Our original idea was to write a book titled Fifty Shades of the Hunger Games, by J.K. Rowling with Stephen King: A John Grisham Novel. - Dave Barry

The porpoises said hello to Molly. She told them all her teeth were green.

No, subtlety and protocol are not the strong suit of Americans, which is one reason why the Japanese tend to view us as large, loud water buffalo, lumbering around without a clue, tromping and pooping all over their carefully arranged, exquisitely tended garden of a society. I certainly felt like a water buffalo when I got off the plane at Narita Airport, mumbling my one word of Japanese, taking my long vowels seriously, and weighing approximately four hundred pounds more than when I got on.

Despite the gulf, physical and cultural, between the United States and Japan, both societies are, in the end, made up of people, and people everywhere – when you strip away their superficial differences – are crazy.