It isn't flowers that cause hay fever in Japan. The culprit is pollen from trees, in particular the Japanese cedar or sugi (杉, Cryptomeria japonica) and Japanese cypress or hinoki (檜, Chamaecyparis obtusa).

In the late 1980's, it was fashionable in some Japanese policy circles to argue that the Pax Americana was over, to be replaced in Asia by Pax Japonica. America's economy seemed to be tanking, Japan's was soaring, and projections favored 2005 as the date when it would overtake the United States.