Japan in the modern age: a people existing between the protection of the kami and the geological dangers of earthquake. This program covers the cataclysmic events of the 20th century—the devastating earthquake of 1923, the rise of militarism, the accession of Emperor Hirohito, the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, the Pacific War, Hiroshima, and the American occupation of Japan—but its primary focus is on what makes Japan Japanese: the Shinto rituals which are part of modern mercantile life; such societal traits as conformism and determination, attitudes toward violence and brutality, business ethics and the life of the salary man, the attitude toward ethics, and the role of the kami in modern Japan. (48 minutes)