Page 23 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide: Japan

INTRODUCING JAP AN  21

A PORTRAIT OF

JAPAN

Few people in the modern world are not affected in some way by the ideas,
culture, and economy of Japan, yet this country remains for many an enigma,
an unsolved riddle. Westernized, but different from any Western country, part
of Asia, but clearly unlike any other Asian society, Japan is a uniquely adaptable
place where tradition and modernity are part of one continuum.
With over 3,000 islands lying along Each spring, the Japanese are reminded
the Pacific Ring of Fire, the Japanese of their country’s geo graphical diversity
archipelago is prone to frequent as the media enthusiastically tracks
earthquakes and has over 100 active the pro gress of the sakura zensen,
volcanoes. Much of the country is the “cherry-blossom front,” as it
moun tainous, while cities consume advances from the subtropical islands
flat lands and coastal plains. The of Okinawa to the north ernmost
Tokyo–Yokohama area is the largest island of Hokkaido.
urban concentration in the world, and The Japanese regard themselves
70 percent of Japan’s 127 million people as a racially integrated tribe, though
live along the stretch of the Pacific coast different dialects and physical features
between Tokyo and Kyushu. distinguish the people of one region
The remaining slivers of cultivable from another. Moreover, there are
land are farmed to yield maximum many minorities in Japan, from the
crops. Generous amounts of rainfall, indigenous Ainu to Okinawans, and
melting snowcaps, and deep lakes an admixture of Koreans, Chinese,
enable rice to be cultivated in near- Southeast Asians, and Westerners
perfect conditions. who have made Japan their home.

Buddhist monks gathered for a ceremony in the ancient capital of Nara
Kyoto’s Ginkaku-ji (or Silver Pavilion) in autumn

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