Mountain Day
Today is a new national public holiday in Japan, the first Mountain Day ("yama no hi"). It was announced / promulgated in May 2014 but takes effect today. Why? The legislation states that the holiday is to provide “opportunities to get familiar with mountains and appreciate blessings from mountains.” I think it's an economy-stimulus plan by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe - to provide more holiday / leisure time to the public to encourage us to spend more. Could it be a scheme by ultra-right-wing nativist nationalists to mythologize the country? It seems unusual, but it’s not unthinkable.
It seems contrary to the 'Happy Monday' law passed by former Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi (1998-2000, who famously died in office of a massive stroke [he worked himself to death]). The idea behind the Happy Monday law was to push some of the many Japanese national public holidays that fell in mid-week to the nearest Monday, thereby somewhat streamlining the calendar while simultaneously providing more long weekend holidays - creating more leisure time to lure the public into spending more for the good of the economy.
Japan is a mountainous country. 80% of the country is alpine, 20% is coastal plain. And, 80% of the population lives in the coastal plains, which is why the urban population here is so dense. The tallest and most famous mountain, of course, is Fujisan (3,776 meters), which is a goddess in the native Shinto religion. On clear days - usually in the winter - I can see it from my apartment balcony.