more at
http://news.quickfound.net/intl/japan_news
.html
"A pictorial report of
Japan in
1957." An episode of the
US Army produced
TV series "
The Big Picture," which appears to have been adapted from an
Army training film about
Japanese culture for US servicemen stationed in Japan.
Public domain film from the
National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied.
The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Japan
Japan Listeni/dʒəˈpæn/ (
Japanese: 日本
Nihon or
Nippon; formally
日本国 Nippon-koku or
Nihon-koku, literally the
State of Japan) is an island nation in
East Asia. Located in the
Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the
Sea of Japan,
China,
North Korea,
South Korea and
Russia, stretching from the
Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the
East China Sea and
Taiwan in the south. The characters that make up Japan's name mean "sun-origin", which is why Japan is sometimes referred to as the "
Land of the Rising Sun".
Japan is an archipelago of 6,852 islands. The four largest islands are
Honshu,
Hokkaido,
Kyushu and
Shikoku, together comprising about ninety-seven percent of Japan's land area. Japan has the world's tenth-largest population, with over
127 million people.
Honshū's
Greater Tokyo Area, which includes the de facto capital city of
Tokyo and several surrounding prefectures, is the largest metropolitan area in the world, with over 30 million residents.
Archaeological research indicates that people lived in Japan as early as the
Upper Paleolithic period. The first written mention of Japan is in
Chinese history texts from the
1st century AD.
Influence from other nations followed by long periods of isolation has characterized
Japan's history. In the late 19th and early
20th centuries, victory in the
First Sino-Japanese War, the
Russo-Japanese War and
World War I allowed Japan to expand its empire during a period of increasing militarism.
The Second Sino-Japanese War of
1937 expanded into part of
World War II in
1941, which came to an end in
1945 following the atomic bombings of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since adopting its revised constitution in
1947, Japan has maintained a unitary constitutional monarchy with an emperor and an elected legislature called the
Diet.
A major economic power, Japan has the world's third-largest economy by nominal
GDP and fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the world's fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer. Although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the sixth largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. After
Singapore, Japan has the lowest homicide rate (including attempted homicide) in the world. According to Japan's health ministry,
Japanese women have the second highest life expectancy of any country in the world
...
Japanese culture has evolved greatly from its origins.
Contemporary culture combines influences from
Asia,
Europe and
North America.
Traditional Japanese arts include crafts such as ceramics, textiles, lacquerware, swords and dolls; performances of bunraku, kabuki, noh, dance, and rakugo; and other practices, the tea ceremony, ikebana, martial arts, calligraphy, origami, onsen,
Geisha and games. Japan has a developed system for the protection and promotion of both tangible and intangible Cultural Properties and
National Treasures.
Sixteen sites have been inscribed on the
UNESCO World Heritage List, twelve of which are of cultural significance...
Japanese cuisine is based on combining staple foods, typically
Japanese rice or noodles, with a soup and okazu — dishes made from fish, vegetable, tofu and the like -- to add flavor to the staple food. In the early modern era ingredients such as red meats that had previously not been widely used in Japan were introduced. Japanese cuisine is known for its emphasis on seasonality of food, quality of ingredients and presentation. Japanese cuisine offers a vast array of regional specialties that use traditional recipes and local ingredients. The
Michelin Guide has awarded
Japanese cities more
Michelin stars than the rest of the world combined...
- published: 28 Sep 2012
- views: 37077