Japan for the Uninvited

The Japanese have a completely different take on Valentine's Day, which is even more commercialised than in the West. On February 14th, women give chocolate or presents to men. The greater the value of the gift, the more serious the girl is about having a relationship with the guy. Exactly one month ...

There are over 700,000 weddings in Japan every year. Western style weddings are increasingly popular, usually conducted in expensive hotels or special wedding centers. The centerpiece is sometimes a Christian wedding ceremony, transporting the bride and groom to a magical Hollywood fantasy. Few of the guests understand what the foreign minister ...

Many Japanese people believe that your blood type indicates something about your character, much like horoscopes in the West. There's little or no scientific basis for this, but the general beliefs about blood type are: Type A - calm, composed, level-headed, serious, reliable, trustworthy. Appearing aloof or superior, they are often surrounded ...

Every year, the cremated remains of over 50 Thai women, prostitutes dead from AIDS, are shipped back to Thailand from Japan. 30,000 Thai women are living in Japan, of whom only 8,000 have legal visas. Many of Japan's illegal immigrants work in the ravenous, unregulated sex industry, which employs over 150,000 ...

To the foreign eye, Japanese seems porn-obsessed. Pornographic magazines and manga dominate the magazine racks in convenience stores and newsagents, while men proudly read them on the subway. Laws about explicitness, particularly the "Public Morals Act" are quite strict, but difficult to police. Many magazines cater to the lorikon (Lolita complex) of ...

There are a number of fertility festivals in Japan, most of which feature the parading of a massive wooden cock. One festival celebrates the slaying of a demon that lived in a woman's vagina, castrating all of her lovers, until his teeth were destroyed with a steel dildo. If all the excitement ...

Brothels with a difference, imekura (image clubs) pander to almost every forbidden fantasy of the Japanese male. Like Japan's love hotels, they are painstakingly decorated to transport their clients to whatever erotic paradise they choose. A few of the rooms are exotic and glamorous. However, the most popular rooms revel in the ...

You can buy almost anything from vending machines in Japan ...

In Japan, more than 4000 men are arrested each year for groping on public transport. In 2001, a survey of two private high-schools in Tokyo revealed that more than 70% had been groped on the train. A recent survey of Japanese companies suggested that at least 17% of Japanese women have been ...