version of Kobaton also exists.

Climate

The prefectures has a fairly stable climate through out the year, but in some areas can get really hot. The temperature easily stays around the same level year round.

Interesting Facts

There is a John Lennon museum
Home to 6 Sports Teams
Saitama has 5 Sister Relationships

Note: this was a difficult prefecture to research because of its proximity to Tokyo makes finding good information difficult in the English speaking world. As I learn more Japanese i can come back and fill in this info with other posts with more detail.

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