Tuesday, January 19, 2010

一月十九日(ichigatsu jyuku nichi): January 19

What do you image hearing "Japan" or "Japanese"? What kind of Japanese culture can you think of?

Samurai, Fuji-yama, geisha? Economic animal? Tea ceremony and kimono? Judo, kendo, sumo? Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Anime and manga? Sushi and sukiyaki? Toyota, Honda, Nissan? Nintendo and Sony Play Station? Ichiro and Matusi?
There are so much Japanese culture and so many Japanese known to the world these days.

They say today is day of nodojiman (のど自慢),amateur singing contest or day of karaoke (カラオケ), sing-along machine.
Nodo (のど) means throat and jiman (自慢) means pride. On January 19, 1946 the first radio program of amateur singing contest started. There were 900 people applied and 30 of them participated. There is still a TV program of amateur singing contest by NHK at Sunday lunch time. The applicants are 12 times as many as the fixed number.
Since 1980s karaoke has been very popular in Japan and in 1990s to the world.
It is one of the contemporary well-known Japanese culture.
Do you like karaoke?

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