Because of their experience in slaughtering Indians, a team of US army officers is hired by the Japanese government in 1876 to train Japanese troops in putting down regional rebellions, in this case samurai who oppose the Westernisation of Japan. The samurai capture Tom Cruise in their first encounter, but impressed with his bravado they keep him alive and take him to their village in the mountains, where by the end of winter he has come to appreciate the Way of the Samurai and turns against his employers to join the samurai in their final battle. All of this makes me want to watch Shogun again.

8 points

Probably the biggest of the numerous festivals of the Japanese year is New Year, and an integral part is sending out postcards with New Year messages. The post office prints over 4 billion special postcards, whose postage includes a three-yen donation to charities and a national-lottery ticket (all cards are individually numbered and winning numbers are announced in mid-January). The cards are themed according to the Chinese calendar (although the Chinese year does not start on January, 1st), which assigns one of twelve animals to each year. 2003 was the Year of the Sheep, 2004 is the Year of the Monkey. Statistics show that each household sends an average of 100 cards. Businesses easily surpass that.

We wrote about sixty cards this year. Unfortunately, we could not send all of them so far, because we are having some special stamps printed, and those are taking longer than expected and have not arrived as of today. Since we are leaving for Europe tomorrow and cannot send them until we come back, about a third of the cards will be awfully delayed. Well, they should still be in time for the Chinese New Year....