Vedic Astrology , an important part of Hindu culture

Not a day goes by without members of the Hindu tradition coming to a priest for information on muhurta(the best date and time for a particular action), birth names, and other kinds of astrological advice. Nava Graha puja (ritual for the nine planets) is one of the most popular pujas or purifications performed by a Hindu priest. Therefore, it is worthwhile to have a general understanding of the Hindu astrology.

The oldest existing scripture, the Rig Veda, has references to eclipses. Vendanga Jyotisha contains passages about astrology. The legendary sage Bhrigu is said to have perfected astrology, and the highlight of his work was putting together astrological charts laying out the horoscopes of everybody born or yet to be born in the universe. The Garga Samhita is an astronomical work and contains a chapter from 50 B.C.E. titled Yuga Purana. Mathematician and astronomer Varahamihira (505–587 c.e.) is known to have written on horoscopes. Yavana-Jataka is another astrological study. Bhat-topala authored the astrological work Hora-Shastra in the fifteenth century, and Nilakantha produced Tajika in the sixteenth century.

In comparing and examining an elaboration of DNA work, we understand that a minute part of the body (or microcosm) contains all the information about the whole person (the macrocosm). Once you start thinking that the whole is embedded within every part of this creation, you can start seeing a relationship between the outer world and the inner world, between the microcosm and the macrocosm. This means that by measuring the outer world, one can grasp the inner world; but even more importantly, by setting out to influence the outer world, one can influence the inner world. Thus, we have the foundation of Hindu astrology.

What Astrology Predicts
Astrology (jyotir vigyan) is an art used to predict one's future based on the positions or movements of stars associated with an individual. The foundation of Jyotisha is the notion of the bandhu(relation) of the Vedas or scripture that is the connection between the microcosm and the macrocosm. The practice of Jyotisha primarily relies on the sidereal zodiac, which is different from the tropical zodiac used in Western astrology.So momentous is the occasion of marriage that several kinds of precautions may be taken to minimize the uncertainties involved in the decision. Astrology is one such means; arranging prepuberty marriage is another. All marriage plans must reckon with the supernatural forces that affect the course of every critical venture — both auspicious and inauspicious days, favorable and unfavorable omens, and the horoscopes of the couple and their astrological congruence. Through astrology, man's uncertainty about his personal fate is made more tolerable. A person's fate is seen as locked in a grand mechanism of astral spheres, which move in preordained and predictable cycles across the firmament of time.

The Branches of Hindu Astrology
Hindu Astrology has three branches:
Siddhanta: Indian astronomy
Samhita: Mundane astrology, predicting important events based on analysis of astrological dynamics in a country's horoscope or general transitory events such as war, Earthquakes, political events, financial positions, electoral positions, etc.
Hora: Predictive astrology based on analysis of natal horoscopes and the moment a query is made •
There are four elements in the Hindu astrology: Rashi(the zodiac signs); Bhava(the houses); Graha(the planets); and Nakshatra(the lunar mansions). In Rashi, the signs are given for twelve sectors. That is, 360 degrees of the zodiac are divided into twelve equal parts, with each part called a sign. The Sanskrit names for the twelve signs and corresponding names from Western astrology follow.
Sanskrit As trology Names

Bhava: The Houses
A house is a zodiac division according to local time and location. In Jyotisha, more than one system aligning houses with signs is recognized. Houses are numbered counterclockwise from the house on the eastern horizon.

The significance of the twelve houses are:
Lagna — Nature, appearance, health, character, purpose of life
Dhana — Wealth, family, domestic comforts, early education, inheritance
Prakrama — Younger brothers and sisters, communication (talking, writing, business documents), intelligence, later education, short journeys
Suhrda — Mother, emotions, education, home, property and land surrounding in old age
Suta — Children, lover, recreation, devotion, speculation and gambling, creativity
Ripu/Roga — Health, maternal uncle and aunt, litigation, servants, mental worries, enemies, foreigners
Kama — Spouse, business partner, death, trade, agreement, honor and reputationp
Maritya — Death and longevity, failure, suffering, sexuality, occult, dowry, inheritance, imprisonment, torture
Bhagya — Luck, higher learning, philosophy and religion, mentor or guru, father, prosperity, travel
Karma — Profession, status, power, father-in-law/mother-in-law, government and business
Aya — Friends, hopes, earnings, club and social activities, elder siblings, daughter-in-law/son-in-law
Vyaya — Expenses, sleep, spirituality, travel and pilgrimage, secret enemies, imprisonment, hospitals, asylums, liberation

Graha: The Planets
Graha means any heavenly body or point that can cast an impact on human affairs. It also includes lunar nodes (Rahu and Ketu) and subplanets (upgrahas) — not planets but no less effective than planets; nine grahas or planets; two luminaries; the five visible planets; and the two lunar nodes. The extra saturnine planets (Uranus and Neptune) are not included in the category of Graha.


Nakshatra: The Lunar Mansions
Nakshatra is based on Vedic astrology. By calculating the positions of the moon, constellations, and other features of the night sky, you can explore your characteristics and personality. It is thought that by becoming aware of your strengths and weaknesses, you can make a conscious effort to improve your personality.

Each nakshatra represents a division of the path of the Sun, similar to the zodiac. Traditionally, the nakshatra position of the Moon is computed for the newborn's mental makeup and calculations of planetary periods (dasha). Each nakshatra is further divided into four equal segments known as charan or pada.Nakshatra is important in astrological matchmaking, Muharta, Panchanga, and Praana.

Vedic astrology differs from Western or Tropical astrology due to its use of the fixed zodiac as opposed to the moving zodiac. Most people's Western sign would be one sign back on the Vedic chart. However, if you were born in the last five days or so of the Western sign month, you will probably be the same sign in both systems.

Consulting astrologers is important for India's elite population, but not for the poor. A difference between many Western cultures and Hindu society is that most of the people in the Western world likely consult astrology for entertainment, while many in Hindu society consult it to regulate their lives

Recently, following a controversial decision of the Andhra Pradesh High Court in 2001, some Indian universities started offering advanced degrees in astrology. The University Grants Commission (UGC) in India is a powerful body that influences higher education. The UGC, with Mr. Hari Gautam as its chairman, recently decided to introduce new departments of Vedic astrology (Jyotie Vignan) as science in all the public universities, and kar-makanda(religious rituals) as a vocational course.

But if astrology is to be classified as a science, it must be subject to scrutiny and confirmed as a rigorous discipline, just as any other science would be. At the minimum, this would include having a set of assumptions in unambiguous language that are shown to be true by experimentation. If they are proven false by empirical evidence, then they must be amenable to correction. In addition, the astrological theory must predict results accurately, and experiments must test the predictions.

According to these definitions of what makes a science, astrology should certainly not be considered a science. In mid-1970, some 186 top scientists, including eighteen Nobel laureates, signed a statement saying astrology is not a science.

Numbers in Chinese Culture

In Chinese culture, certain numbers are believed by some to be auspicious (吉利) or inauspicious (不利) based on the Chinese word that the number name sounds similar to. However some Chinese people regard these beliefs to be superstitions. Since the pronunciation and the vocabulary may be different in different Chinese dialects, the rules are generally not applicable for all cases.
Because of the supposed auspiciousness of certain numbers, some people will often choose, attempt to obtain, or pay large sums for numbers that are considered to be lucky for their phone numbers, street addresses, residence floor (in a multi-story building), driver's license number, vehicle license plate number, bank account number, etc.
Lucky numbers are based on Chinese words that sound similar to other Chinese words. The numbers 6, 8, and 9 are believed to have auspicious meanings because their names sound similar to words that have positive meanings

Lucky numbers

Two
The number 2 (二 or 兩, Pinyin: èr or liăng) is most often considered a good number in Chinese culture. There is a Chinese saying: "good things come in pairs". It is common to use double symbols in product brandnames, such as double happiness, double coin and double elephants. In Cantonese, two (jyutping: yi6) is a homophone of the character for "easy" (易). In Northern China, the number, when used as an adjective, can also mean "stupid".

Three
The number 3 (三, Pinyin: sān, jyutping: saam1) sounds similar to the character for "birth" (生, Pinyin: shēng, jyutping: saang1), and is thus considered a lucky number.

Five
The number 5 (五, Pinyin: wŭ) is associated with the five elements (Water, Fire, Earth, Wood, and Metal) in Chinese philosophy, and in turn was historically associated with the Emperor of China. For example, the Tiananmen gate, being the main thoroughfare to the Forbidden City, has five arches. It is also referred to as the pronoun "I"[citation needed], as the pronunciations of "I" (我, Pinyin: wŏ, and 吾, Pinyin: wú) and 5 are similar in Mandarin.

Six
The number 6 (六, Pinyin: liù) in Mandarin is pronounced the same as "lio" (溜, Pinyin: liù) and similar to "fluid" (流, Pinyin: liú) and is therefore considered good for business. The number 6 also represents happiness. In Cantonese, this number is a homophone for blessings (祿 Lok). In I-Ching, the number 6 stands for "yin".

Seven
The number 7 (七, Pinyin: qī) symbolizes "togetherness". It is a lucky number for relationships. It is also recognized as the luckiest number in the West, and is one of the rare numbers that is great in both Chinese and many Western cultures. It is a lucky number in Chinese culture, because it sounds alike to the Chinese character 起 (Pinyin: qi3) meaning arise.

Eight
The word for "eight" (八 Pinyin: bā) sounds similar to the word which means "prosper" or "wealth" (發 – short for "發財", Pinyin: fā). In regional dialects the words for "eight" and "fortune" are also similar, e.g. Cantonese "baat3" and "faat3".
There is also a visual resemblance between two digits, "88", and 囍, the "shuāng xĭ" ('double joy'), a popular decorative design composed of two stylized characters 喜 ("xĭ" meaning 'joy' or 'happiness').
The number 8 is viewed as such an auspicious number that even being assigned a number with several eights is considered very lucky.
A telephone number with all digits being eights was sold for USD$270,723 in Chengdu, China.
The opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics in Beijing began on 8/8/08 at 8 seconds and 8 minutes past 8 pm local time (UTC+08).
A man in Hangzhou offered to sell his license plate reading A88888 for RMB 1.12 million (roughly USD164,000).
The Petronas Twin Towers in Malaysia each have 88 Floors.
The Air Canada route from Shanghai to Toronto is Flight AC88.
The KLM route from Hong Kong to Amsterdam is Flight KL888.
The United Airlines route from Beijing to San Francisco is Flight UA888.
The Air Astana route from Beijing to Almaty is Flight KC888.
One of Cathay Pacific's flight numbers from Hong Kong to Vancouver and New York is CX888.
Singapore Airlines reserves flight numbers beginning with the number 8 to routes in China and Korea.
In Singapore, a breeder of rare Dragon fish (Asian Arowana) (which are "lucky fish" and being a rare species, are required to be microchipped), makes sure to use numbers with plenty of eights in their microchip tag numbers, and appears to reserve particular numbers especially rich in eights and sixes (e.g. 702088880006688) for particularly valuable specimens.
As part of grand opening promotions, a Commerce Bank branch in New York's Chinatown raffled off safety deposit box No. 888.
An "auspicious" numbering system was adopted by the developers of 39 Conduit Road Hong Kong, where the top floor was "88" – Chinese for double fortune. It is already common in Hong Kong for ~4th floors not to exist; there is no requirement by the Buildings Department for numbering other than that it being "made in a logical order."A total of 43 intermediate floor numbers are omitted from 39 Conduit Road: those missing include 14, 24, 34, 54, 64, all floors between 40 and 49; the floor number which follows 68 is 88.
The switchboard telephone number of the Swiss investment bank Credit Suisse in London is +44 (0)207 8888888, where 44 is the country code for the UK and 0207 is the city code for central London. Credit Suisse has been rapidly expanding its business in investment banking, private wealth and other financial services in Asia in recent years.

Nine
The number 9 (九, Pinyin: jiŭ, jyutping: gau2), was historically associated with the Emperor of China, and the number was frequently used in matters relating to the Emperor, before the establishment of the imperial examinations officials were organized in the nine-rank system, the nine bestowments were rewards the Emperor made for officials of extraordinary capacity and loyalty, while the nine familial exterminations was one of the harshest punishments the Emperor sentenced; the Emperor's robes often had nine dragons, and Chinese mythology held that the dragon has nine children. It also symbolizes harmony.
Moreover, the number 9 is a homophone of the word for "longlasting" (久), and as such is often used in weddings.
Some Chinese today believe that nine is lucky (or believed by others to be lucky) because it is the largest single-digit (Arabic) number. However, this does not derive from any Chinese tradition, as the largest single-digit Chinese number is ten (十).

Unlucky numbers

Four
Main article: Tetraphobia
Number 4 (四; accounting 肆; pinyin sì) is considered an unlucky number in Chinese because it is nearly homophonous to the word "death" (死 pinyin sǐ). Due to that, many numbered product lines skip the "4": e.g. Nokia cell phones (there is no series beginning with a 4), Palm[citation needed] PDAs, Canon PowerShot G's series (after G3 goes G5), etc. In East Asia, some buildings do not have a 4th floor. (Compare with the Western practice of some buildings not having a 13th floor because 13 is considered unlucky.) In Hong Kong, some high-rise residential buildings literally miss all floor numbers with "4", e.g. 4, 14, 24, 34 and all 40–49 floors, in addition to not having a 13th floor. As a result, a building whose highest floor is number 50 may actually have only 35 physical floors.

Five
Although five (五, pinyin: wǔ, jyutping: ng5) can represent "me" (吾, pinyin: wú) in Mandarin, it is usually associated with "not" (Mandarin 無, pinyin wú, and Cantonese 唔 m4). If used for the negative connotation it can become good by using it with a negative. 54 means "not die" or "no death". If used for the positive it can be used as a possessive. 528 is a way of saying "no easy fortune for me". 53 ("ng5 saam1" in Cantonese) sounds like "m4 sang1 （唔生）" – "not live".

Six
Six in Cantonese which has a similar pronunciation to that of "lok6" (落, meaning "to drop, fall, or decline") may form unlucky combinations.

Seven
Seven is considered spiritist or ghostly. The seventh month of the Chinese calendar is also called the "Ghost Month". See Ghost Festival for more detail. During July , the gates of hell are said to be open so ghosts and spirits are permitted to visit the living realm. However, the Chinese lunar calendar also has July 7 as Chinese Valentine's Day (七夕 qi xi), so the number 7 is not generally associated with bad luck. In most of the regions in China number 7 remains neutral or associated

Music in the Jewish Culture

Music began to occupy an important place in the cultural life of the Jewish community in the Land of Israel after World War I, with various attempts made by enthusiastic amateurs and a tiny cadre of trained musicians at forming a symphony orchestra, a choral society and even an opera company. Music on a professional level, however, became a major activity only in the 1930s when hundreds of music teachers and students, composers, instrumentalists and singers, as well as thousands of music lovers, streamed into the country, driven by the threat of Nazism in Europe.

The Palestine Philharmonic Orchestra (today the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra), founded at the initiative of Polish-born violinist Bronislaw Huberman, gave its first concert in Tel Aviv under the baton of Arturo Toscanini in 1936. It immediately became one of the pivots of the country's musical life and over the years acquired the reputation as one of the preeminent orchestras in the world. Soon after, a radio orchestra was established (today the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra), whose broadcast concerts attracted tens of thousands of listeners.

Additional musical organizations were founded at later dates, including the Israel Chamber Orchestra, the Beer Sheva Sinfonietta, and orchestras based in Haifa, Netanya, Holon, Ramat Gan and Rishon Lezion, as well as the Israel Kibbutz Orchestra, whose members are drawn from kibbutzim throughout the country.

In the early 1980s, the New Israeli Opera began mounting productions on a high professional level, reviving public enthusiasm for operatic works which had declined following the disbanding of the first permanent opera company some years earlier.

During the early 1990s, Israel's musical life underwent a transformation with the massive influx of over one million Jews from the former Soviet Union. This immigration brought with it many professional musicians, including instrumentalists, singers, and music teachers, whose impact is felt with the formation of new symphony and chamber orchestras, as well as smaller ensembles, and a dynamic injection of talent and musical vitality into educational frameworks in schools, conservatories, and community centers throughout the country.

The chamber music tradition, which also began in the 1930s, includes a number of internationally acclaimed ensembles and choral groups, which have expanded in range and variety since the immigration of the 1990s. Leading groups include the Israel Camerata, the chamber orchestra of the IDF Education Corps, and the Kashtaniot Camerata of Ramat Hasharon. Many cities and towns sponsor their own choirs, and several festivals are devoted to choral music, including Jerusalem's Liturgica, vocal music in the churches of Abu Ghosh, and the Zimriya festival.

Musical performances, from recitals to full symphony concerts presenting a wide range of classical works, are held in historic settings like the restored Roman amphitheaters at Caesarea and Beit She'an, and in two major concert halls, the Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem's International Convention Center. Smaller venues include the Jerusalem Theater complex, Tel Aviv's new Performing Arts Center, the Tel Aviv and Israel Museums, as well as cultural centers in towns and kibbutzim throughout the country.

Israeli concertgoers are enthusiastic and demonstrative, attributes much appreciated by the renowned guest musicians and world-famous Israeli soloists, such as Pinchas Zuckerman, Shlomo Mintz, Daniel Barenboim, and Itzhak Perlman, who are part of the country's music scene every year.
World-class music events which take place in Israel include the International Harp Contest and the Artur Rubinstein Piano Competition. Local festivals such as the Music Festival at Kibbutz Ein Gev, the Chamber Music Festival at Kibbutz Kfar Blum, and the Red Sea Jazz Festival in Eilat, draw appreciative audiences, while the Israel Festival, which features music, theater, and dance performed by groups from all over the world, turns Jerusalem into a cultural magnet for three weeks each spring.

The creation of specifically Israeli music has been evolving since professional composing began in the country in the mid-1940s. While Russian and French traditions, German romantic and post-romantic forces, and the lively evocations of later European composers all left their mark on local compositions, a new expression of modern Israel in the so-called 'Mediterranean' style, integrating traditional Eastern melodies and the cantillation of ancient prayer, has gradually crystallized.
The first generation of Israeli composers, all European-born, made great efforts to write in a new musical idiom after immigrating to the country. Paul Ben-Haim utilized expanded tonalities to create a post-expressionistic style, welding old and new, East and West; Oedon Partos saw in the assimilation of authentic folklore an important compositional method; Alexander Uriah Boscovitch used popular forms of expression as a compositional building block; Yosef Tal founded electronic composition in Israel; and Mordechai Seter concentrated on integrating Yemenite melodies and rhythms into his works.

The second generation, most of them direct and indirect students of the first, has worked toward a musical expression which integrates the Hebrew language, with its consonants and intonation, its relevance to Jewish liturgy and tradition, and its incorporation into the Eastern world.
The third and most recent group of composers manifests a desire to participate in international composition with no national profile, to grapple with the Holocaust through music, and to break down barriers within music (such as in the music of Yehuda Poliker), merging Eastern and Western traditions and incorporating some innovations from popular music genres.

Talented young Israelis begin their training by attending one of the many conservatories or by studying with one of hundreds of private teachers; many gain experience by joining one of the country's youth orchestras. Further study is provided at the degree-granting academies for music and dance in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Master classes for singers, instrumentalists, and chamber groups are frequently conducted by visiting international artists at the academies, as well as at the Jerusalem
Music Center.

Music education and research at institutions of higher learning were inaugurated at the beginning of the 1960s with the establishment of the Artur Rubinstein Chair of Musicology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Since then, musicology departments have been added at Tel Aviv University and Bar-llan University. Two major areas of specialization are offered: Jewish music and the music of Israel's various ethnic groups, with particular emphasis on the music of the Eastern/Sephardic communities.
"Songs so far"Tears and laughterVoices of men, stars of time.The sun and the seaBread, the world,The bitter, the sweetAnd everything that has beenwe shall leaveTo live within the song.Lyrics: Natan Yonatan

The early pioneers brought their songs with them, translating the original lyrics into Hebrew or setting new Hebrew words to treasured tunes. Since then, thousands of songs have been written, with melodies incorporating elements of the musical styles brought by consecutive waves of immigrants, ranging from Arab and Yemenite traditions to modern rock and pop, sometimes set to biblical or traditional texts or to the modern verses of Israeli poets and lyricists.


While it is difficult to define a typical Hebrew song, Israelis differentiate between songs written in Hebrew, on various themes and in a variety of styles, and the Shir Ivri ('Hebrew Song'), whose words transmit the voices, values, and moods of the country and whose melodies are dominated by Slavic influences. Accompanying the major historical events in the national life of the Jewish people over the past century, these songs have recorded the nation's dreams, pains, and hopes. While expressing universal sentiments like all folk songs, they also strongly articulate Israeli feelings such as love of the country and its landscape. These are the songs everyone knows, the songs which have become an integral part of the nation's cultural legacy.

Israelis love to sing their songs, from those of the pre-state period to ones just written. Community singing takes place in public halls and private homes, in kibbutz dining rooms and in community centers, during hikes and around bonfires, often under the guidance of a professional song leader, accompanied by piano, accordion, or guitar. Participation in such group singing generates a sense of togetherness, evoked by patriotic sentiments as well as by nostalgia for the early pioneering days and the struggle for independence, for wars won, friends lost, and recurring moments of hope and love.

The Song to Peace :

Let the sun riseAnd give the morning light,The purest prayerWill not bring us back.He whose candle was snuffed outAnd was buried in the dust,A bitter cry won't wake himWon't bring him back.Nobody will return usFrom the dead dark pit,Here - neither the victory cheerNor songs of praise will help.

Refrain:So - sing only a song to peace,Do not whisper a prayer.Better sing a song to peaceWith a big shout.

Let the sun penetrateThrough the flowers,Don't look backwardLeave those who departed.Lift your eyes with hope,Not through the rifle sights.Sing a song to love,And not to wars.Don't say the day will come,Bring the day,Because it is not a dream,And within all the city's squares,Cheer only peace.Lyrics: Yaacov RotblitMusic: Yair Rosenblum

Idan Raichel (Courtesy Israel 21c)

Contemporary Music
The contemporary music scene in Israel is hugely varied and often audacious. Hip hop band Hadag Nahash, for example, uses music to display political cynicism. One of their most famous hits is "Shirat Hasticker ("The Sticker Song" in English), written together with Israeli novelist David Grossman. The song's lyrics are an amalgamation of slogans seen on Israeli bumper stickers. The opposing political slogans are juxtaposed to create a furious, ironic, and often absurd portrait of Israeli life.

Other ensembles such as the Idan Raichel project have fused the Ethiopian musical heritage with Middle-East soul and liturgical influences. Bands such as Teapacks, Mashina, and Knisiyat Hasechel, as well as solo artists Ehud Banai, Shlomo Artzi, and even Sarit Hadad are all veterans on the mainstream Israeli music scene, but have maintained their popularity.
Many of the newcomers to Israeli music's pop scene have emerged through the TV program Kochav Nolad (A Star Is Born), Israel's answer to the U.S.A.'s American Idol. Ninet Tayeb, Harel Moyal, and Yehuda Sa'ado are just some of those who have launched their music careers through this popular program. 2007's winner was Boaz Mauda, whose Israeli Yemenite family tradition can be heard in his music.

The Culture of Malaysian Food

Malaysian cuisine is exotic with an exciting range of flovours and culinary styles offerring the uninitiated an endless gastronomic adventure. It comprises three main group - Malay, Chinese and Indian with each having its own distinct style of cooking. There are also cuisines that have evolved from the meeting of cultures notably those of the Nyonya and Indian Muslims communities. Western cuisines, especially Continental and Mediterranean fare, are also available in the major cities.

Indeed, Malaysia as a meeting place of both eastern and western cultures, has produced a most diverse culinary melting pot. For teh visitor who is interested in dining out, Kuala Lumpur will prove to be a unique experience both in terms of the array of culinary delights as well as in the wide choice of settings. You can dine out at posh hotels, restaurants, elegant chain restaurants, chic sidewalk cafes, delicatessens or eat out at the many hawker stalls till the wee hours of the morning.

Malay Cuisines - Malay cuisine is rich and spicy arising from the use of hard spices and a wet spice mixture of "rempah" and coconut milk. Malay cuisine varies from region to region. Kelantanese cuisine, akin to Thai cooking for example, has a sweetish taste due to liberal use of coconut milk and sugar in cooking. On the other hand, the cuisine of Kedah is spicier due to the influence of Indians who arrived here centuries ago during the spice trade. For the adventurous, there is an array of popular Malay dishes to tantalise their taste buds. A favourite with Malaysians is "Nasi Lemak", rice cooked in coconut milk served with anchovies, squid, eggs, cucumber and sambal (chili paste). An East Coast favourite is "Nasi dagang", fragrant unpolished glutinous rice steamed with coconut milk and served with tuna fish curry. "Nasi Kerabu", another rice-based dish native to Kelantan, is served with local herbs and salted fish. A Malay banquet would not be complete without the ever popular "Satay", skewered chicken or beef marinated in spices, then grilled over charcoal fire. It is served with peanut gravy, rice cubes, cucumber and onions.

Chinese Cuisines - A wide variety of Chinese cuisines is available in Malaysia. Among the popular styles of cooking are those of the Cantonise, Hokkien, Hainanese, Hakka and Szechuan communities. Generally, Chinese cuisines is mild in flovour but local influence has given it a slightly spicier taste. In addition to breakfast, lunch and dinner, there are elevenses where "Dim Sum" (steam snacks) is served. Apart from hotels outlets and large chain restaurants, Chinese food is also available in most coffee shops around Malaysia.

Nyonya Cuisines - Nyonya or "Peranakan" cuisines evolved out of a unique blend of Malay and Chinese cooking styles. It is characterised by sweet, sour, spicy and pungent flovours. Typical dishes include "Otak-otak" (fish meat marinated in spices, wrapped in banana leaves and grilled) and "Itik tim" (duck with salted vegetables). The cuisines is best tried in Nyonya restaurants which have become popular in recent years.

Indian Cuisines - Contrary to popular perception, Indian cuisines need not be searingly hot. Various spice blends are used in Indian cuisines to give a robust flavour to food but yoghurt almost always accompanies a meal at the end to cool down the tastebuds. Milder on the tastebuds are dishes such as "Kurma" (mild meat curry) and "Tandoori" chicken (chicken baked in clay oven). Generally, Southern Indian cuisines is hotter than its Northern Indian and Moghul counterparts and is characterised by the heavy use of cream meat-based dishes and "Naan" breads. Indian -Muslims cuisine is another local favourite one ought to try while in Malaysia. Popular dishes include fish head curry, "Murtabak" (pancake with spiced meat mixture) and "Mee goreng" (fried noodles).

International Cuisines - Foreign visitors will be pleasantly surprised to discover the abundance of International cuisines available in Malaysia. Restaurant serving International cuisines can usually be found in major hotels as well as in the vacinity every state in Malaysia.

Culture of Body Piercing

Body piercing can be traced back to ancient times and can be found in many different cultures. The most common piercing in the world is the ear piercing, and is extremely popular in Western culture, with some parents choosing to pierce the ears of their infants. But there are many other choices as well.

Nose piercings: this piercing is increasingly common worldwide. A person can choose to pierce one or both nostrils with a hoop or a small, flat-backed stud; they can also pierce the cartilage in the center of the nose. This is known as a septum piercing and many people choose to wear hoops or half-circle hoops in them.

Lips: The lips can be pierced on the top or the bottom. In emo culture, it is common to see people with one hoop on each side of their lower lip; this piercing is called "snakebites." Small, flat-backed studs can also be used on the lip. When placed in the center of the lip, just below the actual lips, this is called a labret piercing. When placed on either side of the top lip, it is commonly called a Monroe.
Eyebrows: Eyebrow piercings are surface piercings that go through the skin of the eyebrow. Most people choose straight barbells or hoops for this piercing. Contrary to popular misconception, the piercing is not embedded in the head.


Nipples: Yes, some people pierce their nipples. Most people choose hoops, but straight or circular barbells can also be used for this piercing. It is important to note that this is a sensitive area to pierce, and it can take 6-12 months to fully heal.
Navel: Navel piercings are also surface piercings and take some time to heal. Many people have difficulty with this piercing, due to the shape of the navel or their weight. Only a professional piercer can determine if this is worth getting done. Most people choose circular barbells or hoops for this piercing.
Although piercing has been considered a mainstay of the alternative, emo, and punk scene for quote some time, it is becoming more mainstream as time goes on. By learning about the different types of piercing and the processes involved, more people will be able to understand something that was previously foreign to them. It will also help people to not be scared of people just because they look different -- and that is never a bad thing.

The Culture Of Israel

According to the Bible, Israel is the name given by God to Jacob. The modern country of Israel includes two distinct nationalities, the Palestinian and the Jewish. Each nationality is inextricable from its religious identity. The Palestinians are Arabs whose traditions are founded in Muslim culture; the Jews define their culture in large part around their religion as well. Each group identifies as part of a larger, international religious and cultural community, and each has a history in the region that goes back to ancient times.
Location and Geography. Israel is in the Middle East on the Mediterranean Sea, bordering Egypt, the Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and the West Bank. Its total area is 8,019 square miles (20,770 square kilometers), slightly smaller than New Jersey. The Negev Desert covers the south of the country. Mountains rise in the central region from the low coastal plain along the Mediterranean. The Jordan River stretches 200 miles (322 kilometers) from Syria in the north, emptying into the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea (technically a lake) is, at 1,312 feet (400 meters) below sea level, the lowest inland sea on earth.
Demography. Israel's population in 2000 was 5,842,454. This includes an estimated 171,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank, 20,000 in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, 6,500 in the Gaza Strip, and 172,000 in East Jerusalem. The population is roughly 80 percent Jewish; of the total population, 32.1 percent were born in Europe or America; 20.8 percent in Israel; 14.6 percent in Africa; and 12.6 percent in Asia. Most of the 20 percent who are not Jewish are Arab.
Linguistic Affiliation. Hebrew is the nation's official language. The modern Hebrew language was designed by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, a Lithuanian Jew who moved to Palestine in the 1880s. Previously, biblical Hebrew had been the language of prayer, whereas the vernacular of most Jews was Yiddish (Ladino for Spanish and Portuguese Jews). David Ben-Gurion's vision of a national language, which would allow Jews from different parts of the world to communicate with each other, was an important element of the Zionist movement. Arabic is the official language of the Arab minority. English is studied in school and is the most commonly spoken foreign language. Immigrants from various countries also bring their languages with them, and Spanish, Italian, African dialects, and especially Russian are often heard.
Symbolism. The flag consists of a blue six-pointed star on a white background, with a horizontal blue stripe above and one below. The star, called a Magen David, or Shield of David, is a symbol of the Jewish faith.
The Israeli national anthem, Hatikva , is over one hundred years old. Its melody is of unknown origin, although some believe it comes from an Eastern European fold song. Its lyrics are explicitly Zionist, extolling the return of the Jews to their holy land. The song was banned from the airwaves during the British mandate, and it continues to be somewhat controversial today; there has been some debate as to whether its Zionist message is still valid.
History and Ethnic Relations
Emergence of the Nation. There is archaeological evidence of settlements in Israel dating from nine thousand to eleven thousand years ago. It is thought that the first people of the kingdom of Israel migrated from Mesopotamia. Much of the history of ancient Israel is laid out in the Bible. The Israelites were slaves in Egypt from about 1750 to

Israel 1280 B.C.E. , when Moses led the Jewish people in Exodus. They wandered in the desert for forty years. Moses died, and Joshua took the helm and led the people into the land of Canaan, or the Promised Land. The epoch that followed was known as the period of the judges, when Israel was ruled by judges and priests. Saul became the first king of Israel in 1020 B.C.E. He was succeeded by his rival, David, in 1004. Under David's rule, Jerusalem became the capital. Solomon ascended to the throne in 965 B.C.E. , and ruled for nearly forty years, during which time the First Temple was built. In 925 the kingdom split into two parts, Israel and Judah. In 721 Israel was conquered by Assyria, and in 586 it was taken over by Babylonia. The city of Jerusalem was destroyed, and the Jews were exiled to Babylon.
In 538 Babylon was conquered by the king of Persia, who allowed the Jews to return to their homeland, where they rebuilt the Temple and began what became known as the Second Jewish State. In 322 B.C.E. , Alexander the Great defeated the Persians and took control of Israel. Between 322 and 160 B.C. , the land of Israel changed hands several times under various Greek and Syrian rulers. In 160 Judas Maccabee led a rebellion that allowed the Jews to reclaim Jerusalem, a victory that Jews still celebrate in the festival of Hanukkah. Judah became an independent state in 141 B.C.E
Herod conquered Judah in 37 B.C.E. In 19 B.C.E. , under his rule, the Temple was again rebuilt. The First Revolt against Rome occurred in 66 C.E. ; however, Jerusalem fell to the Romans in 70 C.E. The Temple was destroyed, and the majority of the Jews were dispersed throughout the world.
Byzantines ruled the area from 313 to 635, although toward the end of this period, from 614 to 629, the Jews ruled Jerusalem under Persian jurisdiction. The years 622 to 632 saw the founding of Islam by Muhammad. In 638 Arab Muslims conquered Jerusalem, where their rule lasted until the Turkish conquest in 1078. The First Crusaders took the city in 1099. In 1187 Saladin, the Kurdish ruler of Egypt, conquered Jerusalem. In 1516 the land of Israel, known at this time as Palestine, was taken over by the Ottoman Turks, who ruled for four hundred years. In 1799 Napoleon unsuccessfully attempted to take the territory, but did not succeed.
The first modern Jewish settlement in Palestine was established in 1870, and was followed at the end of the nineteenth century by others, as Jews fled pogroms in Russia and Poland. In 1897 the First Zionist Conference was held in Basel, Switzerland, and under the initiative of the Hungarian Jew Theodor Herzl, the Zionist movement began its mission to create a Jewish homeland in the territory from which the Jews had been expelled nearly two thousand years earlier.
The Balfour Declaration, issued by Britain in 1917, expressed support for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. The British used a 1920 mandate from the League of Nations as license to rule the area for the ensuing decades, during which time they kept control by feeding the animosity between Palestinian Arabs and Jewish settlers. The British also restricted Jewish immigration to the region, even by Jews who were experiencing persecution at the hands of the Russians, and later the Nazis. The Arabs attempted unsuccessfully to revolt against the British from 1936 to 1938; tensions between Arabs and Jews also escalated, and there were several anti-Jewish riots.
From the time Hitler came to power in 1933 until the beginning of World War II in 1939, a large number of German Jews managed to immigrate to Palestine despite British restrictions, fleeing the increasingly oppressive regime. Between 1939 and 1945 more than six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, a horror that gave new impetus to the movement to form a Jewish state and that caused European nations to recognize the legitimacy of such a claim.
In Palestine, a truce with the British lasted through World War II, but when the war ended, violence again increased, both between Jews and Arabs and against the British. In 1947 the United Nations voted to partition Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. The Palestinians rejected this plan.
On 14 May 1948, when Israel proclaimed its independence, the declaration was met by an invasion on behalf of the Palestinians by the armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. The war that followed lasted until the Arab defeat in January 1949. A mass immigration of Jews from Europe and Arab countries took place over the first few years after the state's founding, and the economy grew. While some Palestinians chose to take up Israeli citizenship, many others immigrated to the primarily Arab West Bank and Gaza Strip, or sought refuge in other Arab nations.
When Egypt took control of the Suez Canal from France and Britain in 1956, Israel, fearing the increase in power of their unfriendly neighbor, staged an attack in Egypt's Sinai Desert. Several days later, Britain and France joined the offensive. The United Nations sent peacekeepers, who stayed in the region until 1967. When they pulled out, Egypt sent its military back into the Sinai, obstructing the southern Israeli port of Eilat. Israel responded by attacking on 5 June. Syria, Jordan, and Iraq came to Egypt's defense, but all four nations were defeated. The Six-Day War, as it came to be known, won Israel not just the Sinai but the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights as well. It also resulted in a Jewish occupation of the West Bank and a reunited Jerusalem. (The city had been partitioned earlier between the Jews and the Arabs.)
The Arab League vowed that the situation would not rest and proceeded to put Israel in a state of siege. Arab terrorists highjacked Israeli airplanes. They also killed Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. The following year, on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, Egypt and Syria mounted a surprise attack on Israel at the Suez and the Golan Heights. Israel managed to defeat the two armies, but the resulting situation was far from stable. In 1977 Egyptian president Anwar Sadat went to Jerusalem to talk with Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, and in the following year U.S. president Jimmy Carter helped to broker the Camp David Accords. Sadat and Begin shared the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts at reconciliation, and an official peace treaty was signed in 1979 in Paris.
In 1982 Israel agreed to give up the Sinai, but it also invaded Lebanon, to leave its northern settlements less vulnerable to Palestinian attacks. However, by 1985, Israel had limited its presence to a security strip along the border.
The Palestinian uprising called the Intifadah began in 1987. Palestinians threw rocks at Israeli soldiers occupying the Gaza Strip and the West Bank; the Israelis retaliated, and the violence escalated, ultimately resulting in hundreds of deaths. Israel proposed a peace initiative in 1989. This same year saw the beginning of a mass immigration by Soviet Jews.
The first peace talks between Israel and Palestinian Arabs, represented by Yasser Arafat of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), were held in Madrid in October 1991. The resulting agreement gave the Palestinians responsibility for the Gaza Strip and Jericho.
In 1993 another round of peace talks, between Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Arafat, resulted in further compromise, including Israel handing over most of the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). By moving in this direction, the agreements presumed eventual statehood for the Palestinians. Other deals included resolving the issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, as well as

A Sephardic family celebrates the Jewish festival of Passover by sharing a picnic in West Jerusalem. the status of Jerusalem. Arafat was to confiscate illegal arms from Palestinians, and both sides were to protect and preserve access to holy sites. These agreements, known as the Oslo Accords (after the city where the first secret rounds of talks were held), were seen as momentous steps in the peace process, and concluded at Camp David with a historic handshake between Arafat and Rabin.
Israel went on to sign a peace agreement with Jordan in 1994, and to begin talks with Syria as well. However, despite progress at the upper echelons, violence continued. In 1995 Israeli prime minister Rabin was assassinated at a peace rally in Tel Aviv. The killer was an ultraconservative Jew who was angered by what he saw as Rabin's overly conciliatory stance toward the Palestinians.
In October 1998 a conference at the Wye River in Maryland resulted in an agreement by the PLO to get rid of its terrorist groups, to confiscate illegal weapons, and to imprison their own terrorists, in exchange for more land on the West Bank. The meetings also resulted in the creation of a U.S.-Palestinian-Israeli committee, to convene several times a month to prevent terrorism and assess the state of affairs. These meetings had some degree of success, and the incremental progress appeared promising. In September 2000, violence again broke out. The fragile peace established by the Oslo Accords crumbled. By the end of November more than 280 people had been killed, most of them Palestinian, with no end to the conflict in sight.
National Identity. National identity for Israelis is to a large extent bound up with their identity as Jews. For the more devout, national identity takes on a spiritual element, in which the observance of religious ritual becomes an expression of national pride. However, there are also a large number of secular Jews in Israel, for whom Judaism is more a cultural and ethnic identity than a spiritual practice. Many Palestinians living in Israel do not identify as Israelis at all, but rather with the displaced Palestinian nation (and with the rest of the Arab world as well). Much of their national identity is also based on both religious and cultural elements of the Muslim faith.
Ethnic Relations. Relations between Jews and Arabs are extremely antagonistic. Each side sees the other as the aggressor. Palestinians resent the fact that the Jews took over their homeland, and that they have exercised their far superior military technology to maintain it, whereas the Jews feel that they are making a claim to land that is rightfully theirs, and from which they have been exiled for thousands of years. Palestinians have often resorted to terrorist action, which further aggravates the situation. Atrocities have been committed on both sides of the divide, and there is little sign of reconciliation in the near future.
Relations within the Jewish community itself also have been problematic. Many of the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox oppose any compromise with the Palestinians and want the state to follow a more strictly religious line. They do not consider more Reform or Conservative Jews Jewish, because these more liberal branches do not strictly follow all the religious laws.
Urbanism, Architecture, and the Use of Space
Ninety percent of Israel's population is urban. Jerusalem is the capital and largest city, with a population of 602,100. It is in the center of the country, straddling the border between Israel and the West Bank. The city has been continuously settled for more than three thousand years and is home to many sites of historical and religious significance for Jews, Christians, and Muslims. These include the Dome of the Rock, the Wailing Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Tomb of the Virgin Mary, among others. The Old City is divided into quarters: Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Armenian. Outside the walls of this oldest district, the city sprawls in neighborhoods containing residential zones, parks, museums, and government buildings.
Tel Aviv is a more modern city, and the commercial and industrial capital of the country. It is in fact a combination of two cities, Tel Aviv and Jaffa. Jaffa's history dates back to biblical times, whereas Tel Aviv was founded in 1909 by European Jewish immigrants. The third-largest city in the country is Haifa, in the north. It is the country's main port and also is an industrial center.
Israel's architecture is diverse, spanning many centuries and styles. There is a good deal of Islamic architecture, most of which dates from 1250 to 1517. Today most Israelis live in modern high-rise apartments, which are overseen by committees elected by the inhabitants of the building. Some Jewish settlers in Palestinian territory, and many Palestinians themselves, live in shacks, unfinished houses, or other modest dwellings.
Food and Economy
Read more about the Food and Cuisine of Israel.
Food in Daily Life. Falafel , ground chickpeas mixed with onions and spices formed into balls and fried, are served in pita bread as a sandwich. Other popular dishes include tabuleh (a salad of bulgar wheat and chopped vegetables), hummus (chickpea paste), grilled meats, and eggplant. Cumin, mint, garlic, onion, and black pepper are used for flavoring. Baklava is a popular dessert of Arabic origin and consists of flaky dough layered with honey and nuts. Coffee is often prepared in the Turkish style, extremely strong and thick and served in small cups.
Jews are bound by a set of dietary laws called kashrut , which, among other restrictions, forbid the consumption of pork and shellfish, as well as the consumption of both meat and milk products at the same meal. Not all Israelis observe these rules, but many restaurants do.
Food Customs at Ceremonial Occasions. Food plays an important role in nearly all Jewish celebrations. The Sabbath, observed on Saturday, is ushered in on Friday evening with a family meal including an egg bread called challah. At the Jewish New Year the challah is baked in a circle, symbolizing the cyclical nature of life. Apples and honey also are eaten, symbolizing the wish for a sweet new year. Hamentaschen are traditionally served at Purim, the celebration of Queen Esther's triumph over the evil Haman, who was trying to annihilate the Jewish people. These are cookies filled with lekvar (prune preserves) and baked in the shape of a triangle. Some believe hamentaschen symbolizes the tricornered hat of Haman; others think it is his pockets, and still others think it represents his ears, which were clipped as a sign of shame. During Passover, Jews abstain from eating all leavened foods (bread, pasta, etc.). Instead they eat matzoh ,a flat, crackerlike bread. This is in memory of the Exodus from Israel, when the Jews could not wait for their bread to rise, and so carried it on their backs to bake in the sun. Passover also is observed with a ritual meal called a seder. Four glasses of wine, representing God's four promises to Israel ("I will bring you out of Egypt;" "I will deliver you;" "I will redeem you;" and "I will take you to be my people"), are drunk throughout the evening. Other symbolic foods at the occasion include boiled eggs (symbolizing new life) and charosis (a mixture of apples and walnuts, representing the mortar the Jews used as slaves). On Shavuot in the late spring, dairy-based treats are served. Because cooking is forbidden on the Sabbath, a traditional Saturday meal is cholent , a thick stew that is left in the oven to simmer overnight.
Basic Economy. Israel's economy was originally based on a socialist model, in which the Histadrut

People voting in an election. Israel is a parlimentary democracy, divided into six administrative districts. trade union was the most powerful organization, controlling most of agriculture, industry, and health care. However, in the past few decades, Histadrut's power has been diluted as the country has adopted more capitalist policies. The economy today is based largely on advanced technology. Its high-tech firms play an important role in the global economy, and foreign investment in these firms is abundant. Despite its limited natural resources, the country has become nearly self-sufficient in food production (with the exception of grains). Still, agriculture accounts for only 2 percent of the GDP and employs roughly 2 percent of the labor force. Services account for 81 percent and industry for 17 percent. The Israeli economy grew significantly during the 1990s, thanks to an influx of skilled immigrants and growth in the technology sector. While 2000 was the most financially successful year in Israel's history, gains in prosperity, and particularly foreign investments, feel somewhat tenuous after the recent outbreaks of violence.
Land Tenure and Property. Some land is privately owned and some is public property. Israel also has a system of kibbutzim (singular: kibbutz ), cooperative farms in which property is collectively owned. Residents share chores, and instead of a salary receive housing, medical care, education, and other necessities. There are also moshav , farming communities in which each family owns its own house and is responsible for its own land, but in which other functions, such as selling their products, are done collectively.
Commercial Activities. Israel produces a variety of agricultural goods, including meat and dairy products, vegetables, citrus, and other fruits. Computer industries and technology account for a large amount of the nation's commercial activity. Tourism is another important sector. Israel draws roughly two million tourists each year, with its historical and religious sites as well as resorts and health spas near the Dead Sea.
Major Industries. Israel has a variety of industries, including food processing, textiles, diamond cutting and polishing, metal products, military equipment, high-technology electronics, and tourism.
Trade. The main exports are machinery and equipment, software, cut diamonds, textiles, and agricultural products. These go primarily to the United States, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, the Benelux countries, and Japan. Israel imports raw materials, military equipment, rough diamonds, fuel, and consumer goods from the United States, the Benelux countries, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
Division of Labor. Palestinian Israelis generally do not have access to as good an education as Israeli Jews and therefore are more likely to occupy less skilled and poorly paid positions. Immigrants as well, even highly educated ones, often are forced to take jobs of a low status, and many are unemployed.
Social Stratification
Classes and Castes. Israel is not highly stratified economically; most people have a similarly comfortable standard of living. However, the majority of the poor are Palestinian. Recent immigrants from Africa and Eastern Europe also tend to be at a disadvantage economically.
Symbols of Social Stratification. Among Israeli Jews, clothing is often an indication of religious or political affiliation. Men wear yarmulkes , or skullcaps, for prayer; more observant men wear them at all times. Conservative Jewish men can be distinguished by their black hats, whereas liberal Jews wear white crocheted caps. In the strictest Orthodox communities, men dress all in black and wear peyes , long sidelocks. Women keep their heads covered; traditionally, after marriage, they shave their heads and wear wigs. Secular or less conservative Jews, who comprise the majority of the population, wear Western-style clothes. Many Arabs wear traditional Muslim dress, which for men is a turban or other headdress and long robes, and for women is a long robe that covers the head and the entire body.
Political Life
Government. Israel is a parliamentary democracy, divided into six administrative districts. There is no formal constitution; instead, there is the Declaration of Establishment, from 1948, the Basic Laws of the parliament ( Knesset ), and the Israel citizenship law. The head of government is the prime minister, elected by popular vote for a four-year term. The 120 members of the Knesset also are elected for four years. The Knesset selects the president, who serves as chief of state.
Leadership and Political Officials. There about twelve political parties represented in the Knesset, ranging from the far right wing to the far left, and many in between. The most powerful of the conservative parties is the fairly centrist Likud . The Labor Party is the liberal party with the most clout, and the one Palestinian Israelis tend to support. The Palestinian Liberation Organization, headed by Yassar Arafat, is the main political representation of Palestinians seeking the formation of a separate state. There also are several militant and terrorist organizations with this same objective, including Hamas and Hezbollah .
Social Problems and Control. The legal system is a combination of English common law and British mandate regulations. For personal matters, Jews, Muslims, and Christians are subject to separate jurisdictions.
The role of the police force is sometimes virtually interchangeable with that the army—for example, in the case of the border guards in the West Bank. The Palestinian National Authority has its own police and security forces, which have a record of human rights abuses. Palestinian civilians have a reputation for violence against Israeli soldiers and law-enforcement officers, who in turn have a reputation for responding brutally.
Military Activity. The military consists of the Israel Defense Forces (ground, naval, and air troops), the Pioneer Fighting Youth, the Frontier Guard, and Chen (composed of women). All citizens, men and women, are required to serve in the armed forces. For unmarried women, two years of active duty are required (not in combat); for men, a minimum of four years. Military expenditures total $8.7 billion annually, 9.4 percent of the GDP.
Social Welfare and Change Programs
Social welfare programs include pensions for the elderly, maternity insurance, workers' compensation, and allowances for large families. The government also provides assistance for recent immigrants, although these programs have been criticized for helping well-off immigrants at the expense of poorer native-born Israelis.
Nongovernmental Organizations and Other Associations
A number of nongovernmental Jewish organizations make considerable economic contributions to Israel, such as the international World Zionist Organization, which supports the immigration of Jews to Israel from around the world. Synagogues in the United States and Europe also send aid and sponsor tree-planting drives. Israel also has a system of "national institutions," which are not part of the government but function alongside it in the

A Torah scribe works with his son. Judaism is the official Israeli religion, and the Torah is the most sacred text. realms of social welfare services, education, and culture.
Gender Roles and Statuses
Division of Labor by Gender. Women are well represented in many fields, both traditional (teaching, nursing, child care), and nontraditional (law, politics, the military). Israel even elected a female prime minister, Golda Meir, who served from 1969 to 1974. Some strides toward equality have been reversed; while it used to be a hallmark of kibbutzim that labor was divided without respect to gender, today women are more likely to be found in the kitchen and in child care facilities. Women, like men, are required to serve in the armed forces, and during the war for independence fought in the front lines alongside men. Today women are not permitted combat. Instead they are mostly confined to adminstration and education, and usually do not achieve high-ranking positions.
The Relative Status of Women and Men. In the Orthodox tradition, women and men live very separate lives. Women are considered inferior, and are excluded from many traditional activities. However, most of Israeli society is more progressive, and women are generally accorded equal status to men, both legally and socially. (The main exception to this is the divorce law.)
Marriage, Family, and Kinship
Marriage. Traditionally, in both Arab and Jewish societies, marriages were often arranged, but that is uncommon nowadays. However, there are powerful social taboos against intermarriage, and it is illegal for a Jew to marry a non-Jew in Israel. Those wishing to do so must go abroad for the ceremony. Even within the Jewish community, it is unusual for a very observant Jew to marry someone secular. Divorce is legal, but Orthodox Jewish law applies. According to this statute, men have the power to prevent their ex-wives from remarrying. If the woman enters into another relationship, the courts refuse to recognize it, and any children from such a union are considered illegitimate and themselves cannot marry in the State of Israel.
Domestic Unit. The most common family unit consists of a nuclear family. In more traditional families, grandparents are sometimes included in this. In the original kibbutz system, the living arrangements were different. Husband and wife lived in separate quarters from their children, who were housed with the other young people. Some kibbutzim still operate in this way, but it is now more common for children to live with their parents, although their days are still spent separately.
Socialization
Infant Care. Babies are generally adored and showered with affection. The extended family plays an important role in helping to raise the baby, but the mother generally takes primary responsibility. Jewish boys are circumcised eight days after birth in a religious ceremony called a bris.
Child Rearing and Education. In most of Israeli society, children are raised in the setting of a nuclear family. However, collective child care is common, especially for mothers who work outside the home. In kibbutzim, they stay separately from their parents, and usually see them only at night or on weekends. Children are generally indulged and are not strictly disciplined.
In the Arab tradition, boys and girls are raised separately. They have different responsibilities at home, where girls are expected to help much more with domestic chores. The schools are also usually gender-segregated.
Education is mandatory from the ages five through fifteen. The state runs both religious and nonreligious schools; 70 percent of children attend the nonreligious ones. There is a separate education system for Arab children, where the language of instruction is Arabic. The quality of education in these schools is often lower due to a relative unavailability of teachers and poor resources, and they have at times been subject to closings due to violence and political instability. Arab schools receive some funding from the government, as well as from religious institutions. There are three types of high schools: academic, vocational, and agricultural.
Higher Education. Israel has seven universities. Entrance standards are high, and students must pass a national exam before being admitted. The oldest and most prestigious of these is Hebrew University in Jerusalem, which also has one of the strongest medical schools in the Middle East. Ben-Gurion University, in Beersheba, specializes in natural conservation, and Technion in Haifa focuses on science and engineering. The Weizmann Institute in Rehovot supports postgraduate study. There also are vocational, agricultural, and teacher training institutes. Yeshivot are religious academies (generally not open to women) that train future rabbis and Jewish scholars.
Etiquette
Israelis are very informal in social interactions. Their standards would, in many other countries, be considered rude. For example, store clerks do not act at all solicitous or even acknowledge a customer's presence until the customer approaches. "Please" and "thank you" are not uttered lightly. Despite this apparent brusqueness, touching and eye contact are common in social interactions.
Religious etiquette dictates that women dress conservatively when visiting holy sites (shorts are not acceptable for either gender) and that men cover their heads with a yarmulke.
Arabs are physically affectionate people, but in Arab society, men and women are often separated socially and there is less physical contact between men and women in public. It is customary to remove one's shoes before entering an Arab household.
Religion
Religious Beliefs. Judaism is the official religion. Eighty percent of the population are Jewish, 15 percent are Muslim, and 4 percent are Christian or Druze. Jews believe in the Hebrew Bible, or Tenakh, which corresponds to the Christian Old Testament. The most sacred text is the Torah, or the five books of Moses. The Bible is seen as both historical record and religious law. Different communities follow the Holy Book with varying degrees of literalness. The strictest are the ultra-Orthodox, who believe that the Scriptures were physically handed down from God. There are also Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist congregations, who interpret the law more leniently, and who allow women more of a role in the religion. There also are different sects of Judaism, such as the Hasidim and the Lubbavicher.
There are five pillars of faith that Muslims follow. They are: a declaration of faith in Allah; praying five times a day; giving alms to the poor; fasting from sunrise to sundown during the holy month of Ramadan; and making a pilgrimage at some point in one's life to the holy city of Mecca.
Religious Practitioners. Rabbis are the religious leaders of the Jewish community. They are ordained in Jewish law, and often are scholars in addition to delivering sermons and offering spiritual guidance. The Chief Rabbinate is a body of rabbis who make the religious laws to which Israeli Jews are subject.

An overview of Haifa and the bay area, in 1989.
The main religious figures in the Muslim community are muezzins, who are scholars of the Koran and sound the call to prayer from mosques.
Rituals and Holy Places. Jews worship in synagogues. In the most traditional, men sit in the front and women in the back, separated by a partition, or in a balcony. There are a number of places in Israel, in Jerusalem in particular, that have religious significance to Jews, Muslims, and Christians. The Dome of the Rock is an ancient Muslim shrine. Christians often make pilgrimages to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, also in Jerusalem. The Wailing Wall, the remains of the Temple destroyed by the Romans in 70 C.E. , is a sacred spot for Jews. There is a separate section of the wall for men and women. People often write their prayers on pieces of paper and slip them in cracks between the stones. The Jewish New Year, called Rosh Hashana, falls in September or October. Jews attend synagogue for two days and listen to readings from the Torah. The ten days following Rosh Hashana are known as the Days of Awe, a period of reflection and penitence. This culminates in Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and the holiest day of the year. Jews fast from sundown to sundown and attend synagogue, where they repent for their sins and ask God to be inscribed in the Book of Life for another year. Sukkot, the harvest festival, is later in the fall. Hanukkah, which falls in December, is an eight-day holiday celebrating the victory of the Maccabees over the Greeks in C.E. 165. Purim, in the spring, celebrates Queen Esther's outsmarting Haman, who wished to kill the Jewish people. Passover, which falls later in the spring, remembers Jewish liberation from slavery in Egypt.
The bar mitzvah (for boys) or bat mitzvah (for girls) is an important coming-of-age ceremony in Judaism. Children study for years to prepare for the event that occurs when they turn thirteen. They are called to read from the Torah before the congregation; the service is followed by a party with food and dancing.
Death and the Afterlife. Judaism focuses more on the here and now, rather than the concept of an afterlife. A death is followed by a mourning period of seven days, a process called sitting shiva , during which friends and relatives pay visits to the family of the deceased and bring food. Mourners dress in black, sit on low stools, and recite prayers. Another traditional practice is for mourners to tear their clothes; today they generally rip only the lapel of their shirts. When visiting a Jewish cemetery, it is customary to place a stone on the gravestone in memory of the deceased.

Making the desert bloom in the arid Jordan Valley, kibbutz members prepare the ground for planting winter crops.
Medicine and Health Care
Israel has a well-developed health care system. It has one of the highest ratios of doctors to general population in the world. Since independence, sanitation has improved, and the rate of infectious diseases has decreased. Histadrut, the labor federation, runs Kupat Cholim, or Sick Fund, which provides health care to members through regional hospitals and local clinics. The Ministry of Health provides for those who do not receive care from a sick fund. In general, Jews receive better health care than Arabs. The life expectancy is longer for Jews, and the infant mortality rate is significantly lower.
Secular Celebrations
Noted here are the more secular Israeli holidays, but virtually all celebrations and commemorative occasions have some religious significance. The dates of these holidays vary from year to year, because the Jewish calendar does not correspond to the Gregorian: Holocaust Memorial Day, April/May; Memorial Day, April/May; Independence Day, April/May; Jerusalem Day, May/June; National Day (Palestinian), November.
The Arts and Humanities
Support for the Arts. The government founded the magazine Ariel to promote literary endeavors. The publication now has a web page as well. There is a national drama company, Habima, as well as dance troupes, a national orchestra, and museums and galleries, including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tel Aviv and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
Literature. Israel has a varied literary scene. Many of its writers have come to the country from abroad, including Zbigniew Herbert from Poland, Vasko Popa from Yugoslavia, and Robert Friend from the United States. The Israeli writer Shmuel Yosef Agnon, a German who immigrated to Israel in 1913, won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1966. The poet Arnon Levy, who was born in Jerusalem, has also gained international recognition, as has Yehuda Amichai, whose verses have been translated into a variety of languages. Amos Oz is perhaps the best-known Israeli writer internationally. Both his novels and his nonfiction have been translated into a number of languages.
Graphic Arts. Contemporary painting and sculpture are alive and well in Israel. The Israeli style is highly influenced by European art, but much of it deals explicitly with Jewish themes and issues. Israeli artists who have gained international acclaim include the painters Ya'akov Agam, Menashe Kadishman, Avigdor Arikha, and the sculptors Dany Karavan and Ygael Tumarkin.
Ritual Jewish art includes beautifully crafted menorahs (candelabra), wine cups, candlesticks, tallilot (prayer shawls), and other ceremonial objects.
Performance Arts. Israel has a well-known philharmonic orchestra. The country has produced such classical music stars as violinist Yitzhak Perlman and pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim. The Leonard Bernstein International Music Competition in Jerusalem gives annual awards in classical music. Pop music and rock and roll also have a large following, particularly in Tel Aviv, where local stars such as Ofra Haza, Ilanit, and Shalom Hanoch perform to enthusiastic audiences. Klezmer , a form of Jewish music that originated in Eastern Europe during the seventeenth century, is a raucous blend of drums, violins, clarinets, keyboards, and tambourines that is common at wedding celebrations.
The Israel Ballet Company is world-famous. There are several modern dance troupes as well, most notably Inbal, Batsheeva, and Bat Dor. Israeli choreographer Ohad Nahrin is well known in the dance world. Israel also has a lively tradition of folk dances, which are performed by professional troupes and at occasions such as weddings. The hora , a circle dance, is one of the most commonly performed.
Theater also is popular in Israel. Jewish theater is traditionally highly melodramatic, although many contemporary productions adopt many Western theatrical conventions and social issues. There are companies that stage productions in Russian and English as well as in Hebrew and Arabic. The film industry, also thriving, is best known for its documentaries, including Yaakov Gross's Pioneers of Zion , produced in 1995, and Toward Jerusalem , Ruth Beckermann's 1992 production.
The State of the Physical and Social Sciences
The country's scientific and technological progress has been aided in recent years by an influx of well-educated immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Israeli scientists have made contributions in electronics, nuclear and solar power, and computer hardware and software, as well as in weapons-related technology. Cutting-edge firms have developed wireless and cellular telephone technology, as well as new applications for the Internet. Read more: Culture of Israel - history, people, clothing, traditions, women, beliefs, food, customs, family http://www.everyculture.com/Ge-It/Israel.html#ixzz1bL88mJYl

CULTURE OF NETHERLANDS

The English word "Dutch" derives from the German deutsch ("German"). "Dutch" referred originally to both Germany and the Netherlands but came to be restricted to the people and language of the Netherlands when that country became independent in the seventeenth century. "Holland" and "the Netherlands" often are used as synonyms even though "Holland" refers only to the provinces North and South Holland.
The Dutch distinguish between two major cultural subdivisions in their nation. The most important distinction is between the Randstad (Rim City) and non-Randstad cultures. Randstad culture is distinctly urban, located in the provinces of North Holland, South Holland, and Utrecht. The non-Randstad culture corresponds to the historical divide between the predominantly Protestant north and the Catholic south, separated by the Rhine River.
Significant local variations of Dutch culture include the Friesian culture in the extreme north and the Brabant and Limburg cultures in the south. The southern culture was subject to discriminatory policies until the nineteenth century. The Friesians prize their language and descent from the ancient Friesian people, while the Limburgers and Brabantines emphasize their southern culture and Catholic heritage.
The Netherlands has for centuries provided a safe haven for ethnic minorities fleeing from discrimination and persecution, with each minority influencing Dutch culture in its own way. Many Jews from Spain and Portugal and Protestant merchants from the Spanish-ruled southern Netherlands sought refuge in the Dutch Republic in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The twentieth century was characterized by the influx of guest workers from the Mediterranean, migrants from the former Dutch colonies, and refugees from war-torn countries.
The Netherlands does not have a strong uniform national culture. Most Dutch people reject the notion and consider it to be tainted with an unacceptable form of nationalism. Instead, they emphasize the country's cultural diversity, tolerance of difference, and receptiveness to foreign influences. Nevertheless, the Randstad culture has been hegemonic in the Netherlands because of the concentration of political, economic, and cultural power in that densely populated region.
Location and Geography. The Netherlands is situated in northwestern Europe and borders on Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North sea to the west and north. The name "Netherlands" means "Low Lands" in reference to the nation's topography as an alluvial plain. Differences in altitude are minimal. Almost one-quarter of the landmass is below sea level, protected from the encroaching sea by dikes and dunes. The Netherlands is also a relatively small country (13,297 square miles [34,425 square kilometers]) without surface water.
The Netherlands is divided in twelve provinces. Amsterdam (730,000 inhabitants) is the capital, but the government meets in The Hague (440,000 inhabitants). Utrecht (235,000 inhabitants) is the transportation hub, while the port city of Rotterdam (590,000 inhabitants) constitutes the economic heartland. These four cities together with a string of interconnected towns, form the Randstad, which has a population of 6,100,000.

The Netherlands
Demography. The Netherlands had a population of 15,898,331 in 2000. It is the most densely populated country in Europe (1,196 inhabitants per square mile [462 per square kilometer] in 1996). There are 2,700,000 foreign residents. The majority, approximately 780,000, originate from the European Union, including 432,000 Germans. Other sizable groups are Surinamese (297,000), Turks (300,000), Moroccans (252,000), and Antilleans (99,000).
The average life expectancy in 1996 was 75.2 years for men and 80.7 years for women, while the infant mortality rate was 5.1 per 1,000.
Linguistic Affiliation. The official language of the Netherlands is Standard Dutch. This language is used in all official matters, by the media, and at schools and universities. Dutch closely resembles German in both syntax and spelling. It freely borrows words and technical terms from French and especially English.
Dutch is also the official language in Flandres, Belgium, where it is called Flemish. Creole languages are increasingly replacing Dutch in Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles as decolonization progresses. Afrikaans, which is widely spoken in South Africa, is related to Dutch. Friesian is the second official language of the Netherlands; it is spoken by a half million Friesians. In addition, there are about twenty-five major dialects of Dutch.
Symbolism. The display of the national flag and the singing of the national anthem are important expressions of identity for a decreasing number of citizens. The flag consists of three horizontal strips in the colors red, white, and blue. The national anthem is the Wilhelmus . It was a rebel song during the independence war against Spain and was adopted as the national anthem in 1932.
The complex relationship of the Dutch people with the sea is notable. The sea has historically been both adversary and ally. The Dutch used to repel foreign invaders by deliberately piercing river dikes. However, if not for the extensive waterworks, 65 percent of the Netherlands would be flooded permanently. The Dutch take great pride in their struggle against the sea and reclaiming of land, which they view as mastery over nature.
Another source of national pride that sets aside regional and religious differences is sports, especially soccer and speed skating. Whenever the national team engages in international competitions, orangemania reigns. People dress in orange (in reference to the name of the royal family), raise national and orange flags, and decorate houses and streets as a patriotic feeling of athletic superiority floods the nation. The Elfstedentocht ("Eleven-City Tour") also raises national awareness. This speed-skating event in Friesland occurs only occasionally as it takes a prolonged period of frost to harden the 125 miles of lakes and canals that connect the eleven Friesian towns.
The clearest example of national symbolism is the Dutch royal family. The queen is regarded as the embodiment of the Dutch (nation) and a symbol of hope and unity in times of war, adversity, and natural disaster. Her popularity is manifested annually at the celebration of Queensday on 30 April. The capital, Amsterdam, in particular, is transformed into a gigantic flea market and open-air festival.
The 1940–1945 occupation by Nazi Germany provides a continued source of national identity. There are more than eight hundred World War II monuments and memorials, and the Dutch people still use the war years as the most important historical point of reference. The conflation of Jewish and non-Jewish Dutch suffering is a striking characteristic of national remembrance. The Dutch pride themselves on their fierce resistance to the Nazi regime and their sheltering of 25,000 Jewish and 300,000 non-Jewish Dutch, but there also was extensive collaboration with the Nazis. More than a hundred thousand Jews were deported to concentration camps. Anne Frank symbolizes this deeply ambiguous self-perception of the Dutch as victims, resisters, collaborators, and passive bystanders. The Frank family was harbored for two years by Dutch resisters before finally being betrayed by Dutch collaborators.
History and Ethnic Relations
Emergence of the Nation. Dutch national identity emerged during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, especially in the struggle for independence from Catholic Spain during the Eighty Year War (1568–1648). The Dutch people received independence from the House of Habsburg in the Treaty of Munster in 1648. The Netherlands was temporarily unified with Belgium after the Congress of Vienna. The Catholic Belgian elite sought its freedom from the Protestant Dutch, and Belgium became independent in 1839.
National Identity. Dutch national identity emerged from the struggle for political sovereignty and religious freedom from the Catholic Habsburgs (Philip II). The Dutch merchant class formed an alliance with the House of Orange; the merchants supplied the funds to wage war, while the House of Orange provided political stability and military protection. Politics became more dependent on consensus and negotiation than on authoritarian rule as power rested in the hands of provincial viceroys.
The rapid expansion of the Dutch merchant fleet enabled the establishment of a worldwide network of trade relations that created naval dominance and increasing wealth for the merchant class. Handicapped by a small population (670,000 inhabitants in 1622) and besieged by growing English and French might, the Dutch Republic began to decline. Paradoxically, at that time, the conspicuous consumption of the wealthy merchant class

A woman selling cheese at the market in Alkmaar. The Netherlands has an advanced free market economy. resulted in the so-called Golden Age. Stately canal houses were constructed in Amsterdam, and great works of art were commissioned.
The Netherlands was one of the poorest nations in northwestern Europe by 1750. In 1813, at the end of the French occupation (1795–1813), William I of the House of Orange-Nassau accepted the throne and became the first Dutch king. The Dutch nobility never had a position of prominence and influence in Dutch society. Only after constitutional reforms in 1851 did the nation begin its ascent to industrialization.
Rural–urban migration and especially the establishment of male suffrage in 1887 undermined traditional ways of life in the eyes of some politicians. The Anti-Revolutionary Party was founded in 1878 to reverse that trend. That party advocated autonomy for different political and religious communities. Its initiative resulted in the early twentieth century in a process of vertical segmentation or pluralism known as pillarization. Pillarization meant that each substantial subsection of the Dutch population was able to participate in social institutions and organizations (labor unions, schools, universities, political parties, social clubs, churches, newspapers, and radio stations) that catered to its specific needs. The four main pillars where Catholic, Protestant, socialist, and conservative. Intensive cooperation and negotiation between the pillars took place among national politicians. Secularization and emancipation in the late 1960s resulted in depillarization because of a greater vertical social mobility, growing intermarriage, and a declining identification with each of the four pillars.
A strong self-conscious national identity did not develop in the Netherlands because of these centrifugal historical processes, and this denial of a national identity became a hallmark of Dutch culture. Religious, cultural, and ethnic diversity are considered the essence of Dutch culture. The persistence of sizable religious and regional minorities and the decentralization of administrative power have allowed cultural diversity to survive. In the absence of a countrywide shared identity, the hegemonic Randstad culture has provided most of the markers of national identity.
Ethnic Relations. There is not much debate about racism or ethnic discrimination among the Dutch people, probably because of their self-ascribed tolerance. Nevertheless, the socioeconomic position of most non-European minorities is far worse than that of the indigenous population. The status of immigrant groups after World War II depended mainly on the moment and condition of their entry. Dutch-speaking Indonesians arrived at the height of the postwar economic upswing after Indonesia's independence in 1950. The Indonesians had ample time to secure a stable position in Dutch society. By contrast, the Mediterranean guest workers who arrived in the late 1960s and early 1970s regarded themselves and were viewed by the Dutch authorities as temporary residents and therefore did not familiarize themselves with Dutch culture. Guest workers were recruited principally from Spain and Italy and later from Turkey and Morocco. Those workers performed unskilled labor in the industry and service sectors. Many Dutch-speaking Surinamese arrived after Suriname became independent in 1975. Those immigrants and the poorly educated Turkish and Moroccan labor migrants were among the first to suffer from the economic decline of the 1970s. The position of the Surinamese improved during the 1980s and 1990s, but the Turks and Moroccans remained the most disadvantaged ethnic groups in Dutch society. Local residents of the Netherlands Antilles have been migrating to the Netherlands since the mid-1970s in search of work and schooling. The 1990s was marked by the immigration of substantial groups of refugees from west Africa, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and the Balkans.
Urbanism,Architecture, and the Use of Space
Dutch cities are extremely compact and densely populated. Government intervention ensures that intercity areas are well kept and that ethnic ghettos and industrial wastelands do not emerge. The major cities are constantly subject to urban renewal projects. Much attention is given to fostering a sense of community by creating public places, such as parks and squares with benches and playgrounds. The country has an intricate network of railroads and an even denser web of bicycle paths.
Early Dutch architecture was influenced by a Calvinist ethos of uniformity and sobriety. This distinct style emerged after the Netherlands separated from Spain in 1581. Unlike their contemporaries in France and Great Britain, wealthy Dutch merchants built fairly modest yet stately canal houses in Amsterdam. Dutch cities lack the grandeur and flamboyance of Paris and London because the government meets in inconspicuous buildings.
Contemporary Dutch architecture is more cosmopolitan. The expressionist Amsterdam School and the cubist Stijl architects of the 1920s were inspired by international art movements. Modernism became the principal style of the post-World War II housing boom. The city center of Rotterdam is a typical example. Largely destroyed in World War II, the heart of this port city was rebuilt in an American style with steel and glass skyscrapers. At the end of the twentieth century, the Randstad cities began developing postmodern suburban business parks and indoor shopping malls.
The Dutch have a desire for spatial organization that is informed by Calvinist assumptions about order as a synonym for cleanliness and sinlessness. The Calvinist sense of space can be seen clearly from the air. The land is carefully divided in Mondrian-like squares and rectangles. In part, this is related to surface water management with its need for canals and dikes, but it also reflects the Dutch desire for order and uniformity. This can be seen most clearly in the undistinguished suburban housing development projects.
Dutch houses are relatively small and have prominent front doors and large windows. Homes are stacked with formidable amounts of furniture, indoor plants, and flowers. Dutch interiors are a reflection of the outside world, congested but orderly and clean.
Food and Economy
Food in Daily Life. The Netherlands does not have a distinct culinary culture because of its Protestant ethnic and the absence of a strong culinary tradition at the court due to an emphasis on Calvinist soberness. Food is seen as a necessary part of life, with no need for luxury. Traditional foods include pea soup, kale stew, hotchpotch (a thick stew), white asparagus, French fries with mayonnaise, meat croquets, and raw herring. In the morning, the Dutch consume several sandwiches with cheese, peanut butter, or chocolate sprinkles. Lunch consists of sandwiches, often with cold cuts and perhaps a small salad on the side. Dinner, which generally is served between five and seven P.M. , is a twoor three-course meal that often begins with soup. The main dish usually contains a mixture of potatoes with vegetables and meat, fish, or poultry and is followed by dessert. Chinese–Indonesian, Surinamese, and Italian food have become part of the Dutch diet.
Food Customs at Ceremonial Occasions. The Dutch hardly ever invite people with whom they are not closely acquainted for dinner. Instead, coffee has a strong social significance. Neighbors often invite each other over for a cup of coffee with the invariable one cookie, and the morning coffee break at work is a sacred institution. Coffee-drinking

A drawbridge over a canal in Haarlem. Dutch cities are compact and densely populated. rituals reveal the core meaning of the crucial Dutch word gezelligheid ("cozy," "sociable," or "pleasant").
Basic Economy. The Netherlands has an advanced free market economy. The Dutch pride themselves on having an economy that performs smoothly, known as the polder model, which hinges on periodic negotiations among labor unions, employers' associations, and the government to control wage scales and taxes. The labor force consisted of 7,097,000 persons in 1999; the unemployed numbered 292,000. The annual gross national product (GNP) amounted to 323 billion euros ($373 billion) in 1997. Imports totaled about 55 percent of GNP; and exports totaled 61 percent. The average income after taxes is 20,000 euros ($23,160). The Netherlands never had a major wave of industrialization but remained firmly oriented toward agriculture, trade, and service industries. Two percent of the Dutch population are employed in the highly mechanized agricultural sector (which includes the fishing industry), 24 percent are employed in the industrial sector, and 74 percent work in service industries.
Trade. Dutch exports can be divided into five main categories: agricultural products, 15 percent; natural or enriched fuels, 6 percent; chemical products, 17 percent; industrial products, 12 percent; and machinery, 24 percent. Germany is the principal trading partner. Two-thirds of Dutch exports go to five nations: Germany, Belgium, France, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Those five trading partners account for 61 percent of Dutch imports.
Social Stratification
Classes and Castes. Differences in wealth are relatively small in comparison to many other countries because of progressive taxation and the redistribution of fiscal funds to the unemployed and occupationally inactive. This equality of income is clearly shown when Dutch households are subdivided into four separate income categories. The lowest quartile has an average income of 8,730 euros ($10,105) after taxes, whereas the highest quartile has an average income of 38,365 euros ($44,420). An open discussion of class, income, and status differences is more or less taboo in a society that strongly emphasizes equality. Although Dutch society in general is firmly middle class, an estimated 5 to 10 percent of the population lives at a subsistence level. This income polarization and the ensuing social segmentation began in the 1980s. Low-skilled workers, the unemployed, the disabled, the aged, and single-parent households have been

Two windmills in the Netherlands. hit hardest. Low-income households are concentrated in the Randstad cities and the two most northern provinces, Friesland and Groningen.
Symbols of Social Stratification. Class differences entail few visible signs of cultural differentiation, but those minor differences have a great symbolic value in creating social distinction. The most obvious differences can be observed in housing, consumption patterns, and community participation. Lower-class homes are small and tend to hold a large amount of furniture and decorative articles. Higher-class homes are more spacious and tend to hold less and often more sober furniture. The social participation of Dutch people does not depend entirely on class background, but higher-income households tend to have less involvement in community life than do low-income households. Lower class people are in general more rooted in community life and less restrained in contacts with neighbors and relatives.
Differences in clothing are relatively slight but important class markers. The Dutch dress with little eye for flamboyance. Even corporate dress codes are informal. Only the very rich and young urban professionals have a dress style that adheres to international clothing standards.
Speech patterns also may vary with class. Lower class people tend to speak in a local dialect, while the middle and upper classes speak Standard Dutch.
Political Life
Government. The Netherlands is a unitary state governed by a central body. The political system is a parliamentary democracy as well as a constitutional monarchy. The queen has little political influence; her role is largely symbolic. Political power lies in the hands of a cabinet of ministers headed by a prime minister. The cabinet is accountable to the parliament ( Staten-Generaal ), whose members are elected at four-year intervals. The Dutch Parliament consists of the First Chamber and the Second Chamber, which together constitute the legislative body. The Second Chamber initiates new legislation. Its members are directly elected by the people, who have had universal suffrage since 1919. The members of the Second Chamber are elected by proportional representation, which leads to a great number of political parties that together compete for 150 seats. The First Chamber either ratifies or rejects the new legislation proposed by the Second Chamber. Its members are elected by the members of the Provinciale Staten . Each of the twelve provinces has a local governing board ( Provinciale Staten ) whose chair is the commissioner to the queen, who is appointed by the government for a life term. Its members are elected by the inhabitants of the province. Each municipality has an elected council presided over by the mayor and elected aldermen. Commissioners and mayors are handpicked by the government for life terms.
Leadership and Political Officials. The main political parties are the PvdA (social democrats), VVD (conservatives), and CDA (Christian democrats). These parties are supplemented by a large number of smaller parties, ranging from socialist and nationalist to religious and green. Dutch cabinets are invariably coalitions of the major political parties. Open debate and negotiation toward consensus are part of Dutch political culture.
Most top level government positions are occupied by former members of the Second Chamber who have moved up in the party ranks. Most public functionaries at the ministries are career bureaucrats. Interactions between politicians and ordinary citizens are fairly limited, especially on the provincial and national levels. Only industrial associations, unions, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and political lobbies interact directly on political matters. These groups have a strong impact on political decision making.
Social Problems and Control. Traffic violations are the most common legal infraction. Violent crimes are low compared to other European countries and the United States; 273 murders were committed in 1996, amounting to 1.8 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. Dutch citizens worry mostly about muggings and burglaries. People hardly ever take the law into their own hands. There are very few neighborhood watches and no armed citizens' militias. The Netherlands has very strict gun control. Possession of small quantities of soft drugs (marijuana and hashish) is not prosecuted. The sale of soft drugs in so-called coffeeshops is not legal but is tolerated. The Netherlands has become a magnet for drug tourists because of its liberal stance toward drugs and its position as a major transport hub within Europe. The Netherlands has a great tolerance of prostitution. Randstad cities have red light districts in which women display themselves behind windows to potential customers.
Military Activity. The Dutch army was professionalized during the 1990s, when conscription was formally abolished. The defense budget declined substantially between 1989 and 1998 because of the end of the Cold War. In the absence of armed conflicts, the Dutch armed forces become only active during national disasters such as major floods and forest fires and in international peacekeeping operations under the auspices of the United Nations or NATO. Even though the Dutch hold the military in low esteem, their attitude toward peacekeeping missions is very positive.
Social Welfare and Change Programs
The modern Dutch welfare state, with its elaborate system of laws and regulations, came into existence after World War II. The current array of welfare laws is impossible to summarize, but the main assumption is that people are entitled to a sufficient income to satisfy their basic needs and should not be at the mercy of charity.
The welfare system was created to provide for the aged and as a temporary safety net for unemployed breadwinners. However, in the present post-industrial economic system, this system has become a permanent source of income for a large and stable group, and this has created increasing dependency on the state. High economic growth at the turn of the twentieth century, tax incentives, and government reeducation programs had rapidly reduced long-term unemployment to record lows. Unemployment benefits are sufficient to maintain the recipients at a minimum standard of living.
Nongovernmental Organizations and Other Associations
Nongovernmental organizations in the Netherlands consist mostly of charity funds and environmental and human rights organizations. Important organizations include Amnesty International, Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund, and Natuurmonumenten (an organization for the protection of the Dutch natural environment), which have a large middle and upper class following. They have a considerable impact on national politics. The Dutch contribute large sums to international disaster aid and consider themselves morally obliged to do so.
Gender Roles and Statuses
Division of Labor by Gender. Women constitute only 38 percent of the labor force and often work part-time. This low rate of participation has ideological and historical reasons. There is a prevailing belief that maternity care has great developmental benefits for children. Furthermore, the Dutch involvement in both world wars contributed to the

A worker cultivates the perfect rows of tulips growing in the Bollenstreek bulb-region of the Netherlands. late entry of women in the labor force. Unlike in Great Britain and Germany, where many men fought in the war, the Dutch did not enter World War I. The German occupation during World War II kept the male labor force largely intact in spite of the hundreds of thousands of forced laborers who were deported to Nazi Germany, and women thus were not needed to take the place of male workers. Dutch women only slowly started entering the labor force after the pillarization of society crumbled in the late 1960s. They still lag behind men in terms of income and job status. The average annual income of men was 26,410 euros ($30,580) before taxes in 1997 versus only 13,455 euros ($15,580) for women. Women are found mostly in low-paying service jobs such as nursing and cleaning.
The Relative Status of Women and Men. Although women and men are equal before the law and the trend toward gender equality has been noticeable, women and men still occupy distinct functions in Dutch society. The differences between men and women are especially noticeable within the nuclear family, where the woman continues to perform the role of homemaker, while the man is seen as the breadwinner or provider. This is especially true among working-class families. Women are underrepresented in leadership positions in politics and the economy.
Marriage,Family, and Kinship
Marriage. Dutch people are free to choose their spouses. The common basis for marriage is most often love. This does not mean that people marry independently of the constraints of class, ethnicity, and religion. The choice of a partner is often class-based. Monogamy is the only marriage form allowed. Many Dutch couples live in a consensual arrangement. Same-sex couples can marry and have the same rights as heterosexual couples.
The marriage ceremony may consist of two separate formal events: the municipal registration and a religious ceremony, with the latter being optional. The couple holds a wedding reception where friends and relatives gather to celebrate the nuptial engagement. Almost 45 percent of the Dutch population is married; about eighty thousand marriages are registered each year, while on average thirty thousand couples file for divorce.
Domestic Unit. The nuclear family is the most common household unit, although it is increasingly losing ground to single-parent families, couples without children, and single-person households. The principal authority in the household is generally the man, although there is a trend toward more equality of marriage partners. Extended family households are rare. Dutch couples have a neolocal postmarital residence pattern, as couples are free to choose where they live.
Kin Groups. The Dutch make a distinction between relatives by marriage and relatives by blood. Consanguineal relatives are considered more important than are affinal relatives. Solidarity and support (financial and emotional) are usually directed at the closest kin (parents, children, and siblings). This is also illustrated by prevailing inheritance patterns. Disinheritance is not permitted by law. Every child receives an equal share.
Socialization
Infant Care. The average nuclear family is relatively small, with only one or two children. Toddlers receive much parental attention. Many children are cared for primarily by their parents in the parental home. Infants usually are put in playpens, where parents can leave them without restraining their own movement around the house. Since in many families both parents are employed, children aged 6 weeks and up are often placed in a nursery when their parents are at work. Children often enter play groups at age 2 and at age 4 are officially required to attend primary school.
Child Rearing and Education. Dutch childrearing practices are permissive. Children are encouraged to discover their surroundings individually or with other children. Corporal punishment is disapproved of by most parents. Instead, parents reprimand misbehaving children verbally. Peer groups are important among Dutch adolescents. Teenagers have developed a wide array of subcultures in which to explore their identity such as punks, head-bangers, and in particular gabbers (Dutch slang for "mates") whose working-class members shave their heads, wear expensive training suits, and congregate at rave parties.
Higher Education. Dutch children are praised for successful performance at school. It is firmly believed that a good education and fluency in English are a sure road to success. Many children thus seek additional education after finishing high school. Approximately 70 percent of the adult population receives formal education after high school, and 20 percent of the adult population has received higher vocational training (HBO) or attended a university.
Etiquette
Most traits of Dutch etiquette resemble those of the rest of the Western world, but there are several distinguishing national codes of behavior. The Dutch either shake hands when they meet and depart or, in the case of women and closely acquainted men and women, kiss each other three times on the cheek.
The Dutch have a strong desire to order their time in agendas and on calendars. Dutch children are given their first agenda at primary school to write down scheduled lessons and homework. A full agenda signifies a full life. The Dutch are very punctual, and showing up even five minutes late is considered inappropriate. As a result, everything has to be done at fixed times: There is a time to work, a time to clean the house, a time to drink coffee, and a time to visit friends.
The Dutch do not line up and show almost no consideration in public for a person's status, gender, or age. The use of the formal "you" ( U ) to address a person is becoming less common, whereas the growing importance of the informal "you" ( jij )is meant to illustrate a commitment to equality.

Brick row houses in Haarlem have prominent front doors and large windows.
Religion
Religious Beliefs. The largest religious congregation in the Netherlands is Catholic (30 percent of the population), followed by Reformed Protestant (14 percent), Dutch Reformed (7 percent) and Muslim (4 percent). More striking, however, is the fact that 40 percent of the population are not religious or connected to a denomination. The extremely rapid secularization of the Netherlands after the 1960s has meant that religion plays a decreasing role in ordering people's social and cultural lives, with the notable exception of the small rural communities in the Dutch Bible Belt, which runs along the towns Zierikzee, Dordrecht, Utrecht, Zwolle, and Assen. Among the 60 percent who profess to being religious, an ever-increasing group either does not actively participate in religious ceremonies or is involved in New Age religions.
Religious Practitioners. Religious practitioners (priests, ministers, and imams) belong to the major religions in the Netherlands. The Roman Catholic ecclesiastical authority is represented by bishops who try to influence national debates about the family, social welfare, abortion, and euthanasia.
Rituals and Holy Places. The Catholic south of the Netherlands is rich in annual religious processions, some of which date back to the Middle Ages, such as the blood processions in Boxtel and Boxmeer, both in the province of North-Brabant. Shrines include those of Saint Gerardus in Wittem and Onze Lieve Vrouwekerk in Masatricht.
Death and the Afterlife. Beliefs about death and the afterlife correspond to the doctrines of the major religions. The deceased is either buried at a cemetery or cremated at a cremation center. All burials and cremations are arranged by professional undertakers.
Medicine and Health Care
Health care is almost completely the responsibility of the state. The Dutch institutionalized, although they did not socialize, health care during the twentieth century to a much larger extent than did many other Western nations. Even care for the aged and the disabled takes place primarily in an institutionalized setting. Secularization and increasing wealth have compelled the government to take over care for the aged because traditional institutions such as church, community, and family are no longer able or willing to perform this task adequately. Almost everyone in the Netherlands carries medical insurance. The unemployed and low-income families are protected by public health insurance, while higher-income families have private insurance.
Secular Celebrations
Carnival celebrations the weekend before Ash Wednesday have become secular festivities that are spreading rapidly from the Catholic south to the Protestant north. The symbolic celebration of the Queen's birthday (Queen's Day) takes place on 30 April. Although Queen Beatrix was born on 31 January, the festivities are held on the former Queen Juliana's birthday. Remembrance of Dutch casualties in World War II is celebrated on Memorial Day, 4 May. The nation observes a minute of silence at eight P.M. to commemorate the dead. Liberation Day, the celebration of the end of the German occupation in 1945, occurs on 5 May. Most major cities stage elaborate festivities and music festivals. Family members and friends exchange gifts on the eve of Saint Nicolas Day (5 December), while children receive gifts on his birthday (6 December). On New Year's Eve, the Dutch reflect on the year that has passed and gather with friends rather than family members. The new year is welcomed with champaign and fireworks, and resolutions are made.
The Arts and Humanities
Support for the Arts. Graduates of art academies receive a four-year stipend of about 455 euros ($525) a month to start a professional art career. In addition, several public and private foundations provide modest funding for artists. An important source of support are the artworks for public places commissioned by national, provincial, and local governments.
Literature. Dutch oral literature dates back to at least 500 B.C.E. The earliest Dutch written literature goes back to the mid-1200s with the songs of the troubadour Heynric van Veldeken. The works on world history and the lives of saints written in verse by Jacob van Maerlant (1230–1300) mark the beginning of a truly national literature. Dutch literature bloomed during the Renaissance with playwrights such as Hooft, Cats, Huygens, Bredero, and Joost van den Vondel (1587–1679).
Dutch literature entered a period of relative decline after the seventeenth century, only to arise to world stature in the mid-nineteenth century with the publication of Max Havelaar by Multatuli (a pseudonym for Eduard Douwes Dekker), which describes the colonial exploitation of the Netherlands Indies. The Movement of the Eighties (1880–1894), led by the poets Kloos and Gorter, marked a new era in Dutch literature. The novels of Louis Couperus were the fin-de-sicle apotheosis of the national literature.
The breadth of twentieth-century Dutch literature is great; Slauerhoff, Roland Holst, Bordewijk, and Vestdijk are the most important authors of the inter-war period. The principal post-World War II poets and writers are Lucebert, Kouwenaar, Vroman, Haasse, Mulisch, Hermans, Reve, Wolkers, Nooteboom, and Van der Heijden.
Graphic Arts. Contemporary Dutch graphic arts have been dominated by the legacy of the seventeenth century with its emphasis on painting, drawing, and etching. The masterpieces of Dutch painting are displayed at the Rijksmuseum (Rembrandt and Vermeer), the Van Gogh Museum, and the Stedelijk Museum (contemporary art) in Amsterdam. In addition, there are important collections at the Kröller-Muller Museum (impressionism, expressionism) in Otterloo and the Haags Gemeentemuseum (Mondrian) and the Mauritshuis (Rembrandt and Vermeer) in the Hague. Museums are visited principally by the middle and upper classes, with the exception of major retrospectives of popular painters such as Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Van Gogh, which attract a wide audience.
Performance Arts. Classical music (notably the Concertgebouw Orchestra) and ballet (the National Ballet and the Netherlands Dance Theater) are the principal performance arts with international appeal. Cabaret has a long-standing national tradition and is still popular. The Early Music Festival of Utrecht is known for its concerts featuring medieval and Renaissance music. The North Sea Jazz Festival in the Hague is world-renowned. The Pinkpop and Low Lands festivals are two major events for popular music. The Holland Festival in Amsterdam is the most important annual presentation of the new programming season of contemporary Dutch performance arts. The performance arts attract mainly the middle and upper classes.
The State of the Physical and Social Sciences
Most scientific research in the Netherlands is conducted at universities and corporate research laboratories. There are thirteen universities. Twenty-four lower, middle, and higher polytechnic schools train students exclusively in applied work. The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) is the principal funding agency for the physical and social sciences. This foundation is under the authority of Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OC&W) and finances seven areas of science (chemical sciences, earth and biological sciences, humanities, medical sciences, physical sciences, social and behavioral sciences, and technical sciences). The 1998 budget totaled 300 million euros ($345 million), of which 36 percent was allocated to the physical sciences and about 5.5 percent to the social and behavioral sciences. This amount is dwarfed by the 3.3 billion euros ($3.8 billion) spent in 1996 on research and development in corporate laboratories.