So you think you know Japan?

What's wrong with this ?

• Men don't wear kimonos

• His obi is too low

• His kimono is wrapped wrong

• Blue is not his color

Answer explanation

The kimono is worn left side wrapped over right, unless the wearer is deceased.

Which one of these is acceptable ?

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Answer explanation

Passing from chopstick to chopstick is for the bones after a cremation.

Stabbing food with your chopsticks is bad manners.

Wiping anything other than your hands with your oshiburi is frowned upon.

Lifting your soup bowl to drink from is acceptable

Which one is Mt.Fuji?

• 
• 
• 
• 

Answer explanation

The others are

*Kilimanjaro. Tanzania.

*Mt Yotei in Hokkaido.

It’s known as ‘Ezo Fuji’ Ezo being the old name for Hokkaido due to its resemblance to Mt Fuji

*Mt. Everest. Nepal.

What animals are these?

• Horse and cow

• Pig and horse

• Cow and sheep

• Ummm....Obviously some kind of animal my kid made at kindergarten.

Answer explanation

Both the eggplant cow and the cucumber horse are generally placed on the altar after the first day of Obon, as a part of the offerings. The last day of Obon, August the 16th, both are left in a river bank so that the ancestors can ride them back to the spirit world.

What do they all have in common?

• They all studied overseas

• They all won a Noble prize

• They all appear on a banknote

• They are all descendants of the royal family

Answer explanation

*Bacteriologist Hideo Noguchi is on the 1000 yen

*Ichiyo Higuchi (real name Natsu Higuchi) of the 5000 yen note was a famous author. She started writing to support her family at the age of 17 and by her death of tuberculosis at just 24 she had written 21 short stories and nearly 4000 poems.

*Yukichi Fukuzawa of the 10,000 yen note was one of the founders of modern Japan, advocating for political reform and gender equality

What is this famous dog's name?

• Pochi

• Hachiko

• Pakkun

• Hachi

Answer explanation

Although commonly called Hachi including in the 2009 Richard Gere movie, his real name is Hachiko. Famous as the dog that faithfully waited every day in Shibuya for nine years for his owner to return after the owner died at work.

The statue today is actually the second statue, the first, erected in 1934 was scrapped and recycled for the war effort.

Tokyo 2020 Olympic mascots!

What are their names…

Miraitowa and ?

• Someity

• Sakurako

• Miraiko

• Schuss

Answer explanation

Miraitowa’s name is mirai meaning future and towa meaning eternity.

Someity comes from the somei yoshino cherry blossom and a play on words that someity sounds like so mighty in English.

Schuss (pictured) was the very first unofficial Olympic mascot. The little man on skis appeared at the 1968 Winter Olympic Games in Grenoble, France

In Japan, the sakaki tree is connected with:

• Buddhism

• Shintoism

• Christianity

• Ryukyuan

Answer explanation

One of the reasons that sakaki trees are considered sacred in Shinto has to do with the fact that they are evergreens and therefore symbolic of immortality.

Another more important reason is tied to a legend in which a sakaki tree was decorated in order to lure Amaterasu, the sun goddess, out of her hiding place inside a cave.

The Ryukyuan religion is the indigenous belief system of the people of Okinawa and the other Ryukyu Islands.

These three flavours of ramen were developed at different times, which is the correct order, from earliest to latest?

• A. Miso

  B. Shoyu

  C. Shio

• B. Shoyu

  A. Miso

  C. Shio

• C. Shio

  B. Shoyu

  A. Miso

Answer explanation

Shio ramen came to be in 1884, Shoyu in 1910, and miso not until 1955.

The Shin-Yokohama Rāmen Museum is a food court which opened in 1994, located in the Shin-Yokohama district of Kōhoku-ku, Yokohama, Japan. The "museum", or rather, food court, is devoted to the Japanese ramen noodle soup and features a small recreation of Tokyo in the year 1958, the year instant noodles were invented.

What are these characters from a popular commercial trying to sell you?

• Laundry detergent

• Houses

• Mobile phone plans

• Dog diapers

Answer explanation

Fun fact, voted the nation's favourite,  for six years running, this sprawling series promoting Softbank has produced more than 130 adverts.

They have even featured cameos from Quentin Tarantino, Tommy Lee Jones and a real Japanese astronaut filming his appearances in space.