Rituals and traditions in Japan

History of Japanese eating customs and its rituals

Japanese cuisine has been shaped throughout the centuries by internal political and social influence along with outside influence especially from China, Korea and the Western Culture. Their dining customs especially transformed during the middle age of the Kamakura age.

Cultural and social significance

Japanese dining ritual has been around since the beginning of time and it’s culturally important as it shares its history with the founding of Japan as a culture and a country, and these rituals are shape by historical periods, people and religious and cultural beliefs. Japanese dining ritual is influenced greatly by their early belief, during the early days of Japan history their main religions are either Buddhism or Shinto’s. The religion Buddhism travels across from China and plays a major part in shaping Japanese eating rituals, its utensils (as Chopstick originated from China). Buddhists teaching frown upon meat eating, so in the early day Japanese society was influenced by the Buddhist monk, this Buddhist monk was perceived important by society at the time and was even powerful enough to influence the Shogun (land lords) to ban consuming meat for a specific period of time.