Talking about the religions popular in Japan, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam would be indispensable.
According to the book "The three largest religions in the world" (New Kawade-shobo Co.), the believers in Christianity are about 2 billion, Islam about 1.2 billion and Buddhism 400 million.
The book says, "Islam is not so popular in Japan, but actually 20% or one fifths of the world population are its believers."

Speaking of the holidays based on religion, everybody knows Christmas in the Christian countries. In Japan Christmas sale and the party on the Christmas eve are more popular than Christmas itself, when believers and such people seem to celebrate the day.

Easter, a festival and holiday celebrating the resurrection of Jesus on the 3rd day from the dead, is not so popular as Christmas in Japan. It is a movable feast, on April 4 this year.

Thanksgiving Day celebrated in the US and Canada must be applicable to Labor Thanksgiving Day in Japan, with no direct relationship with Christianity. It is held on November 23 in Japan, while in the US on the 4th Thursday of November, and in Canada on the 2nd Monday of October.

On each day in both countries, a lot of turkeys are sacrificed. Hence the day is called Turkey Day in the US. Before we knew it, the misfortune of turkeys was performed on Christmas Day, too. The Japanese people have been imitating this ceremony, and turkeys or chikens as their substitutes are on the dinner tables.

Though in the Buddhist country Japan, there is no such special holidays or religious events around me.
I know April 8 is the celebration day of Buddha's birthday, but I have no more knowledge than "amacha-de-kappore" (Japanese comic dance).

The most important festival of Islam is said to be a Muslim day of feasting at the end of Ramadan. It is held for 3 or 4 days from the 1st day of the 10th month, the next month after Ramadan month. The day is different every year because it depends on the Islamic calendar.
According to the book "The Three Greatest Religions of the World" (New Kawade-shobo Co.), generally, Muslims, dressed up for good appearance, gather together in a mosque or a hall, listen to the preach and finish their mass worship.

The second largest event of Islam is Sacrifice Festival. It is said that this festival is held for 3 or 4 days from the 10th day of the 12th month, the pilgrimage month of the Islamic calendar. That was the reason that the influence of Sacrifice Festival we met at Fez lasted until leaving Morocco.
The book previously mentioned says, "Since this month is during the pilgrimage, the Sacrifice Day is the festival to eat domestic animals. Some part of the food is given to poor people. Sacrifice is the domestic animals."
It was my first time to see the sight of Sacrifice in Morocco, so I mistakenly thought an animal equals a sheep. Later, I knew it is a sheep and a cow in Turkey, and in Indonesia a cow and a goat. What about in other Islamic countries?

The origin of this festival is as follows.

The Old Testament is shared by Christianity, Islam and Judaism, regardless of some sort of differences of interpretation.
Sacrifice Festival is based on the Old Testament.
When Ibrahim (Abraham) was about to make Ismar, the first son (Isaac, the second son in Christianity) a sacrifice to God, he heard the revelation "I understand your faith. Sacrifice a sheep instead.
It is this part.

According to Mr. Abdelilah, a guide, "One family sacrifices one sheep in Morocco, so about one million sheep must be lost around the day in this country."
The price of one sheep is about 250 American dollars and the income of one average family is 400-500 dollars a month. So, the expense of an average family must not be ordinary. (Please allow me if my understanding is wrong.)

It is well imagined that most of the poor sheep are males. What kind of meals do they go to?
The beginning is a barbecue of internal organs. Then tajine, couscous and sausage at last.

Why didn't we see mutton at all with any meal? I understood then that it was because mutton is more expensive than beef even usually and the period of our trip was just during the Festival.

This country has become familiar to me at last through the cities, the ruins and the people I caught a glimpse of during this trip.
It is a kind of "Blind men and a big elephant" so to speak, but there were several things to make me nod.
I have been interested in the history of this country until now. The brief chronicle of Trapics's guidebook is helpful to my understanding. Though understanding only some of them even now, it is true it has been useful to me through the trip.

We saw part of the glory of Roman Empire at Volubilis Ruins and was surprised to know the influence of Rome here.
On the other hand, what is the Berber, an indigenous people? "Berber" is said to mean people with no understanding of words in Greek. They are called "Barbarians" in English. They must be unpleasant.
They are said to like "Amazigh" for them, meaning "People of noble origin" or "Free people".

Maybe by chance, Mr. Abdelilah, a total guide, Mr. Majid, a guide in charge of Marrakech and the driver were Berber people. They were all cheerful and got a joke.

Then, what about the Arab, half of Moroccan people?
I did not hear any story of a conflict between different races. How were they fused? How did Islam take root here?
The capitals often moved to and fro by the change of the dynasties. I was vaguely aware of such background at each Medina.

I have a strong feeling that I flew to the westernmost point of the sunset and travelled around a peaceful country of mostly the Berber people who don't want any fight and have continuously been influenced by outside pressure.
Furthermore, there are several phases not written especially in the chronological table and I paid attention to.
They are:
The unique landform like Sahara Desert of the south and the three mountain ranges crossing the center of the country.
The Mediterranean Sea bounded on the north and the Atlantic Ocean bounded on the west.
It is within a stone's throw to Spain, for which, as I mentioned before, it has complicated historical background.
The influence of France to anything can be easily understood.

I got interested in this country much more, thinking the threads of warp and weft are woven between the lines of the brief chronology.

Various places in Morocco are made use of as the stages of movies. It is natural. The large cities and Medinas must surely be suitable, and so, probably I have already seen such places in a lot of movies.
But it must be very difficult to make a movie with hero characters at Medinas or such crowded places.
Besides the filming of the large cities like Casablanca and Rabat would be satisfied by doing it at other cities in Europe and the US.

Morocco's charm is in the wild nature. Also it is in the people and the villages making full use of such environment.
These circumstances would excite the movie makers saying like:
"This scene must be done in Morocco." "This scene has to make use of the place in Morocco." "This stage is much better at this place in Morocco." "....."

I now remember the High Atlas Mountains, from Marrakech down to the south for Ouarzazate. The road over the mountains was thrilling. Rather than my impression, the mountains of the wide view beyond would be fascinating to film-makers. All of the mountains are bald and the surfaces are mostly reddish-brown with some parts of yellow, light green, clouded, pure white, ...
Cliffs are scary. There were large rocks just about to fall everywhere, which made me wonder why they wouldn't fall down. If one earthquake ....?
The same views came to my eyes during driving over Moyen Atlas from Erfoud north to Fez.

This may have been mentioned before somewhere.
Ait Benhaddou near Ouarzazate is already famous for the stage of various movies like "Lawrence of Arabia", "Gladiator" and "The Jewel of the Nile". This Casbah appears somewhere on the three movies, no doubt.
Ouarzazate itself is said to be a sister city of Hollywood. We saw 2 movie studios near Ait Benhaddou.
The wilderness of Casbah road from Ouarzazate to Erfoud must be some stage of films.

Todgha Gorge over the side road from Casbah highway. It is surrounded by the high, steep reddish-brown rock cliffs for several hundred meters. Surely it is said to be admired by rock climbers. Must be in some scene of movies.

Sahara Desert was the stage of "Patton" and "Sahara". I suppose there are still some other movies. It is a lie, but even if I say this desert was the stage of "Planet of Apes", no one would disagree, I believe.

The stage of "The Sheltering Sky" is said to be Ouarzazate. It is probably such a movie that the couple, tired of their married life, travel to Africa. I have not seen it yet.
Apart from that, I do not hesitate to say that all the above places are the most suitable for Western, adventure and action movies. On the contrary, I thought they were not suitable for melodrama or romance movies.

In the US, movie producers seem to have a hard time to shoot such a Western and action movies on location like "Indiana Jones" series. In this point, Morocco would be counted on more and more as where the places for a movie and TV are located with the eastern area and the area along the Mediterranean Sea. Someone may say, "I already know it. It is ongoing now. You'll see."

I feel I have ever visited such and such places in mind in spite of the first time. As a fan of Western movies, there were many places where cawboys would be matched during the trip there.
The Western movies that came out to me then were the following, all of which I admit as masterpieces.

Turn the globe, and you will understand Morocco is in the same latitude as the south of USA. Both of them are wildernesses, mountains, deserts, ..., and their climate and geographical features are almost similar.
As I mentioned the following before somewhere;
40 years ago, I studied at Penn State (Pennsylvania State University) for one year. Making use of a long summer vacation, three of us, two guys and I, crossed the American Continent for 28 days on a beat-up Mustang with a tent on top.
State College, a college town in the center of Pennsylvania State, as the starting point, we headed for the West Coast and wanted to make a round trip to Santa Monica in the suburbs of Los Angeles.
We went along the south route and came back along the north route. The total mileage was 14,165 km.
Our old Mustang without air-conditioning had a couple of trouble on the way, including a flat tyre, engine breakdown, but it managed to run the whole distance.
The following is the States we went past.

I have mentioned the aspects of Morocco Kingdom I felt during the trip.
Here, I am going to refer to the people I met on the way there.

According to Ms. Karimai, an attendant, in a word, Moroccans are not depressed, do not read between the lines, have a high body temperature, few non-drinkers, and few number of times of toilet use.
Regarding photography at the site, she reminded us repeatedly to take good care of getting an acceptance of any person when we wanted to take his/her picture. It is what magazines call the attention to saying it is an islamic country.
From my understanding, this matter is not limited to Morocco at all even though "especially" is natural. In addition, I had thought to have to know there are some differences beyond the category of etiquette.

I recognized that there is a certain expression more than greeting words, including the experience during the trip around Egypt and Turkey early summer 2 years ago. There might be nothing more to convey your friendship than this.
"Assalamu Alaykum".
It is not just "How are you?" in English or "こんにちは" in Japanese. It is said literally to mean "Peace be upon you".

When I say so, looking at their eyes in a smile (I have a habit to raise the right hand at the same time), most of them answer me in a smile saying "Alaykum Assalamu".
When feeling like taking a picture of them, I show myself in a manner of asking their allowance, and next press the shutter button confirming their acceptance. Then I thank them saying "Shukuran" in Arabic or "Merci beaucoup" in French.

I surely remember I did so. There were some people who did not agree, but many more people accepted. On the contrary, to my regret, I missed the photo chance with unnecessary reserve.
The following are my precious memory during this trip..

At a certain tombs in Marrakech, we had to wait in a long line because of a narrow entrance gate. (November 13)
Look at the picture below. This English lady was ahead of me. We talked together for about 30 minutes. She said, "I was born and bred in a diplomat family. I lived in the Netherlands for 10 years. I like Rembrandt, van Gogh and Vermeer very much. You should visit the Netherlands next time."
When it came to the song "Amaging Grace", she said "Try to listen to "Abide with Me. Its melody is very similar. You will surely like it", and took a memo for me.
She told me she was an assistant at a certain university and was on the way of her personal trip around Morocco for 2 weeks.

This "Grand Morocco Tour with Deep Emotion for 10 Days 2010", sponsored by HankyuTrapics, was joined by 30 people with an attendant.
The tour members were not only seniors like our couple. The average age was probably in the 50s, and surely ladies were many more than gentlemen as usual.
Day by day through the planned procedure, we became friendly more and more like any other foreign travels.

This trip was all with meals for the whole 10 days. At each lunch and dinner, 6-8 people joined together at the same table freely. Though in such cases I felt confused sometimes, the table talk this time was mostly good and easy for cultivating "Even a chance meeting is predestined".
This kind of way is very common to an inexpensive trip. Everybody was so well traveled that they seemed to enjoy the trip of this way.
Our couple tried to joined the different members each time as much as possible. Thanks to it, we were able to talk with the different members pleasantly through the trip.

The 30 members consisted of the couples from around Kanto area, parents with children, sisters, lady groups of four and two, a two-male group, a newly-married couple and who others.
It was also natural that we gradually came to be more friendly with certain people. Looking back, we talked more with the two-male group and the young sisters, shown below.

Every breakfast was at hotels in a buffet style. It was almost the same with other overseas travels; juice, coffee, toast or croissant, vegetables, fruits, yogurt, ... I tasted them well at any hotel.
As for lunch and dinner, we enjoyed elaborate meals even without Japanese and Chinese food. They were all Moroccan local dishes, like kebab, tajine, couscous, fish, kefta, pastilla, Moroccan salad, ...

Each member ordered a drink at dinner. As for alcohol, beer and wine were shown even in an Islamic country, and I chose "Casablanca", a Moroccan beer.
During drinking beer, I remembered a strange thing.
About half a century ago during my university days, I majored in the seminar of Professor Taiyoji's social policy in the latter 2 years. He told the students he had visited Morocco just before the first lecture. I remember one topic he mentioned at that time.
He said, "You see, the glass cup is already dangerous. Therefore, we drank beer straight from a bottle. The glass may have some dangerous germ. If it goes to your body, you will catch the candle disease, which gradually melts your symbol."

It was a story long time ago. So, I poured beer into a glass and drank from it.
Emiko was fond of mint tea. It was her usual drink through the trip.

I knew the official language in Morocco is Arabic. It is natural because of the 65% residents of the Arabs there.
Morocco had been a protectorate of France for 40 years since 1912.
I have learnt like this. Not only Morocco and Algeria, a neighbering country, but Maghreb (the earth of sunset) including Tunisia of the east, having been a colony of France about 30 years before 1912, ..., they are all French speaking countries. The expected language is heard here and there.

I learnt French for 2 years during the first half of university, and remember honestly it was so gladly much easier than impregnable English.
In the second year, the text was "The Wall (Le Mur)" of Jean-Paul Sartre. Also some works of Simone de Beauvoir.
I could understand what was written in them with a dictionary in one hand, maybe a lie.
The teacher of the reading was Mr. Michihiko Suzuki. He became a leading figure in the translation of Proust, like "In Search of Lost Time", etc.

I saw French movies at Nikkatsu Meiga Theater in Shinjuku. "Les Grandes Maceuvres", "Sous les toits de Paris", and many famous others.
Even depending on subtitles, there were some parts I seemed to understand (?).

The teacher of French conversation was Ms. Ragache, a beautiful daughter of some French ambassador or minister to Japan.
The French words that I remember now are only a greeting and the numbers up to ten! So, the conversations among them this time was surely all Greek to me.

What about English? It seems my talk can be understood by anybody here. It is not by my ability, but because there are considerable people who can talk in English.
Incidentally, the Moroccan guide and the Japanese attendant talked to each other in English. The front staffs in the hotel talked to the guests in clumsy English.
Wandering off the subject, Ms. Karimai, the attendant, could have communication in French, too. And moreover, she could manage Arabian just so so. I admired her in spite of the job.

Myself? Everytime I talked to them, I had decided to talk to anybody in English just after "Assalamu Alaykum". To the people with a blank look to my English, I told them "Pardonne-moi" or "Excuse-moi" and parted. To the people seemingly understood me, I proceeded to any possible conversation right away.

I admit both of us in different languages cannot speak English smoothly with limited words and expressions, but when one door shuts another opens and the eyes and gestures say more than the mouth.
It depends on who and where, but I learned the importance to talk first here, too.
I am enjoying the present sense of release recalling the young days of shyness.

I have been attending the senior English conversation class since 3 years ago. Grace-san, a Philippine lady, is a teacher, whose English a little with a Philippine accent is charming all the better to me. As I felt the effect of the study at several opportunities, I was satisfied this time, too.

However, I could not understand either CNN or BBC on TV in the hotel rooms. I listened to the news programs of such channels drinking a nightcap little by little, but I was honestly disappointed in myself.
I don't want my ultimate goal "To enjoy an English movie without subtitles" finally to be the impossible dream, though.