The Culture Cage

Ordering hot food at a Japanese convenience store should be simple. But dare to ask for three pieces of fried chicken and watch the entire konbini counter reboot into existential shock.

Japanese online reviews are a masterclass in tatemae: glowing paragraphs of praise attached to a savage 2/5 rating. Welcome to the most passive-aggressive scoring system on Earth.

Umbrella etiquette in Japan is a nationwide referendum on the weather, held hourly, in which half the country votes for rain that isn't happening. A field guide to the great Tokyo umbrella panic.

Japanese football fan culture has a fascinating quirk: the national team only exists when it wins. Lose, and the entire tournament is quietly erased from history. A field report on selective national pride.

Understanding tatemae vs honne is the single most important bit of cultural knowledge you can have in Japan. It is the difference between living here and being managed here.

Why does Japanese food culture treat British food like a war crime when nobody here has actually eaten any of it? A rant about the smuggest culinary inferiority complex on earth.

Japan's four seasons obsession is a national delusion dressed up as poetry. No, mate, you did not invent autumn. The rest of the planet also has weather.

Japanese passive-aggressive tutting is a national discipline performed by old men in stations. Here's what happens when you turn round and ask one of them why he's doing it.

The 2,000-yen note is legal tender printed by a sovereign nation, and yet the Japanese cash economy treats it like a counterfeit handed over by a deranged tourist. A field report on the most polite refusal of your own money you will ever experience.

Japan fans cleaning up litter at the World Cup again, and the internet melting down about it again. The Japanese stadium clean-up tradition is a performance, and you absolute mugs keep buying the ticket.