Speaking of stereotypes, I saw this funny book at our local foreign book seller.
Now, I can understand where some people would get that impression. You come to Japan, and suddenly you're surrounded by skinny young chicks. Actually, it's just that the old fat women are too intimidated by the young skinny ones to ever leave their homes, giving the false impression that the better half of the Japanese race is immune to the ravages of time and ice cream eaten in bed at two in the morning while watching Cracker...er...not that the author knows of such debauchery.
As counter-evidence to this book's title, I submit this photo of Japanese "psychic" Hosoki Kazuko. As you will note, she is both old and fat. She does, however, offer lots of great advice to young skinny chicks. For example, "shut up and get back in the kitchen, bitch." She is 23 in the photo -she is now around 40 and looks a lot like Emperor Palpatine, with huge folds of wrinkly skin sagging from her jowls. It's kind of hard to tell from this face shot, but she weighs upward of 900 pounds and has to be wheeled around on a special motorized platform. She regularly crushes defenseless puppy-dogs and small children under its merciless treads. I don't care for her TV show.
