The first foreigner to become a samurai was an African slave.
26
In 1968, a car driven by bank employees was pulled over by a motorcycle cop claiming the car had been rigged with a bomb. The cop got under the car to “defuse” the device. When the car started to smoke, everybody ran. Then the “cop” just drove the car away. The 300,000,000 Yen robbery remains unsolved to this day.
20
The Japanese, on average, are the shortest people.
320
Sleeping on the job is acceptable in Japan. It is viewed as exhaustion from working hard. Some people fake it to look committed to their job.
57
The CEO of Japan Airlines makes $90,000 a year, less than the pilots. During an interview, he said "We in Japan learned during the bubble economy that businesses who pursue money first fail. The business world has lost sight of this basic tenet of business ethics."
9
In Japan, watermelons are grown into the shape of a square so they are easier to stack and transport.
108
According to a Japanese poll in the year 2000, the Japanese believe that their best invention of the twentieth century was instant noodles.
6