I don't know what you mean.

Cultures change. It's inevitable. If they don't they die. Japanese are the best adapters out there. They make a conscious effort to marry the old and the new in ways I have never seen in any other culture. I am not talking about museums and plaques. I am talking about traditions and festivals and events that have been going on for hundreds of years, and aren't done every year for tourism or money, but for tradition. I participated in a very dangerous and violeny danjiri fight festival just outside of Osaka. I was the first gaijin ever allowed to join my team (of about 75 guys) in thier 200 year history. (Two teams play joust rolling 2 ton wooden tanks at each other. Very wild stuff.)

Good point, guess Im just bitter from dealing with people who talk "gangsta" 10 hours each day. I just feel that with a language being a living thing, words like "bling" are like a virus to it. and my last sentence may have been the wrong way to word it, however, with the number of hispanic, and somolian immigrants who seemingly refuse to learn english it feels as though english is dying in america. Again, could just be bitterness lol.

What matsuri was that? Would like to check that out.

It's a three-part festival.

Here's one video I found. But it's at night. At about 1:10 on you can get an inkling of the two danjiris colliding.

Amagasaki Festival Day 2

Live in Japan for three days. Any effort by a non-native speaker to speak the language is a gift. If you want to hear the Queen's English all day then you need to move to Buckingham Palace.

Dear god, what is going on here...

Ok before everyone panics about Japanese becoming a dead language, do as MMM says, come to Japan for 3 days. Apart from a few nonsensical flash advertising, English is in no way in daily use for most people.

Japanese has been an adoptive language for a long time. Kanji anyone? Portugese? Pan and Zubon sure as hell aren't japanese words, and they sure as hell aren't english either.

And Japan was hardly a closed country before the end of the Tokugawa period. There was trade going on with the Portugese, Koreans and Chinese in Nagasaki through out the whole time, with the Portugese even coming up to Edo every two years to give gifts to the shogun.

As MMM said, Japan and Japanese are very adoptive, like all languages it is a living entity that evolves. That doesn't mean it's going to die.

Languages have changed for thousands of years. Just read old british texts and you'll notice the differences: verbs had different conjugations, the pronouns were different, even words were completely different. Every decade new words are coming into common use, and old words aren't used anymore. It's a natural flow, and it doesn't mean that a language is dying at all.

I get a real kick out of people who have never been to Japan saying that Japanese is a dying language, or that Japanese culture is fading away.

It`s hilarious. Really.

As for children all over the world striving for different things in the past... Umm... Take a few anthropology courses. Humans in all cultures, all through time have been working toward the same basic goals. Yes, those goals have been colored by cultural differences... But you`ll be hard pressed to find a culture in which anyone was striving for something other than a comfortable life. This is true regardless of the country or the era.

If you`re working to feed your family - what does it matter what they are eating? That`s the level of difference we`re talking about.

I didn't know... that's why I asked... hah.

And thanks MMM. :)

Yeah...I don't think many countries will just up and leave their language and culture. It's just not practical.. The other thing is that people keep moving to countries and places they like and those who transfer into whatever country they decide to usualy like the culture (otherwise they wouldn't be there) and adapt to them (while keep up their own). And Tenchu I say WE because you can't just see the world as a group of individuals, what each of do affects others and to be in the mind set that you can do whatever you want without affecting others just ends badly. We are in this world together and we won't survive if we forget that. And I'll first to admit that Hitler was a military genius, so were Sadam Hussain and Fidel Castro, but that doesn't mean the world needs what they do.