Fish, Fish, Fish, Fish

Japan is well known for breeding "quality" goldfish in a wide variety! The Telescope Eye Fish is unique as well as popular and sometimes expensive!
Now, if you are thinking...what different types of goldfish are there? There is a neat site in English about that...
http://www.your-goldfish.com/different-types-of-goldfish.html

Fish in general in Japanese is "sakana". There is a very annoying fish song that used to be played constantly at almost all the grocery stores....

"sakana, sakana, sakana, sakana o taberuto~, atama, atama, atama, atama ga yoku naru~" MEANING "fish, fish, fish, fish, when you eat fish, your head(brain), head, head gets smart."

You don't hear it so often now (thank goodness!) but it used to drive me up the wall because it would get stuck in my head!  Ay, I've done it to myself now...

Phobias you don't want to have when you live in Japan...

Hope you aren't afraid of fish....

Xenophobia: the fear/dislike of people or things from foreign countries

I looked but couldn't find anything on specific fear or hatred of Japan... The "closest" one I found was Sinophobia: The fear or dislike of China...

Either way, it is sad to know that there is such a phobia.  I can understand the fear of the unknown and can only imagine that the two mentioned above stem from the same root.  

(I couldn't find anything that specified on phobias of the unknown in general...everything was explained as xenophobia, which I guess means my point is somewhat correct....)

Unfortunately when you live in Asia, you hear a lot about past wars and no matter how much I might hate to talk about this, what happened in the past carries a lot of weight too. 

Traumatophobia: the fear of war or physical injuries.

As I was looking for a phobia of raw foods, I came across the phobia of cooking : Mageirocophobia.  I won't go so far as to say that I have this... but there are times when I am afraid of my kitchen!

Omophagiaphobia: fear of eating raw flesh. There are places in Japan where you can eat raw beef and raw horse meat...so beware!

Ichthyophobia: fear of fish.   This too could be a BIG problem since Japan is an archipelago, and the main source of protein has been fish for a very long time.  

This is the land where, if you can afford it, you will be able to eat sushi, or sashimi (raw fish) while the fish nerve system is still moving..... The first time I saw this I nearly fainted!  

(Oh, and two years ago, I went to a dinner with my husband's side of the family and they had raw blowfish....the fish's tail was flipping about...and the 'loving' aunt kept pushing the dish towards me.... The conversation I had with myself, in my head, at that moment was NOT healthy or fit to post!)

The fear of fish would also be sad because then you wouldn't be able to enjoy the beautiful koi.

Here is a picture of some poor koi at a small shrine in Kyoto....I hope they get to go for walks...