Popular CultureInteresting Facts about Japan
1. Raw horse meat is a popular food in Japan.
2. Sometimes the trains are so crowded railway staff are employed to cram passengers inside.
3. Japanese celebrate Christmas, but it is more like Valentine's day in the western world.
4. Poorly written English can be found everywhere, including T-shirts and other fashion items.
5. More than 70% of Japan consists of mountains, including more than 200 volcanoes.
6. Mt. Fuji, the tallest mountain in Japan, is an active volcano.
7. Many Japanese do not know the difference between Shintoism and Buddhism.
8. A nice melon, similar to a cantelope, may sell for over $300US.
9. There are four different writing systems in Japan, romaji, katakana, hiragana, and kanji.
10. Coffee is very popular and Japan imports approximately 85% of Jamaica's annual coffee production.
11. Japan's literacy rate is almost 100%.
12. Sumo is Japan's national sport, although baseball is also very popular.
14. Many toilets in Japan have a built-in bidet system for spraying your backside.
15. When you use the restroom in someone's home, you should put on special bathroom slippers so as not to contaminate the rest of the home.
16. Noodles, especially soba (buckwheat), are slurped very loudly when eaten. It is often said slurping symbolizes the food is delicious, but the slurping also serves to cool down the hot noodles for eating.
17. Japan is the world’s largest consumer of Amazon rainforest timber.
18. Vending machines in Japan sell beer, hot and cold canned coffee, cigarettes, and other items.
19. When moving into an apartment it is often required to give the landlord a "gift" of money equal to two months rent.
20. There are around 1,500 earthquakes every year in Japan.
22. Average life expectancy in Japan is one of the highest in the world. Japanese people live an average of 4 years longer than Americans.
23. Japan is the largest automobile producer in the world.
24. The Japanese language has thousands of foreign loan words, known as gairaigo. These words are often truncated, e.g. personal computer = paso kon. The number of foreign loan words is steadily increasing.
25. Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo is the world's largest.
26. Japan is the only major country that still hunts whales.
27. Men in Japan shave to their heads to apologize.
28. Girls in Japan cut their hair after breaking up with a boyfriend.
29. Tokyo has had 24 recorded instances of people either killed or receiving serious skull fractures while bowing to each other with the traditional Japanese greeting.
30. The first novel, The story of Genji, was written in 1007 by Japanese noble woman, Murasaki Shikibu.
31. The term karaoke means "empty orchestra" in Japanese.
