Japan

Nintendoland...Home of the Big Sushi...Biggest shareholder in USA: Japan. The little country with the whopping wallet. Actress Jane Seymour hosts this four-part series on the land of the rising sun. We watched the opener, "The Electronic Tribe," which examined some of the longstanding cultural traditions still extant in Japan's technologically supra-advanced society. Etiquette, not a particularly strong suit in America, is big time in the East, and the program offers a segment on Japanese learning and practicing the proper method of crossing and uncrossing one's legs when wearing a dress or skirt. Too, the mystery surrounding correct bowing is unveiled in a slow-motion sequence which analyses the actions of two men greeting one another. And in another section, we learn the secret behind the sparseness and lightness of many Japanese houses: living in volcano and earthquake land, as they do, they would prefer to be hit on the head by a paper wall rather than a massive I-beam. Much of the program focuses on the life of Toyoko, a student/worker whose main ambition is to visit Disneyland. Toyoko bridges both the modern and the ancient; she works in a camera shop, yet her parents are farmers. In addition to the interesting juxtapositions of the old and new, "The Electronic Tribe" also includes an informative look at the Shinto and Buddhist religions. Highly recommended. [Note: There is a segment set in a Japanese bath house which shows two women bathing in the nude. This could potentially startle some parents whose 5th-graders have checked out the series to help with a school paper.] The other titles in the series are: "The Sword and the Chrysanthemum," "The Legacy of the Shogun," and "A Proper Place in the World." (Available from most distributors.)