JAPAN SERIES

Japanese Nihon (or Nippon) Shirizu in baseball, a seven-game play-off between champions of the two professional major-league divisions in Japan, the Central League and the Pacific League. Baseball in Japan was established on a professional basis in 1934. By 1936 seven professional teams had been organized. A system of two leagues composed of six teams each was instituted in 1950. Each 130-game season culminates in the Japan Series. The economy General considerations The multiple-span Seto Great Bridge over the Inland Sea, linking Kojima, Honshu, with Sakaide, Japan is remarkable for its extraordinarily rapid rate of economic growth in the 20th century, especially after World War II. This growth has been based on unprecedented expansion of industrial production and on an aggressive export trade policy. The emphasis on trade stems from Japan's lack of the natural resources needed to support its industrial economy, notably fossil fuels and most minerals; in addition the limited amount of arable land in the country forces it to import much of its food needs. Japan is now the world's second largest economic power, ranking only behind the United States. It has developed a highly diversified manufacturing and service economy and is one of the world's largest producers of motor vehicles, steel, and high-technology manufactured goods. Japan's standard of living did not increase as rapidly as did the overall economy in the early postwar decadesin large part because of the high percentage of capital reinvestment in those yearsbut by the mid-1980s it had caught up and was comparable with that found in other developed countries. Although Japan now has one of the world's highest per capita gross national products, a marked disparity remains between personal income levels and the development of its housing and transportation infrastructure. This disparity is being addressed somewhat by increased public-sector infrastructure investments. The role of government Japan's system of economic management is probably without parallel in the world. The extent of direct state participation in economic activities is limited, and the trend is for even less direct involvement. Nonetheless, the government's control and influence over business is stronger and more pervasive than in most other free-enterprise countries. This control is not exercised through legislation or administrative action but through constantand to an outsider almost obsessiveconsultation with business and through the authorities' deep indirect involvement in banking. Consultation is mainly by means of joint committees and groups that keep under review, monitor the performance of, and set targets for nearly every branch and sector of the economy. In addition there are several agencies and government departments that concern themselves with such aspects of the economy as exports, imports, investment, and prices, as well as with overall economic growth. These are staffed by experts, who are not only in constant touch with business but are also close to the minister concerned with that particular area of the economy. They form an integral part of a system that is quick to collate and interpret the latest economic indicators and to respond to changes in the situation. The most important of these agencies is the Economic Planning Agency, which forms part of the Prime Minister's Office and, apart from monitoring the daily running of the economy, also is responsible for long-term planning. The system works well, avoiding major crises in government-business relations, because of the unusual self-discipline of Japanese businessmen in their dealings with the authorities and the government's deep understanding of the role, needs, and problems of business. The practice of long-term economic planning is a major force in the functioning of the Japanese economy. The need for large-scale government participation in economic activities is thereby obviated, and, unlike many governments in countries practicing free enterprise, the state appears to be reluctant to extend its direct role. In the 1980s the government relinquished to the private sector its monopolies over the tobacco and salt industries and domestic telephone and telegraph services, and the publicly owned Japanese National Railways was privatized. The government retains an interest in international telecommunications services and radio and television broadcasting. It also remains active in matters deemed to be of strategic interest, notably nuclear-power generation, which is subsidized through a major program to increase generating capacity. The government's economic influence is supplemented by its substantial role in banking. The state owns a number of financial institutions, such as the Japan Development Bank, the Export-Import Bank, the Small Business Finance Corporation, and the Housing Loan Corporation, whose principal objectives are to finance private enterprise in areas that are considered particularly desirable. The Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Japan have considerable influence over business investment decisions because of the close interdependence of business, the commercial banks, and the central bank. The land Relief Mount Fuji, Japan. The mountainous character of the country is the outcome of orogenic (mountain-building) forces largely during the Quaternary Period (the past 1.6 million years), as evidenced by the frequent occurrence of violent earthquakes, volcanic activity, and signs of change in sea levels along the coast. There are no sizable structural plains and peneplains (large land areas leveled by erosion), features that usually occur in more stable regions of the Earth. The mountains are for the most part in a youthful stage of dissection in which steep slopes are incised by dense river-valley networks. Rivers are mostly torrential, and their valleys are accompanied by series of river terraces that are the result of movements in the Earth's crust, as well as climatic and sea-level changes in Holocene times (i.e., the past 10,000 years). Recent volcanoes are juxtaposed with old and highly dissected ones. The shores are characterized by elevated and depressed features such as headlands and bays, which display an incipient stage of development. The mountains are divided into many small land blocks that are separated by lowlands or deep saddles; there is no long or continuous mountain range. These land blocks are the result of intense faulting (movement of adjacent rock masses along a fracture) and warping (bending of the Earth's crust), the former process being regarded as dominant. One consequence is that mountain blocks are often bounded by fault scarps and flexure slopes that descend in step formation to the adjacent lowlands. Coalescing alluvial fanscone-shaped deposits of alluvium that run togetherare formed where rivers emerge from the mountains. When the rivers are large enough to extend their courses to the sea, low deltaic plains develop in front of the fans; this occurs most frequently where the rivers empty into shallow and sheltered bays, as in the deltas of Kanto (Kwanto), Nobi, and Osaka. In most places, however, fan surfaces plunge directly into the sea and are separated by low, sandy beach ridges. Dissected plains are common. Intense disturbances have caused many former alluvial fans, deltas, and sea bottoms to be substantially uplifted to form flat-topped uplands such as those found in the Kanto Plain. Frequently the uplands have been overlain with volcanic ash, as in the Kanto and Tokachi plains. Geologic framework Japan is one of the world's most geologically unstable areas. The country experiences some 1,000 tremors annually, most of them minor, though major quakessuch as in Tokyo-Yokohama (1923) and Kobe (1995)cause considerable loss of life and widespread destruction. Violent volcanic eruptions occur frequently, and at least 60 volcanoes have been active within historical time. New volcanoes born during the 20th century include Showa Volcano on Hokkaido and Myojin Rock off the Beyoneisu (or Bayonnaise) Rocks in the Pacific. Among the major eruptions since 1980 are those of Mounts O (1983) and Mihara (1986) in the Izu Islands and Mount Unzen (1991) in Kyushu. The country's abundant hot springs are mostly of volcanic origin. Many of the gigantic volcanoes are conical in shape (e.g., Mount Fuji), while others form steep lava domes (e.g., Mounts Dai and Unzen). Conspicuous shield volcanoes (broad, gently sloping volcanic cones) are rare, and extensive lava plateaus are lacking. One of the characteristics of the volcanic areas is the prevalence of calderas (large, circular, basin-shaped volcanic depressions), especially in the northeast and southwest, many of which are filled with water, such as Lakes Kutcharo, Towada, and Ashi. The cause of this instabilityindeed, the reason for Japan's existenceis the tectonic movement of several of the Earth's major crustal plates in the vicinity of the archipelago. Most important is the subduction (sinking) of the Pacific Plate (in the north) and the Philippine Plate (in the south) beneath the Eurasian Plate upon which Japan lies. The movements of these plates have formed six mountain arcs off the northeastern coast of Asia: from northeast to southwest, the Chishima Range of the Kuril Islands; the Karafuto (Sakhalin) Mountain system of Hokkaido; the Northeast, Southwest, and Shichito-Mariana ranges of Japan; and the Ryukyu Island formations. The people Ethnic and linguistic composition Japanese ethnicity Purification shrine in the Kiyomizu temple, Kyoto, Japan. The Japanese people are members of the Asiatic geographic race and are closely akin to the other peoples of eastern Asia; they constitute the overwhelming majority of the population. During the Tokugawa period, there was a social division of the populace into four classes (warrior, farmer, craftsman, and merchant), with a peer class above and an outcast class below. With the exception of the burakumin (literally, people of the hamlet), the descendants of the former outcast class, this social-class system has almost disappeared. The burakumin, however, are still subject to varying degrees of discrimination. Insofar as a social-class system does persist it does not have the ethnic basis that can exist in multiracial societies, since the Japanese regard themselves as belonging to a single ethnic group. The few exceptions include those classified as resident aliens (particularly Koreans) and Japanese citizens of Ainu and, to a lesser degree, Okinawan origin. Japan also has a small population of Chinese descent. Hundreds of thousands of Koreans migrated to Japan (a great many against their will) before and during World War II, when Korea was a Japanese colony, and worked mainly as labourers; those remaining after the war and their descendants, the latter born and raised in Japan, do not have Japanese citizenship and face considerable discrimination. Both Ainu and Okinawans are often relegated to a second-class status. The indigenous Ainu largely were assimilated into the general population centuries ago; a few small, scattered groups, however, have maintained their identity in Hokkaido. Before the war there was a tendency to distinguish the people of Okinawa from other Japanese because of perceived physical and cultural differences; this tendency has diminished but not disappeared. Okinawan culture, including its dialect and religion, is now recognized as sharing many traits with Japanese culture. Languages Japanese is the national language, and Ainu is almost extinct. The Japanese language is generally included in the Altaic linguistic group and is especially akin to Korean, although the vocabularies differ. Some linguists also contend that Japanese contains elements of Southeast Asian languages. The introduction of the Chinese writing system and of Chinese literature about the 4th century AD enriched the Japanese vocabulary. Until that time Japanese had no written form, and at first Chinese characters (called kanji in Japanese) were used to write Japanese; by the 9th century two syllabaries, known collectively as kana (katakana and hiragana), were developed from them. Since then, a combination of kanji and kana has been used for written Japanese. Although some 3,000 to 5,000 kanji are in general use, after World War II the number of characters necessary for a basic vocabulary was reduced to about 2,000, and the writing of these characters was simplified. Tens of thousands of Western loanwords, principally from English, also have been adopted. The distribution of Japanese nearly coincides with the territory of Japan. Standard Japanese, based on the dialect spoken in Tokyo, was established in the late 19th century through the creation of a national educational system and through more widespread communication. There are many local dialects, which are often mutually unintelligible, but standard Japanese, widely used in broadcasting, is understood nationwide. Japanese is broadly divided linguistically into the two major dialects of Hondo and Nanto. The Hondo dialect is used throughout Japan and may be divided into three major subdialects: Eastern, Western, and Kyushu. The Eastern subdialects were established in the 7th and 8th centuries and became known as the Azuma (Eastern) language. After the 17th century there was a vigorous influx of the Kamigata (Kinai) dialect, which was the foundation of standard Japanese. Among the Western dialects, the Kinki dialect was long the standard language of Japan, although the present Kamigata dialect of the Kyoto-Osaka region is of recent origin. The Kyushu dialects have been placed outside the mainstream of linguistic change of the Western dialects and retain some of the 16th-century forms of the latter. They extend as far south as Tanega and Yaku islands. The Nanto dialects are used by Okinawa islanders from the Amami Islands in Kagoshima prefecture to Yonaguni Island at the western end of the archipelago. Long placed outside the mainstream of linguistic change, they strongly retain their ancient forms.