Ranking fetish

There's a late night show in Japan that ranks everything from movies to moisturizers. Other rankings for trivial items include low-calorie soft drinks to personal money saving devices (e.g. portable bank etc.) In true Japanese fashion, people would vote for their favourite items and it would be presented on this show.

Husbands & wives

Wives in Japan tend to be a marginalized lot. As housewives, they manage the entire household: cleaning, cooking, child-rearing, and handling the family finances. The Japanese synonyms of 'wife' has fairly negative overtones too. the Kanji character for 家内 implies that the wife remains at home constantly. The term, 奥さん is possibly derived from the ancient (think samurai) practice where the wife walks 3 paces behind the husband. In short, the wife is thought by Japanese society to be completely subject to the husband. Generally speaking, wives are very much neglected and taken for granted by husbands.

Things are changing though. Baby boomer Salarymen (Japanese term for office workers) are retiring in the droves these couple of years, and wives are re-thinking their future with these husbands. Last April, a new law was effected by which a divorced wife is eligible to up to half of her ex-husband's pension. The divorce rate spiked 6.1% since, and is climbing.

See how a group of Salarymen husbands are trying to deal with this "problem".
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/25/AR2007112501720.html

feet tucked in

One thing I've noticed about Japanese girls, which you may have too when you come here: They sit with their feet tucked in towards each other. Probably one out of every three women would be seated in the same manner as this lady in the picture. What's more, they walk with a certain gait, much like what you see in Japanese anime. It is possibly due to the fact that women in Japan sit on tatami mats (woven straw flooring) with their feet under their laps for too long. That's my hypotheses at least...