Japanese inventions

[Tessa]

What are the main things used in everyday life that Japan has invented?

[rekstout]

Games Consoles, Floppy Disks, Pot Noodles, Futons, Manga, Venetian Blinds, Folding Fans, Revolving Stages, The Process for Culturing Pearls, Bread Makers, Rickshaws.....etc

[incitatus]

Im curious...I thought Pong (first game console) was British...willing to be proved wrong. Also Venetian blinds? Revolving stages? Ok Im willig to believe the rest, but......

[firefly]

I'm not sure about folding fans either-the Chinese could have come up with them. Although Britain did have a slight stake in the games console/computer industry, as Silicon Valley is in America and games consoles need silicon, and their cornering of the market, I think the Americans had the first games consoles.

[clairesmith]

chopsticks

[rekstout]

Okay - got a bit carried away games consoles and I concede the point (handhelds ones I believe originated in Japan though - Nintendo Watch Games - remember them - Snoopy Tennis, Donkey Kong etc).

The Japanese really are credited with the invention of venetian blinds, I was told that they were originally made from split bamboo (a lot easier to make the curved slats from than splitting normal wood). They are called venetian blinds because the fashion for using them in the West started in Venice - apparently.

With this as well as the invention of the folding fan and rotating stage - we can really only assume that they were invented in Japan on the basis of this being the location of their earliest documented use.