WHY JAPAN IS A UNIQUE COUNTRY
JAPAN IS A DIFFERENT WORLD
Japan's unique way of eating food makes for some interesting culinary experiences. Here are 10 of the strangest examples:
1. In Kagawa prefecture, they produce a couple hundred square watermelons a year that are shaped like a trapezoid.
2. Instead of tubes of potato chips, Pringles in Japan is sold in a form of noodles.
3. On Holidays in Japan, roast turkeys are customary treats for guests.
4. When somebody in Japan tries to pick up sushi with chopsticks, rice constantly falls off the fish. However, this problem is solved by using a special sauce when eating sushi.
5. Animal-shaped cookies are popular in Japan and can be found at most convenience stores.
6. Fruitcake is usually not an item people enjoy on festive occasions, but that's not the case in Japan where it becomes an important part of the Christmas meal.
7. When sitting at a table by themselves, guests in Japan are treated to a big plush Moomin as their companion to make them feel not so lonely.
8. Everywhere I go in Japan, rice always falls off my sushi when I pick it up with chopsticks- even though this problem isn't seen anywhere else in the world! As compensation, Japanese people invented something called "sushi omasu," which is a type of mixed rice dish that retains its shape thanks to a special mixture of salt, sugar and vinegar.- this makes it much easier to eat sushi properly!
9 150 square watermelons shaped like a trapezoid get produced every year in Kagawa prefecture due to their unique shape making it easy for retailers to transport them.- Although this shape makes it difficult for people to pick up the melons with chopsticks, mixed rice dishes known as 'sushi omatsu' solve this problem by keeping the rice separate from the other ingredients allowing diners to eat them without any hassle.-
10 A traditional Thanksgiving dinner enjoyed by Americans would be completely alien to Japanese visitors: instead of roasting turkey or gathering around family tables while stuffing their faces with pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce , Japanese people celebrate New Year's by cooking dozens and dozens of teriyaki beef skewers that they surround with sweet and sour cabbage and glutinous rice custard
11 Japan is the eleventh most populous country in the world, as well as one of the most densely populated. About three-fourths of the country's terrain is mountainous, concentrating its highly urbanized population on narrow coastal plains. Japan is divided into 47 administrative prefectures and eight traditional regions. The Greater Tokyo Area is the most populous metropolitan area in the world. Japan has the world's highest life expectancy, though it is experiencing a population decline.
12.Japan has been inhabited since the Upper Paleolithic period (30,000 BC). Between the 4th and 9th centuries, the kingdoms of Japan became unified under an emperor and the imperial court based in Heian-kyō. Beginning in the 12th century, political power was held by a series of military dictators (shōgun) and feudal lords (daimyō) and enforced by a class of warrior nobility (samurai). After a century-long period of civil war, the country was reunified in 1603 under the Tokugawa shogunate, which enacted an isolationist foreign policy. In 1854, a United States fleet forced Japan to open trade to the West, which led to the end of the shogunate and the restoration of imperial power in 1868. In the Meiji period, the Empire of Japan adopted a Western-modeled constitution and pursued a program of industrialization and modernization. Amidst a rise in militarism and overseas colonization, Japan invaded China in 1937 and entered World War II as an Axis power in 1941. After been defeated in the Pacific War and two atomic bombings, Japan surrendered in 1945 and came under a seven-year Allied occupation, during which it adopted a new constitution
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