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• Ramen — the Chinese noodle that became Japan's bowl after 1945

  Ramen was Chinese until 1945. The postwar reinvention turned a Chinese noodle dish into Japan's regional bowl — and the world's most exported one.

• Matcha — what the latte misses, and what Japan actually drinks

  A matcha latte contains ~1g of matcha and ~50g of sugar. The Japanese drink it whisked, 2g + 70ml hot water, in 90 seconds of silence. Different drink, same name.

• Gogatsubyō — Japan's 'May sickness' isn't laziness, it's a structural crash everyone schedules into their year

  Around mid-May, Japanese people quietly tell each other they've got 'May sickness.' It's not weather. It's what happens when the country boots a new year in April and then takes a 10-day holiday a month later.

• Washlet — the Japanese warm-water bidet that quietly became standard

  Washlet is the warm-water bidet that washes you after — TOTO's invention, now near-universal on Japanese toilets.

• Japanese vending machines — four million quiet little statements about how safe the streets are

  Vending machines on every corner, full of cash, working all night long. The reason that works is the part most foreigners miss.

• Japanese trains — the rail system that runs to the second, in a country where on-time isn't a goal but a baseline

  Japanese trains run to the second. The interesting part is what an entire society does on top of that assumption.

• Pachinko — the Japanese vertical pinball-slot-machine that fills enormous parlors with deafening sound and small steel balls

  Japan's vertical pinball-slot machine — played in vast deafening parlors with cascading steel balls, in a legal gray zone.

• Kotatsu — the Japanese low table with a heater under it that quietly redesigned the entire winter

  A low table, a heater, a heavy blanket. The Japanese winter device that keeps the family warm — and gathered — in one square meter.

• Japanese convenience stores — the civic infrastructure that just happens to sell sandwiches

  Japan's convenience stores aren't really convenience stores — they're the country's everyday public infrastructure, awake at 3 AM, three minutes from anywhere.