Word: symbolization
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...suspected that the most recent attacks on the Christian quarters were the work not only of Druze militiamen but of their Syrian backers. In retaliation, perhaps, the Druze-owned Summerland Hotel was bombed last week, killing six and injuring 20. By striking at the hotel, the bombers attacked a symbol of Beirut's will to endure; Israeli shells nearly wrecked the complex during last year's war, but Owner Raja Saab rebuilt it in five months at a cost of $10 million. The hotel and its beach club became a gathering place for all religious factions, a placid...
With the war Hirohito lost all but symbolic power. Installed as Crown Prince in 1916 and enthroned as Emperor ten years later, he was pressed by General Douglas MacArthur to relinquish his claims to divinity in 1946. Under the 1947 constitution the Emperor was identified as nothing more than "the symbol of the state and of the unity of the people." Commoners were no longer forbidden to speak his name or look at his face; 90% of his wealth, estimated at $250 million, was confiscated. Characteristically, the bespectacled monarch absorbed such indignities without comment, let alone complaint. Taking cheerfully...
Appearances, however, can be deceiving. Although classical music has a high profile, it functions both as symbol and as art, its usefulness perceived socially as well as aesthetically. When explaining their country's fervent embrace of classical music, the Japanese almost never cite the qualities that have kept it flourishing in the West: beauty, emotional appeal, elegance. Instead, they speak of concert music almost as a commodity, whose import and manufacture they have undertaken with characteristic zeal. "We have adopted the Western style in our social life," explains Kazuyuki Toyama, a leading Tokyo music critic. "We wear Western clothes...
...present. The first, the Meiji memorial, a Shinto edifice of Japanese cypress embellished with gilded copper, is dedicated to Emperor Hirohito's grandfather. The other, which glints a deep azure in the sun, is the modernistic steel-and-glass headquarters of NHK, Japan's public broadcasting system, symbol of a national obsession: television...
Dosojin began as a primitive fertility symbol, an expression of a people of the land who saw the highest affirmation of life in its potential for creation. So if these deities expose an organ of increase to a passerby, it is not to sling an obscenity but to bless him with the healthful prosperity of generation. That is why, at New Year's, the Nagano Dosojin festivals are children's celebrations, where new life honors the continuance of life. If the rest of the year children throw mud at the deity, or whip it with sticks, or urinate...