Who Are The Japanese?

And where did they come from?

The answers are difficult to come by, though not impossible ― the real problem is that the Japanese themselves may not want to know. Unearthing the origins of the Japanese is a much harder task than you might guess. Among world powers today, the Japanese are the most distinctive in their culture and environment. The origins of their language are one of the most disputed questions of linguistics. These questions are central to the self-image of the Japanese and to how they are viewed by other peoples. Japan's rising dominance and touchy relations with its neighbors make it more important than ever to strip away myths and find answers.

The search for answers is difficult because the evidence is so conflicting. On the one hand, the Japanese people are biologically undistinctive, being very similar in appearance and genes to other East Asians, especially to Koreans. As the Japanese like to stress, they are culturally and biologically rather homogeneous, with the exception of a distinctive people called the Ainu on Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido. Taken together, these facts seem to suggest that the Japanese reached Japan only recently from the Asian mainland, too recently to have evolved differences from their mainland cousins, and displaced the Ainu, who represent the original inhabitants. But if that were true, you might expect the Japanese language to show close affinities to some mainland language, just as English is obviously closely related to other Germanic languages (because Anglo-Saxons from the continent conquered England as recently as the sixth century A.D.). How can we resolve this contradiction between Japan's presumably ancient language and the evidence for recent origins?

Read the whole thing.

(HT Megan McArdle)

Japan: Top Official Speaks Out Against Christianity and Islam

This is surprising:

TOKYO – Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa, a top politician in Japan’s ruling Democratic Party, spoke out in favor of Buddhism while calling Christianity “exclusive and self-righteous” and labeling Islam as only somewhat better, Reuters reported on November 11. The Secretary General made the remarks while meeting with the head of the Japan Buddhist Federation, a group traditionally close to the rival Liberal Democratic Party. Religious organizations can pack clout in Japanese politics because of their ability to mobilize voters, but politicians tend to shun public remarks about people’s beliefs.

Japan Running Out of 18-Year-Olds, Universities Going Bankrupt

Following up on my post yesterday about the declining population in Japan -- one of the ramifications of a shrinking population is the bankruptcy of many of their universities:

The United States is not the only country plagued with problems in higher education; Japan has challenges of its own to overcome, albeit of a different variety. Lack of enrollment for private universities is threatening bankruptcy or mergers. The Chronicle reports that

“According to the ministry of education, 47 percent of Japan's roughly 550 private four-year universities are falling below their government-set recruitment targets, the highest ever figure. Over 40 percent are reportedly in debt, and many are a bank loan away from the fate of St. Thomas, one of five Japanese colleges to stop accepting students this year.”

Why?

“Japan is running out of 18-year-olds.”

Read the whole thing.

Japan is quickly becoming a land of disappearing children and declining marriage. The financial issues their universities are facing is only the tip of the iceberg of what these trends mean for the future of Japan.

Tokyo: A Visual Presentation

By Joan Jimenez. Out of all the countries I've visited (28 so far), Japan is the one I the one I feel the greatest affinity toward and familiarity with. I spent six years working for a Japanese company in an intensely cross-cultural environment. In total, I've spent about three months from multiple trips to Japan, but it often feels like much more with all the close interaction I've had with Japanese people over the years -- both professionally and personally.

Watching this video really makes me homesick for what comes closest to being my second home.

Japan Fact of the Day

Talk about a rapidly aging population:

By 2050, Japan's centenarian population is expected to reach nearly 1 million, according to the U.N. projections.

Marriage Markets, Japanese Style

Fad or crisis? Japan’s ‘marriage hunting’ craze:

The twenty- to forty-somethings are part of a new fad sweeping Japan: “konkatsu” or “marriage-hunting,” a word play on “job hunting” that suggests finding Mr or Mrs Right is a matter of good research and thorough planning.

This year Japan has gone konkatsu-crazy, with the trend spawning countless magazine articles, a weekly TV drama and a best-selling book.

A Tokyo shrine now offers konkatsu prayer services, a Hokkaido baseball team has set up special seats for those looking for mates, and a Tokyo ward office arranges dating excursions to restaurants and aquariums.

A lingerie maker has even come up with a konkatsu bra with a ticking clock that can be stopped by inserting an engagement ring.

Japan – known for its strong work ethic that can squeeze social time, and for its declining birth rates – seems to be getting its mojo back.

It remains to be seen if Japan has truly gotten it's "mojo" back. The only evidence of this will be increasing marriage and/or birth rates.

Social observers see a variety of reasons for konkatsu’s popularity, including Japan’s current recession which may be leading some women to choose marriage over career in a search for financial stability.

Japan’s government has thrown its support behind konkatsu to boost the birth rate of just 1.37 children per woman, hoping to slow the decline of the ageing population, which is projected to shrink nearly 30 percent by 2055.

An advisory panel to the cabinet last month proposed a 10-point plan to raise the low birth rate, including the promotion of “love and marriage", possibly by organising matchmaking events.

If there are underlying economic realities such as increasing costs of raising children, greater economic opportunity for women (increasing their opportunity cost both for having children and entering traditional marriage), etc., then government programs will probably only have limited effect.

Here is why this is such an important issue for Japan:

Marriage rates have fallen sharply between 1975 and 2005 – from 85 percent to 51 percent for men aged 30 to 34, and from 90 percent to 63 percent for women of the same age, according to census data.

“Currently some 4,000 match-making agencies do business in Japan, with a total membership of some 620,000,” she said. “About half of local governments also give similar matching services, especially in rural farming areas.

"But the successful mating rate through such an agency stays as low as eight percent,” she added. “People don’t have communication skills good enough to find a partner, no matter how many candidates they meet.

“Konkatsu is not a bad thing,” she said. “But we need to study what brought the marriage crisis to the country in the first place.”

Increasing costs for having/raising kids combined with strong norms for traditional gender roles in marriage and increasing economic opportunity for women may have something to do with it. As the opportunity cost for women entering marriage increases and they are better able to support themselves independently, traditional gender roles may look increasingly bad causing a decrease in female demand for marriage. While this is not a full explanation, I think these forces help give a partial explanation for these trends.

(HT Tyler Cowen)

Should Japan Abolish Currency?

Tyler Cowen:

The idea is being discussed:

With recovery elusive, a population doddering into old age and perhaps a decade of deflation in prospect, Japan may start mulling the most radical monetary policy of all — the abolition of cash.

Unorthodox, untried and, said one Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi strategist, “in the realms of economic science fiction”, the recommendation has nevertheless begun floating around Tokyo’s corridors of power and economists have described Japan as particularly suitable as a testing ground.

One policy goal is to open up the option of negative nominal interest rates, perhaps as low as negative four percent. It's worth noting that although you can buy swine placenta drink there, simply by swiping your cell phone, currency in circulation still amounts to 16 percent of gdp.

I don't know if this is a good idea or not, but if anyone could pull-off this "economic science fiction", it would be the Japanese.

Japan: Slacker Nation?

Young Japanese shun promotions:

In a country once proud of its success-driven "salarymen," managers are grappling with a new phenomenon: Many young workers are shunning choice promotions -- even forgoing raises -- in favor of humdrum jobs with minimal responsibilities.

Even as Japan faces a sharp recession, civil servants are opting out of career-advancing exams and information-technology workers are flocking to headhunters to switch to less-demanding careers. A study this year by the consulting firm Towers Perrin found just 3% of Japanese workers say they're putting their full effort into their jobs -- the lowest of 18 countries surveyed.

That's prompting companies to craft delicate strategies to nudge young workers up the corporate ladder. "I tell them to break news of promotions gently," says Makoto Iwade, a lawyer who advises companies on labor relations. "They should feel employees out first to see if they're ready. Don't shock them."

Employment experts have begun to call these workers hodo-hodo zoku, or the "so-so folks." They say these workers, mostly in their 20s and early 30s, are sapping Japan's international competitiveness at a time when the aging country must raise its productivity to keep the economy growing.

"They'll ruin Japan with their lax work ethic," says labor consultant Yukiko Takita. "They're supposed to be leaders of the next generation."

Glenn Reynolds writes:

In a modern industrial society, it's possible to live quite well without climbing the ladder much. That may be a problem, in time.

My take: I worked for Japanese companies for over six years in intensely cross-cultural work environments. Having taken quite a few business trips to Japan and experiencing their work environment first hand, I'd say that this is what you get when you try to force employees to work the the awful hours of a first year associate at a big law firm in an organization that has all the efficiency of a DC bureaucracy.

The Japanese put in many long hours, but on a per-hour basis seem to be far less productive than their American counterparts. In many instances, it seems face time is considered more important than productivity. That's a broken system and not a good way to make money or live a life. It incentivizes both unnecessarily long hours and leisure-taking at work. I've personally seen more than one Japanese "salaryman" both sleeping and reading newspapers at their desks.

No wonder many Japanese are opting out. I think the bigger question is wondering what took them so long?

P.S. -- Michael Greenspan says this is what happens when you don't have enough income equality.

P.P.S. -- It's not just Japan:

I work for one of the big 3 aerospace/defense companies at a Los Angeles area location, and though I wouldn't say it's nearly as evident as in Japan, young workers in our industry are asking the same questions. We have no hope of achieving the same standard of living as the droves of retiring Boomers and Silents, and the 2% raise differential afforded by a promotion simply isn't enough of an incentive to work 20-30% more hours a week.

If the industry paid overtime, or offered significant bonuses to rank and file employees (bonuses are only available to upper management), a lot of young engineers would respond enthusiastically. In fact, we've asked the company to do these things in recent employee forums. We'd all like to buy homes in the area and raise families here, but the older workers own all the real estate, and most of us assume that we'll give things a few years, but get out of the area once we need to settle down. It's simply too expensive to live in a metro area like L.A. Since the incentive structure doesn't offer us hope of achieving the same lifestyle as the older employees, we don't see much reason to devote our lives to these companies. As I said, the 2% differential doesn't make a whole lot of difference, so why bother with the extra stress?

No More Christmas Cake: Why 30 is the New 20 in Japan

An increasing trend of singleness in a land facing a population implosion:

While American audiences needed a bit of persuasion to admit that 30 was perhaps the new 20, Japanese women were quick to embrace the notion of aging gracefully outside the restrictive confines of marriage.

Indeed, there's even a new word to describe a fashionable and sophisticated single woman in her thirties, namely arasa (アラサ), which is short for aranundo sati, the Japanese pronunciation for 'around thirty.'

While Japanese government bureaucrats - the vast majority of whom are male - are scrambling to solve the problem of Japan's declining birth rate and aging population, Japanese women are increasingly embracing the freedom of unmarried life.

It wasn't too long ago in Japan that turning 25 was something of a death-sentence for unmarried women.

Believe it or not, unmarried women in their late 20s and early 30s were once commonly referred to as Christmas cakes (クリスマスケーキ, kurisumasukekki). Since you tend to throw away uneaten Christmas cakes after December 25th, the sick punch line is that unmarried women beyond the age of 25 have little value to society.

Wow. That's harsh...

That is harsh. I certainly thought so when I heard people talking about this during my travels in Japan. Now there is some blowback:

Of course, all of this is changing, especially since sexy older women are now gracing the covers of Japanese fashion magazines that were once reserved exclusively for teenage models. Stores and boutiques in fashionable neighborhoods such as Ginza and Ometesandou in Tokyo are increasingly shunning younger shoppers, preferring to market exclusively to the padded wallets of older, single women.

While Japanese men will certainly have to face the reality of declining marriage prospects, Japanese women seem to be embracing the personal and financial power and freedom that comes with being financially stable and single.

Just as the dating scene on American college campuses is becoming increasingly male-centric due to a shortage of men, I would expect Japan's dating scene will become increasingly female-centric if this trend continues. (As more women choose the single life, there will be a shortage of married-minded women.)

Read my previous post on Japan's declining population: The Land of Disappearing Children

Japan Is Running Out of Engineers?

Rikei Banare!

After years of fretting over coming shortages, the country is actually facing a dwindling number of young people entering engineering and technology-related fields.

Universities call it “rikei banare,” or “flight from science.” The decline is growing so drastic that industry has begun advertising campaigns intended to make engineering look sexy and cool, and companies are slowly starting to import foreign workers, or sending jobs to where the engineers are, in Vietnam and India.

It was engineering prowess that lifted this nation from postwar defeat to economic superpower. But according to educators, executives and young Japanese themselves, the young here are behaving more like Americans: choosing better-paying fields like finance and medicine, or more purely creative careers, like the arts, rather than following their salaryman fathers into the unglamorous world of manufacturing.

Sounds kind of familiar, doesn't it? One way Japan can start to reverse this trend is to increase the salary they offer engineers (which should begin to happen as they get more scarce).

Japan's dilemma (in contrast to the US) is that they are not culturally very open to foreigners immigrating, so it's difficult for them to simply import more tech workers:

While ingrained xenophobia is partly to blame, companies say Japan’s language and closed corporate culture also create barriers so high that many foreign engineers simply refuse to come, even when they are recruited.

As a result, some companies are moving research jobs to India and Vietnam because they say it is easier than bringing non-Japanese employees here.

Japan's populaion is also aging far more rapidly than that of the US, meaning their workforce is quickly shrinking. Their education system is also not as flexible as America's and it is extremely rare for people to go back to school after having started their first career.

Japan's demographics pose many challenges to the country. The shortage of engineers seems like it should be of much less concern than its shortage of children.

I worked as an engineer for Japanese companies for six years before coming back to school and it is the one country I have visited most frequently and feel closest to outside the US. It makes me sad to think of the challenges that lie ahead for their nation. While I think there are some painful transitions ahead, I am confident the people of Japan will find ways to adapt to these changes in a distinctly Japanese way.

Japanese Aborigines

Meet the Ainu:

An aboriginal man … in Japan? The 1920s photo to the left is that of a chief of the Ainu, an indigenous people of the island of Hokkaido, whose tradition and culture was completely different from that of the Japanese.

The Ainu was virtually destroyed during the Meiji Period in an attempt to (forcibly) assimilate their people into the rest of Japan.

Scribal Terror blog has a neat synopsis about the Ainu People:

The Ainu inhabited an island called Ainu Mosir before the Japanese colonized it, changed its name to Hokkaido, and "decimated" the population. The origins of the Ainu were a subject of speculation until genetic studies determined that they were “the descendants of Japan’s ancient Jomon inhabitants, mixed with Korean genes of Yayoi colonists and of the modern Japanese.”

The New York Times reports (via Japundit )that just this year, Japan has finally recognized the rights of the indigenous Ainu. This recognition was apparently timed to coincide with Japan's hosting of an international conference of indigenous peoples on the island of Hokkaido (formerly the home of the Ainu) but it comes a little late for this rapidly disappearing culture.

Link | Photo: Old Photos of Japan

I remember how surprised I was when I first learned that Japan had an Aboriginal people group. I had always assumed the Japanese were indigenous to the island. During one of my trips to Japan, I visited the Osaka Human Rights Museum and learned more about the history of the Ainu. Sadly, there are many parallels between their experience and that of the Native Americans in the United States.

Read Wikipedia's entry on the Ainu to learn more about this people group many don't even know exists and this online Smithsonian exhibition on Ainu history, culture, and art.

English Evolving Into a Language We May Not Understand

Fascinating!

The "likely consequence" of growing numbers of Chinese learning English without "enough quality spoken practice" means that "more and more spoken English will sound increasingly like Chinese." Already, non-native speakers far outnumber native speakers, and in the next decade, native speakers will make up only 15 percent of those who use the language.

Read the full article. Here are Wikipedia articles on Chinglish and Japlish.

Also, be sure to check out Engrish.com, a website full of humorous English mistakes that appear in Japanese advertising and product design.

(HT Tyler Cowen)

Only in Japan...

Barcodes on tombstones:

A gravestone manufacturer here is helping bereaved families remember their loved ones with a touch of technology -- mobile phone QR codes on tombstones that link to photographs and video clips of the deceased.

The tombstones are being sold by stone processing company Ishinokoe. Behind doors on the tombstone that can be locked is a QR code -- a square code read by mobile phones that can link to Web addresses. Grave visitors can use the code to access images and photographs of the person while they were alive.

"Tombstones change with the ages," said Ishinokoe president Yoshitsugu Fukazawa. "If my grandfather who started the company could see this, he'd probably be really surprised."

The company developed the tombstones together with an IT firm in Tokyo. In addition to images of the deceased, people can view a greeting from the chief mourner at the funeral and browse through the guest book. They can also make entries using their cell phones.

(HT Tyler Cowen)

Only In Japan...

Japanese woman caught living in a man's closet:

A homeless woman who sneaked into a man's house and lived undetected in his closet for a year was arrested in Japan after he became suspicious when food mysteriously began disappearing.

Police found the 58-year-old woman Thursday hiding in the top compartment of the man's closet and arrested her for trespassing, police spokesman Hiroki Itakura from southern Kasuya town said Friday.

The resident of the home installed security cameras that transmitted images to his mobile phone after becoming puzzled by food disappearing from his kitchen over the past several months.

(HT Instapundit)

Fugu Farmers Fight For Fixing Fatal Fish

When I used to travel to Japan on business, my Japanese co-workers used to take great delight in trying to find food I wouldn't eat. While they never succeeded, one of their best attempts was when they got me to eat fugu, a Japanese blowfish that is highly poisonous if cooked incorrectly.

Well, now it looks like the next time I'm in Japan, I can enjoy another round of fugu with less fuss (and less glory). Some clever Japanese researchers have figured out how to raise non-poisonous fugu:

Blowfish or fugu (ふぐ)　packs a lethal punch in the form of tetrodotoxin, an extremely potent neurotoxin that paralyzes its victims while they are still conscious. To put things into perspective, this means that you are fully aware as your throat closes, your lungs deflate and you drift slowly into death's arms.

There is no known cure.



However, Japan is a country of safety and order, so thankfully the majority of deaths occur when untrained people catch and prepare the fish, accidentally poisoning themselves in the process. The most dangerous culprit is the liver, which has been illegal for centuries despite being the tastiest morsel of the blowfish - it is often compared to the highest-quality foie gras (fatty goose liver).

Of course, all of this is set to change now that Japanese fish-farmers have found a way to raise non-poisonous blowfish.... that are 'as harmless as goldfish.' In fact, the advances are so significant that farmers have even been successful in producing completely poison-free fugu livers.

Of course, not everyone in Japan is happy about this development. The fugu lobbyists are doing their best to put a stop to all of this:

Sadly, Mr. Noguchi's research is being suppressed by powerful interests in the fugublowfish will jeopardize their monopoly.

"We won't approve it," said Mr. Hisashi Matsumura, the president of the Shimonoseki Fugu Association and vice president of the National Fugu Association. "We're not engaging in this irrelevant discussion."

Sigh. Looks like thrill-seekers in Japan are going to have wait a bit longer to legally sample fugu liver. Of course, there are certain places in Japan where you can get your fingers on some fugu liver, though be sure that your affairs are in order before you dig in!

It looks like public choice analysis explains a lot in the poisonous blowfish industry too.

Much more on the fight for fixing fugu in the New York Times.

Only in Japan...

Japanese train pushers:

Oshiya or 'pusher' is an informal Japanese term for a worker who stands on the platform of a railway station during the morning and evening rush hours, and pushes people onto the train. This video is a good example of just how crowded it gets on Japanese trains.

Remind me not to complain when I start commuting into DC by subway this summer...

The Land of Disappearing Children

This is truly sad:

Japan celebrated a national holiday on Monday in honor of its children. But Children's Day might just as easily have been a national day of mourning.

For this is the land of disappearing children and a slow-motion demographic catastrophe that is without precedent in the developed world.

The number of children has declined for 27 consecutive years, a government report said over the weekend. Japan now has fewer children who are 14 or younger than at any time since 1908.

The proportion of children in the population fell to an all-time low of 13.5 percent. That number has been falling for 34 straight years and is the lowest among 31 major countries, according to the report. In the United States, children account for about 20 percent of the population.

Japan also has a surfeit of the elderly. About 22 percent of the population is 65 or older, the highest proportion in the world. And that number is on the rise. By 2020, the elderly will outnumber children by nearly 3 to 1, the government report predicted. By 2040, they will outnumber them by nearly 4 to 1.

The economic and social consequences of these trends are difficult to overstate.

Japan, now the world's second-largest economy, will lose 70 percent of its workforce by 2050 and economic growth will slow to zero, according to a report this year by the nonprofit Japan Center for Economic Research.

Population shrinkage began three years ago and is gathering pace. Within 50 years, the population, now 127 million, will fall by a third, the government projects. Within a century, two-thirds of the population will be gone.

I find it difficult to fathom why some people continue to think over-population is going to be a bigger problem for the developed world than under-population.

See my related posts:

• Making Babies!
• Be Fruitful and Multiply!

(HT Instapundit)

Five Mistakes Made By First-Timers In Japan

Prior to coming back to school, I worked for a Japanese company for several years and used to go to Japan periodically on business trips. In all my travels, Japan is the one country and culture outside the U.S. that I became most familiar with. If you've ever seen Lost In Translation, there was a point in my life where I basically lived that movie. (Well, other than the girl.)

Japan remains one of the most fascinating countries I have ever visited. The culture is completely unlike the West in ways that are far better understood through experience rather than explanation. It gives a deep richness to the people and the country, making every trip there a journey of new discovery.

Matthew Firestone shares my perspective:

I've always argued that the real appeal of Japan is simply that it's an incredibly interesting country to explore. Even after living here for more than five years, and spending literally thousands of hours jumping over the linguistic hurdles of Japanese grammar, I still suffer from a fair bit of culture shock on a day-to-day basis.

You see, I guess that's really the gist of why Japan is so appealing to foreigners like myself. No matter how hard you try to assimilate, there will always be more challenges to overcome, especially if you want to penetrate the heart of one the world's most closed societies. Simply put, life in Japan is anything but boring.

Matthew then goes on to share some tips on mistakes to avoid for people visiting Japan for the first time, most of which I made in some form or another:

Of course, there are dozens of cultural landmines that must be dodged on a daily basis here. And on that note, I present to you today five mistakes made by first-timers in Japan.

1) There is no word for no.
2) Be mindful of your footwear.
3) Go easy on the ramen.
4) Learn how to use chopsticks.
5) Don't date club girls.

Below are my own experiences with each one:

1) I can't tell you how many headaches #1 made for my American and Japanese co-workers and me. We literally spent months talking past each other and needlessly pursuing projects because the Americans didn't understand when the Japanese were trying to tell us no.

2) While I never wore shoes inappropriately in a person's home, I did make a few mistakes in a couple of ryokan (Japanese inns) I stayed in. I also never could quite get used to taking shoes off and wearing slippers in some parts of factories and museums (particularly at World Heritage sites), or slipping off house slippers to put on toilet slippers when going into the bathroom. I also learned the hard way that it's considered rude if you sit on a desk.

3) Fortunately, I never had too much trouble with the food in Japan (although during my first trip, I had a few nasty surprises when I discovered what it was that I was eating). Unfortunately, my reaction to food was not so favorable during a taxi ride in South Korea...

4) My first business trip to Japan was for 5 weeks. When I left, I was about as inexperienced as could be eating with chopsticks. My hands ached by the time I got back home and I wore food on several occasions during those weeks, but I haven't had a problem since.

5) While I never dated a club girl, I did have a Japanese girlfriend once. All I will say is that she completely broke my heart...

Despite its many pitfalls, I still love and miss Japan dearly. I hope to get back there again someday soon.

P.S. -- Here are a few less common mistakes I made in Japan...

• Getting locked in a bathroom in my hotel room in Japan in the middle of the night -- I had to yell for help for about 30 minutes, hoping someone who spoke English could hear me.
  
• Accidentally hiking with three Yakuza (Japanese mafia) down a mountain on Miyajima Island, just outside of Hiroshima.
  
• Running full-speed into a glass door at my hotel in Kobe, just like a bird flying into a window. (I was running to catch a bus and the automatic door didn't open as fast as I thought it would.) My nose-print was on the door for days afterwards...
  
• Nearly spending my last bit of yen while sight-seeing in Nagasaki -- I ended up back at my hotel in Kobe with less than a dollar in my pocket and no ATM in sight.
  

... and a few other blunders I've made elsewhere around the world.

A Taster's Guide To Green Tea

I worked for Japanese companies for six years prior to coming back to school and have been to Japan on several occasions. Chief among things I got hooked on were sushi and green tea:

...there are a multitude of specialty green teas, each varying in taste, texture and complexity.

While a true vinophile would never consistently drink glass upon glass of red wine, green tea connoisseurs take great pride in sampling the full spectrum of brews.

But how do you tell the difference between sencha and matcha? Aren't all green teas simply dried leaves seeped in hot water?

Ah, my young grasshopper!

You have much to learn, but fear not as today, I'm going to present you with a handy taster's guide to green teas that will hopefully get started on the long road to green tea devotion.

To get started, click on the link below to take a tour through the wide and wonderful world of green tea, one of nature's most perfect beverages.

Here's the link. More on green tea here.

Japanese Lemon Tree Bears 11 Kinds of Fruit!

Taking the art of grafting to a whole new level:

A 71-year-old farmer has found a unique solution to Japan's chronic shortage of space: grow 11 different kinds of fruit on a single tree!

As cool as this is, wouldn't it be easier to just import the fruit?