Japan's political system is divided into three powers: legislative power belongs to bicameral parliament; Judicial power belongs to the court, that is, the court; Executive power belongs to the Cabinet, local public organizations and central ministries and agencies.
According to the Constitution, the highest organ of state power is the National Assembly, with 480 seats in the House of Representatives and 242 seats in the Senate. Voters are nationals over the age of 20.
Starting from 1955, the Liberal Democratic Party, formerly known as the conservative contract, was in power for a long time, but it was temporarily replaced by its rivals from 1993 to 1996, and it came to power from 1996. Other opposition parties include the Democratic Party of Japan, the Social Democratic Party of Japan and the Japanese Production Party. At present, the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito Coalition government are in power.
Constitution:
Japan's current Constitution came into effect on May 3, 1947. According to the constitution, the state implements a parliamentary cabinet system based on the separation of legislative, judicial and administrative powers; The emperor is a symbol of Japan and Japanese nationals as a whole and has no right to participate in state affairs; "Forever renounce the use of state power to wage war, the threat or use of force as a means to resolve international disputes. In order to achieve this goal, Japan does not maintain war forces such as land, sea and air, and does not recognize the right of the country to engage in war "(Article 9).
Political parties:
After the war, Japan implemented "party politics", and various political parties representing different classes and strata were restored or established one after another. At present, the main political parties participating in parliamentary activities are Liberal Democratic Party, Democratic Party, Komeito Party, Japanese Producer Party and Social Democratic Party. The current ruling party is the Liberal Democratic Party, and the Prime Minister is Taro Aso, replacing Yasuo Fukuda who resigned in early September 2008. Before becoming prime minister, Taro Aso had a tough stance on China and was a right-winger. The analysis pointed out that the election of Aso may increase the instability of Sino-Japanese relations.
Prefectures in Japan are parallel administrative regions directly under the central government, but all prefectures have autonomy. There are cities, towns and villages. Its official position is called "Hall", that is, "Metropolitan Hall", "Daoting Hall", "Government Hall" and "County Hall", and its chief executive is called "Governor". Each city, prefecture, county has several cities, towns (equivalent to towns in China) and villages under its jurisdiction. Its offices are called service centers, that is, city service centers, town service centers and village service centers, and the chief executive is called mayor, mayor and village head.
Japan is divided into 47 first-level administrative regions: 1 capital, 1 road, 2 prefectures and 43 counties.
Capital: Tokyo (とぅきょぅ), located at the southern end of Kanto Plain in Honshu, governs 23 special zones, 27 cities, 5 towns, 8 villages, Izu Islands and Ogasawara Islands, with a total area of 2 155 square kilometers and a population of 65,435. 1868, after the Meiji Restoration in Japan, the emperor moved here from Kyoto and changed Edo to Tokyo, becoming the capital of Japan. 1943, the Japanese government issued a decree to change Tokyo to Tokyo, expanding its jurisdiction.
Northeast: Hokkaido | Aomori Prefecture | Iwate Prefecture | Miyagi Prefecture | Akita Prefecture | Yamagata Prefecture | Fukushima Prefecture
Kanto: Tokyo | Ibaraki Prefecture | Tochigi Prefecture | Gunma Prefecture | saitama | Chiba Prefecture | Kanagawa Prefecture | Yamanashi Prefecture
Central: Niigata | Toyama | Ishikawa | Fukui | Nagano | Gifu | Shizuoka | Aichi | Triple.
Feng Jingen: Kyoto Prefecture | Osaka Prefecture | Mie Prefecture | Shiga Prefecture | Hyogo Prefecture | Nara Prefecture | Wakayama Prefecture
China: Tottori Prefecture | Shimane Prefecture | Okayama Prefecture | Hiroshima Prefecture | Yamaguchi Prefecture
Shikoku: Tokushima Prefecture | Kagawa Prefecture | Ehime Prefecture | Kochi Prefecture
Kyushu: Fukuoka Prefecture | Saga Prefecture | Nagasaki Prefecture | Kumamoto Prefecture | Oita Prefecture | Miyazaki Prefecture | Kagoshima Prefecture
Ryukyu Islands: Okinawa Prefecture (In order to realize its containment strategy at the end of World War II, the United States placed the Diaoyu Islands under the jurisdiction of the United States. 1971June, the United States ceded Diaoyu Island in China and Okinawa to Japan. It was in accordance with this agreement that Japan took over the Diaoyu Islands the following year. )
Note: Diaoyu Island has been the territory of China since ancient times.
About 1 century, there were more than 100 small countries in Japan (some of them established diplomatic relations with the Eastern Han Dynasty). Later, these small countries gradually unified.
In the 4th century, Kansai established a relatively large country. It is said that the ancestors of the royal family finally unified them today. At that time, Japan included western Honshu, northern Kyushu and Shikoku.
Therefore, it will take a long time for this country to be unified. Therefore, it is difficult to make an accurate judgment on the exact date of the birth of Japan. According to Records of Historical Records and Records of Japan, the first emperor Emperor Jimmu was founded in 660 BC and acceded to the throne. The date of his accession to the throne is equivalent to 1 1 in the current Gregorian calendar, so this day is designated as the "founding day".
Japan literally means "the root of the sun", where the sun rises. Therefore, Japan is sometimes called the country of the sun.
Before Japan came into contact with China, the Japanese called their places "やまと" and "ひのもと", meaning the origin of the sun.
During the Three Kingdoms period in China, the Japanese represented Japan in Japanese. Because the word "Japan" has the meaning of "short", after Chinese characters were introduced into Japan, the Japanese replaced it with the Japanese homonym "He". Write やまと in Japanese and ひのもと in Japanese with the Chinese character "Yamato". Later, Japanese was pronounced "Japan" by phonics, and changed to にほん(Nihon) and にっぽん(Nippon) commonly used in Japanese today.
The word "Japanese" did not appear in China until the end of the 7th century. The Twenty-four Histories of the Old Tang Dynasty records that the Japanese changed their country name to "Japan" because they didn't like the name. In the 8th century A.D., there was another saying in Justice in Historical Records that Wu Zetian ordered Japan to change its name to "Japan".
The official name of modern Japan is "Japan", which is one of the few countries in the world without a long name. From the Meiji Restoration to the end of World War II, the official name of Japan was the Great Japanese Empire (Great Japanese Empire だぃにっぽんてぃこく). After World War II, it was changed to its current name in the new Constitution.
Although most Japanese in Japan also refer to their own country by "Japan", in recent years, "ジャパン" transliterated from the English word "Japan" and even "ジパング" transliterated from "Tsupan Gu".
Besides Japan and Yamato, Japan also had other Japanese titles in ancient times. For example, eight states (ぉぉやしま, eight islands) (eight islands created by Izebo and Nozunquan in Japanese mythology), Hajima (やしま, eight islands) and Fusang (ふふま)
I. Introduction to Japan
(1) Geography of Japan
Japan is located in the Pacific Ocean in the east of the Asian continent. Japan covers an area of 377,873 square kilometers. The whole land consists of four main islands, around which there are more than 4000 small islands. Japan's land area is roughly equivalent to the sum of Germany and Switzerland, slightly smaller than California in the United States. The areas of these four main islands are as follows.
Hokkaido (an island in northern Japan) covers an area of 83,000 square kilometers.
Honshu Island 23 1 1,000 square kilometers
Shikoku (the smallest of the four islands) 1.9 million square kilometers.
Kyushu (the southernmost island in Japan) covers an area of 42,000 square kilometers.
The geographical features of Japan are complex and changeable coastline, numerous volcanoes and deep valleys. All these make Japan one of the countries that people have to visit in the world.
(2) Japanese population
Tokyo12.059 million people and Yokohama 3.426 million people.
Osaka has 2.598 million people and Nagoya has 2 17 1 10,000 people.
Sapporo 1.822 million Kobe 1.493 million.
Fukuoka 1.29 million, Saitama 1.023 million.
The population of Japan exceeds 65.438+26 billion. Most Japanese live in densely populated areas of the city. The capital Tokyo has about120,000 residents. The population of major cities in Japan is estimated as follows:
(3) Japanese
Although there is only one common language in Japan, almost all Japanese have learned English when they receive compulsory education. So as long as you speak English slowly and clearly, most Japanese can understand. If you write what you want to say on paper, it will be easier to convey your meaning.
Second, the entry declaration
When entering Japan, you must declare your luggage orally or in writing. If you have checked baggage, you need two written statements. You can get the customs declaration form by plane, ship or customs. Personal belongings and checked baggage are exempt from tax within the following restrictions. Scope of duty-free goods
Product name and quantity remarks
The capacity of three bottles of wine is about 760ml per bottle.
400 cigarettes If tourists carry more than one kind of tobacco products, the total limit is set at 500 grams.
100 cigarettes
500g in other cases.
2 ounces of perfume is about 28cc per ounce (excluding cologne and eau de toilette).
Other articles 200,000 yen (total selling price in overseas markets) The total value of all articles except the above-mentioned articles in foreign markets must be less than 200,000 yen. Anything with a foreign market value of less than 65,438+00,000 yen is duty-free and/or not included in the calculation of the total foreign market value of all items. Every item or set of items with a market value higher than 200,000 yen is not duty-free.
Third, foreign currency exchange
No matter what currency, you can carry it in and out of Japan. However, if you carry more than 6,543,800 yen, or equivalent checks and securities, you must declare to the customs.
The monetary unit in Japan is the Japanese yen ("Japanese yen"). There are five kinds of yen coins: 1, 5,50,100,500. There are four kinds of yen banknotes: 1 1,000 won, 2,000 won, 5,000 won and 1 1,000 won.
Foreign currency can be converted into Japanese yen at foreign exchange banks or other legal foreign exchange offices. At major international airports, there are also foreign currency exchange windows to provide currency exchange services for passengers. The foreign exchange rate changes with the fluctuation of the foreign exchange market every day.
Four. Tax/service charge/tip
Tax: In Japan, no matter how much you spend, the Japanese government will levy a consumption tax of 5% of the amount you pay.
Service charge: In addition to consumption tax, you may have to pay a service charge of 10% to 15% that you spend in hotels or restaurants.
Small fee: According to the usual practice, the tour guide tip should be paid to the driver locally, and the reference standard is 600 yen per person per day (based on the actual number of days out of the group). Restaurants, restaurants and other places do not need to tip.
Verb (abbreviation for verb) voltage/socket/drinking water
Electric pressure:
The voltage in Japan is 100 volts. There are two kinds of frequencies, the frequency in East Japan is 50Hz；; The frequency in West Japan, including Nagoya, Kyoto and Osaka, is 60Hz. When you use your own electrical appliances, such as hair dryer, travel iron and electric shaver, these appliances should be able to adjust the voltage, otherwise you have to bring a transformer.
Insert seat:
The power socket in Japan is a two-pin socket. Cylindrical plugs and tripods are not available in Japan. I suggest you buy a conversion plug in advance.
Drinking water:
Japanese tap water can be directly drunk anywhere in China. Mineral water is easy to buy in supermarkets and convenience stores.
Six, emergency telephone
In case of emergency, you can use the public telephone directly, without putting in 10 yen coins. Press the red button first, and you can make a phone call. If you need medical treatment or first aid, please contact the front desk of the hotel or ask people around you for help.
The Japanese for "Please take me to see a doctor" is "Ishani Tsureitete Kudasai".
The Japanese for "Please call a doctor" is "Isao Yondekudasai".
Seven. medical service
Tokyo medical consultation telephone number: 5285-8 18 1 (English, Chinese, Korean, Thai, Spanish). Japan's medical services and facilities are of high international standards. Doctors and hospitals in Tokyo who can use English are usually from Monday to Friday, and the service desk of the hospital provides services from 8: 30 am to 1 1 am.
Eight, entertainment shopping
From daily necessities to industrial products, "Made in Japan" has become a world-famous brand, and these goods can be bought in many stores. Popular gifts for Nissan include precision equipment such as cameras, camcorders, walkman, clocks and watches, and traditional handicrafts such as kimono, pearls, pottery, bamboo handicrafts, printed matter and antiques. It can be bought in franchise stores all over the country and department stores in the city.
In Tokyo, the capital of Japan, the recommended shopping places are Ginza, Shinjuku and Shibuya, where there are many department stores. Shops dealing in electronic machines and electrical goods are concentrated in the electrical street in Akihabara, as well as famous fashion shops and clothing stores in Europe and America, such as Harajuku and Castle Peak, which are world-famous shopping hotspots.
Shopping guide: You can buy many duty-free goods in shops, shopping centers, department stores and hotel specialty stores. Supermarkets and cheap markets are also worth visiting.
Shopping time: The business hours of general shops and shopping malls in Japan are from 10 to 8: 00 pm, and they are also open on Saturdays, Sundays and national holidays. Department stores will have a rest day on Sunday, and different department stores have different rest days. Some specialty stores are closed on Sundays and national holidays. Besides, the department store closes one hour earlier than other stores (7 pm).
Duty-free shop: You need to show your passport to buy duty-free goods. Generally, you can buy duty-free goods at international airports in Japan. There are also regular duty-free shops in the business district of the city, and English-speaking clerks serve customers. If your time permits, you can compare the prices of goods in discount stores or cheap shopping malls before making a decision. The famous duty-free shops are the International Arcade in Tokyo and the Handicraft Center in Kyoto. Some kinds of goods can be exempted from 5% consumption tax if they are purchased for more than 10000 yen.
Have a nice trip.