Japan is obsessed with numbers and prestige. Everywhere there is reference to this or that as the biggest in the city, or one of the top 50 in the prefecture. Tor example, the view of Nagasaki from Mount Inasa-Yama is billed as one of the top three views in Asia.
There is always one tall building in each town or city, at least 30 storeys to the others that reach 5 or 6. For some reason, no competition is given to this, the "tallest building in such-and-such." There are always huge communication aerials on the top of mountains, just as seemingly every hill in a Chinese town is topped with a pagoda, and every hill in a South American town is topped with a huge statue of Christ.
But in Japan it is this odd competition to have something in the top 20 or 50 or 100, no matter how banal, that is amusing. We got used to seeing this in Tokyo and Kyoto because these cities ready do have some of the finest and rarest things. But it really became clear yesterday, as we traveled past green fields, we saw a sign proudly proclaiming this region as "one of the top 100 rice fields in Japan".
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