The per capita income for the village was $18,389. About 5.5% of families and 9.0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 11.0% of those under age 18 and 2.6% of those age 65 or over.
Shinto plays a ceremonial role in daily Japanese life as opposed to an important role. Why is the ceremonial assumed to be unimportant? Others might say that ritual and tradition are the heart of a culture, and the fact that even being a Christian can't dissuade your coworker from shrine worship is clear evidence of the importance of Shinto to Japanese culture.
I think being Japanese means having a strong sense of a spectrum of feelings that range from honor to duty to obligation to shame and fear. These feelings are all tied to a notion of what is expected of you by society, which is a macrocosm of your family, who help internalize these things as you grow up.