A Need to Know

Before I came to Japan, the JET programme required me to attend a few orientations. These orientations were filled with such nuggets of wisdom about life in Japan, like:

*Japanese people bow instead of shaking hands

*Japanese people remove their shoes before stepping into a house

*Japanese people use chopsticks

Wow! How helpful! Seriously, I know the lectures were made for people who couldn't be bothered to study up before they came over, but seriously... Japanese habits/lifestyle/culture has been shown to death in Hollywood for years. Not to mention cable TV. I think we all know that they bow.

What I really wanna know is why the programme couldn't share some of the more surprising stuff:

*There are giant poisonous centipedes

*Touching among the same sex is so laidback that some women will feel you up [How thankful I am to be average Japanese size here! No booby grabbing for me!]

*Gaijin traps. Seriously, these freaked me out for the first month I was here

C'mon! Useful info on the freaky stuff!