Hiroko Yoda

And then the Commodore Perry died.

fled, you know, the American Navy fleet.

And he negotiated shogun to open up the border.

And Japan did.

And all the Western, the concept came in.

The constitution, banking, eating beef, and religion.

So the religion, the shukyo, was basically it's Christianity.

You know, it's a Judeo-Christian worldview, which is totally different from Japanese worldview.

The eight million spiritual beings.

There's infinite number of spiritual beings.

We have so many kami, even including...

They're bad things.

Like there are kami of plague, kami of poverty, and even kami of toothaches.

The thing is, it doesn't mean that people venerate those bad things.

It's a quiet reminder that no matter how much you wish those bad things are not there and don't exist, but they are there.

It's a reminder that we have to deal with it.

So our worldview is horizontal.

All the spiritual beings are equal.

in existence.

But the Judeo-Christian worldview, the Christian worldview, there's a hierarchy.