Just some things I noticed:

If you are a student, you clean your own school. Branches cause leaves, which inevitably fall on the ground - solution: cut off the branches. You eat your food with chopsticks (yes, even soup). When eating out you change your shoes before going to the bathroom. The bananas are shrink-wrapped. A really good cantaloupe costs $2000. Construction workers wear lime green pajamas. Recycling is mandatory. You brush your teeth after lunch, in plain view of co-workers. If you are an elementary school student, you eat a healthy, hot and free school lunch. Your school playground was blistering white raked gravel. Otters are extinct. Ramen isn’t a snack, it’s a meal. You own a pair of purple sweatpants, unless you are the gym teacher, in which case you own three. “How was your weekend?” is a stupid question, because you worked Saturday and did housework on Sunday. A vacation is three days. It takes six days to see Europe, less if you skip England. Two hours is an easy commute. Shopping is an acceptable hobby. Your hobby is basketball, which you haven’t played since grade 9. Rice tastes great, breakfast, lunch and dinner. You eat your rice plain. You wait for the cross light, even if you are the only person for miles. You ride a granny bike. You pay a lot of money for services you never receive. Your wisdom tooth is called your tooth who doesn’t know its parents. You poop into a hole in the floor, and you hang your pants on the door when you do it (just in case). If you are female, you play the flushing water song so no one will hear you pee. Queen is real, good music. You slurp your noodles, soup and coffee. In junior high school, you practiced your club sport 365 days a year, four hours a day, except on weekends, when practice was eight hours. You own a really kick-ass digital camera. You videotape everything. You have GPS in your vehicle. Your GPS system doubles as satellite TV and a DVD player. You call a convenience store a kombini. You answer the phone “moshi, moshi.” Your cell phone is called a keitei, and it takes thirty minutes digital video. Your school uniform was designed by the Prussian empire and imported via Russia in the late 19th century. In junior high, there was no recess and noon hour lasted fifteen minutes. There is no heating in your home. You drink your coffee from a can. You can buy women’s underwear from the vending machine. For one dollar, you can buy a dozen fresh farm eggs from an unattended roadside stall. You eat your eggs raw. You eat your fish raw. After every meal, you say “That was a real feast.” Every four months you get a bonus, equal to two months wages. You work overtime without being asked, and without actually having any work to do. If you are a teacher, you work twelve hours a day, seven days a week. You spend 15% of your income on pachinko. You or someone you know works in the concrete industry: that person has likely paved a riverbed. You wash before getting into the tub. You bathe every chance you get. You are extremely polite and well behaved. You are kind to foreigners. You are xenophobic. You studied English for six years, but don’t speak it very well. You are deathly afraid of making mistakes. You judge a person by how he or she looks. You refer to co-workers by their job title. You don’t know how to use email, and you have never heard of Google. You like your pizza with corn and mayonnaise. You come from the country which invented sushi, sumo wrestling, flower arranging, noh drama, taiko drumming, haiku, the Walkman, the Diskman, cheap, well made automobiles and a million and one other things to be extremely proud of.