Japan: Century 21 - Dragons and Tigers: A Geography of South, East and Southeast Asia - page 341

Figure 12-4
Mount Fuji is a dormant volcano towering to
12,385 feet (3,776 m) and is one of Japan' is more
than 200 volcanoes. This mountain is sacred to
the Japanese and is indicative of the country' is
mountainous terrain. © Royalty-Free/Corbis Images.

motion along a minor fault. Older, concrete buildings
collapsed, while those of flexible construction or fitted
with shock absorbers sustained less damage. Some
buildings still had severe damage, however. Fires raged
out of control for days; 5,000 people were killed, and
250,000 were made homeless.
V olcanic activity is another hazard in Japan, which
boasts more than 200 volcanoes. Sixty of these have been
active in historic time. Mount Fuji, a dormant volcano
towering to 12,385 feet (3,776 m), is regarded as sacred
by the Japanese (Figure 12-4). Japan is also the world' is
foremost hot springs country , with close to 20,000
springs and some 2,000 resort spas, many in Kyushu.

regional core on the Yamato Plain. Japanese culture dif-
fused from the Kansai Plain northward throughout the
islands. Even though this story is based on scientific
evidence, it is difficult for many Japanese to accept the
fact that they are related to Koreans, whom they long
have considered inferior.
The language that originally diffused to Japan was
not Korean as we know it today . It is thought that the
Japanese language diverged from the Korean language at
least 4,000 years ago, as they have few words in common.
However, Japanese and Korean both employ common
Chinese words.

Historical Development Japanese Writing

ORIGINS
Popular myth says the Japanese and the first emperor are
direct descendants of the Sun Goddess Amaterasu. The
first emperor took the throne in 660 BC ,but recent arche-
ological evidence tells a different story .
About 400 BC , people from the Korean peninsula
migrated to the island of Kyushu. Bringing with them
rice culture from China, their numbers rose about two
percent a year. In a few hundred years, their culture
overwhelmed that of the indigenous Jomon hunters and
gatherers who had inhabited the region for at least
10,000 years. Using metal tools and the techniques of
large-scale rice cultivation, the newcomers established a

Initially , the Japanese simply borrowed the Chinese
character system and called it kanji . However, pro-
found differences between Chinese and Japanese
grammar meant that sentences were constructed
awkwardly . So the Japanese developed a syllabary
known as hiragama that permitted the expression
of words and parts of speech not easily represented
by Chinese characters. While there are thousands of
Chinese characters, there are only 51 hiragama
symbols. Each represents a syllable or a combina-
tion of a consonant and vowel. A different system of
sounds called katakama is used for words of foreign
origin.