Japan Facts

There are scrolls from the Edo period of Japan that suggest fart battles took place. The drawings show men blasting farts at other men, women, and even a cat.

Premium watermelons in Japan can sell for thousands of dollars, with rare Densuke watermelons fetching up to $6,100 at auction!

In Tokyo, they sell toupees for dogs!

In 2008, a Japanese man noticed his food going missing, so he set up a webcam and found that a woman had been living in his closet for a year.

In Japan, watermelons are grown into the shape of a square by placing them in cube-shaped molds as they grow. Originally intended to make stacking and transport easier, they must be harvested before ripening to maintain their shape, making them inedible and turning them into expensive ornamental novelties that sell for $100-500.

There is no tipping at restaurants in Japan.

The Japanese have a popular dish called 'chicken rice' where ketchup is used to flavor fried rice, often served wrapped in an omelet as 'omurice.'

Sony's first product attempt was an electric rice cooker that failed spectacularly - it either burned or undercooked the rice. The prototype never sold a single unit.

Originally, Nintendo was a playing card manufacturer.

The Japanese liquor, Mam, uses venomous snakes as one of its main ingredients.

Over 98 percent of Japanese people are cremated after they die.

Japan's capital Tokyo means "Eastern Capital".

Sony was originally called 'Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo' (Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation), often abbreviated as 'Totsuko' in Japanese, before rebranding to Sony in 1958.

The Japanese pilot who attacked a town in Oregon during WW2 returned years later to present his family's 400-year-old samurai sword to the city as a symbol of regret.

Japanese schools do not have proms.

While major thoroughfares and famous avenues in Japan may have names, the majority of residential streets do not. Instead, the Japanese addressing system relies on a hierarchical structure of districts, blocks, and building numbers for navigation.

Sleeping on the job is acceptable in Japan, known as 'inemuri' (being present while sleeping). It is viewed as a sign of exhaustion from working hard. Some people fake it to look committed to their job.

In Tokyo, a bicycle is faster than a car for most trips of less than 50 minutes!

In Japan, condoms are commonly sold 'door to door'!

At the 1912 Olympics, a marathon runner quit and went home to Japan without telling officials and was considered a missing person in Sweden for 50 years. In 1966, he was invited to complete the marathon. His time: 54 years, 8 months, 6 days, 5 hours, 32 minutes and 20.379 seconds.

Tsutomu Yamaguchi was on a business trip in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, when the first atomic bomb detonated three kilometers away. He was burned, blinded, and his eardrums ruptured. He spent the night in a shelter and caught the morning train home so he could get to work on time. His office was in Nagasaki. Three days later, he survived the second atomic blast.

There's a type of strawberry in Japan that is completely white, inside and out, with red seeds.

In Japan, more adult diapers are sold than baby diapers.

In 2004, The Japanese Ice Cream Association promoted "raw horse flesh" ice cream in hopes that it would boost the popularity of ice cream!