My elder son sits across from me during supper and clubs me with the following questions: "Why can't Japanese die, Dad? How come it's so hard for them?" Not your usual dinnertime poser, perhaps, but we dads have to be ready for anything. I pause only briefly before delivering what I consider to be a brilliant answer.

"Why don't you ask your mother? She's Japanese." So he does. Only to incur dramatic wrath. "What do you mean? We Japanese can die as well as anyone. Just watch!"

So saying, she clutches her throat, waggles her tongue like a dowsing rod and then -- with a flutter of eyelids -- collapses in her chair.