One of the most sensational news stories emanating from Japan over the past year never actually happened.
This was the great "epidemic" of eye infections that had supposedly broke out among primary school students due to gankyū name, the expression of budding adolescent affection by engaging in oculolinctus, which is a fancy Latin term for licking a person's eyeballs.
At its peak, a Google search using the terms "eyeball licking" and "Japan" brought up more than 82 million hits in English alone. Write-ups appeared in publications everywhere, from the British Guardian and America's Time magazine to the Nigerian Tribune and — I kid you not — the Australian Kayak Fishing Forum.
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