JAPAN: Of Rice & Women

There are no jokes in the Japanese language about the traveling salesman and the farmer's daughter. This is because whenever a traveling salesman visits a Japanese farm, daughter is working in the rice fields, chopping wood or feeding the chickens, and the best a poor salesman can hope for is a chat and a cup of tea with dear old dad, who often enough is not doing anything.

The next in order of rank after father on a Japanese farm is the eldest son (younger sons usually leave home as soon as they are...

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