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12 things that shock Japanese people: “Did you know kids leave out cookies and milk for Santa?!”

Scott Wilson Apr 3, 2015
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Foreign cultures are always going to have things that surprise outsiders. Roasted shellfish snacks may be perfectly normal to Japanese people but not quite so appetizing to us, whereas kids dressing up on graduation day is endearing to us but downright terrifying to Japanese people.

The Japanese website CuRAZY recently compiled a list of 12 extremely popular tweets that revealed some sort of “surprising information.” Far more surprising than the tweets themselves though is the fact that so many Japanese people actually found the information surprising in the first place.

To be fair, some of the information the tweets provide could be surprising to anyone. But some of them make you just want to cringe with how ridiculous or obvious they are. Take a look for yourself:

#1. What “one meter” really means

▼ “A one-meter tall tsunami may sound like something you could easily just jump over, but the truth is very different. A one-meter tsunami actually means ‘a wave that will raise the level of the sea by one meter.’ Don’t underestimate a one-meter tsunami.”

https://twitter.com/_KE_N_/status/295134747603107840

#2. The real April fool

▼ “Everyone likes pranking others on April Fools’ Day, but did you know that any lies you tell on that day won’t come true for the rest of the year? For example if you post on Facebook ‘I finally got a girlfriend!’ then I hope you enjoy staying single for the rest of the year. Be careful!”

https://twitter.com/Karaage0419/status/318378305210421249

#3. Love is not blind

▼ “When the visual kei group Golden Bomber was just starting out, one of the vocalists fell in love with a woman who was deaf. Since she couldn’t hear any of his music, he instead concentrated on creating performances that were just as great to watch as they were to listen to, which made them the successful band (that doesn’t actually play any instruments) they are today.”

ゴールデンボンバーのボーカルの人、耳が聞こえない女の子を好きになったことで、自分がメロディやコードにこだわっている音楽って何なんだろう？と思って、見るだけで楽しめるパフォーマンス重視でやるようになったとか。考えて突き詰めて今の形。逃げや安直さはゼロだから強い。金スマ見て思わず涙。

— 上野三樹 (@uenomiki) January 25, 2013

#4. Sugary secrets

▼ “My teacher told us that the sugar in anko (sweet bean paste) gets absorbed more quickly by the body than chocolate, so don’t eat manju (steamed buns with anko). And Japanese tea has more caffeine in it than coffee, so don’t drink tea. If you think having a manju and tea for break time is a nice healthy snack, don’t be surprised when people around you start giving you weird looks.”

https://twitter.com/wahoo910/status/292093352004972545

#5. Surprising celery

▼ “The amount of calories it takes to digest celery is greater than the amount of calories that it provides, so actually if you ate nothing but celery you’d eventually starve to death.”

https://twitter.com/ck_11235/status/313936420383387648

#6. Not-so white dresses

▼ “The reason that brides wear white on their wedding day is to symbolize their virginal purity, a tradition that’s been around forever. But I read in a foreign magazine once about a woman who was getting married for the third time and decided to go with a pink dress. She said: ‘It’s messy and impure, just like me. And just like life.’ I fell in love.”

https://twitter.com/ozaki_u_u/status/315486134220230660

#7. Okama know best

▼ “I was once reprimanded by an okama (male homosexual or transsexual) at a gay bar. He told me: ‘Stop putting so much crap all over your skin! If you’re a real woman, then just use Nivea.’ So I stopped using all my expensive makeup and just used skincare products instead. I couldn’t believe it; my face was as smooth as a baby’s butt! I bowed down as far as I could facing the direction of that bar to thank that wonderful okama.”

「肌にいろいろ塗りたくるんじゃないわよ！女ならニベア一筋よ！」ってオカマバーのお姉さんに怒られて疑心暗鬼になりつつアルビ○ンのお高い化粧水乳液やめて洗顔後の肌にニベア直塗りだけのスキンケアに変えたら赤ちゃんのようなもち肌になったので新宿二丁目の方角に向かって土下座してる。

— ハミィ（やわらかめ） (@hummy_) March 24, 2013

#8. The hunt of the night owl

▼ “One reason that people tend to stay up late is because they don’t feel like they’re satisfied with their day yet. Only once you’ve had a fulfilling day can you get to sleep easily. People who have a tendency to stay up later than they should are chasing after that satisfaction, trying to get it before they go to sleep.”

夜更かしをする理由のひとつに、「今日という日に満足していないから」というのがある。充実しきっている日って、案外ぐっすり眠れるものだ。夜更かしがやめられない人ってのは、夜中まで必死に「充実」の遅れを取り返そうとしてるんじゃないか。ということを深夜につぶやく。

— 三秋縋 (@everb1ue) December 24, 2012

#9. Traitorous cats

▼ “When you get out of the bath, you might think the reason that your cat comes and snuggles up to you is because they’re thinking: ‘Oh! Master! You smell so nice!’ But actually they’re thinking: ‘Huh? What’s this smell? You didn’t ask me if you could change smells! Here, let me get a little bit of myself back on you.'”

https://twitter.com/tangent_90/status/268322332450365440

#10. Those crazy foreigners

▼ “Even though it’s not a well-known custom in Japan, in the West, on Christmas Eve children leave out milk and cookies for Santa. So in the morning along with seeing their presents, they also see an empty plate and glass as well. It’s not just getting stuff, they have to give a thank you of their own to Santa too.”

https://twitter.com/_guppy__0301/status/281690860675010560

#11. Real-life Death Note

▼ “The explosive popularity of Death Note has had an effect on how Japanese people name their children. Names that are pronounced completely differently from their kanji spelling, or names that don’t even sound like names are becoming very common, so that if a real Death Note were ever found it would be harder for the owner to write the name in. And what do we call these unconventional names? ‘Kira-kira names,’ just like Kira, the name of the main character in Death Note.”

デスノートが社会現象になった2000年代。「ノートに名前を書かれると死ぬ」と言う設定に影響を受けた当時の親達の間で「読みからは漢字を推測できない名前」や「他人が人名だと思われない名前」を子供につける事が大流行した。このような名前の総称を主人公の名前に因み「キラキラネーム」と呼ぶ。

— ぐぅ (@grgrgulu) March 27, 2013

#12. Life-LINE

▼ “I’ve always thought that LINE’s function telling you whether or not the person you sent a message to had read it or not was annoying. But then I found out that it was added after the 2011 earthquake as a way to find out whether the person you’re sending to got your message, even if they can’t send one back. I can only imagine the relief someone would feel seeing that the message they’d sent to a loved one they were worried about had been read.”

LINEの既読機能いやだなって思ってたんだけど、あれって東日本大震災があってから連絡がとれる状態なのかどうかを把握するために付けられたんだって。そんなん聞いたら既読ついてんのに返信来ないイライラも、既読がついただけで幸せだと思わないとなあ。

— 新城彰 (@Shinjo_Akira) January 17, 2013

So how many of these “surprising” tweets surprised you? I’d never heard of the Death Note influencing name choices before, and the LINE function was pretty interesting as well. Let us know in the comments, and be sure to tell us any “surprising” information that you may be privy to as well.

Source: CuRAZY
Top/featured image: Flickr