Japanese Culture

By the time they got to perform at Japan's Minato Mirai Hall, 13 students from the St. Paul School for Girls had already danced around a host of cultural barriers.There was the language, the food, the time difference. But thanks to a crash course in Japanese, some flexibility and a lot of spunk, the trip was mostly a waltz.The girls went to Yokohama, Japan, on Oct. 20 to dance in the Minato Mirai Hall as part of a sister-school exchange program between St. Paul and Suiryo High School there.

Homemade noodles hang on a drying rack next to a gigantic pot of chicken noodle soup made from scratch. Culinary arts students at the Center for Applied Technology North in Severn savor small cups of their steaming creation. They give much of the credit for their successes and their love of cooking to their teacher, Bruce S. Davis.But they aren't the only ones who appreciate Davis' enthusiasm for learning and culinary technique.Davis left yesterday for a three-week trip to Japan through the Fulbright Memorial Fund Teacher Program, which has sent 600 American teachers and administrators abroad every year since 1997.

EXOTIC STRAINS of Japanese music filled the air at Longfellow Elementary School last week as Shizumi, a Japanese-born choreographer and dancer, visited the school."

The 16th-century Japanese art of swordplay demands that its warriors begin "as still as a mountain," then pounce "as powerfully as a raging river.""This is not the Errol Flynn school of swashbuckling sword fighting," said William Buckley, a 53-year-old Hampstead resident who teaches computer science at Catonsville Community College."

For three decades, Americans looked across the Atlantic for the latest in youth-culture hip.Back in the '60s, there were the Beatles and the Stones, Carnaby Street chic and the breathless allure of swinging London. With the '70s, it moved from Bowie-style glam to Sex Pistols punk, as those in the know traded their platforms and eye shadow for torn T-shirts and safety pins. The '80s brought ska, goths and the new romantics, as such bands as Madness, the Cure and Duran Duran moved to the fore.

Q: Do you know of any firms that offer small group tours to Japan to historic, artistic and cultural sites?A: Organizing small group tours to Japan is a specialized field with only a relative handful of full-time practitioners and a correspondingly small number of programs. A tour, say, to tea-ceremony centers might take two years to set up and, because of its generally limited appeal, might be repeated only every five years.The following companies have wide experience in the field:The North Group, 2250 Broadway, No. 20B, New York, N.Y. 10024, (212)

Worthington Elementary School students who are studying about Japan are getting first-hand lessons.Yuriko Yamaguchi, a 28-year-old teacher and native of Japan, is at the Ellicott City school to teach third-graders about Japanese life and culture as they learn about her country through a social studies unit.Miss Yamaguchi arrived in the United States two weeks ago as part of a Japanese-American exchange program. She will teach at the school for nine months."I'm here to teach children in America about the real Japan and Japanese heart," says Miss Yamaguchi, a petite, enthusiastic woman with shoulder-length hair and a pleasant smile.

A collection of Japanese rice paper prints dating from the 19th century will be displayed in Western Maryland College's Gallery One through Jan. 22.The exhibit is free and open to the public. The gallery is on the third floor of the college's Hoover Library in Westminster.It is open from 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday. Saturday the gallery will be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.The delicate color woodblock prints are being exhibited at the college as part of the January Term course, "History of Japan: 1600 to the Present," being taught by Dr. Richard Titlow, an educator at several area colleges and universities, including WMC.Dr.

When Alexis de Tocqueville visited America some two hundred years ago, he marveled at the volunteer spirit of its citizens and their passion for charitable works for the betterment of their communities. That spirit has grown to the point that today philanthropy is culturally ingrained into the American experience.But American-type charity has spread far beyond our borders. With globalization, the pace of change throughout the world has increased, bringing with it intense social problems. Many of these problems can be addressed more efficiently, and with greater permanence, through the application of charitable efforts.

Easton -- Here along the banks of the Miles River, a house sits quietly apart. It is named for a haiku and patterned after geese in flight, and for its owners, it is a dream fulfilled: a house that draws its design from the traditional Japanese teahouse.The owners are a retired couple (who do not wish to be identified). The husband is a retired Marine colonel who spent several years stationed in Japan and during this time he was captivated by the teahouse."The teahouse architecture evolved out of the tea ceremony where the Japanese celebrate purity, refinement and withdrawal from material concerns," says Wayne Good, the Annapolis architect who designed the house.