Word: ritually
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Outside the Ryoanji temple, the newest Japanese surfaces shine. The taxi drivers bustle, sweeping huge feather dusters over their cars, flicking specks from the bright metal. The ritual, a writer once remarked, makes them look like chambermaids in the first act of a French farce. But it is utterly Japanese, a set piece: the drivers handle their dusters like samurai. The scene is a sort of cartoon of the busy, fastidious superego that is supposed to preside in the Japanese psyche. The drivers even wear white gloves. There is probably not a dirty taxicab in Japan...
...daily routine approaches a ritual. Early in the morning, he strolls through his sprawling Tokyo compound, with its exquisitely pebbled garden and tiny pools a pa to a spacious reception hall. There he spends the day greeting a parade of visitors. Politicians, businessmen, constituents: they all come to pay homage to Kakuei Tanaka. For a man forced out as Prime Minister in 1974 for financial juggling, and still awaiting a verdict on charges of pocketing a $2 million bribe, the pageant of respect is remarkable. He remains the country's mightiest politician-the "Shogun of the Darkness," as Tanaka...
...many Japanese, however, pure ritual is not enough, nor is the attraction of the established religions. To fill this spiritual gap, the discontented have turned to so-called new religious movements, many of which were founded before World War II but grew spectacularly afterward. The groups, 170 or more claiming about 14 million adherents (about 12% of the population), all make use of traditional Japanese themes, although the rituals may vary...
August 3 The Ritual...
...last obstacle to complete accord was the island republic of Malta, which insisted that all 35 conference members accept the idea of a future meeting on Mediterranean security. Even when that hurdle is cleared, the Madrid agreements must be endorsed by the foreign ministers of all the participants. That ritual, which may not take place until September, may provide the opportunity for a meeting between Secretary of State George Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko...