Maybe it's simply down to human nature, but stereotypes about foreigners seem to be joke-fodder the world over. In the corners of bars, in huddles at parties, in books and movies, countless laughs have been had, for example, at the expense of supposed American boastfulnes, "uptight" British, "humorless" Germans, French amour and those Italian male horses to name but a few.

Surprisingly to some, Japan, too, rates rather more than an odd titter in the league table of global guffaws -- as perhaps befits the world's second-biggest economy, whose Sonys and Toyotas and Nintendos find their way to even the remotest corners of the planet. Whether it's stereotypes stemming from its breakneck postwar economic recovery, its conformist salaryman culture or its expertise at importing foreign concepts/goods/technology and tweaking them to its own taste, Japan is fertile ground for humorists hunting for new punch lines -- or, usually, recycled variations of tried and tested ones.

Hence it might not come as a huge surprise that someone out there avidly collects Japan jokes. That someone is Takashi Hayasaka, a 32-year-old journalist who lived in Romania for two years from 2000, and covered conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, including in Kosovo and Palestine. While on assignment, Hayasaka visited local bars and asked impromptu friends he met there: "Do you know any jokes about Japan?"