* In 1956 Horace Miner published the oft reprinted essay, "Body Ritual Among the Nacirema" in the academic journal American Anthropologist. In it, he examined North American healthcare from the prospective of an outsider, renaming the United States as "Nacirema," or America spelled backwards. Young people were invited to write their own version of his essay about a culture they had lived in, adopting the voice of an outside observer and perhaps hiding the name of the country for the reader to guess....
http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~thompsoc/Body.html
After the weekend, there is Monday morning. Monday is a special day because it is the beginning of the week, and it is the most tiring day. There is a group of people that has a strange duty, and it begins on Monday morning. Professor Nishiwaki got interested in these people, and he began to research about these people and found out that their culture is a very special one. He says that it is most often observed in teenagers, from Monday to Friday.
People are climbing a hill for a long distance, which takes them to the building that they need to go in every morning. When the bell rings from above, they need to walk faster so that they do not get scolded by the distinguished group of old creatures. In the building, people are sitting in small seats. When a weird sound stops, a pair of children comes in front of everyone and forces the people to stand up so that they get tired. After they get tired of standing, these people are allowed to sit down on their seats. When they sit down, they take out a mammoth book that has cryptic sentences inside. The two children in front of all the people use a magical power so that they are able to speak very loudly, and the two of them start to read a part of the book. After they finish, one of the old creatures appears from behind them and starts to recite a long spell. In the next moment, every person in the building falls asleep. After the creature's spell, holy music is played to make the people wake up. They wake up and move to another building called cosha.
Cosha is a red building, and there are many rooms that have wooden desks inside. People go inside the cosha, and they are not allowed to leave this place until evening. They are detained there for six hours. Until they are released, people are coerced to take lectures from the old creatures. They teach in various ways, and sometimes use a different language. In the lectures, the old creatures explain things that are mostly fruitless in society.
There are many types of creatures, male and female, with black hair and white hair. Most of the creatures give a lecture, but the most powerful, and the highest ranked creature does not need to give lectures to the people. This creature has his own room which people are not allowed to go in except in special cases.
In the evening, people are allowed to go back to their domicile, but most of them do not leave. They go outside and start to train to get stronger. There are many groups that train in different ways. Some people use sticks that look like a skillet, some people do not use anything and just run as fast as they can, and some people wear armor and tackle each other. People continue to train until six o'clock.
People get tired, but they need to repeat this whole day four more times to end a week, and they repeat this for three years. According to this report, there is nothing happy about this custom, but somehow people like to go to this place.
Child Research Net would like to thank the Doshisha International Junior/Senior High School and Keito Mita, student and author, for permitting reproduction of this article on the CRN web site.
