Every Day a Surprise

I'm often asked, "What was the best part of living in Japan for 8 years?"

I can't possibly pick just one thing - so my stock answer is this:

Every single day that we lived in Japan, we saw something - sometimes small, sometimes big - that we'd never seen before.

That's not an exaggeration. Every day. 

It might be a hamburger served on rice buns (I don't mean buns made of rice, I mean rice formed into buns - if that makes sense). It might be a man walking his pet chipmunk. It might be an ancient ceremony. It might be a tee-shirt that says, "Happy Love Clams". It might be a man marching around a festival with no pants (as my buddy Martin is pointing out in this photo from the Yokohama Matsuri).

You just never knew.

Often, our surprise would come in the form of a TV show or a movie.

If you've only watched movies by Kurosawa and Ozu (and you should see these), you have no idea what kind of wonderful weirdness is manifested in Japanese cinema.

Sometimes I worry that Japan is becoming too Western - but I shouldn't worry.

Here's a trailer for a new movie in Japan, called "Love Exposure".

If you have delicate sensibilities, don't watch. 

It features a priests son who, apparently, is the Bruce Lee of 'upskirt' photography. If that doesn't make sense now, it soon will.

If you want to advance your view of the Japanese beyond stereotypes of samurai salarymen and dutiful housewives, watch these five Japanese films.

• Battle Royale
• Visitor Q
• Audition
• 2LDK
• A Snake of June