Japanese Culture

There are 90% of Japanese people have been exercise, however there is only 65% people in Australia have been exercise. The average of the age that people does sports is 38.8 years old in Japan. Oldest we have is 77 years old who does mountain climbing and swimming. There are some reasons that Japan has more people exercise than Australia. One of the biggest reasons is bukatsu which is club activity in Japan. I was in the tennis club when I was 13 to 15 years old. I would like to talk about my experiences in Japan and how the system helps to built in Japanese culture

To begin with, what the sports is for Japan. There are mainly two types that we can talk about. One is sports, this is what we normally do with a ball or racquet in the competition or play ground. Another one is Taiiku which is similar to physical education. It is one of education by using physical activity or sports. In the bukatsu, the schools are using this Taiiku. It is a part of education for primary school, junior high school, and high school. As it is an education, ministry of education in Japan defined the sports as "Sport as a common cultural phenomenon shared by the whole of mankind responds to man's inherent desire for physical and mental activity and imparts a sense of fulfilment and richness to human life. Sport as a cultural phenomenon affecting both men's physical and mental aspects is essential for the development of a happy and vigorous society and for the attainment of the individual's psychosomatic health. It is therefore of the greatest significance that people should engage in sports throughout their lives." Sport is a major impact on the formation of personality cultivated attitude respects the spirit of co-operation as well as to improve the physical fitness of youth of the next generation with this respect for others and fair with discipline and stoic, and cultivate practical thinking, and judgment. Sports contribute to the regeneration of local communities and promote local and regional exchange and people-to-people exchange and to foster the vitality and sense of unity in the region, with issues such as interpersonal relationship diluted. Further, sports, play a role in the maintenance and promotion of physical and mental health, and indispensable in the realization of a healthy and vibrant society. Even winning competition and going to high level of competition is defined as good sports as There is a rule that all school must give to all student enough opportunity and facilities to do the sports such as gym, swimming pool, and outside field. Bukatsu is one of the opportunities that is given by government for the student to have physical activities. They are also mentioning winning competition and going up to high level of sports activity such as going overseas is helping world peace and understanding each other's culture. "Tireless effort of the athletes is a meaningful activity to pursue the limit of human possibilities, of Japanese players in international competitions based on these efforts is a pride and joy to the people. It also gives us dreams and excitement to increase interest in the national sports. Sports in Japan help an international exchange and contribution to promote mutual understanding and contribute to international peace" Sports are not good only for health benefit. It makes the relationship in a family stronger. The player would try hard and spend time for it. Family will try to sport it and cheer it. Most of family do not have many things to talk about in the family but the sports bring the topic into the family communication.

Bukatsu, it is a club activity that every school has for students to do some activities for their hobby and sports that they like. There are variable kinds of clubs in every school such as baseball, tennis, basketball, and table tennis. There are also clubs for arts, music, and hand crafting. Bukatsu system starts from junior high school and continue to the high school and university. The total time that people would spend for it is 6 to 9 years for most of the people in Japan. About 97% of students in the school join and stay in club activity for 2 and half years. 2% of students go to the higher level of club at the outside of school. They are usually for music and youth soccer club team. 1% of students are not attending any of club. They go home straight way after school. Some of the school has rules to force students to join the club activities. It has big influence to the all young people to build up the Japanese culture and what they believe to do in the everyday life. It is a part of life for the students in the school. This activity is operating 6 days in a week for most of the clubs, and some of the clubs have 7days a week and they take some off for first 3 days from New Year's Day. It is because New Year's Day is the biggest celebrating event in Japan. The activities dare on after school or before school in the morning. It is from morning till afternoon on weekends. For weekdays, we all finish classes at 4 o'clock then we go home or go to club activities if you are a member of any of club activities.

The reason that we have training everyday is probably we can say it is from cultural hobbits. As we all know about Japan, there was samurai in the past that have sword and wearing traditional clothes. They have own believe as a samurai or bushi. It is called bushido. It is similar to Confucianism. It is because it based Confucianism when it started. The bushido (way of samurai) features are respect to royal family, family, Courage, love, civility, and honesty. It is also described as "we train every day body will manage it well. When Japanese starts playing sports, samurai brought the sports back and do it samurai way. It is still continued till now on. There was a sentence from samurai history "We train it every day and feel the whole sword." The explanation of this sentence is as taking tennis as an example, some of tennis player says I can feel end of racquet as if it is my hand. This means it is already a part of your body. Samurai thought training every day helps to make it a part of your body. In soccer training, most of school ask all beginner students to be a friend with a soccer ball. A soccer ball does not even talk but as you play it often and often. You can control a ball. It is also meaning of being friend with a ball.

Now I need to talk about religion in Japan. There are some strange things you have seen on television, or movie. In the sports, especially traditional sports such as karate, and kendo, we start it from bow to ground as we get into the stadium. When we start eating breakfast, lunch, or dinner we says "itadaki masu" which means thank you for the meal to the people who made it from the starts. For example, we thank the people who made soil, and put seeds to the ground and people