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Month: February 2018

Noh, Kabuki and J-pop – Music and theater of Japan

Noh, Kabuki and J-pop – Music and theater of Japan

Today’s Japan boasts the second largest music market in the world. The music scene has exploded to include Japanese styles of rock, heavy metal, hip hop, punk, and whatever else you can think of. A lot of today’s music from Japan would seem to be an adaptation of these styles, using the Japanese language. Yet there are also genres that mix western influences with Japanese traditions and structures such as Japanese Pop, or ‘J-pop. There are also many important classical…

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Temples, Shrines and Geishas – Kyoto

Temples, Shrines and Geishas – Kyoto

Next we take a look around the ancient capital city of Kyoto. Kyoto, in fact, means capital city. It was Japan’s capital for over a thousand years and was originally the country’s largest city. Located in a valley of the Tamba Highlands in central Honshu, Kyoto, with a population of around 1.5 million, is part of the Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe metropolitan area. The city, which was originally built using principles of Feng Shui, was destroyed in large part during the Onin War,…

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Honshu History

Honshu History

The history of the island of Honshu is basically the history of the country of Japan. It is the largest and most central of the Japanese islands and is where its current and historic capital cities are located. Before 300 BC, the early Japanese were for the most part, hunters, gatherers and fishers. Things changed quite a bit when around that time, rice cultivation was introduced. This caused a rapid evolution in the formation of social structures. One result of…

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