1.
Japan
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Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet Land of the Rising Sun in reference to its Japanese name. Japan is an archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, the country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions. Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one, the population of 127 million is the worlds tenth largest. Japanese people make up 98. 5% of Japans total population, approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period, the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, from the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a period of isolation in the early 17th century. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the country has the worlds third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the worlds fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the worlds fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer, although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the worlds eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a country with a very high standard of living. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, in ancient China, Japan was called Wo 倭. It was mentioned in the third century Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms in the section for the Wei kingdom, Wa became disliked because it has the connotation of the character 矮, meaning dwarf. The 倭 kanji has been replaced with the homophone Wa, meaning harmony, the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, which is pronounced Nippon or Nihon and literally means the origin of the sun. The earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, at the start of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan introduced their country as Nihon
2.
Retail
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Retail markets and shops have a very ancient history, dating back to antiquity. Retailing involves the process of selling goods or services to customers through multiple channels of distribution to earn a profit. Retailers satisfy demand is identified through a supply chain, Once the strategic retail plan is in place, retailers devise the retail mix which includes product, price, place, promotion, personnel and presentation. In the digital age, a number of retailers are seeking to reach broader markets by selling through multiple channels. Digital technologies are changing the way that consumers pay for goods. Retailing support services may include the provision of credit, delivery services. Shopping generally refers to the act of buying products, sometimes this is done to obtain final goods, including necessities such as food and clothing, sometimes it takes place as a recreational activity. Recreational shopping often involves window shopping and browsing, it not always result in a purchase. Retail shops occur in a range of types and in many different contexts - from strip shopping centres in residential streets through to large. Shopping streets may restrict traffic to pedestrians only, forms of non-shop retailing include online retailing and mail order. Retail comes from the Old French word tailler, which means to cut off, clip, pare and it was first recorded as a noun with the meaning of a sale in small quantities in 1433. Like in French, the retail in both Dutch and German also refers to the sale of small quantities of items. Also see History of merchants, History of the market place, open air, public markets were known in ancient Babylonia and Assyria. These markets typically occupied a place in the towns centre, surrounding the market, skilled artisans, such as metal-workers and leather workers, occupied premises in alley ways that led to the open market-place. These artisans may have sold wares directly from their premises, in ancient Greece markets operated within the agora, and in ancient Rome the forum. In antiquity, exchange involved direct selling, merchants or peddlers, the Phoenicians, noted for their seafaring skills, plied their ships across the Mediterranean, becoming a major trading power by 9th century BCE. The Phoenicians imported and exported wood, textiles, glass and produce such as wine, oil, dried fruit, the Phoenicians extensive trade networks necessitated considerable book-keeping and correspondence. In around 1500 BCE, the Phoenicians developed an alphabet which was much easier to learn that the complex scripts used in ancient Egypt
3.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
4.
Variety store
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A variety store is a retail store that sells a wide range of inexpensive household goods. Larger stores may sell frozen foods and fresh produce, variety stores arose in the early 20th century, with Woolworths model to reduce store overheads by simplifying the duties of sales clerks. They may now be all over the world. A variety store often sells all goods at a single price, the name of the store often reflects this, and in different markets it may be called a dollar store, pound shop, euro store and so on. Some items are offered at a considerable discount over other retailers, there are two ways variety stores make a profit, Buying and selling huge amounts of goods at heavily discounted prices provides a small profit margin that is multiplied by the volume of sales. Pricing many items at prices that are higher than regular retailers and these goods are commonly bought by consumers who perceive them to be bargains based on the heavy discounts on other items in the store. In the case of fixed price-point retailers, this can be achieved by reducing the size of the package to one that is smaller than what is found in retail outlets. Bought at a sale, such as seasonal or promotional goods or bankruptcy stock. Sold in a smaller unit sizes than elsewhere, not all variety stores are single price-point stores, even if their names imply it. For example, in the United States, Dollar General and Family Dollar sell items at more or less than a dollar, some stores also sell goods priced at multiples of the named price and, conversely, multiple items for the price. The discrepancy with the price is also compounded if sales tax is added at the point of sale. In many countries, stock can be imported from others with lower costs, because of differences in wages. Usually goods are imported by an importer, then sold to the stores wholesale. Another source of stock is overruns, surplus items and out-of-date food products, real Deals, a regional dollar store in the Syracuse, New York area, is stocked almost entirely with surplus goods such as these. Although some people may link variety stores with low-income areas, this is not always true, for example, Atherton, California has a variety store within its city limits, even though it has a median household income of nearly $185,000 a year. Studies of food discounters in Great Britain show quite a varied demographic, the originators of the concept were the Woolworth Bros. in July 1879. Woolworth Bros. later became F. W. Woolworth Company or just Woolworths, Frank soon brought his brother Charles Sumner Sum Woolworth into the business. Together they opened a store in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on July 18,1879
5.
Stationery
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Stationery is a mass noun referring to commercially manufactured writing materials, including cut paper, envelopes, writing implements, continuous stationery, and other office supplies. Stationery includes materials to be written on by hand or by equipment such as computer printers and it was a special term used between the 13th and 15th centuries in the manuscript culture. The Stationers Company formerly held a monopoly over the industry in England and was responsible for copyright regulations. In its modern sense including personal writing materials, stationery has been an important part of social etiquette. Some uses of stationery, such as sending a manufactured reply card to an invitation, have changed from offensive to appropriate. The use and marketing of stationery is being superseded by electronic media. Stationery is intrinsically linked to paper and the process of written, personalized communication, the most familiar of these techniques are letterpress printing, embossing, engraving and thermographic printing. Flat printing and offset printing are regularly used, particularly for low-cost or informal needs, letterpress is a method of printing many identical copies that requires characters being impressed upon the page. The print may be inked or blind but is typically done in a single color, motifs or designs may be added as many letterpress machines use movable plates that must be hand-set. When a single document needs to be produced, it may be handwritten or printed typically by a computer printer, several copies of one original can be produced by some printers using multipart stationery. Typing with a typewriter is obsolescent, having been superseded by preparing a document with a word processor. Thermographic printing is a process involves several stages but can be implemented in a low-cost manufacturing process. The process involves printing the desired designs or text with an ink that remains wet, the paper is then dusted with a powdered polymer that adheres to the ink. The paper is vacuumed or agitated, mechanically or by hand, to remove excess powder, the wet ink and polymer bond and dry, resulting in a raised print surface similar to the result of an engraving process. Embossing is a technique used to create raised surfaces in the converted paper stock. The process relies upon mated dies that press the paper into a shape that can be observed on both the front and back surfaces, engraving is a process that requires a design to be cut into a plate made of a relatively hard material. It is a technology with a history and requires significant skill. The finished plate is covered in ink, and then the ink is removed from all of the un-etched portions of the plate
6.
100 yen coin
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The 100 yen coin is a denomination of Japanese yen. The current design was first minted in silver in 1959 and saw a change of metal in 1967 and it is the second-highest denomination coin in Japan after the 500 yen coin. The first 100 yen coin was issued in 1957 and featured a phoenix on the reverse and it featured English language writing in addition to Japanese. This design was issued in 1957 and in 1958, in 1959, the design was modified, removing the English wording, and changing the reverse side to show a sheaf of rice. This design was issued every year from 1959 to 1966, the current design for the 100 Yen coin was first issued in 1967. The metallurgy was changed from the former 60-30-10 ratio of silver-copper-zinc to a ratio of 75-25 copper-nickel, with the weight, the reverse side was changed to show sakura blossoms and the denomination in Japanese. The coin shares, with the 50 yen coin, the emperors rule date expressed with Latin numerals instead of in Japanese numerals, in 1964, a 100 yen coin was issued to mark the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo. The obverse featured the Olympic torch and Olympic rings while the reverse re-introduced English-language text, in 1970 a 100 Yen coin was issued to mark Expo 70 in Osaka. In 1972 a 100 yen coin commemorated the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo, the Olympic Torch remained on the obverse while the rings moved to the reverse. A coin marked Expo 75 in Okinawa, in 1976 a 100-yen coin marked the Golden Jubilee of Emperor Hirohito. A large chrysanthemum, symbolising the Japanese Imperial Family, featured on the reverse, in 2015, a new series of 100 yen coins was introduced to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the inauguration of the Tōkaidō Shinkansen train service. The coins are minted under a different composition of cupronickel, consisting of 87. 5% copper and 12. 5% nickel, the following are circulation dates which cover Emperor Hirohitos reign. The dates below correspond with the 32nd to the 64th year of his reign, one hundred yen coins had three main different designs, but there was no overlap in mintage between them. Coins for this period all begin with the Japanese symbol 昭和. Japanese coins are read with a left to right format, Emperors name -> Number representing year of reign -> Year, the following are circulation dates in the reign of the current Emperor. Akihito was crowned in 1989, which is marked with a 元 symbol on the coin as a one year type, coins for this period all begin with the Japanese symbol 平成. Japanese coins are read with a left to right format, Emperors name -> Number representing year of reign -> Year
7.
Sales tax
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A sales tax is a tax paid to a governing body for the sales of certain goods and services. Usually laws allow the seller to collect funds for the tax from the consumer at the point of purchase, when a tax on goods or services is paid to a governing body directly by a consumer, it is usually called a use tax. Often laws provide for the exemption of certain goods or services from sales, conventional or retail sales tax is levied on the sale of a good to its final end user and is charged every time that item is sold retail. Sales to businesses that later resell the goods are not charged the tax, the tax is otherwise charged on each item sold to purchasers without such a certificate and who are under the jurisdiction of the taxing authority. Other types of taxes, or similar taxes, include the following, Manufacturers sales tax. Wholesale sales tax, a tax on sales of wholesale of tangible personal property when in a packaged and labeled ready for shipment or delivery to final users and consumers. Retail sales tax, a tax on sales of retail of tangible personal property to final consumers, gross receipts taxes, levied on all sales of a business. They have been criticized for their cascading or pyramiding effect, in which an item is taxed more than once as it makes its way from production to final retail sale. Excise taxes, applied to a range of products, such as gasoline or alcohol. Use taxes are imposed by states with a sales tax but are usually enforced only for large items such as automobiles. Securities turnover excise tax, a tax on the trade of securities, value added tax, in which tax is charged on all sales, thus avoiding the need for a system of resale certificates. Tax cascading is avoided by applying the tax only to the difference between the price paid by the first purchaser and the price paid by each subsequent purchaser of the same item, fairTax, a proposed federal sales tax, intended to replace the US federal income tax. Turnover tax, similar to a tax, but applied to intermediate. Most countries in the world have sales taxes or value-added taxes at all or several of the national, state, county, countries in Western Europe, especially in Scandinavia, have some of the worlds highest valued-added taxes. Norway, Denmark and Sweden have higher VATs at 25%, Hungary has the highest at 27% although reduced rates are used in cases, as for groceries, art, books. In some jurisdictions of the United States, there are levels of government which each impose a sales tax. For example, sales tax in Chicago, IL is 10. 25%, consisting of 6. 25% state,1. 25% city,1. 75% county, Chicago also has the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority tax on food and beverage of 1%. For Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the tax is 10%, which is 5% each of state & local, in L. A. it is only 8. 75%, which is 7. 25% state and 1. 5% county
8.
Japanese yen
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The yen is the official currency of Japan. It is the third most traded currency in the exchange market after the United States dollar. It is also used as a reserve currency after the U. S. dollar, the euro. Before the Meiji Restoration, Japans feudal fiefs all issued their own money, hansatsu, in an array of incompatible denominations. The New Currency Act of 1871 did away with these and established the yen, the former han became prefectures and their mints private chartered banks, which initially retained the right to print money. To bring an end to this situation the Bank of Japan was founded in 1882, following World War II the yen lost much of its prewar value. To stabilize the Japanese economy the exchange rate of the yen was fixed at ¥360 per $1 as part of the Bretton Woods system, when that system was abandoned in 1971, the yen became undervalued and was allowed to float. The yen had appreciated to a peak of ¥271 per $1 in 1973, then underwent periods of depreciation and appreciation due to the 1973 oil crisis, arriving at a value of ¥227 per $1 by 1980. Since 1973, the Japanese government has maintained a policy of intervention. The Japanese government focuses on an export market, and tries to ensure a low yen value through a trade surplus. Since that time, however, the yen has greatly decreased in value, the Bank of Japan maintains a policy of zero to near-zero interest rates and the Japanese government has an extreme anti-inflation policy. Yen derives from the Japanese word 圓, which is cognate with the Chinese yuan, originally, the Chinese had traded silver in mass called sycees and when Spanish and Mexican silver coins arrived, the Chinese called them silver rounds for their circular shapes. The coins and the name appeared in Japan. While the Chinese eventually replaced 圓 with 元, the Japanese continued to use the same word, the spelling and pronunciation yen is standard in English. This is because mainly English speakers who visited Japan at the end of the Edo period to the early Meiji period spelled words this way, ゑん /wen/ in historical kana orthography. In the 16th century, Japanese /e/ and /we/ both had been pronounced and Portuguese missionaries had spelled them ye, some time thereafter, by the middle of the 18th century, /e/ and /we/ came to be pronounced as in modern Japanese, although some regions retain the pronunciation. In the early Meiji era, James Curtis Hepburn, following Medhurst, spelled all es as ye in his A Japanese and that was the first full-scale Japanese-English/English-Japanese dictionary, which had a strong influence on Westerners in Japan and probably prompted the spelling yen. Hepburn revised most of yes to e in the 3rd edition in order to mirror the contemporary pronunciation and this was probably already fixed and has remained so ever since
