Japan: Cultural diversity and tradition
Words, voices and images: Connecting to cultures around the world
"It is easy to think of Japan as very much a monoculture and one increasing in uniformity as globalisation bites. There are however still so many surprises and joys".
The Japanese Archipelago stretches for 3000 kilometers northeast to southwest, Hokkaido in the north, to Okinawa in the south. With distance comes climate zones ranging through boreal, temperate and subtropical.
Climate types influence human development and material culture. Add to this the complexity of the Japanese landscape, its mountainous terrain with all its gorges and basins and we add further climate variability.
All this means there is diversity within Japan, diversity of housing types, the clothes people wear, the jobs people traditionally did and the objects and beliefs they needed to secure a living and a place in society.
To the north of Japan, the Kuril Islands and in the southern part of Sakhalin, places inhabited by the Ainu (Aynu), there were some 19 dialects of the Ainu language, today only the Hokkaido variant survives (with no generally accepted relationship to other languages outside of the Ainu grouping) and does so with fewer than 50 speakers. As we know from our work with Indigenous peoples in other parts of the world language is vital to the survival of culture and cultural memories.
Again we can learn a lot from Indigenous peoples, the Ainu believe that everything has a soul or kamuy. Kamuy exist in everything, the animals, plants, the rivers, the mountains and the sea and they have powers that far exceed those of humans. So this was a direct and close connection to the land and nature on which daily survival depended.
In the south of Japan and in the southern portion of the islands of Okinawa the Okinawan language (Japonic language group) is considered to be endangered by UNESCO although there are still a reasonable number of speakers but who are increasingly influenced by the Japanese language.
"Language stands in the middle, art branches off from that, performing art, dance, song, any practice in life from our culture branches off of that" Alick Tipoti, Torres Strait
From Hokkaido to Okinawa the diverse landscapes and environments throughout the islands of Japan, the long periods of isolation and interactions with neighbouring cultures have created distinct cultural traditions across its regions.
It is easy to think of Japan as very much a monoculture and one increasing in uniformity as globalisation bites. There are however still so many surprises and joys. The creativity and skills of making and performance remain. The faces and the patterns in this story tell us something about that diversity. Long may it continue.
Climate types influence human development and material culture. Add to this the complexity of the Japanese landscape, its mountainous terrain with all its gorges and basins and we add further climate variability.
All this means there is diversity within Japan, diversity of housing types, the clothes people wear, the jobs people traditionally did and the objects and beliefs they needed to secure a living and a place in society.
To the north of Japan, the Kuril Islands and in the southern part of Sakhalin, places inhabited by the Ainu (Aynu), there were some 19 dialects of the Ainu language, today only the Hokkaido variant survives (with no generally accepted relationship to other languages outside of the Ainu grouping) and does so with fewer than 50 speakers. As we know from our work with Indigenous peoples in other parts of the world language is vital to the survival of culture and cultural memories.
Again we can learn a lot from Indigenous peoples, the Ainu believe that everything has a soul or kamuy. Kamuy exist in everything, the animals, plants, the rivers, the mountains and the sea and they have powers that far exceed those of humans. So this was a direct and close connection to the land and nature on which daily survival depended.
In the south of Japan and in the southern portion of the islands of Okinawa the Okinawan language (Japonic language group) is considered to be endangered by UNESCO although there are still a reasonable number of speakers but who are increasingly influenced by the Japanese language.
"Language stands in the middle, art branches off from that, performing art, dance, song, any practice in life from our culture branches off of that" Alick Tipoti, Torres Strait
From Hokkaido to Okinawa the diverse landscapes and environments throughout the islands of Japan, the long periods of isolation and interactions with neighbouring cultures have created distinct cultural traditions across its regions.
It is easy to think of Japan as very much a monoculture and one increasing in uniformity as globalisation bites. There are however still so many surprises and joys. The creativity and skills of making and performance remain. The faces and the patterns in this story tell us something about that diversity. Long may it continue.
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