Japan

A

Principal Cities

Japan’s largest city is Tokyo, the national capital. Tokyo ranks as the most populated metropolitan area in the world, with about 35 million inhabitants in 2003. In addition to being the center of government, Tokyo is Japan’s principal commercial center, home to most of the country’s largest corporations, banks, and other businesses. It is also a leading center of manufacturing, higher education, and communications. Japan’s second largest city is Yokohama, located near Tokyo in Kanagawa Prefecture. Originally a small fishing village, the settlement became a major port and international trade center after it was opened to foreign commerce in 1859. It grew quickly and continues to be Japan’s largest port, a busy commercial center, and along with Tokyo and neighboring Kawasaki, a hub of Japan’s preeminent Keihin Industrial Zone (an area of industrial concentration). The third largest city in the country is Ōsaka. Even in Japan’s feudal era, Ōsaka was an important commercial center and castle town, and it was known as “Japan’s kitchen” because of its role in warehousing rice for the nation. Today it is the leading financial center of western Japan and the principal city of the Hanshin Industrial Zone.

Other major cities are Nagoya, the focus of the Chūkyō Industrial Zone and a major port on Ise Bay; Sapporo, Hokkaidō’s capital and an important food-processing center; and Kōbe, a major port and shipbuilding center. Kyōto, Japan’s seventh-largest city, is especially famous as an ancient capital of Japan and the site of many historic temples, shrines, and traditional gardens. It is also known for manufacturing silk brocades and textiles.

Most of these major cities are crowded into a relatively small area of land along the Pacific coast of Honshū, between Tokyo and Kōbe. This heavily urbanized strip is known as the Tōkaidō Megalopolis, named for a historic highway that connected Tokyo with Kyōto. The cities are now interconnected by expressways and Japan’s high-speed Shinkansen railway.

B

Ethnic Groups

The overwhelming majority of Japan’s population is ethnically Japanese. Closely related to other East Asians, the Japanese people are believed to have migrated to the islands of present-day Japan from the Asian continent and the South Pacific more than 2,000 years ago. The Ainu are Japan’s only indigenous ethnic group. Japan is also home to comparatively small groups of Koreans, Chinese, and residents from other countries. All told, the non-Japanese portion of the population totals no more than 2 percent, making Japan one of the most homogeneous countries in the world in terms of ethnic or national composition.

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Although the origins of the Ainu are uncertain, traditional belief holds that they descended from the earliest settlers of Japan, who arrived long before the first Japanese. Their physical characteristics suggested to early anthropologists that they were Caucasoid (ultimately originating in southeastern Europe) or Australoid (originating in Australia and Southeast Asia). More recent scholarship suggests that they are related to the Tungusic, Altaic, and Uralic peoples of Siberia. The Ainu once inhabited a wider area of northern Japan but are now concentrated in a few settlements on Hokkaidō. Of the current population of about 20,000 native Ainu, very few native speakers of the Ainu language remain. The Ainu have a distinct language and religious beliefs, and a rich material culture. Many engage in agriculture, fishing, and logging, or in tourism in their distinctive villages.

Koreans are the largest nonnative group in Japan. When the Japanese colonized Korea in the early 20th century, they forced many Koreans to move to Japan to work in Japanese mines and factories. Many Koreans living in Japan today are the children of these unwilling immigrants. They have permanent resident status in Japan and most rights of citizenship, but they face roadblocks to full citizenship and often suffer discrimination. Koreans make up more than 51 percent of all foreign residents in Japan. The next-largest group is the Chinese, some of whom were likewise forcibly relocated during Japan’s occupation of Taiwan in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Sizable communities of Brazilians, Filipinos, and Americans also live in Japan. Since the 1980s workers from Asian countries such as China, the Philippines, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Iran have come to Japan on temporary visas to work in construction and industry doing so-called 3K jobs (kitsui, kitanai, and kiken, or “difficult, dirty, and dangerous”) that Japanese workers avoid. These foreign workers often live in inferior conditions and are generally shunned by many Japanese.

C

Language

Japanese is the official language of Japan. The Japanese language is distinctive and of unknown origin. However, it has some relation to the Altaic languages of central Asia and to Korean, which may also be an Altaic language. Linguists also find similarities between Japanese and the Austronesian languages of the South Pacific.

Japanese has a number of regional dialects. Standard Japanese, the form heard most commonly on national television and radio, is traditionally the dialect of educated people in Tokyo but is now understood everywhere in Japan. Although standard Japanese has begun to replace some regional accents, many of these remain quite strong and distinctive. For example, dialects spoken in southern Japan—most notably on Kyūshū and Okinawa—are virtually incomprehensible to speakers of other dialects. Residents of western Japan around Ōsaka, Kyōto, and Kōbe also speak with distinctive accents.

Japanese speech is sensitive to social relationships. Several degrees of politeness and familiarity exist to distinguish between superiors, equals, and inferiors based on factors such as age, sex, and social status.

Japanese was solely a spoken language before the Chinese writing system was introduced to Japan in about the 5th century. By the 9th century, Japanese people had adapted Chinese writing to their own language and assimilated many Chinese words. Modern Japanese writing combines Chinese characters (kanji) with two syllabaries (alphabets in which each symbol represents a syllable), hiragana and katakana. Kanji are used to write native Japanese nouns and verbs, as well as the many Japanese words that originated in Chinese. Although there are tens of thousands of kanji, the government has identified about 2,000 for daily use. The hiragana syllabary is used for grammatical elements and word suffixes, while non-Chinese foreign words are written using katakana. Japanese includes many such loan words taken from Portuguese, Dutch, German, and, increasingly, English. An example from English is kompūtā, the Japanese word for computer. The Roman alphabet also is used commonly in advertisements and for emphasis and visual impact. It is not uncommon to see kanji, katakana, hiragana, and roman letters all used in the same sentence.

Japanese is usually written vertically and from right to left across a page. Thus, the first page of a Japanese book is what readers of English would normally think of as the last page. In modern times, Japan has adopted the Western style of writing horizontally and from left to right for some publications, such as textbooks. Written or printed Japanese has no spaces between words.

Ainu is Japan’s only other indigenous language. It is apparently unrelated to Japanese and is now nearly extinct. Korean and Chinese residents of Japan usually speak Japanese as their first language. Many Japanese students study foreign languages, most commonly English.

D

Religion

Japan is primarily a secular society in which religion is not a central factor in most people’s daily lives. Yet certain religious traditions and practices are vitally important and help define the society, and most Japanese people profess at least some religious adherence.

The dominant religions in Japan are Shinto and Buddhism. Shinto is native to Japan. Generally translated as “the Way of the Gods,” Shinto is a mixture of religious beliefs and practices, and its roots date back to prehistory. It was first mentioned in 720 in the Nihon shoki, Japan’s earliest historical chronicle. Unlike most major world religions, Shinto has no organized body of teachings, no recognized historical founder, and no moral code. Instead, it focuses on worship of nature, ancestors, and a pantheon of kami, sacred spirits or gods that personify aspects of the natural world. From 1868 to 1945, under the Japanese imperial government, Shinto was Japan’s state religion. After Japan’s defeat in World War II, the occupation government separated Shinto from state support.

Buddhism originated in India, arriving in Japan in the 6th century by way of China and Korea. In the centuries that followed, numerous Buddhist sects took root in Japan, among them Zen Buddhism. Zen was introduced from China in the 12th century and quickly became popular among the dominant warrior class under the rule of Japan’s first shogunate (military government), the Kamakura. Today the largest Buddhist sect in Japan is the Nichiren school.

Shinto and Buddhism have been intertwined in Japanese society for centuries, and a majority of the population identify themselves as members of one or both of these religions. Indeed, most Japanese blend the two, preferring attendance at Shinto shrines for some events—such as New Year’s Day, wedding ceremonies, and the official start of adulthood at age 20—and Buddhist ceremonies for other events, most notably Bon (a midsummer celebration honoring ancestral spirits) and funerals. Confucianism and Daoism, which came to Japan from China by way of Korea, have also profoundly influenced Japanese religious life.

More than 20 million Japanese are members of various shinkō shūkyō, or “new religions.” The largest of these are Sōka Gakkai and Risshō Kōseikai, offshoots of Nichiren Buddhism, and Tenrikyō, an offshoot of Shinto. Most of the new religions were founded by charismatic leaders who have claimed profound spiritual or supernatural experiences and expect considerable devotion and sacrifices from members. Although it is very small in comparison to other religions, one of Japan’s new religions, Aum Shinrikyo, gained considerable notoriety when some of its members released nerve gas into the Tokyo subway system in 1995, killing 12 people and injuring more than 5,000.

Japan also has a significant minority of Christians, constituting about 4 percent of the population. Portuguese and Spanish missionaries introduced Christianity to Japan in the 16th century. The religion made strong inroads there until the Japanese government banned it as a potential threat to the country’s political sovereignty from the mid-17th century to the mid-19th century. Today, about two-thirds of Japan’s Christians are Protestants, and about one-third are Roman Catholics. Small communities of followers of other world faiths live in Japan as well.

E

Education

With an adult literacy rate exceeding 99 percent, Japan ranks among the top nations in the world in educational attainment. Schooling generally begins before grade one in preschool (yōchien) and is free and compulsory for elementary and junior high school (grades 1 through 9). More than 99 percent of elementary school-aged children attend school. Most students who finish junior high school continue on to senior high school (grades 10 through 12). Approximately one-third of senior high school graduates then continue on for higher education. Most high schools and universities admit students on the basis of difficult entrance examinations. Competition to get into the best high schools and universities is fierce because Japan’s most prestigious jobs typically go to graduates of elite universities.

About 1 percent of elementary schools and 5 percent of junior high schools are private. Nearly 25 percent of high schools are private. Whether public or private, high schools are ranked informally according to their success at placing graduates into elite universities. In 1998 there were 604 four-year universities in Japan and 588 two-year junior colleges. Important and prestigious universities include the University of Tokyo, Kyōto University, and Keio University in Tokyo.

The school year in Japan typically runs from April through March and is divided into trimesters separated by vacation holidays. Students attend classes five full weekdays in addition to half days on Saturdays, and on average do considerably more homework each day than American students do. In almost all schools, students wear uniforms and adhere to strict rules regarding appearance.

In addition to their regular schooling, some students—particularly students at the junior high school level—enroll in specialized private schools called juku. Often translated into English as “cram schools,” these schools offer supplementary lessons after school hours and on weekends, as well as tutoring to improve scores on senior high school entrance examinations. Students who are preparing for college entrance examinations attend special schools called yobikō. A disappointing score on a college entrance examination means that a student must settle for a lesser college, decide not to attend college at all, or study for a year or more at a yobikō in preparation to retake the examination.

The early history of education in Japan was rooted in ideas and teachings from China. In the 16th and early 17th centuries, European missionaries also influenced Japanese schooling. From about 1640 to 1868, during Japan’s period of isolation under the Tokugawa shoguns, Buddhist temple schools called terakoya assumed responsibility for education and made great strides in raising literacy levels among the general population. In 1867 there were more than 14,000 temple schools in Japan. In 1872 the new Meiji government established a ministry of education and a comprehensive educational code that included universal primary education. During this period, Japan looked to nations in Europe and North America for educational models. As the Japanese empire expanded during the 1930s and 1940s, education became increasingly nationalistic and militaristic.

After Japan’s defeat in World War II, the educational system was revamped. Changes included the present grade structure of six years of elementary school and three years each of junior and senior high school; a guarantee of equal access to free, public education; and an end to the teaching of nationalist ideology. Reforms also sought to encourage students’ self-expression and increase flexibility in curriculum and classroom procedures. Nevertheless, some observers still believe that education in Japan is excessively rigid, favoring memorization of facts at the expense of creative expression, and geared to encouraging social conformity.

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