The first connotation which comes to my mind when I think about Japan is a specific contrast and balance - both such opposite as inseparable, completing each other, seemingly contrary sides. The past and the future, archaic and futuristic, tradition and technology, folklore and pop-culture - shaping Nippon same historically
Dreamcatcher as a hanging amulet appeared in one of my previous posts. I wrote then about a crafted tool which "catches nightmares into a net/web and makes them flow down the feather(s), kept there until they are gone with the dawn".
Native Americans believe(d) that handmade dreamcatchers
Gaming until dawn during a couple of hot summer days was strange but a surprisingly refreshing experience - snow everywhere, freezing winter, eight friends in the abandoned mountain park and a shadow of native America lore.