1. Canned hot/cold coffee in vending machines
2. Women's underwear in vending machines
3. Used high school girls' uniforms in vending machines
4. Photo of high school girl who wore used uniform in vending machines
5. Camping out in parks to get a good spot for Cherry Blossom viewing
6. Blood types on resumes
7. "The sweet potato man" prowling the neighborhood in his truck, singing
the sweet potato song ("come and get it! Hot sweet potatoes!")
8. The "applause channel" and the "alibis channel" on USEN, Japanese cable radio
9. Charts in train stations providing daily updates on changing colors of leaves and blossoms
in certain areas during the fall and spring
10. My friend, Susan
11. Blond, Western models/mannequins
12. English: "Let's enjoy happy fun time together with us."
13. Arnold Schwarznegger in ramen commercials
14. Corn on pizza
15. Octopus on pizza
16. Hold music on telephones: "What Child is This?" (all year-round), "Home on
the Range," and the all-time favorite Carpenters "On Top of the World" (shoulda been
the national anthem)
17. Naked women on sports pages
18. Omnipotent, computerized toilets: A button for a bidet squirt up your bum, a button to heat the seat, a button which starts gurgling, swooshing, nature noises to disguise the sound of your urine hitting the basin...
19. Junior high school "propaganda": Posters hung by the nurse's room displaying an array of horrendous, graphic photographs of infections and maladies which, funnily enough, lend support to certain school rules such as "no earrings or piercings", "no hair dying" (chapatsu, or dying one's hair brown, or orange, if they really overdo it, is a sign of rebellion among younger people)
20. No one steals your umbrella if you forget and leave it somewhere for a few hours, or even a few days.
21. Ham on vegetarian pizza.
22. Students can graduate from junior high school without ever having shown up.
in Salisbury, Maryland.
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