"Success didn't spoil me, I've always been insufferable." - Fran Lebowitz

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I was asked "what were you most surprised by/shocked by/found interesting about japan/japanese?"

My answer:

- Enjo Kosai (Compensated Dating - High School Girls prostituting themselves to businessmen)
- Engrish. How common the appearance of (bad) English words/phrases/sentences/paragraphs - yet how the Japs almost don't speak it at all
- How Japan appropriates and transmogrifies all sorts of foreign influences, e.g. Curry, Ganguro Girls, superstition that Blood type influences your personality
- How it's a vegetarian's nightmare: everything that looks vegetarian has fish in it
- How virtually all DVD shops are >90% porn
- The ubiquity of gravure
- Japanese hi-tech toilets
- How they're so fond of souvenir stamps (you stamp a piece of paper when you visit an attraction)
- How much snake oil they have. Examples: Lip Trainer Patakara, Suppli Gaming Pills - Japanese Snake Oil at its Finest