Questions tagged [japan]
Questions about the State of Japan; geographical location, political philosophies, historical significance, religious beliefs, ethnic diversity, and etc.
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Are these claims about Japan’s health system true?
The series of claims in the image below has been getting shared around Facebook and are posted from the "Illuminati Exposed" page.
The claims are in the image but I've listed them here
100% of ...
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Did a Yu-Gi-Oh tournament prize card sell for $2 million USD?
I recently learned about a prize given out for the first ever Yu-gi-oh tournament in Japan in 1999, a stainless steel normal monster Black Luster Soldier. In numerous online english-language articles,...
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Is Japanese language "cleaner" than English in terms of spreading coronavirus?
I was watching a video from Abroad In Japan channel where Chris Broad, the creator of that channel talks about a TV show in which "experts" discussed about the reasons why number of cases of ...
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Did a man from a non-existent country, Taured, appear in a Japanese airport in 1954, and then disappear?
A number of different web-sites document this mysterious storey of an apparent traveller from an alternate history:
It’s July 1954; a hot day. A man arrives at Tokyo airport in Japan. He’s of ...
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Is this a photo of the result of a kamikaze attack on a ship in WWII?
A Reddit user titled this photo "Kamikaze hit on HMS Sussex" and it currently has 5,532 points (96% upvoted).
Here is a cropped version of that photo:
Another user cites Wikipedia:
On 26 July ...
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Can cremating bodies cause black rain?
There is speculation that the mysterious black rain that Japan had a few months ago was from China cremating bodies, and in particular, mass cremations from coronavirus victims.
7 News: Coronavirus ...
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Are there only 1,200-1,900 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in India and Japan, as of March 30, 2020?
According to Coronavirus (COVID-19) map, as of March 30th there are only 1,263 confirmed cases in India and 1,866 in Japan.
Meanwhile, there are already 142,000 in US, 9,661 in South Korea, and 41,...
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Do Japanese police roll drunks and criminals into giant futons?
From the BBC: How Japan has almost eradicated gun crime
"The response to violence is never violence, it's always to
de-escalate it. Only six shots were fired by Japanese police
nationwide [in ...
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Did Japanese people eat pickled fish eyes?
In the episode Outpost of the "Private Snafu" WWII propaganda series, Snafu encounters a can of pickled fish eyes with rice from the Imperial Japanese Navy. (Transcript, video link (Warning: content ...
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Do Japanese people have a lower body temperature than caucasians?
I heard from a Japanese person that Japanese people have a lower body temperature than caucasians. Is this the case?
Examples from the internet of people discussing claims that Japanese people, or ...
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Is the Dunning-Kruger effect reversed in Japan?
Wikipedia seems to claim so citing a single study:
The study "Divergent Consequences of Success and Failure in Japan and North America: An Investigation of Self-improving Motivations and Malleable ...
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Did just 18 people die from prostate cancer in Japan in 1958?
The vegan diet advocacy film Forks Over Knives (2011) claims that in 1958, there were just 18 deaths from prostate cancer in Japan, but 14.000 such deaths in the United States, which had about twice ...
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Did a department store in Tokyo crucify Santa Claus?
There is a persistent urban legend that a Japanese department store got confused and crucified Santa Claus in a Christmas display. Today's BBC Magazine:
Remembering our mongrel Christmases reminds ...
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Did Jews claim to be asians to Imperial Japan?
I came across the following anecdote from the Judaism Stack Exchange: https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/5940/jewish-community-in-china-around-ww2/5942
During the questions portion of the ...
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Was Japan required to open its semiconductor patents to the US in a 1989 "deal"?
In a question on politics.SE the following snippet from a South China Morning Post article was quoted:
This was followed by a second five-year semiconductor deal in 1991, in which Japan agreed to ...
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Did WWII Japanese soldiers engage in cannibalism of their enemies?
This Cracked article claims that Japanese soldiers in WWII would eat prisoners of war.
The article claims that there were a number of documented cases of Japanese soldiers engaging in cannibalism:
...
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Does forest therapy (Shinrin-yoku) improve the immune system?
According to shinrin-yoku.org, forests help to improve the immune system, including the part that fights cancer:
But in the past several decades there have been many scientific studies that are ...
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Do Japanese crows use traffic to crack nutshells?
In a BBC article, its contended that:
In a Japanese city, carrion crows have discovered how to eat nuts that
they usually find too hard to tackle. One method is to drop the nuts
from height on ...
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Did Japanese people misspell "We pray for MacArthur's election"?
The Internet is full of references to the same story:
It was probably in 1946, when Gen. Douglas MacArthur was temporarily put in charge of running Japan, which was in tough shape after ...
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Are more than 40% of millenials in Japan virgins?
CNN claims that a survey conducted by Japanese government claimed that 42% of men and 44.2% of women between 18 and 34 are virgins.
I'm not exactly doubting about the survey but more about that the ...
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Did Obama apologize for the USA using nuclear weapons on Japan?
In the context of Barack Obama's 2016 visit to Japan, this image was made.
Obama apologizes to Japan for this
[Nuclear mushroom cloud]
which was retaliation for this...
[Pearl harbor pictures]
when ...
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Were the Japanese suing for peace prior to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
In the United States, it is a widely-held belief that an invasion of the Japanese main islands would have been necessary were it not for the use of atomic bombs (putting aside the question of whether ...
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Did Hiroshima change the layout of its streets subsequent to the war?
The following anecdote has gone viral, seen as a gaffe by someone ignorant of the atomic bombing of the city.
From The morning catch-up: a Battlebus poll, a surprising secrecy advocate and a majestic ...
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Do ~25% of Japanese people believe that USSR dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
I have heard this claim a few times from some random people, and recently came across it in pravda.ru as well:
from "Japan will never forgive USA"
There is such a statistics: 25 per cent of young ...
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Is this tweet about classes one month after the Hiroshima bombing, and the 2011 tsunami accurate?
https://twitter.com/TheKnowledge/status/593936133358276609
Japan. Top: One Month After Hiroshima, 1945. Bottom: One Month After
The Earthquake and Tsunami, 2011. Incredible.
Are the images ...
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Do Macaque monkeys steal money from wallets and use it to buy food from vending machines?
I saw this rumor on Reddit, which refers to factsanddetails.com and which doesn't indicate the information source. I saw a video of a monkey using a vending machine on College Humor, but that doesn't ...
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Did Allied forces use chemical weapons in Okinawa during World War II?
A Japanese friend of mine claimed that Allied forces used poisonous gas during the Battle of Okinawa. I asked for a link to such a claim, and got a link to this section of the Japanese language ...
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Do cellphones pose any harm to pacemaker users?
In Japan it is very common to see signs on trains that encourage/require you to turn off your phone on trains, or just near the priority seating areas. The thinking goes that the signals somehow ...
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Did Tomoaki Hamatsu live entirely on contest winnings?
Tomoaki Hamatsu is a Japanese comedian known for trying to live for over a year on mail-in contest winnings on the show
Susunu! Denpa Shonen.
Wikipedia says that he set a world record for living on ...
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Do Japan's teachers need to bow to the Emperor?
A popular meme says the teachers in Japan don't have to bow in front of the Emperor and that's because without teachers there would be no emperor.
Since my understanding of the whole bowing system in ...
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Do mangakas have long work hours?
I've found several sources that explain that mangakas (manga artists) have to work insanely long hours to meet their deadlines.
In this Quora answer, an assistant mangaka claims:
We were well-paid,...
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Are Katanas made of steel folded 1000 times?
A Katana needs to be made of steel folded 1000 times, according to eHow:
Pound the tamahagane into two separate blades. These need to be heated, pounded by hand, and folded 1,000 times each to ...
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Did a lack of Muslims in Japan help prevent a 2002 AQ terrorist attack?
https://twitter.com/rjrasva/status/700683354996211712
Lack of Muslims in Japan prevented al Qaeda attack on 2002 World Cup
Sun, February 15, 2004 http://zeenews.india.com/home/lack-of-muslims-in-...
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Is Fukushima reactor No. 4 on the verge of catastrophic failure that will destroy the world?
I was sent an email with a copied/pasted version of this NaturalNews article which contains the following quote (emphasis original):
Concerned about the 2012 U.S. presidential election? Worried ...
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Did US forces use tens of thousands of Japanese women as sex slaves after the WWII?
Alternet.org said in a report:
Examples are not hard to find. Before and during WWII, the Japanese enslaved as many as 200,000 "comfort" women, and after the defeat of the Japanese, the United ...
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Is Islam banned in Japan?
I noticed some people posting and reposting bold statements online that Japan is (the only) country that banned Islam. I searched a bit and found out that there are some mosques and Muslim societies ...
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Does warm green onion cure the common cold?
In Japan it is sometimes said a remedy for the common cold is to wear a warm green onion (Allii Fistulosi) around the neck. This practice is not as popular as before, but still many other articles ...
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Was snowboarder Kelly Murphy chased by a bear?
This YouTube video titled Snowboarder Girl Chased By Bear - I Was Singing Rihanna Work And Didn't Know It Was Behind Me! depicts a woman snowboarding in Japan. Occasionally, a running bear comes into ...
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Were modern Japan customs for Valentine's Day and White Day instigated by retailers?
In Japan, women give chocolates to men on Valentine's Day, and men give gifts to women on White Day, which falls on March 14.
There are various claims that Valentine's Day and White Day customs are ...
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Was there a time when the RSL banned Japanese cars from their carparks?
From Prime Minister - Address at CEDA's 2014 State of the Nation Conference, Parliament House, Canberra
Prime Minister Menzies for instance opened up trade with Japan at a time when Japanese cars ...
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Have two out of only 27 Muslim refugees in Japan been arrested for sexual assault?
Have two out of only 27 Muslim refugees in Japan been arrested for sexual assault?
Example claim: Japan Accepts 27 Muslim Refugees, Immediately Gets Taste Of Islamic Gratitude and plenty of people ...
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Did the United States' internment involve Japanese foreign nationals?
The mayor of Roanoke, Virginia, David Bowers, wrote in a statement
President Franklin D. Roosevelt felt compelled to sequester Japanese foreign nationals after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and it ...
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Do Japanese fishermen put sharks in their tanks to keep fish fresh?
I saw the following story on Quora and when I Googled it, I got a lot of inspirational websites like Patheos.org that were hosting this same story without any citations. I would like to know if the ...
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Did 800 children in Hong Kong protest against dolphin hunting in Taiji?
From https://twitter.com/planetepics/status/583618153789448192 (and others, accounts such as https://twitter.com/themindblowing/status/458477831149072384 , and the geographically challenged https://...
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Can a ninja star (hira shuriken) used as a thrown weapon kill?
In many movies, especially from the 80's when Ninjas were involved they would use their ninja stars as a deadly weapon. An example clip is here.
Is this realistic? Can a ninja star penetrate and be ...
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Has first cancer case been directly confirmed to Fukushima cleanup?
Slashdot reports First Cancer Case Confirmed From Fukushima Cleanup:
Following on from reports of elevated levels of child cancer and 1,600 civilians deaths from the evacuation, this is the first ...
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Is a giant wolffish the result of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident?
Is a large wolffish the result of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident?
Yahoo News in Is This Giant Mutant Wolffish A Result Of The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster? states that some, unnamed, people ...
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Was Truman told that the first atom bomb was going to be used on a military target?
In his diary entry for July 25, 1945, US President Harry S. Truman wrote:
This weapon is to be used against Japan between now and August 10th. I have told the Sec. of War, Mr. Stimson, to use it so ...
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Is dolphin hunting in Taiji unsustainable?
In the article "Dolphin hunt claim denied" (page 3 of mX Sydney, 25 March 2015), Australia for Dolphins chief executive Sarah Lucas refers to "the violent and unsustainable dolphin hunts in Taiji". ...
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Is prostitution uncommon among geishas?
Many news stories and plenty of ensuing comments about geishas have people making a strong point that geishas are not prostitutes.
However, the wikipedia article makes a meal out of the topic and ...
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