Japan!!!

1. Japan!!! Trevor Hare p.3 Mr. Zoll

2. Japan’s People • The population of Japan is 128 million people. There is amajority of Japanese having ethnic origin, who are believed to have migrated from the Asian continent and the South Pacific more than 2,000 years ago. The country also has a small population of Koreans, Chinese, and other nationalities but they amount to only 2 percent of the total population. • The Japanese are a very proud race and everything must be done certain ways and with certain manners. These are steeped in the old ways of the country and even though Japan is a very modern, progressive society the old ways still come through into modern life. For example, the honor system is still widely in use in Japanese business. This means that you, as a worker are the lowest form of company life, but your supervisor is of a higher standard than you and so on. • Much of Japan however is very populated; there are large national parks and mountain regions where the people's way of life is unrecognizable from urban Japan. Indeed, in order to protect Japan's rice crops from cheaper foreign imports, rural lives are government protected, although for how long no one can be sure. Be it in the populated countryside or in the large cities, Japan is still a country of remarkable ethnic and cultural groups.

3. Japan is an urban society with only about 4% of the labor force engaged in agriculture. Many farmers supplement their income with part-time jobs in nearby towns and cities. About 80 million of the urban population is heavily concentrated on the Pacific shore of Honshu and in northern Kyushu. Major population centers include: Metropolitan Tokyo with approximately 12.8 million; Yokohama with 3.7 million; Osaka with 2.6 million; Nagoya with 2.2 million; Sapporo with 1.8 million; Kyoto and Kobe with 1.5 million each; Kawasaki and Fukuoka with 1.4 million each, and Saitama with 1.2 million. Japan faces the same problems that confront urban industrialized societies throughout the world: overcrowded cities, congested roads, air pollution, and rising juvenile delinquency. Shinto's and Buddhism are Japan's two principal religions. Shinto's is founded on myths and legends from the early worships.

4. The traditional arts of Japan offer an opportunity to experience something truly exotic or find inner calm. As Japan is situated in a volcanic zone along the Pacific depth, frequent low intensity earth tremors and occasional volcanic activity are felt throughout the islands. Destructive earthquakes occur several times a century. Hot springs are numerous and have been developed as resorts. Japans cultures and geography

5. Government GovernmentType: Constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary government. Constitution: May 3, 1947. Branches: Executive--prime minister (head of government). Legislative--bicameral Diet (House of Representatives and House of Councilors). Judicial--civil law system based on the model of Roman law.Political parties: Democratic Party of Japan, Social Democratic Party, People’s New Party, Liberal Democratic Party, New Clean Government Part, and Japan Communist Party. Japan is a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary government. Japan's government is a parliamentary democracy, with a House of Representatives (also known as the Lower House) and a House of Councilors (sometimes called the Upper House). Executive power is vested in a cabinet composed of a prime minister and ministers of state, all of whom must be civilians. The prime minister must be a member of the Diet and is designated by his colleagues. The prime minister has the power to appoint and remove ministers, a majority of whom must be Diet members. The judiciary is independent.

6. Japan's judicial system, drawn from customary law, civil law, and American common law, consists of several levels of courts, with the Supreme Court as the final judicial authority. The Japanese constitution includes a bill of rights similar to the U.S. Bill of Rights, and the Supreme Court has the right of judicial review. Japanese courts do not use a jury system, and there are no administrative courts or claims courts. Because of the judicial system's basis, court decisions are made in accordance with legal statutes. Only Supreme Court decisions have any direct effect on later interpretation of the law.Japan does not have a federal system, and its 47 prefectures are not entities in the sense that U.S. states are. Most depend on the central government. Governors of prefectures, mayors, and prefectural and municipal assembly members are popularly elected to 4-year terms.

7. Economy EconomyGDP (2009 est.): $5.068 trillion (official exchange rate); $4.15 trillion (PPP). Real growth rate (2009 est.): -5.3%. Per capital GDP (2009 est. PPP): $32,700. Natural resources: Fish and few mineral resources. Agriculture: Products--rice, vegetables, fruit, milk, meat, silk, fish. Industry: Types--machinery and equipment, metals and metal products, textiles, autos, chemicals, electrical and electronic equipment, textiles, processed foods.

8. Japan's industrialized, free-market economy is the third-largest in the world. Its economy is highly competitive in areas linked to international trade, but productivity is far lower in protected areas such as agriculture, distribution, and services. Japan's reservoir of industrial leadership and technicians, well-educated and industrious work force, high savings and investment rates, and intensive promotion of industrial development and foreign trade produced a mature industrial economy. Japan has few natural resources, and trade helps it earn the foreign exchange needed to purchase raw materials for its economy.After achieving one of the highest economic growth rates in the world from the 1960s through the 1980s, the Japanese economy slowed dramatically in the early 1990s, when the "bubble economy" collapsed, marked by plummeting stock and real estate prices. Japan eventually recovered from its worst period of economic stage since World War II. Real GDP in Japan grew at an average of roughly 1% yearly in the 1990s, compared to growth in the 1980s of about 4% per year. After sustaining several consecutive years of growth earlier this decade, the Japanese economy began to slow in line with global economic conditions, and the country fell into its first recession in roughly 6 years in 2008.

9. Major problems During the winter, air pollution in Japan is particularly bad since the polluted air comes not only from industrial and vehicle emissions within Japan, but also from polluted air masses that are derived from China. During the winter, cold, dry air moves in from China as well as from Siberia and passes over the warm and humid Sea of Japan. As a consequence, the western side of Japan receives much higher precipitation.

10. Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan • A series of planned electricity blackouts will begin rolling through regions in most of eastern Japan. The blackouts are intended to manage a dramatic fall in power generation capacity caused by • a massive earthquake and tsunami that hit the country nuclear power stations to automatically shut down. A subsequent tsunami further damaged some of the plants and led to problems in at least two reactors. • As a result, Tokyo Electric Power Co. has lost about 27 percent of its electricity generation capacity and will be short of demand by about 10 million kilowatts • The number of dead and missing stands at around 3,000, but that figure is growing by the hours. • The quake, the world's fourth largest ever recorded.

11. Japan's most powerful earthquake since records began has struck the north-east coast, triggering a massive tsunami. Cars, ships and buildings were swept away by a wall of water after the 8.9-magnitude tremor, which struck about 400km (250 miles) north-east of Tokyo. A state of emergency has been declared at a nuclear power plant, where pressure has exceeded normal levels. Officials say 350 people are dead and about 500 missing, but it is feared the final death toll will be much higher. In one ward alone in Sendai, a port city in Miyagi prefecture, 200 to 300 bodies were found. The quake was the fifth-largest in the world since 1900 and nearly 8,000 times stronger than the one which devastated Christchurch, New Zealand, last month. Thousands of people living near the Fukushima nuclear power plant have been ordered to evacuate. Japanese nuclear officials said pressure inside a boiling water reactor at the plant was running much higher than normal after the cooling system failed. Officials said they might need to deliberately release some radioactive steam to relieve pressure, but that there would be no health risk.

12. Pictures!