20. Raw horse meat is a popular entree in Japan. Sliced thinly and eaten raw it is called basashi.
19. Over 70% of Japan consists of mountains. The country also has over 200 volcanoes.
18. A musk melon (similar to a cantaloupe) can sell for over 31,473 yen ($300.00).
17. The literacy rate in Japan is almost 100%.
16. There are vending machines in Japan that dispense beer!
15. Japanese people have an average life-expectancy that is 4 years longer than Americans. Maybe Americans should eat more basashi!
14. Some men in Japan shave their heads as a form of apology.
13. Japan has the second lowest homicide rate in the world.
12. Japan has produced 15 Nobel laureates (in chemistry, medicine and physics), 3 Fields medalists and one Gauss Prize laureate.
11. Younger sumo-wrestlers are traditionally required to clean and bathe the veteran sumo-wrestlers at their wrestling “stables”…including all the hard-to-reach places.
10. Japan’s unemployment rate is less than 4%.
9. Japan consists of over 6,800 islands.
8. “Tetsuo: Iron Man” (no relation to the comic book, or Robert Downey, Jr. film), a relatively popular, extreme, “Cyberpunk” film (a “cyberpunk” film is a science fiction film that involves technology – and the abuse thereof), was based on a play the director Shinya Tsukamoto wrote and directed in college.
7. A Paleolithic culture from about 30,000 BC is the first known inhabitants of Japan.
6. Prolific Japanese film-maker Takahi Miike made up to 50 films in a decade during the peak of his career.
5. Animated Japanese films and television shows account for 60% of the world’s animation-based entertainment. So successful is animation in Japan, that there are almost 130 voice-acting schools in the country.
4. 21% of the Japanese population is elderly, the highest proportion in the world.
3. In the past, the Japanese court system has had a conviction rate as high as 99%!
2. Japanese prisons (as of 2003) operated at an average of 117% capacity.
1. Raised floors help indicate when to take off slippers or shoes. At the entrance to a home in Japan, the floor will usually be raised about 6 inches (15.24 cm.) indicating you should take off your shoes and put on slippers. If the house has a tatami mat room, its floor may be raised 1-2 inches (2.54-5.08 cm.) indicating you should take off your slippers.
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