Group items tagged

Simply said, gymnastics is a dangerous sport.

If your son or daughter wants to participate in gymnastics, especially at a competitive level, chances are you'll deal with an injury at some point or another.

There will be injuries in gymnastics. It's the nature of the sport.

the upper parts dark brown, the wings spotted gray-blue. A white band separates the head from the body. There is a dark stripe through the eye, and the under parts are white. The strong bill is black.

Kookaburras inhabit woodland areas of eastern and south western Australia.

The Kookaburra seizes snakes behind the head and kills them by dropping them from a height, or else carries them to a perch and batters them senseless with its big bill before swallowing them.

The Australian aborigines have a legend about the Kookaburra. When the sun rose for the first time, the god Bayame ordered the kookaburra to utter its loud, almost human laughter in order to wake up mankind so that they should not miss the wonderful sunrise. The aborigines also believed that any child who insulted a kookaburra would grow an extra slanting tooth.

Japanese economic success has led to an increase in certain types of external migration. In 1990 about 11 million Japanese went abroad.

As the government and private corporations have stressed internationalization, greater numbers of individuals have been directly affected, decreasing Japan's historically claimed insularity

By the late 1980s, these problems, particularly the bullying of returnee children in the schools, had become a major public issue both in Japan and in Japanese communities abroad.

The earliest of these people, who are thought to have migrated from Korea to northern Kyushu and intermixed with the Jomon, also used chipped stone tools.

Their irrigated, wet-rice culture was similar to that of central and south China, requiring heavy inputs of human labor, which led to the development and eventual growth of a highly sedentary, agrarian society.

The earliest written records about Japan are from Chinese sources from this period. Wa (the Japanese pronunciation of an early Chinese name for Japan) was first mentioned in A.D. 57.

Japanese painters used the devices of the cutoff, close-up, and fade-out by the twelfth century in yamato-e, or Japanese-style, scroll painting, perhaps one reason why modern filmmaking has been such a natural and successful art form in Japan.

The calligrapher--a member of the Confucian literati class, or samurai--had a higher status, while artists of great genius were often recognized in the medieval period by receiving a name from a feudal lord and thus rising socially.

Artists divided into two main camps, those continuing in traditional Japanese style and those who wholeheartedly studied the new Western culture.

After World War II, many artists began working in art forms derivied from the international scene, moving away from local artistic developments into the mainstream of world art.

Two terms originating from Zen Buddhist meditative practices describe degrees of tranquillity: one, the repose found in humble melancholy (wabi), the other, the serenity accompanying the enjoyment of subdued beauty (sabi).

The Cultural Affairs Division is concerned with such areas as art and culture promotion, arts copyrights, and improvements in the national language.

A new generation of the avant-garde has broken with this tradition, often receiving its training in the West. In the traditional arts, however, the master-pupil system preserves the secrets and skills of the past.

Another seminal center is Tama Arts University in Tokyo, which produced many of Japan's late twentieth- century innovative young artists

In 1989 the fifth woman ever to be so distinguished was cited for Japanese-style painting, while for the first time two women--a writer and a costume designer--were nominated for the Order of Cultural Merit, another official honor carrying the same stipend.

The Cultural Properties Protection Division originally was established to oversee restorations after World War II.

During the 1980s, many important prehistoric and historic sites were investigated by the archaeological institutes that the agency funded, resulting in about 2,000 excavations in 1989.

A 1975 amendment to the Cultural Properties Protection Act of 1897 enabled the Agency for Cultural Affairs to designate traditional areas and buildings in urban centers for preservation.

Individual artists and groups, such as a dance troupe or a pottery village, are designated as mukei bunkazai (intangible cultural assets) in recognition of their skill.

A growing number of large corporations join major newspapers in sponsoring exhibitions and performances and in giving yearly prizes.

A number of foundations promoting the arts arose in the 1980s, including the Cultural Properties Foundation set up to preserve historic sites overseas, especially along the Silk Route in Inner Asia and at Dunhuang in China.

After World War II, artists typically gathered in arts associations, some of which were long-established professional societies while others reflected the latest arts movement.

By the 1980s, however, avant-garde painters and sculptors had eschewed all groups and were "unattached" artists.

The letter U is omitted in words such as "colour", "honour", "neighbour" etc

The decimal point is a hyphen sign

The burakumin (people of the village) are ethnically the same as the majority of Japanese. However, their ancestors were members of the former outcast class. The burakumin are often treated unfairly.

Shinto is based on the worship of local spirits in nature.

Japan has a rich and complex culture. Native Japanese traditions have been mixed with cultural styles adapted from China and, later, from the West. Japanese culture and art emphasize understated simplicity, elegance, and grace. For example, the traditional Japanese tea ceremony, flower arranging, and garden design are highly stylized and refined. On the other hand, contemporary Japanese society fully embraces Western-style popular culture—influenced by television, motion pictures, and advertising.

modern Japanese writers include Soseki Natsume, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Osamu Dazai, Jun'ichiro Tanizaki, and Yukio Mishima.

Poetry plays a central role in Japanese culture.

The carefully composed paintings used few brush strokes to suggest a scene in nature.

Japanese No plays are generally short, stylized, and heroic.

Today the martial arts are more important as competitive sports and as aids to physical and mental fitness.

The Japanese economy grew remarkably throughout the 1960s, '70s, and '80s.

Historical records, however, show that Japan was not united as one state until the late 4th or early 5th century AD. It was ruled by the Yamato dynasty.

Meanwhile, Japan was developing trade contacts with the outside world.

By the mid-19th century the Tokugawa shogunate was unable to keep European and United States traders away.

A new government was established under the young emperor Mutsuhito, who took the name of Meiji, meaning “enlightened government.”

Japan soon sought to build an empire. It successfully fought a war with China (1894–95) and with Russia (1904–05).

The Japanese government believed that expansion through military conquest would help the economy.

Under the terms of surrender, Japan had to give up all the territory it had acquired since 1895.

Japan rebuilt its ruined economy, using new technology in every major industry.

The people of the longhouse believed that their dreams were very important and tried hard to figure out the meanings of the dreams.

, when Israel started to divert the water for agriculture and other domestic use.

ronmentalists

ordan and Syria built a series of dams and canals on the Yarmouk River, the Jordan's main tributary, further cutting the flow to the river. Yet another large Jordanian-Syrian

dam is slated to open by 2006, a fact that makes the issue that much more urgent for envi

The river's slow but steady decline began in the 1950s

If it were up to environmentalists, local countries would import more produce in order to save the Jordan and other water sources in the water-deprived Middle East.

"if Christians knew that just a mile down the river a toxic mix was being dumped, they would be very upset about it."