Culture

As Japan has undergone periods of openness and isolation throughout its history, Japanese culture is if anything unique. While heavy Chinese influences are evident in traditional Japanese culture, it has also retained many native Japanese customs, resulting in a seemingly seamless blend. Japan has undergone many shifting when it comes to fashion and technological development that breaks some of their stigmas and possibilities. Art, behaviour, and cuisine has influenced Japnese culture from the Western culture in that aspects.

Here are some Japanese culture you have to know before they opened their country to the Western world. (Some of these are not current Japanese customs. Japan opened its country to the world in the late Edo period, about 150 years ago.) :

1. Omiyage in japanese is called souvenir, in their culture giving these is an expectation unlike in western world that it is just for a nice gesture.

2. It is cultured and taken for granted that Japanese take off their shoes before entering their house. (The same is true at temples and even some restaurants.)

3. Teeth blacking was a common practice in Japan for women and it is called ohaguro, it was their standard whether to be considered beautiful and appealing. (Currently, women with black teeth are only performed in traditional theater and dance.)

4. Chopsticks is an essential in Japan and for them the way you position chopsticks have different meanings. For example passing food with chopsticks to chopsticks to others is a bad manner. You should put the food in their plate directly when you want to give some.

5. Foreign people might perceive geisha as normal Japanese women, but unfortunately it can now only be viewed as a professional performance in some areas.

Holidays

The most important holiday in Japan is New Year's (お正月 Oshōgatsu), which pretty much shuts down the country from December 30 to January 3. Japanese head home to their families (which means massive transport congestion), eat festive foods and head out to the neighborhood temple at the stroke of midnight to wish in the New Year. Some Japanese often travel to other countries as well, and prices for airfares are very high. Wild drunken parties are extremely rare, however, and Japanese don't shoot off fireworks for the occasion (except for a few theme parks at midnight). Large cities with ex-pat bars are the only place for whooping it up. Expect banks and museums to be closed for the entire holiday period. Some restaurants may open right after New Year's Day, and some stores trying to squeeze out more revenue may be open as well. Convenience stores are the only guaranteed places that don't close, so they are always open to get food or yen at those with machines that take foreign ATM cards.

From late March to early April on average (in May in Hokkaido), Japanese head out en masse for hanami (花見, lit. "flower viewing"), a festival of picnics and drunken revelry in parks, cleverly disguised as cherry blossom (桜 sakura) viewing. The exact timing of the famously fleeting blossoms varies from year to year and Japan's TV channels follow the progress of the cherry blossom front from south to north obsessively. It is actually impossible to accurately predict when the blossoms will come out until about a month before they do, but there are several online sources to check on the forecasts, such as by the JNTO, Weather Map, and Rurubu. To chase the blossoms, try looking at these sites from around mid-February.

The longest holiday is Golden Week (27 April to 6 May, but varies slightly), when there are four public holidays within a week and everybody goes on extended vacation. Trains are crowded and flight and hotel prices are jacked up to multiples of normal prices, so it can be a bad time to travel in Japan, but the weeks immediately before or after Golden Week are excellent times. It is also wisteria and azalea season, which is extremely beautiful. What you need to know is that there is a big exodus of people from the big cities at the start of Golden Week and their return at the end. As long as you are not fighting the Japanese for the same seats on trains or rooms at hot spring resorts, etc., Golden Week can be easily navigated - and the big cities are in fact emptier than normal.

Summer brings a spate of festivals designed to distract people from the intolerable heat and humidity (comparable to the US Midwest). There are local festivals (祭 matsuri) and impressive fireworks competitions (花火 hanabi) throughout the country. Tanabata (七夕), on 7 July (or early August in some places), commemorates a story of star-crossed lovers who could only meet on this day.

The largest summer festival is Obon (お盆), held in mid-July in eastern Japan (Kanto) and mid-August in western Japan (Kansai), which honors departed ancestral spirits. Everybody heads home to visit village graveyards, and transport is packed. Many cities and villages throughout Japan have their own unique seasonal matsuri. If you are visiting a specific place, it may be wise to check to see what is coming up and when it is taking place.