Lock,+Margaret

===**Lock, Margaret. "Japanese Culture ." Online posting.** //**Japanese**// **.** //**Countires and Their Cultures**// **. google, 2010. Web. 14 Sep. 2010. [].** ===

===**Religion** ===

===**"There are more than 200,000 religious organizations in Japan, the majority of them either Shintō; or Buddhist in orientation." ** ===

===**" Shintō is the indigenous animistic religion of Japan. Known as the "way of the //kami// (deities)," it is both a household and a local-community religion." ** **"Buddhism was introduced to Japan from India via China and Korea in the middle of the sixth century. " ** === ===**"By the eighth century it was adopted as the state religion, but practitioners still turned to China as the source of authority. " **  ** Classes **** " Japan is an extremely homogeneous society in which class differences were abolished at the end of the last century." ** ** "An exception was the //burakumin,// an outcaste group, the majority of whom are descendants of ritually "unclean" people (leatherworkers, butchers, grave diggers)." **  " Although discrimination against burakumin was made illegal after the war, many continue to be severely stigmatized, and most of them live close to the poverty line." === ===<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">" Japan is widely recognized as a vertically structured, group-oriented society in which the rights of individuals take second place to harmonious group functioning." === ====<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">" Competition between groups is keen, but the vertical structuring of loyalty, which overarches and encompasses the competing entities, usually ensures that consensus can be obtained at the level of whole organizations and institutions." <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">**Marriage** ==== <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">"Today marriage in Japan can be either an "arranged" union or a "love" match." <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">"In theory an arranged marriage is the result of formal negotiations involving a mediator who is not a family member, culminating in a meeting between the respective families, including the prospective bride and groom/" <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">"These two arrangements are understood today not as moral oppositions but simply as different strategies for obtaining a partner." <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">"The divorce rate is one-quarter that of the United States. "
 * Family orientation**

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">"The nuclear family is the usual domestic unit, but elderly and infirm parents often live with their children or else in close proximity to them. " <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">"Many Japanese men spend extended periods of time away from home on business, either elsewhere in Japan or abroad; hence the domestic unit often is reduced today to a single-parent family for months or even years at a time, during which period the father returns rather infrequently."


 * Homes**

<span style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; color: #000000; display: block; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">"Traditional Japanese architecture is made of wood with deep projecting roofs as protection against the monsoon rains." <span style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; color: #000000; display: block; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">" By the sixteenth century the typical Japanese house with a joined-skeleton frame of post-and-beam construction and elaborate joinery was common." <span style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; color: #000000; display: block; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">" The floor is raised above the ground, its posts resting on foundation stone, which allows the entire structure to bounce during an earthquake. "