Whaling town preserves tradition. MINAMIBOSO, CHIBA PREF. – The whaling season opened with a public carve-up and barbecue in the coastal town of Minamiboso, Chiba Prefecture, where workers last Thursday sliced a whale before a crowd of elementary school students and residents. Onlookers later received pieces of fried whale meat. Notification You’ve reached your story limit as a non-registered user. To read more, please sign up or log in via one of the services below. This will give you access to 15 additional stories this month. Rethinking Japan's whaling. “Man is what he eats.” It was written by a philosopher, Ludwig Feuerbach, in the middle of the 19th century. Originally in German, the verbs in his saying rhymed like a pun (Der Mensch ist was er isst).
Feuerbach investigated the relation between diet and people’s well-being and pointed out that human beings are “equal in their stomachs” in the sense that they are physiologically constructed by the nutrition they have taken in. What he wrote carries social and political implications. Of course, people get different foods, depending on where and how they live. Now, in our age of globalization, the increase in the range and volume of free trade worldwide has tremendously expanded the possibility of our daily meals and changed dietary cultures. Certainly whale had traditionally been one of the ingredients of nutrition in several dietary cultures including some areas of Japan.
Chikako Nakayama is professor of economic thought at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.
Third Culture Kids. Culture - Australia’s indigenous art: ‘An economic colossus’ Aboriginal people have long found spiritual inspiration for their art. Phil Mercer explores how this tradition has become one of Australia’s most potent cultural and economic movements. Aborigines remain by far Australia’s most disadvantaged group; they die younger, and suffer higher rates of poverty and unemployment than anyone else. The search for reconciliation between black and white Australia is a constant theme for Raymond Walters Japanangka, a commercial painter based in the Northern Territory. “I’m very passionate about building relationships between all cultures, and I want to look at exploring art in that way also,” he tells BBC Culture.
He comes from a rich artistic bloodline. Like other Aboriginal artists, Raymond Walters Japanangka draws inspiration from those closest to him. “The foundation for a lot of my art is based on my spiritual upbringing, and my connection with my grandfather and grandmother’s country and also my connection with our belief system and family. 550x-culture-shock. Intercultural Communication Adventure with Little Pilot. Sociology - Cultural differences.