Читать книгу Japan: The Soul of a Nation - John Carroll - Страница 8

Traditional Japan

"In winter as in summer the people live on raw vegetables and go about barefooted . They are fond of liquor . In their worship, men of importance simply clap their hands, instead of kneeling or bowing. The people live long, some to one hundred and others to eighty or ninety years."

— Excerpt from the Wei Zhi (History of the Kingdom of Wei) C. AD 297

A mendicant priest with begging bowl in Tokyo.

Participants in this Shinto ceremony at Nikko wear a variety of traditional costumes denoting specific function and status.

It is fascinating how foreign travelers to Japan, whether from the Asian mainland or the West, have made surprisingly similar observations even though their visits have been separated by hundreds of years or even a millennium.

Much that is typically Japanese has survived the Meiji Restoration, rapid urbanization and the Occupation after World War II. Although General Douglas MacArthur and his band of reformers more or less forced the Japanese into accepting a very liberal constitution, at heart the country remained an authority-oriented, vertical society. Today's Japan is indeed democratic, just like it is indeed a free market economy, but always true to them in its own fashion, always true to them in its own way.