Japanese men who carry mobile shrines known as mikoshi every year as part of important Shinto festivals are left with giant callouses on their shoulders that they display as badges of honor.

Carrying mikoshi shrines is considered a great honor among Japanese Shintoists, and while some may do it just once in their lives, the most dedicated of them actually help carry the mikoshi every year, for decades. Because these mobile shrines and the large wooden beams that support them can weigh over a ton, the pressure on the bearers’ shoulders is significant, and after years of service, the shoulders start to develop large callouses known as ‘mikoshi dako’. They are not the prettiest things in the world to look at, but mikoshi bearers wear them as badges of honor.

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A popular restaurant in Tokyo, Japan, sparked controversy for claiming to dip its delicious pork skewers in a sauce jar that has not been cleaned in over half a century.

Abe-chan, a famous pork skewer eatery in Tokyo’s Azabu Juban shopping district, was recently featured on a popular Japanese television show where it was revealed that one of the secrets to its success was a rather dubious-looking jar covered in a gelatinous mass. Apparently, this was the same sauce jar that pork skewers have been dipped in for the last sixty years, and the dark brown mass around the jar is the sauce that spilled over and hardened over the decades. According to the third-generation owner of Abe-chan, the jar has never been cleaned in the last six decades, which apparently contributes to the rich taste of the sauce.

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A Japanese producer of milk and dairy products came up with an ingenious way of motivating kids to finish their milk bottles at lunch – decorating the bottles with manga comics.

Seki Milk, a milk producer and processor in Japan’s Gifu Prefecture, has been providing its products to local schools, but in recent years the company had seen consumption of milk drop significantly. According to its own research, the majority of school students (around 65% of them) were not finishing their milk bottles at lunch, which caused unnecessary food waste and also deprived them of calcium and other valuable nutrients. However, if you’re a parent, you probably already know that getting kids to eat things that are good for them isn’t the easiest thing in the world. Luckily, Seki Milk came up with an original and fun way to motivate children to finish their milk – manga bottles.

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Japanese couple Hiromi and Hidekazu Takeda have been married for many years and even have a child together, but they live an hour apart from each other and have never shared a home.

‘Separation marriages’, aka weekend marriages or living apart together (LAT), have reportedly become very popular in Japan, because they allow couples to experience the best of both worlds- on one hand, they enjoy each other’s love and support, but they also get to maintain an individual lifestyle without worrying about their partner. Basically, a separation marriage allows couples to experience the combined benefits of being married and being single, but it is important that the relationship be based on mutual love and respect.

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A 39-year-old Japanese man has been described as ‘trans-age’ after reportedly identifying as 28 because it’s an age that better describes his still immature personality.

In the age of ‘self-identified diversity’ where anyone is free to identify as whatever they want, a Japanese man has come out as ‘trans-age’, meaning that he chooses to identify as 28 years old, despite having been born 39 years ago. The Kyoto-based man known only as Jackie appeared on the reality show ABEMA Prime where he explained that he didn’t feel comfortable as a 39-year-old man, so he decided to be 28 instead. Apparently, the trans-age man settled on this particular age, because it strikes a good balance between being an adult and still having a childish side without attracting the judgment of others.

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Seo Yoo A is an Instagram influencer who rose to fame thanks to her doll-like features enhanced with not-so-subtle digital editing tools and filters.

It’s no secret that Instagram is full of young, attractive influencers who use their God-given or surgically enhanced assets to build a fanbase and gain popularity, but South Korea appears to have launched a whole new trend – digitally enhanced models who aren’t afraid to go all out with the editing. Last week, we featured Shasheile, an influencer whose photos were so heavily edited that people actually found them refreshing, but it turns out she is not the only one using this unusual social media technique. Seo Yoo A is another rising Instagram star whose conspicuous use of Photoshop and other editing tools has won her hundreds of thousands of fans.

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A Japanese scientist studying the languages of birds wore a giant bird mask on his head for an entire year in order to trick a nest of great tits to allow him to approach them.

Toshitaka Suzuki, an associate professor at the University of Tokyo, recently shared a bizarre photo of a man wearing a giant bird head on Twitter. It turns out that the photo taken somewhere in the forests of Nagano Prefecture shows a fellow scientist who decided to wear the ‘disguise’ for an entire year in order to get close to a nest of great tits without triggering their distress calls. Ornithologists and bird behavior experts had noticed that certain bird species were capable of remembering human faces and that they would stop their usual chirping to put out warning calls whenever they saw these individuals approaching. Having wound up on the tits’ blacklist, the Japanese scientist decided to disguise himself as a giant bird in order to approach the birds and study their chirping.

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Bored during the last stages of the Covid-19 lockdown, a Japanese man spent a whole month catching dung beetles and creating a mesmerizing color gradient collection.

On August 17, Japanese Twitter (X) user bochimushi posted a photo of hundreds of shiny dung beetles arranged by color – from deep blue to purple – forming an impressive gradient. Apparently, the eye-catching collection of beetles was created in August of last year, as a way to pass the time during the end of the Covid-19 lockdown. Bored out of his mind, the man started hunting dung beetles and then arranging them neatly in this gradient style for a stunning visual effect. Bochimushi’s collection consists of a whopping 450 dung beetles.

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Nguyen Thi Thu is one of the few remaining artists practicing and constantly enhancing the traditional Vietnamese art of sculpting realistic-looking flowers out of papaya fruits.

Thu became enamored with carving various flowers from papaya fruits at the age of 15, when, like many other parents during the 1980s, her family registered her for an exclusive class on the art of sculpting the tropical fruit. She was fascinated by the traditional art form, but then she had to move to Russia for 15 years, where, because she was too busy working and had no access to green papayas, she couldn’t practice her favorite art form. She tried it with all sorts of other fruits and vegetables, including watermelons, but nothing was quite like the papaya she knew. When she went back to Hanoi in 2009, she immediately got back into papaya sculpting, and she has been practicing the craft ever since.

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Bijin-Hime, aka ‘Beautiful Princess’, is a Japanese strawberry variety that is perfectly shaped and colored and offers an unmatched flavor. It also costs up to $350 a piece, making it one of the world’s most expensive fruits.

Developed by Mikio Okuda, a Japanese farmer with over 45 years of experience growing strawberries, over 15 years of trial and error, Bijin-Hime is one of the world’s most highly regarded strawberry varieties. The largest fruits are about the size of a tennis ball and weigh around 100 grams, but it’s not the size that makes the Beautiful Princess special. Well, actually, it is, but not in the way you expect. Generally, the larger a strawberry is, the less flavor and sweetness it has, but that is certainly not the case with Bijin-Hime strawberries. They are rated at 13 degrees Brix, which makes them considerably sweeter than the 10-degree Brix strawberry standard, and have a flavor reminiscent of roses.

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A 44-year-old Japanese man has been arrested and accused of indecent acts after allegedly installing several cameras under his truck so he could drive by young girls and film under their skirts.

Voyeurism and upskirt photography are apparently so widespread in Japan that there is even a word for them –  “chikan”. It describes men who inappropriately try to take pictures under women’s skirts without consent. In one of the most bizarre cases of chikan ever reported, a middle-aged man has been arrested for installing at least four cameras under his light delivery truck so he could slowly drive by skirt-wearing girls, some of them still in primary school, and film under their skirts. After discovering the trucks under his truck, police raided the man’s home and found over 30 hard drives containing hundreds of voyeuristic videos, and despite his continued denial of the accusations, authorities suspect that the number of victims could reach as many as 1,000.

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A Nigerian comedian and content creator allegedly lost his sight for about 45 minutes after sobbing for hours in an attempt to cry for 100 hours and set a world record for the longest time crying continuously.

Tembu Daniel, who goes by ‘237_towncryer’ on Instagram, recently lived up to his nickname by attempting a rather unusual world record – crying continuously for 100 hours. The young Nigerian began his cry-athon on July 9, but was forced to suspend his crying only 6 hours later, due to some unforeseen side effects. Apparently, forcing himself to cry for hours non-stop caused Daniel to experience headaches, puffed eyes, and a generally swollen face. However, the most worrying symptom was partial blindness which allegedly lasted for about 45 minutes.

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An Indonesian fisherman claims to have shared a friendship with a four-meter-long saltwater crocodile for over 20 years and calls the reptile part of the local community.

59-year-old Ambo, a fisherman from Bontang City, in Indonesia’s East Kalimantan, has become somewhat of a celebrity in his country because of his unusual friendship with a giant saltwater crocodile named Rizka. The giant reptile has been a constant part of Ambo’s life for the past 26 years, ever since he first laid eyes on her in the waters of Pupuk Kaltim. She was only about one meter in size back then, and he didn’t pay much attention to her as she swam past his boat, but when he noticed that she had followed him home, Ambo grabbed some food and tossed it in the water. That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship spanning 26 years and who knows how many more going forward.

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Ayam Ketawa, or the Indonesian laughing chicken, is a breed of long-crowing chicken known for the clarity of its crow, which has an unusual similarity to a human laugh.

Originating from Indonesia’s South Sulawesi province, the Ayam Ketawa was originally a status symbol for the region’s Buginese royal family. Its captivating appearance made it a symbol of courage, social status, and heroism, but if you know Indonesian, you will have noticed that the breed’s name, Ayam Ketawa, literally translates to ‘laughing chicken’. That’s because this chicken’s unusual chuckling noises seem to mimic human laughter. It is this distinct characteristic that makes the Ayam Ketawa popular as an exotic pet not just in its native Indonesia, but around the world.

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One of the world’s most expensive and sought-after coffee varieties is actually harvested from the droppings of the jacu, a large, black, turkey-like bird whose digestive system brings out the aroma of the coffee beans.

When Henrique Sloper, the owner of the Camocim coffee farm in the Brazilian state of Espirito Santo, first saw his coffee plantation overrun by jacu birds, he panicked, not knowing that the birds would soon become a sort of business partner. He called environmental protection agencies, but they didn’t know what to do and suggested that the farm introduce some natural predators for the large birds. But that was difficult to do, especially with a bird as large as the jacu, so, in the end, Sloper decided to adopt the old ‘if you can’t beat them, join them‘ mantra, and soon discovered that the bird invasion had been a blessing in disguise.

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