...[pic] TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 4 INTRODUCTION 5 KONGO GUMI ENVIRONMENT 7 Feudal Japan 8 The Restoration of Edo 8 The Meiji Restoration 9 World War 1 12 The Mid War Period 13 World War 2 15 The Occupation of Japan and Post War Reconstruction 16 The Economic Miracle 17 The Lost Decade 18 Global Financial Crisis 19 Natural Disasters 20 Abenomics 21 STRATEGIES KONGO GUMI USED TO SURVIVE TURBULENCE 23 Kongo Gumi in the 20th Century 23 Meiji restoration 23 The Mid War Period 24 World war 11 24 KONGO GUMI WOULD HAVE SURVIVED IF: 25 WOULD KONGO GUMI HAVE SURVIVED IF IT MADE IT THROUGH TO THE ABENOMICS ERA? 26 LESSONS FROM KONGO GUMI 27 CONCLUSION 28 REFERENCES 31 Appendix 1 – Infographic of Japan’s timeline EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Kongo Gumi was a success as it operated in a stable industry. The belief system has survived for thousands of years and has many millions of adherents. With this firm foundation, Kongo had survived some tumultuous times. The temple construction had until recently been a reliable mainstay, contributing 80% of Kongo Gumi's $67.6 million in 2004 revenues. The story of Kongo Gumi suggests that firms should blend elements of conservatism and flexibility. This means that firms should stay in the same business for more than a millennium and...
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...secrecy of Afro-Caribbean religion and society. Externally comprehended by westerners since the eighteenth century, voodoo has been reviled as disturbing, archaic, depraved and misguided through endless correspondence. Vodun, despite its initial elaboration in Haiti, is one of the notable accomplishments of individuals of African heritage in the western half of the world: an energetic, refined amalgamation of the customary religions of Dahomey, Yorubaland, and Kongo with an implication of Roman Catholicism. Furthermore, Vodun has propelled an astounding custom of spiritual...
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...Donna Beatriz was born Kimpa Vita in 1686 near Mount Kibangu in the Kingdom of Kongo in modern day Angola and led a movement called, Antonian, from 1704 through 1706. She was born in a family of nobility called Mwana Kongo with possible connection to King Nvita Nkanga or Antonio I. Beatriz was baptized into the Catholic faith after she was born. From a very young age, Beatriz demonstrated some spiritual gifts. She had visions and believed to have had a connection with high spirits. In the middle of her teenage years, she was trained as an Nganga Marinda, a person that could communicate with supernatural, which she later rejected. Beatriz told her followers that she died and resurrected as Saint Anthony who was going to address the kingdom’s problems through her. She declared the Christian’s cross a fetish and burnt it. Beatriz’s movement was in direct conflict with the Catholic mission in the kingdom. Beatriz was born during a period when the Kingdom of Kongo was going through cultural disintegration and political disarray. The Portuguese had defeated the Kongolese army at the battle of Mbwila and Sao Salvador, the Kingdom’s capital city was destroyed and then abandoned. The ruling dynasty was split by rivalry between the Ki –Mpanza and the Ki –Niaza families. There...
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...Land | Person (särskilt man) | Kvinna | Adjektiv | Afghanistan | afghan | afghanska | afghansk | Albanien | alban | albanska | albansk | Algeriet | algerier | algeriska | algerisk | Amerikanska Jungfruöarna | | | | Amerikanska Samoa | | | | Andorra | andorran | andorranska | andorransk | Angola | angolan | angolanska | | Anguilla | | | | Antarktis | – | – | antarktisk | Antigua och Barbadua | antiguan | antiguanska | antiguansk | Argentina | argentinare | argentinska | argentinsk | Armenien | armenier | armeniska | armenisk | Aruba | | | | Australien | australier, australiensare | australiska,australiensiska | australisk,australiensisk | Azerbajdzjan, (Azerbadjan) | azerier | azeriska | azerisk | Bahamas | | | | Bahrain | | | bahrainsk | Bangladesh (= f d Östpakistan) | | bangladeshiska | | Barbados | | | | Belgien | belgare | belgiska | belgisk | Belize | | | | Benin (= f d Dahomey) | | | | Bermuda | | | | Bhutan | | | | Bolivia | bolivian | bolivianska | boliviansk | Bosnien-Hercegovina | bosnier, hercegovin | bosniska,hercegovinska | bosnisk,hercegovinsk | Botswana | | | | Bouvetön | - | - | - | Brasilien | brasilianare, brasilian,brasse (vardagligt) | brasilianska | brasiliansk | Bretagne | | | | Brittiska Jungfruöarna | | | | Brittiska territoriet i Indiska oceanen | | | | Brunei | | | | Bulgarien | bulgar | bulgariska | bulgarisk | Burkina Faso (= f d Övre...
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...Kumina in Jamaica Kumina or CuBa is a cultural form indigenous to Jamaica.[1] It is a religion, music and dance practiced by, in large part, Jamaicans who reside in the eastern parish on St. Thomas on the island. These people have retained the drumming and dancing of the Akan people. Like the Kongo practitioners from Cuba, who have kept a large amount of the Kongo language alive. Bantu-speaking peoples of the Congo. In the Americas there are many Kongo-derived religions still being practiced today. There are two main aspects of Kongo religion that are quite distinctive. One is the practice of bringing down spirits of the dead to briefly inhabit the bodies of the faithful. The purpose of this is so that the ancestors may share their wisdom, providing spiritual assistance and advice to those here on Earth. Without exception, all such faiths in the Americas retain this central feature of Kongo faith. The other feature is the extensive work with Inquices (Enkises, Nkisi). The Inquices are very like the Orishas of Yoruba tradition, but also different. In Cuba and Brazil, where Yoruba influence was strongest in the Americas, they are often syncretized with the Orishas. They may best be described as being both the most ancient of ancestors as well as being associated with specific powers in nature. The Inquices do not tend to possess as detailed a mythology as the Yoruba gods. Kumina is an Afro-Jamaican religion influenced mainly by the Bantu peoples from the Congo-Angola area. Kumina...
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...To the subject of religion, three (3), black Africans became popes in Rome. They were Victor 189-199 A.D., Melchiades 311-312 A.D.; and St. Gelasius 496 A.D. It is proper to say that all three of these black Popes contributed greatly to the development of Christianity in Rome. Continuing with religion in Rome, Saint Benedict the black Moor was a saint of the Catholic Church and was born at Fradella, a village of the Diocese of Messina in Sicily in 1526; he died at the age of 63, April 4, 1589. Owing to his strict virtues he was made superior of the monastery of Santa Maria de Jesus at Palermo. Becoming like sacred in his popularity in Italy, Spain, and South America; the city of Palermo chose him as its...
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...Orlando Sadek Chapter 1 Colliding Worlds, 1450-1600 Christopher Columbus appeared at the court of Queen Isabella of Castile and King Ferdinand, in 1493, with the finest gold and many other gifts never seen in Spain. He now has the title of Admiral of the Ocean Sea. In 1540, Hernando de Soto met the Lady of Cofachiqui. Although an epidemic led to the death of many of her people, she gave them a lot of corn and pearls, in return de Soto gave her a gold ring with a ruby. Duarte Lopez, a Portuguese traveler, visited Kongo in 1578. He noticed that all of the people were black and of middle height. He claimed they were like the Portuguese but with black skin. The Portuguese traders then had a commercial district in Kongo to acquire many of the country’s...
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...Before the rebel occurred in 1739, most of the slaves in South Carolina were from Kongo (in modern Angola). In the coastal Origins of Virginia and South Carolina Africans, 1710s-1770s, the number of slaves from Angola was 77 in 1730’s which then decreased to 41 slaves in 1740s and then to 12 slaves in 1750s. Studies support that after studying about African backgrounds, “The Kongolese were proud of their Christian and Catholic heritage… and thus would have seen the Spanish offers in terms of freedom of religion as additionally attractive beyond promises of freedom in general,” according to John Thorton’s essay “African Dimensions of the Stono Rebellion.” The pride that the Kongolese had from their African roots with being Christian and Catholic made them want to actually acknowledge and want what the Spanish King was promising...
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...the prehistory of Africa and the emergence of Homo sapiens in East Africa, continuing into the present as a patchwork of diverse and politically developing nation states. Some early evidence of agriculture in Africa dates from 16,000 BCE,[1] and metallurgy from about 4000 BCE. The recorded history of early civilization arose in Egypt, and later in Nubia, the Maghreb and the Horn of Africa. During the Middle Ages, Islam spread through the regions. Crossing the Maghreb and the Sahel, a major center of Muslim culture was Timbuktu. Some notable pre-colonial states and societies in Africa include the Nok culture, Mali Empire, Ashanti Empire, Kingdom of Mapungubwe, Kingdom of Sine, Kingdom of Saloum, Kingdom of Baol, Kingdom of Zimbabwe, Kingdom of Kongo, Ancient Carthage, Numidia, Mauretania, theAksumite Empire, the Ajuuraan State and the Adal Sultanate. From the late 15th century, Europeans and Arabs took slaves from West, Central and Southeast Africa overseas in the African slave trade.[2] European colonization of Africa developed rapidly in the Scramble for Africaof the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Following struggles for independence in many parts of the continent, as well as a weakened Europe after the Second World War, decolonization took place. Africa's history has been challenging for researchers in the field of African studies because of the scarcity of written sources in large parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Scholarly techniques such as the recording of oral history, historical...
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...Shameeza Subtil Professor Lindo African American Arts May 5, 2010 Exploring African Influence on the West Indian/Caribbean Culture It is rather interesting that in a “progressive” society, our behavior and practices are firmly rooted in our past. It is ever possible to wrest ourselves from the harsh realities of slavery and its ensuing impact upon Caribbean way of life? Probably to do so may mean rewriting history (our-story) or maybe knowledge of where we are coming from is what we need to help us embrace those parts of our history that must be held on to and celebrated and relinquish the undesirable parts: our acceptance of being powerless; our antagonistic propensities. The impact of West Indian slavery on the cultural landscape of the Caribbean cannot be under estimated or taken for granted. In the entire discourse on West Indian slavery, it is often taken for granted that the discussion centers solely on enslaved Africans. However, slavery brought to the region not only African but Europeans (Spaniards, French and British) and consequent to its abolition, there was the advent of the east Indians. We see the impact of their influence in the names of places; the foods we eat; our music and dance; our arts and craft, gender and sexuality. As these and other anecdotal evidences are examined and the academic contributions of others are analysed, Caribbean culture will be clearly defined and its origin established. Slavery and its attending impact upon Caribbean culture have been...
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...Mention “family business” and one might assume you’re talking about shops and restaurants around the corner or your local dry cleaner. But the vast majority of businesses throughout the world (two thirds of all businesses around the world )—from corner shops to multinational publicly listed organizations with hundreds of thousands of employees and best known brands like Novartis, Walmart, Facebook, Samsung Electronics, Volkswagen, Mars, are rooted family businesses. Kongo Gumi, one of the oldest Japanese construction family businesses funded in 578 till today with the 40 th generation. Prince Shotoku got Kongo family members to Japan from Korea more than 1,400 years ago to build the Buddhist Shitennoji Temple, which still stands. Over the centuries,...
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...Ekspansja kolonialna i rywalizacja mocarstw Nowa fala kolonialnej aktywności europejskiej w ostatnim ćwierćwieczu XIX wieku wiązała się z wejściem państw kapitalistycznych w kolejną fazę rozwoju gospodarczego nazwaną imperializmem. Cechowała go ekspansja polityczna, gospodarcza i militarna najpotężniejszych państw europejskich na tereny zamorskie. Przyczyny gwałtownego rozwoju kolonializmu wynikały z faktu stworzenia przez imperia kolonialne zamkniętego systemu wymiany gospodarczej sprowadzającej się do eksploatacji surowców w koloniach i dostarczania przez metropolię własnych wyrobów przemysłowych na ten rynek zbytu oraz wywozu i lokowania tam kapitałów. Nie bez znaczenia było tworzenie na terenach kolonii baz wojskowych, które zabezpieczały interesy potęg kolonialnych. Ocena kolonializmu nadal wywołuje wiele kontrowersji. Jego przeciwnicy wskazują na brutalny wyzysk ludności tubylczej i niszczenie jej kultury. Zwolennicy wskazują, że cywilizacja europejska była wówczas jedyną propozycją kulturową godną opanować świat. Za sprawą białego człowieka zmieniały się stosunki w koloniach. Uruchamiano tam przemysł, budowano drogi, linie kolejowe i rozwijano szkolnictwo. Niemniej biały człowiek spełniał na tych obszarach misję cywilizacyjną polegającą na przyśpieszeniu przeobrażeń tej części świata według własnych wzorów kulturowych. Największe imperium kolonialne stworzyli Anglicy, do których należała 1/4 kuli ziemskiej i tyle samo ludności. Drugie co do rozległości imperium...
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...Question 1. What are the tag requirements and available capacities under the different options through 1984? Answer 1. By 1980 Sensormatic dominated the market for electronic article surveillance systems, accounting for 70% of U.S sales and over 50% of the European market. Sensormatic’s major competitor at that time was Kongo Corporation, whose technology includes low-frequency radio waves in comparison with Sensormatic’s microwaves technology. Sensormatic’s microwave system had some health concerning issues which at that time Kongo Corporation tried to use for undercutting Sensormatic’s position in the market. But healthcare investigations showed that emissions from the product was at the allowable stage, and had no any affection on human health. Initially, Sensormatic or product-tags was only soft kind of products that need to be protected from theft. But as market was filled with not so huge but potential competitors, Sensormatic was forced to develop new kind of tags for meeting market requirements. That new kind of product was tagging system that could be used for hard kind of products such as records or cassettes. In addition, it added several variations on the basic system, including different sized transmitter and receiver for shops with wide entrance, several kind of tags (ranging from inexpensive tags to top line Aligator tags), and several tag removers. Company’s tags were reusable ones with life of approximately four year. Aligator tags were the...
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...International Journal of Business and Social Science Vol. 3 No. 11; June 2012 Cross-Cultural Values Comparison between Chinese and Sub-Saharan Africans Jean Pierre MIAHOUAKANA MATONDO PhD Student in Business Administration Glorious Sun School of Business and Management, Donghua University 1882, Yan’an Road, Shanghai China Abstract With a Sino-African trade growing at 40% a year and a steadily growing economy above 5% in Africa are challenging Chinese companies and individual Chinese businessmen to reassess broad stereotypes and globalization strategies in this continent. This paper reviews a comparative analysis of fundamental values and interpersonal relations between Chinese and Sub-Saharan Africans, and also their impact on the intercultural activities. It outlines differences and synergies amongst African and Chinese cultures. The study aims to introduce some important recommendations and factors, which may have an essential impact on Chinese companies operating in Sub-Saharan Africa. It provides in addition empirical insights of a set of values that may influence Chinese and Sub-Saharan Africans’ behaviours. New suggestions related to cross-cultural activities are reported to implement adequate human resource management policies within these companies. The paper includes implications for the development of new cross-cultural strategies and restructuration of the human resource policies. Keywords: Cross-cultural Values; Identity; Cross-Cultural Management;...
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...A zombie (Haitian French: zombi, Haitian Creole: zonbi) is a fictional undead being created through the reanimation of a human corpse. Zombies are most commonly found in horror and fantasy genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore, where a zombie is a dead body reanimated through various methods, most commonly magic. Modern depictions of zombies do not necessarily involve magic but often invoke science fictional methods such as radiation, mental diseases, viruses, scientific accidents, etc.[1][2] The English word "zombie" is first recorded in 1819, in a history of Brazil by the poet Robert Southey, in the form of "zombi".[3] The Oxford English Dictionary gives the origin of the word as West African, and compares it to the Kongo words nzambi (god) and zumbi (fetish). One of the first books to expose Western culture to the concept of the voodoo zombie was The Magic Island by W.B. Seabrook in 1929. This is the sensationalized account of a narrator who encounters voodoo cults in Haiti and their resurrected thralls. Time claimed that the book "introduced 'zombi' into U.S. speech".[4] Zombies have a complex literary heritage, with antecedents ranging from Richard Matheson and H. P. Lovecraft to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein drawing on European folklore of the undead. In 1932, Victor Halperin directed White Zombie, a horror film starring Bela Lugosi. Here zombies are depicted as mindless, unthinking henchmen under the spell of an evil magician. Zombies, often still using...
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