Having spent much of my life perplexed by Japan, I admit to a little "payback" delight whenever I catch Japan perplexed by the West. It seems it doesn't happen so often.
Of course we Westerners are not without a few unfathomable mysteries of our own. For example, how come Clark Kent can disguise himself with only eyewear? Or how did George W. Bush ever graduate from Yale? And so on. Yet, when it comes to enigmas, the West generally falls far behind the East.
But we do have a special conundrum that never fails to baffle the typical Japanese on the street. So it's time to tip the hat to that one peculiar puzzle that forever strives to shore up the gap in East-West bewilderment. From the Japanese point of view, it is simply this: