Have you also noticed that most Japanese TV programmes, be them about food, lifestyle, games, quizz, etc. always revolved around money. They can't present a restaurant (and god knows how many programmes are about restaurants in Japan !)without putting an exaggerated stress on the price of each item (with "sugooooii" voices in the audience as much when it's cheap as when it's expensive). Even travel programmes are usually about food sampling and they systematically say the price and often go as far as indicating it in large fonts on the screen as if it were more important than the tatse of the food itself.

Japanese also discuss more freely than most Westerness their salaries, how much cost their house or how much they spend each month in clothing or for their hobbies.

Half of the time, when I've been somewhere on holiday people will ask me if I enjoyed it AND how much was life in this or that country, or how much I spent for the plane, hotel and so on.

If you don't know what to talk about with Japanese people, money is always a good topic, for they don't get bored to hear how much cost whatever you have ever bought or imagined to buy in your life.