Survey : which of these statements/opinions have you heard in Japan ?

[DoctorP]

Another thing about the farmers/hunters statement. Of course Japanese were farmers...there weren't that many animals to hunt here! It was either farm or fish!

[changedonrequest]

All I can say is read the "view poll" results and that should explain a lot.

There are obviously a number of different Japan's that people are living in.

Personally, I've heard the natto one....but that is just about it.

[Maciamo]

Another thing about the farmers/hunters statement. Of course Japanese were farmers...there weren't that many animals to hunt here! It was either farm or fish!

They meant at the same period. However it never happened in history that Japan was farming when all Europe wasn't. Farming reached even the remotest part of Europe (e.g. Ireland) about 6000 years ago. It only reached Japan about 2000 years ago.

When I heard these statements, I asked them what period of history they were thinking about. They said around Kofun, Yamato or Heian period (medieval times in Europe, well after the fall of the Roman Empire !). They gave me as example the Vikings ! When I asked why they would think the Vikings were hunters and didn't know farming, they said that they had big axes and were barbarians !! The Norse/Viking society had been agricultural for thousands of years before Japan. They weren't barbarians in the way that they developed what is maybe the world's first slave-free democracy. We also owe the Vikings (not the Norse that remained in Scandinavia, but the "brutal savages" that invaded and plundered the rest of Europe) the world's two first parliament (on the Isle of Man and in Iceland).

I asked them back if the Japanese were hunters until Edo-jidai because the samurai had katana.

Some people have really no clue about world history. Compared to that hearing some of my (adult) Japanese students say that Napoleon was a medieval knight in armour or that Argentina was an Eastern European country is not even as shocking as it ought to be.

[gaijinalways]

The comments related to thinking versus actual brains is an interesting one. The Japanese have published some books stating that Japanese brains are different.

One of the few real differences that I am aware of is the common missing enzyme in the liver for processing alcohol which quite a few Japanese seem to have. Of course, some Japanese drink quite a lot and have built up a tolerance, whereas other ones drink a small glass of beer and will have a flushed face and sometimes exhibit symptoms of a drunkard. It seems some Chinese have this same biological trait as well, so it is hardly unique to Japanese, but much more common than in most other countries.

Another difference is sometimes a higher percentage of double jointed individuals, especially in the wrist and ankle joints. I often see young women here standing with their legs twisted around in positions that I wouldn't try.