To Western eyes, many of Japan's cultural practices seem strange, even bizarre. So here's Japan for the Uninvited to explain to us, in a very clear and helpful way, just why the Japanese invented the square watermelon.I'm not sure why Japan in particular has come to be seen as the epitome of strange cultural practices... we accept what we know, but there are aspects of every culture that would seem as odd to any other.
In the 80s, TV shows started to pick out Japan and it's extreme game shows as something to mock and wonder at. It turns out that the Japanese were just ahead of us there... with Fear Factor and Big Brother, such shows now seem (almost) normal to us.
Maybe the same will soon be true of shark fin ice cream
