English Conversation Course

Also called seppuku. Both terms literally mean 'cutting the belly' and are deeply rooted in japanese culture, which has been pursuing this art of dying for a long time. The ritual itself is quite detailed. One cannot simply put the knife into the belly and die. The order, direction and starting points of cutting moves are fixed. Usually it was performed in front of some audience, in ceremonial clothes, and involved also creating a dead poem. white is the colour of death Big role in the ritual plays an attendant, kaishakunin, someone who will cut the head after enough belly cutting has been done. Actually, the moment of decapitating is agreed between the attendant and the suicider before the ritual. It can happen shortly after the blade was inserted into the body, or it can be postponed - if the suicider feels especially guilty and wants to perform the ritual of cutting in somewhat more detailed way. kaishakunin Interestingly, seppuku of women (jigai)...

We all love gifts, and I believe most of us love giving gifts even more than receiving. The general custom of exchanging gifts is present in many cultures, although there’s still space for some differences in the way it’s being done. In Japan for example, it’s not good to give someone a present knowing that that person would not be able to repay this act and give us something in return (because he/she won’t see us for a long time etc). In that situation, such gift is considered as troublesome and unwelcome, because it imposes a responsibility on the person which he/she would not be able to fulfill. Of course noone who wants to make somebody else happy by giving them something expects any gift in return, nevertheless, it’s deeply rooted in the culture that the act of giving somebody something creates this extra responsibility of expressing gratitude in a similar way. While most of the time gifts are very welcome, it’s very easy to hurt someone’s feelings by giving them something imprope...

What is this? Go is a strategic board game, very popular in Asia. It has originated in China more than 4000 years ago (around 2300 bc.). This is how typical go board (called goban) and the game in progress looks like: Beautiful, isn't it? Black and white stones are played on the intersections of lines on the goban. The classical board has 19x19 lines, which gives us 361 possibilities to place a stone. Once it’s played, it cannot be moved around the board - it can be only removed by an opponent. The purpose of the game is to surround territory on the board, which means that you really don’t have to kill your opponent in order to win the game. You can capture many of opponent’s stones and yet still lose the game because of the territory you’ve got. By gained territory I mean each empty intersection that’s surrounded by stones of one colour. finish Here on this simplified small board,  black has surrounded 6 empty intersections, which gives h...