The bar chart gives information on the proportion of the national budget expended on education in four different countries in three separate years: 1990, and 2010.
One country’s education budget didn’t change much over the two decades, while in the order countries it showed some fluctuation.
First, Japan’s expenditure on education remained almost the same during the 20-year period, at around 9 percent.
＊まず、全体の「傾向」を説明します。全体として、数字は上がっているのか、下がっているのか。
In Sweden, by contract ,spending on education jumped from around 9% in 1990 to a little over 14% in 2000. It, however, stayed at that level in 2010.
The United States saw its education budget increase from 12.5% in 1990 to 15% in 2000. This number had decreased by about 2% by 2010. A similar trend was seen in Mexico, which allocated 22% of its national budget to education in 1990, raised it to 24% in 2000 and then reduced it to 20% in the 2010.
It is frequently pointed out that our world is growing smaller and smaller. This common expression refers to many things; easy access to international news on a timely basis, the proliferation of global telecommunication and modern methods of transportation. Improved transportation systems may not have literally made the world a smaller place, but it has certainly shortened the time it takes to travel from place to place.
It wasn’t long ago, when travelling overseas meant boarding a passenger ship for a long and perilous journey. These early globetrotters frequently spent more than month on board a ship in order to cross the ocean. These journeys were not only long and tedious they were also dangerous and frequently took a heavy toll in human life. Many of the travelers could not survive the rigors of the trip and perished along way. Some were overcome by illness and others suffered severe accidents, however most sadly many thousands dies as a result of shipwrecks.
Today ocean crossing can be made by jet planes in a matter of hours. If one of the ship passengers of the past could see the ease and comfort with which modern society travels, they would be truly astonished. These once popular cruise liners have been replaced by streamlined luxury jet airplanes that whisk travelers all over the globe with all the comforts of home. Hot and heavy meals are served by kind and attentive flight attendants.
Airliners also offer up-to-date movies and TV entertainment, as well as complete telephone and internet services. Thus as person can conduct business and attend to personal affairs, almost as efficiently as at the office or home.
Though modern flight has been around for about one hundred years, there are still many people who view the prospect of air travel as quite terrifying. It is one thing to watch the gleaming silver form of an airplane flying overhead, but it’s quite another to face the fact of actually boarding that same plane yourself. This fear is especially prevalent among first-time fliers. They board the plane with great apprehension and nervously look for their assigned seat. Once seated, they tightly fasten their safety belt and may even murmur a silent prayer for a safe journey.
Then as the jet’s massive engines begin to roar and the plane begins its shaky trip down the runway, the first timers may even be tempted to call the whole thing off and ask a flight attendant to stop the plane. However, even the first-time fliers know those fears are just silly, and brace themselves for the ordeal ahead.
However, once the mighty craft is in full flight, the fears disappear and the novice air traveler begins to relax and enjoy the wonderful scenery that only an airplane can offer.
What was otherwise a frightening experience turns to be a sensation of freedom and joy. By the time the airplane reaches its destination, the new air traveler is comfortable and relaxed and may even felt a little closer to Heaven.
A Shinto shrine （神社）jinja, archaic: shinsha, meaning : "place of the god is a structure whose main purpose is to house ("enshrine") one or more kami.
People visit shrines in order to pay respect to the kami or to pray for good fortune. Shrines are also visited during special events such as New Year, setsubun, shichigosan and other festivals. New born babies are traditionally brought to a shrine a few weeks after birth, and many couples hold their wedding ceremonies there.
People visit shrines in order to pay respect to the kami or to pray for good fortune. Shrines are also visited during special events such as New Year, setsubun, shichigosan and other festivals. New born babies are traditionally brought to a shrine a few weeks after birth, and many couples hold their wedding ceremonies there.
The following structures and objects can be typically found at a shrine:
Torii A torii is a traditional Japanese gate most commonly found at the entrance of or within a Shinto shrine, where it symbolically marks the transition from the mundane to the sacred. The presence of a torii at the entrance is usually the simplest way to identify Shinto shrines, and a small torii icon represents them on Japanese road maps. Torii gates were traditionally made from wood or stone, but today they can be also made of reinforced concrete, copper, stainless steel or other materials. They are usually either unpainted or painted vermilion with a black upper lintel. Inari shrines typically have many torii because those who have been successful in business often donate in gratitude a torii to Inari, kami of fertility and industry. Fushimi Inari-taisha in Kyoto has thousands of such torii, each bearing the donor's name.
Komainu Komainu are a pair of guardian dogs or lions, often found on each side of a shrine's entrance. In the case of Inari Shrines, they are foxes (see picture of Inari Shrines below) rather than dogs.
Purification trough Found near the entrance, the water of these fountains is used for purification. You are supposed to clean your hands and mouth before approaching the main hall .
Main and offering hall Depending on the shrine's architecture style, the main hall (honden) and offering hall (haiden) are two separate buildings or combined into one building. The main hall's innermost chamber contains the shrine's sacred object, while visitors make their prayers and offerings at the offering hall .
Stage Stages for kagura dance or noh theater performances can be found at some shrines.
Ema Shrine visitors write their wishes on these wooden plates and then leave them at the shrine in the hope that their wishes come true. Most people wish for good health, success in business, passing entrance exams, love or wealth.
Omikuji Omikuji are fortune telling paper slips found at many shrines and temples. Randomly drawn, they contain predictions ranging from daikichi ("great good luck") to daikyo ("great bad luck"). By tying the piece of paper around a tree's branch, good fortune will come true or bad fortune can be averted.
Shimenawa A shimenawa is a straw rope with white zigzag paper strips (shide). It marks the boundary to something sacred and can be found on torii gates, around sacred trees and stones, etc. A rope similar to the shimenawa is also worn by yokozuna, the highest ranked sumo wrestlers, during ritual ceremonies. There can be a variety of additional buildings such as the priest's house and office, a storehouse for mikoshi and other auxiliary buildings. Cemeteries, on the other hand, are almost never found at shrines, because death is considered a cause of impurity in Shinto, and in Japan is dealt with mostly by Buddhism.
The architecture and features of Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples have melted together over the centuries. It called Shinbutsu-shūgō, [the] syncretistic fusion of Shintoism and Buddhism. Shinbutsu-shugo thought itself undiminished until the "separation of Buddhism and Shintoism" during the Meiji period.
There are several construction styles, most of which show (Buddhist) influences from the Asian mainland. Only a few of today's shrines are considered to be built in a purely Japanese style. Among them are Shinto's most important shrines, the Ise Shrines.
There are tens of thousands of shrines across Japan, some of which can be categorized into a few major groups of shrines. Some of these groups are:
Imperial Shrines These are the shrines which were directly funded and administered by the government during the era of State Shinto. They include many of Shinto's most important shrines such as the Ise Shrines, Izumo Shrine and Atsuta Shrine, and a number of shrines newly built during the Meiji Period, such as Tokyo's Meiji Shrine and Kyoto's Heian Shrine. Imperial shrines can be recognized by the imperial family's chrysanthemum crest and by the fact that they are often called "jingu" rather than "jinja".
Inari Shrines Inari Shrines are dedicated to Inari, the kami of rice. They can be recognized by fox statues, as the fox is considered the messenger of Inari. There are thousands of Inari Shrines across Japan, among which Kyoto's Fushimi Inari Shrine is most famous.
Hachiman Shrines Hachiman Shrines are dedicated to Hachiman, the kami of war, which used to be particularly popular among the leading military clans of the past. Of Japan's thousands of Hachiman Shrines, the most famous is probably Kamakura's Tsurugaoka Hachimangu.
Tenjin Shrines Tenjin Shrines are dedicated to the kami of Sugawara Michizane, a Heian Period scholar and politician. They are particularly popular among students preparing for entrance exams. Tenjin Shrines can be recognized by ox statues and plum trees, Michizane's favorite trees. The first and most famous Tenjin Shrine is Dazaifu Tenmangu near Fukuoka.
Sengen Shrines Sengen Shrines are dedicated to Princess Konohanasakuya, the Shinto deity of Mount Fuji. More than one thousand Sengen Shrines exist across Japan, with the head shrines standing at the foot and the summit of Mount Fuji itself. Shrines dedicated to the founders of powerful clans Some powerful clans in Japanese history established and dedicated shrines to the their clans' founders. The most famous example are the several dozens of Toshogu Shrines dedicated to Tokugawa Ieyasu, including the famous Toshogu Shrine at Nikko. Another example is Kanazawa's Oyama Shrine which is dedicated to Maeda Toshiie, the founder of the powerful, local Maeda clan.
Local Shrines Many shrines are dedicated to local kami without association to other shrines.
Shinto is the indigenous faith of the Japanese people. In general, Shinto is more than a religion and encompasses the ideas, attitudes, and ways of doing things that have become an integral part of the Japanese people for the better part of 2000 years.
Shinto, unlike other major religions, does not have a founder, nor does it possess sacred scriptures or texts. On a collective level Shinto is a term which denotes all faiths, however, on a personal level, Shinto implies faith in the deity (kami), incorporating the spiritual mind of the kami through worship and communion.
Shinto arose with the advent of Japanese civilization and has progressively developed through the centuries until modern times. The word Shinto first appears in the Nihonshoki (The Chronicles of Japan) in the early 8th century with the intention of distinguishing this native faith from the recently arrived religions of Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism.
The word Shinto (“Way of the Gods”) was adopted from the written Chinese (shén dào) combining two Chinese characters: “shin”, meaning kami; and “tō”, or “do” meaning a philosophical path or study.
Concept of Kami In order to comprehend the concept of kami, it is important to erase the preconception caused by the word god, an English translation that is often used for the word kami. In Shinto, there is no faith in the concept of an absolute god who is the creator of both human beings and nature.
It might be best to quote the opinion of Norinaga Motoori, a scholar in the late 18th century who wrote, “Whatever seemed strikingly impressive, possessed the quality of excellence and virtue, and inspired a feeling of awe was called kami .” Here “the quality of excellence” refers to an enormous power which has great influence over many things. It is beyond human power or human capability and brings good fortune and happiness to man but at the same time it may bring misfortune or evil as well.
Japanese Myth
The ancient Japanese never divided spiritual and material existence, but considered that both were inseparable, seeing everything in a spiritual sense. In other words, they did not draw a border between a certain object and the work of that object.
According to Shinto cosmology, the world is created with the appearance of a single kami who represents the universe, next to appear are the kami of birth and growth. From heaven, a male kami and a female kami appear who give birth to various deities, the land of Japan and her nature as well as her people.
The Shinto faith begins with a belief in this mythology. Therefore, Shinto does not recognize the difference or discontinuation between kami, nature or human beings.
Buddhism and Shinto Buddhism was introduced to Japan in the 6th century, and soon began to permeate into the lives of the Japanese. Since there was no conflict between Buddhism and Shinto, they merged with each other to form a unique amalgamation. Even in the Imperial Palace, the Emperor of Japan (Tenno) revered and worshipped Buddha as well as the Shinto kami.
This fusion of kami and Buddha is called ‘Shin-Butsu-Shugou’, and this state continued until the late 19th century. This is the main reason why many Japanese people do not make a clear distinction between Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines or between Buddha and kami. In other words, they are both respectful entities to be worshipped by Japanese people.
Counting the number of official followers of Shinto in Japan is no easy task since an individual who practices any Shinto ritual is counted. According to statistics, there are currently 119 million official followers. It is said that “life” events are handled by Shinto and “death” or “afterlife” events by Buddhism. In this sense one can understand that most Japanese who take part in Shinto rituals also take part in Buddhist ancestor worship.
Shinto and the Imperial Family In Shinto, the Emperor of Japan (Tenno) is believed to be a descendant of Amaterasu-Omikami (the Sun Goddess) who is enshrined in the Grand Shrine of Ise.
Since the founding of the nation, Tenno himself has conducted Shinto rituals in the Imperial Palace to pray to the deities centering on Amaterasu-Omikami for the happiness of the people, for the long continuation of the nation, and for world peace. There are clergymen and women in the shrines of the Imperial Palace who assist Tenno to perform the rites. Tenno performs these rites around 40 times a year. This is perhaps why there are some scholars who call Tenno “the highest priest” of Shinto.
Shinto (神道 Shintō) or kami-no-michi (as well as other names) is the traditional religion of Japan that focuses on ritual practices to be carried out diligently to establish a connection between present-day Japan and its ancient past.
Shinto practices were first recorded and codified in the written historical records of the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki in the 8th century. Still, these earliest Japanese writings do not refer to a unified religion, but rather to a collection of native beliefs and mythology. Shinto today is the religion of public shrines devoted to the worship of a multitude of "spirits", "essences" or "gods" (kami), suited to various purposes such as war memorials and harvest festivals, and applies as well to various sectarian organizations.
Practitioners express their diverse beliefs through a standard language and practice, adopting a similar style in dress and ritual, dating from around the time of the Nara and Heian periods (8th–12th centuries).
The word Shinto (Way of the Gods) was adopted, originally as Jindō or Shindō, from the written Chinese Shendao (神道, pinyin: shéndào), combining two kanji: shin (神), meaning "spirit" or kami; and michi (道), "path", meaning a philosophical path or study (from the Chinese word dào).
The oldest recorded usage of the word Shindo is from the second half of the 6th century. Kami is rendered in English as "spirits", "essences", or "gods", and refers to the energy generating the phenomena. Since the Japanese language does not distinguish between singular and plural, kami also refers to the singular divinity, or sacred essence, that manifests in multiple forms: rocks, trees, rivers, animals, objects, places, and people can be said to possess the nature of kami. Kami and people are not separate; they exist within the same world and share its interrelated complexity.
As much as nearly 80% of the population in Japan participates in Shinto practices or rituals, but only a small percentage of these identify themselves as "Shintoists" in surveys.
This is because Shinto has different meanings in Japan. Most of the Japanese attend Shinto shrines and beseech kami without belonging to an institutional Shinto religion.
There are no formal rituals to become a practitioner of "folk Shinto". Thus, "Shinto membership" is often estimated counting only those who do join organised Shinto sects. Shinto has about 81,000 shrines and about 85,000 priests in the country.
According to surveys carried out in 2006 and 2008,less than 40% of the population of Japan identifies with an organised religion: around 35% are Buddhists, 3% to 4% are members of Shinto sects and derived religions. In 2008, 26% of the participants reported often visiting Shinto shrines, while only 16.2% expressed belief in the existence of a god or gods (神) in general.
