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Most socializing in Japan is done in groups, and while there’s definitely something to be said for the “the more the merrier” philosophy behind it, that same social norm can sometimes work against a person’s love life. Sure, a guy might have a thing for a girl who he’s in the same school club with, but it can be hard to take the relationship to the next level if they never have any time alone together. On the opposite side of the scale, if there’s no one who strikes a man’s fancy in his immediate social circle, expanding his network of acquaintances, and with it his dating pool, can be a tricky endeavor to pull off.

The end result is a number of men in Japan who don’t enter into a serious romantic relationship until they’re well into adulthood. Luckily, this isn’t a complete deal breaker for them, but that lack of experience does change the playing field, as shown in a survey of 206 Japanese women in their teens, twenties, and thirties who shared their hopes and concerns about being a guy’s very first girlfriend.

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Japan takes customer service very seriously, something that’s easy to see when even convenience store clerks are so dedicated to their job they’ll ask if you want your hot and cold purchases bagged separately, or else build a protective barrier between them. Hospitality standards are no joke, either, as illustrated by the tasks traditional innkeepers are expected to perform, such as carrying the dishes and utensils for full-course meals into and out of guests’ rooms.

It’s no surprise, then, that travelers in Japan have plenty of stories to tell about attentive inns and hotels, such as the 12 below from an online survey by web portal My Navi Woman in Japan.

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Still don’t want a smartphone? Japanese women might want you

Despite my work address being “The Internet,” my personal use cell phone actually isn’t a smartphone. Maybe it’s a result of spending several hours a day looking at websites, but to me there’s still just something that feels right about a compact phone that folds shut with an oddly satisfying snap, even if the sound provokes a Pavlovian response of laughter from any technophiles in earshot.

But like skinny ties and 8-bit video game graphics, it seems like flip phones aren’t quite ready to fade away entirely. As a matter of fact, busting out an old school flip phone in Japan just might make a man more attractive to women.

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10 weird and funny things Japanese people do

Not so long ago, a friend of mine from the UK came to visit me here in Japan. After showing him around town and making sure to take him to all of the most popular tourist spots, he remarked that quite a few of the subtle behaviours Japanese people exhibit seemed, while in no way offensive, remarkably different to those of our own countrymen. As we worked through a couple of the more unusual customs and behaviours that my friend had noticed, it struck me that at some point during my eight years of living here I had come to accept the everyday quirks of the people around me as entirely normal and not in the slightest bit odd.

Last year, we discussed the 10 things that we love and the 10 things we just can’t stomach about Japan, but today we at RocketNews24 felt it was time to present you with a list of random but genuine observations, from the peculiar to the downright endearing, about the Japanese people themselves. Enjoy!

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Japan is big on seasonality. As you might deduce about a society that has preferred points of the calendar for eating specific snacks and sushi, this extends to romantic relationships as well. Like the blossoming of the cherry trees, each year sees certain repeating situations for which popular opinion holds the best way to spend is “with your boyfriend.”

However, not every woman in Japan has a special guy in her life, which can be all the more of a downer when you keep hearing about how romantic those particular times of year are.

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Demons, beans, and giant sushi rolls – It could only be Setsubun!

When you really think about them, even the traditions and practices that we each grew up with and seem perfectly normal are kind of odd. Easter, once solely the Christian celebration of the resurrection of Jesus, now sees us telling children that a benevolent rabbit came in the night to leave them chocolate eggs. Christmas takes us even further into the world of fantasy as kids grow up thinking that a magical man who lives in the North Pole works a team of elves all year round to make presents for them, delivering said gifts across the world in a single night via flying woodland beasts, despite the man himself likely having respiratory problems owing to his XXL frame.

Although Japan doesn’t really do Christmas, it does have a plenty of its own traditions and yearly celebrations, and it just so happens that today is one of them. Setsubun, or the spring bean-throwing festival, sees children yelling at and peppering fictional demons with handfuls of roasted beans, and families sitting down to eat enormous pieces of maki, or roll, sushi, often adhering to peculiar local traditions as they do.

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There seems to be a bit of a debate these days centered around whether or not being an otaku, the term used in Japan to describe people who obsess over a variety of hobbies, is a socially healthy one. In extreme cases, the otaku lifestyle can limit romantic opportunities, and even renowned anime director Hayao Miyazaki has grumbled about their effects on the industry he earned his fame in.

With all the negativity and marginalizing, you’d think the number of people the label could be applied to would be small, and the number of individuals who’d choose it for themselves to be smaller still. Surprisingly enough, though, in a recent survey of college students, nearly four in ten identified themselves as an otaku.

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Foreigners reveal the moments they felt they really “got this whole Japan thing”

Expats in Japan, you know the feeling: After years of working towards your goal of somehow, someday living in Japan, you finally made it to the land of mochi and Harajuku. But you’re not really living in Japan, no, you’re drowning in it. It wasn’t what you expected it to be (how dare your years of research, whether in school or from anime, deceive you!). And you cry and you curse your naivety for ever thinking you could just pick up and move to such a strange land.

But then one day, you have a clear, identifiable moment when everything seems to come together and you just have to stop and smile to yourself, thinking, “I’m doing it. I’m really doing it.” It’s these little moments that eventually trickle together and without realizing it, you’re walking on water, swapping oyaji-gyagu with the best of them and craving sashimi for dinner. Let’s take a look at what 20 foreigners on Japanese website, Niconico News, identified as a time they really felt like they had gotten the hang of living in Japan.

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What exactly is romance? It’s a seemingly simple term, and one undeniably connected to a set of strong feelings, but does one have to act on them, or can romance exist entirely in the heart of an individual, without any sort of necessary manifestation in words or deeds? Is the word applicable only exclusively to happy relationships, or does that sort of stability preclude the sudden rush of emotion needed for something to be called romantic?

People have been struggling with these questions for years, and today we take a look at three less than poetic attempts at defining the word romance in publisher Sanseido’s Japanese dictionary.

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Japan loves its cats. When feline fans here aren’t going online to swap trivia about their favorite members of the animal kingdom, they’re playing with cute kitties between sips of coffee at one of the nation’s many cat cafes.

At times, it even seems like “love” doesn’t properly convey the depths of their emption, and that it would be more appropriate to say some people worship the creatures, which is exactly what you can do at these nine shrines and temples dedicated to cats.

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Sometimes, it seems like all of Japan is slowly being drawn into Tokyo. As the county’s economic, educational, political, and even entertainment capital, for many people born elsewhere in Japan, it’s not so much a matter of if they’ll move to the country’s biggest city, but when.

But as in any society, not everyone in Japan is enthralled with urban living. After enough time in the concrete jungles of Japan’s major metropolises, anyone can find themselves thinking about packing up and moving someplace where the horizon is dotted with forests instead of skyscrapers.

Here are three places to consider if you’re ready to make the dream of living in the Japanese countryside into a reality.

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Survey reveals that Japan’s kids would rather bake cakes and score goals than cure illnesses

Kids’ hopes and dreams for the future can change from one minute to the next and very often depend on the TV shows they watch and whatever their friends are talking about on any given week. But a recent survey conducted by human resource consulting company Adecco has revealed some interesting information about the future aspirations of children from Japan compared to those of kids from other eight other Asian countries.

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Perfectly timed photo at sumo match captures moment of surprising beauty, sumo super powers

Its popularity may be dwindling in today’s world of ultra-rich football and baseball teams and their players, but there’s something wonderfully dignified, almost majestic, about sumo. And as one photograph shared last weekend by the Japan Sumo Association shows, there is perhaps even more magic to be seen if only we could all just slow down and open our eyes a little more often.

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Foreign men share their reasons for divorcing their Japanese wives

Earlier this month, we brought you an article about foreign men sounding off on the difficulties of having a Japanese wife. While some of their complaints were understandable and others were just downright silly (you can’t deal with tofu? C’mon!), international relationships in real life don’t always end as happily as in the movie My Darling is a Foreigner.

Continuing the international marriage theme in a more unfortunate direction, we now bring you the voices of some foreign men who have gone through the experience of divorcing Japanese women. You might be surprised to learn that the main catalyst for divorce in each of their scenarios was rarely related directly to cultural differences. Instead, it seems that a combination of other factors played the decisive role.

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The Yomiuri Giants, one of two professional teams playing in Tokyo, are without question Japanese baseball’s version of the New York Yankees. With huge coffers from which to pay the kind of salaries to attract and retain the talent to be competitive year after year, the Giants are loved at home, admired in markets that don’t have a team of their own, and reviled in those that do.

However, the Giants most recent season ended in bitter disappointment with a game seven loss in the championship Japan series. Adding insult to injury was the fact that the defeat came at the hands of the Rakuten Golden Eagles, an upstart expansion team formed in 2005 that until recently was the league’s doormat.

Clearly, a shakeup is necessary to get the Giants back on the path to glory. Something extreme, like banning chewing gum during games.

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School kids in Japan learn about bugs, terrifying miniature horse-beasts and baby Ohmus

Back when I was a kid growing up in Liverpool, we studied only the subjects that were essential for daily life: namely Numbers, Words, Throwing, and of course a selection of moves from the 1983 romantic drama Flashdance. There was no time for art or creativity, and we were only ever allowed outdoors to collect firewood or when the time came to offer up a sacrifice to The Beast.

So it’s great to see that school kids in Japan are given a chance to learn the things that really matter, like identifying a Japanese rhinoceros beetle from a lineup of frightening, hopefully imaginary, creatures.

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There are certain things almost everyone who moves to Japan seems to like. The food? Tasty and healthy. Public transportation? Clean and punctual. But Japanese TV? Let’s just say there’s a reason Internet access is one of the first things new arrivals in the country look to outfit their apartments with.

It turns out this lukewarm reaction to the country’s programming isn’t just a foreigner thing, either, as some 75 percent of Japanese citizens polled by the Asashi Shimbun newspaper also said that TV has become boring. Today we look at why.

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Japanese culture is filled with gift giving, and no gift is more common than the omiyage. Usually translated as “souvenir,” omiyage is a bit broader in usage, encompassing all sorts of travel gift situations. Taking a trip somewhere? Make sure to bring back omiyage for your coworkers. Have friends coming from overseas? You might want to give them some omiyage to remember their trip by. And of course, if those same friends offer to show you around their country, it’s only polite to bring them an omiyage as a show of thanks, if you take them up on their offer.

But what kind of Japanese omiyage from Japan is most likely to be a hit with foreigners? Japanese Internet users offered the following suggestions.

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China’s biggest online retailer has a ‘Rent a Boyfriend’ section — Here’s what you’ll find there

China has some interesting matchmaking and dating practices. There are love hunters who track down potential wives for China’s richest bachelors and there are “leftover women,” who are criticized for being older than 27 and unmarried.

In some cases, when a male dies too young, families have “ghost marriages,” exhuming female corpses and marrying the pair.

So, it’s natural for many young Chinese to want to allay their parents’ anxiety over their single-dom. And now they can take to Alibaba-owned online retailer Taobao, tweets George Chen at South China Morning Post. That’s the equivalent of shopping for a date on Amazon or eBay.

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Join Sharla on a Japan love hotel adventure!

One of the weird, fascinating things about Japan that makes many foreigners giggle is the presence of so-called “love hotels.” In many Japanese cities, you and your lover can rent a hotel room for either a few hours of fun (less expensive) or overnight for  a whole lotta fun (more expensive). Often, love hotels will have a particular theme in decor throughout the building, which may even vary room to room. To get an idea of just how crazy the decorations can be, check out this photos collection of some of the most outrageous love hotel rooms Japan has to offer.

If you’re curious to learn more about the differences between a typical hotel room and a love hotel room, however, YouTuber Sharla in Japan has uploaded a video documenting her stay at a love hotel with a friend. Sharla wants everyone to know that you don’t have to go to a love hotel with your significant other or for clandestine nooky; it can be just as fun to go with your pal or use the places as a cheaper accommodation alternative! Hear more about what Sharla has to say and watch her fun video after the jump!

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