Facts about Japan

In ancient times, the Japanese were fishing using tame cormorants.
Night in a boat fishermen lit torches, attracting thus fish. Then each boat produced a dozen cormorants, tied a long rope. Each bird was intercepted by a flexible neck collar, does not allow to swallow cormorants captured fish. Cormorants rapidly gaining their goiters, and the fisherman pulled the bird into the boat, where he collected the catch. Each bird received his reward and released the next round of hunting for fish.

Japanese, answering the phone, do not say "Hello" and "Mosi-Mosi».
When the phone entered the lives of the Japanese, they are answering the call, saying "Oh, oh!" That was like our "Yes, yes!". And the one who called, spoke thus: "Hi, yo godzaymasu" ("I have a thing"). Gradually these words replaced patter "Mosimasu, mosimasu" ("talk, talk"), which over time reduced to the current "Mosi-Mosi».

The Japanese call the green light blue.
When Japan emerged first street lights, signals were red, yellow and blue. Then it turned out that the green beam is much more visible at a great distance than blue. Therefore blue lenses gradually replaced by traffic lights are green. But the custom of allowing traffic signal called "blue" has remained.

On Japanese banknote very hairy men.
The reason for this is not that in the old days the Japanese had more facial hair. One of the major challenges facing the designers of money, is the desire to make them difficult to counterfeit. Therefore, the graphical representation of the bill should be the maximum number of different small parts - for example, luxuriant beard, mustache, wrinkles on the forehead.

The Japanese there is an expression "mountain whale».
Euphemism pit-Kujira (literally: mountain whale) the Japanese began to use in the days when Buddhism came to the country have banned the use of meat animals. Fish these prohibition does not apply, so the words "mountain whale" Japanese masked by the authorities and priests forbidden to eat the meat of wild boar.

The Japanese name of their money pronounced "en" instead of "yen».
Once hieroglyph money, pronounced by the Japanese as "van". However, with time in the evolution of language all the syllables starting with "c", but "wa", were reduced. And in the years of the Edo period (1603-1868) the Japanese call money, just as now, - "en". But foreigners, producing because of their understanding rules of transcription of Japanese words, depictions of Japanese sound "e" in Latin letters «ye». Accordingly, the name of the Japanese currency began to sound like "yen" or "yen».

A cup of coffee in Japan is very expensive.
Cost cup of this beverage in coffee houses more than 400 yen. And this is not due to the fact that coffee and import levy while significant duties. Said fee is charged, rather, not for a cup of coffee, and for a place in the cafe. A drink, a person can sit quietly in a comfortable room for several hours, resting from the bustle of the shops, wait rain, read a book. It will not be disturbed, and the waiters will just pour it into a glass of cold water, always with a polite smile.

In Japan, drivers, stopping at intersections, turn off the lights of cars.
Once one of the foreigners assumed that so Japanese drivers save battery power. However, it is not. The whole thing - in etiquette. When the car stopped at an intersection, the driver does not need lighting, and turning it off, it is not blinding oncoming. Think about why other countries do not?

Vegetable shops in Japan called "goods stores 800».
Initially, shops selling vegetables, called Aoi (green store). However, as time began to expand the range greengrocers. In the shops started selling nuts, canned goods, and other foods. And then these shops, little changed on hearing the pronunciation, became known as yaoi (Shop 800 products). For the Japanese, the number 800 is a huge amount of items. This value would bring entrepreneurs to their customers, highlighting the infinite variety of the available goods.

In Japan, the winner of the main tournament sumo gets a very special prize.
He presented with the keys to a new car, a year's supply of gasoline, a thousand shiitake mushrooms, beef weighing one cow and supply of Coca-Cola for the whole year.