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The average Japanese family possesses most, if not all, of the gadgets of a labour-saving society - colour television, telephone, washing machine, refrigerator, sewing machine and so on. Every domestic convenience is available and made affordable through mass production. Workers travel on high-speed trains or in modern automobiles; children play with space-age toys. And yet, for most Japanese, the small pleasures of life still lie in traditional things like the comfort of a cotton kimono on a warm summer evening, the feel of tatami mats under the feet, simple Japanese food, a tiny garden viewed from the verandah. Festivals based on ancient Shinto and Buddhist rituals still attract large crowds; around three million people visited Tokyo's Meiji shrine during the first three days of New Year, 1979. Japanese television programmes reflect a unique blend of West and East. The latest domestic and world news, documentaries and popular music programmes are inserted between serious studies of ancient Japanese history, kabuki plays, classical dances,
folk song contests and samurai dramas.
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In the year 2000-when the upper capsule, No. 2, is opened for the first time- it
may well seem that 1970 was a point of ideal balance between Old and New Japan. At Expo
'70, towering ultra-modern constructions of steel and plastic stood alongside graceful wooden pavilions and water gardens, as in Japanese streets serene old houses rub shoulders with concrete apartment buildings offering all the conveniences of modern life. As the contents of the capsules demonstrate in rich and colourful detail, Japan looks back over centuries of a unique and rewarding culture and forward to one which is no less rewarding in its capacity to make life more leisurely more comfortable and more secure.
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