<The history of the tea ceremony>
The tea was in China essentially, not was in Japan. It does not go beyond the limits of estimate because there is no clear data concerning the time when it crosses to Japan. But it is thought that it was conveyed by the Japanese envoi to the Tang Dynasty and the monks who cross the sea from China.
We as human beings almost always communicate, perceive, and think using language. In addition, there are a lot of languages in this world. Language does not necessarily divide and define cultures, but examining the differences between languages is a good way to begin thinking about the relationship between communication and culture. Rather than being the determinant of where we belong, language is more like a characteristic of our culture. In order to avoid being misleading, first I would like to define what I mean by culture.
1. What is culture?
Many people often think the word “culture” means a national culture, such as Japanese, American, and Chinese and so on. But this is just one facet of the word; the word “culture” includes a wider range of meanings. For example, there are the cultures of age, gender, class, and religion.
The culture of age refers to the different culture of young, middle-aged, and old people. This culture is like historical culture. Culture is ever changing, reflecting the current of the times. The culture of gender refers to the customs peculiar to each gender, like Takaradsuka, Sumo etc. Takaradsuka is an all-female performing troupe and Sumo is a male-only sport that women are not allowed into the Sumo ring. Class culture refers to the difference in culture between the working class, the middle class and the upper class. Among these cultures, people have different values and customs. People in the working class are most aware of a difficulty in earning money and ones in the upper class are more apt to hold one’s authority and the honor.
“Shame Culture” is the famous word as which Mrs. Ruth Benedict, an American author, described Japanese culture in her book “The Chrysanthemum and the Sword-Patterns of Japanese Culture,” contrasting Western “Sin Culture.” From my point of view, however, the emphasis we place on individual decision making or on how others perceive us create a barriers between cultures; “others-centered culture,” which defines the culture concerning about others, and “individual-centered culture,” which refers to the culture emphasizing individual first.
Classification of Culture
"Shame Culture" is the famous word as which Mrs. Ruth Benedict, an American author, described Japanese culture in her book "The Chrysanthemum and the Sword-Patterns of Japanese Culture," contrasting Western "Sin Culture." From my point of view, however, the emphasis we place on individual decision making or on how others perceive us create a barriers between cultures; "others-centered culture," which defines the culture concerning about others, and "individual-centered culture," which refers to the culture emphasizing individual first. Therefore, the cultural barriers, which are depended on who you regard as the subject, are sources that we learn the most about other cultures.
First of all, Western culture, or "Sin Culture" is individual-centered culture. The moral depends on whether their actions are against the law or not. They recognize, therefore, that it is wrong to break the principle of the society and when they break those principles of the society, they feel guilt. It is greatly influenced by the religion, especially Christianity. They believe that humans are individually responsible to what they do by God. Thus, they make the importance of the relationship between God and humans. Because their standard of judgment is determined by God, they act independently.
On the other hand, Japanese culture, or "Shame Culture" is others-centered culture. The moral depends on how others feel about them. For example, when they do something, they are worr
Although many people say that globalization leads to cultural homogeneity, such a situation can’t happen. Every culture changes their style with adopting foreign cultures or coexists with foreign cultures. Sometimes we have mixed another culture into our own cultures, and then create new types of cultures. That’s because we have variety of thoughts, customs and so on, and each culture have influenced each other. Therefore cultures cannot be homogenized.
First of all, there are so many kinds of thoughts, behaviors, and customs depend on such factors as geographic, religion, race, climate, and so on. If we have same kind of materials, they cannot be the same but they have characters. For example, English become one of the international languages today, but non-native speakers often speak English in dialect. Sometimes new types of English like Singlish which is Singapore style English occurs. Another example is literature. Many literary works includes cultural-based nuance. In other words, writer’s cultural backgrounds influence their works. I heard an ultimate story in Cultural Anthropology class. In this class, one of the Shakespeare’s famous stories “Romeo and Juliet” was introduced. When an anthropologist told the story to Tiv tribe people who are in South Africa, they read it as good moral story, though it is simply known as tragedy in other countries. This is because Tiv tribe people have so many different customs from European countries, thus
they often read it with opposite meaning. Like this, same culture sometimes becomes or is changed into other types of cultures.
We often use a word “culture”, but what is culture? It doesn’t have its shape, but a notion. So we have different image of culture. Let us begin with review of the lecture.
First, culture classified into three stages. The first one is stereotype, the second one is objective and the third one is subjective. First, I want to show what the stereotype stage is. For example, it is often said that Western people are taller than Japanese people or Black people are good at basketball.
How can international students succeed in overseas college life? Together with the increase number of overseas students in the US, this question has been in the spotlight of the research (Ying, 2003, p.2, para.1). Following that, this paper tries to find salient elements that lead international students for successful overseas college life.
Needed first is to define what we mean by “success” in college life. According to Yu-Wen Ying’s definition (2003), characteristics of successful international students fall into two categories: good quality of abroad life and academic achievement (p.1, para.1). The former covers covert assessment such as mental satisfaction, and latter deals with overt evaluation of students such as GPA. Also, Ying (2003) postulates the possibility of correlation between mental status and academic performance of international students (p.6, para.2). In accordance with this indication, this study includes both the two key elements for students’ life to be called successful.
Preceding research already shows that language proficiency more or less alters academic erformance. Ying (2003) acknowledges those studies on elationship between English proficiency and academic achievement that “the international students’ academic performance was significantly predicted by better English writing skills” (p.1, para.1). However, Stoynoff (1997) adds to the assumption that when language proficiency comes to above a particular level, it becomes mere a tiny factor for academic achievement;
Jamaica is a Caribbean small island country. It has a deep relationship with Reggae music. It and Rastafarism contribute to culture, economy, and politics of Jamaica.
Reggae
Reggae is the individual music which advances among in Jamaican blacks.
It is a kind of music. Reggae
It advance to England in 1970’s (Jamaica is an English country), and it has become new face of popular music with many fans in the world for a short term. It receives the influence of Jamaican native music Mento and Ska . The sounds and lyrics are song in English and are very modern and hot. It is loved by Rock music fans more than Latin music fans. Reggae has a deep connected with Rastafarism. Reggae music has strong connection with Rastafarism, and also it plays an important role as a vehicle of Jamaican ethnic messages.
There is a big star of Reggae, the charismatic musician Bob Marley (1945-1981).
It is familiar in Japan with Hip Hop, R&B, Rock music with the recently advancement of Club culture and inroad of American Record companies. There are many Japanese Reggae Artists and blowing numerous hits. Japanese Dancehall Reggae scene is livening up now. It gets one of big event that has a 20,000 of capacity . Besides it, Reggae adopted in Okinawa’s native music in early time and Okinawa Reggae music had born.
Jamaican life and Reggae music
Reggae music infiltrate into the Jamaican lifestyle. In the night of the weekends, in Kingston , there are stood some big sound systems and dancing over the night from younger to older. In generally, Jamaican English “Patois” is used in Reggae music.
Biomaterials 26 (2005) 6887-6896
MylarTM and Teflon-AFTM as cell culture substrates for studying endothelial cell adhesion
Charles C. Anamelechi, George A. Truskey, W. Monty Reichert
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708-0281, USA
● この論文を選んだ経緯
私の研究は、ポリプロの表面を改質することにより疎水表面に親水性スポットを作るということを行っている。この論文では、高分子膜に細胞を固定するために高分子膜にたんぱく質を付着させるという改質を行っている。今回、その処理法や評価法について参考にする。
● はじめに
50万件以上の冠動脈バイパス移植(CABG)手術が米国で毎年行われている。冠動脈の血管壁は内膜、中膜、外膜の3層からできている。内膜は一つの層になった血管内皮細胞(EC)が並んでいて、必要な成分を血液から取り込む重要な役目のほか、細菌など外からの侵入に対し臓器を保護する役割を担っている。血栓ができるのを防ぐ働きもあり、血管壁が障害を受けて構造が変化し、ECが障害を受けると、血栓を防ぐ機能が果たせなくなる。
この研究では、DacronTM、ePTFE血管移植物質の組織培養模造品のようなMylarTMとTeflon-AFTMの透明なフィルムの有用性について証明し、血管培養物質へのEC粘着のインビトロモデル開発に関する初めの段階の必要性を述べている。
● 基質
細胞を付着するための基質として9種類用いられた。基板にはガラス、MylarTM、Teflon-AFTMを用い、それぞれに以下のものを吸着させた。
?“No ligand”…化学処理をしていないHUVEC
?“FN”…FNを吸着させている基盤に化学処理をしていないHUVEC
?“Dual Ligand”…FNとb-BSAの混合したものを吸着させている基盤にSA-b-HUVEC