At work, I used an old Japanese proverb without thinking. I told the meeting, "A frog in a well does not know the ocean."Silence. I prepared to apologize.Then my manager said, "That's the hardest thing anyone has ever said in this room."He wrote it on the whiteboard. It has survived seventeen erasings. Someone finally wrote DO NOT ERASE next to it.The sales team now says "we gotta get out of the well" and everyone nods like it's scripture.Last month a ceramic frog appeared in the break room. Nobody admits to buying it. It faces the window.They tell new hires it's me. I'm in the onboarding slides now.
Cultural FAQs
What is "The Bewilderment" category?
Stories where ordinary American habits — greetings, orders, appliances — feel like puzzles to a visitor raised on different defaults.
Who is NOBUNAGA / @japan_nobunaga?
NOBUNAGA is an English-language comedy storytelling project: a wandering samurai observes modern American life. Stories also appear in the book The Samurai Who Discovered Free Chips.
Are these stories fiction or real travel notes?
They are literary comedy postcards rooted in recognizable American customs. Read them as storytelling, not as a guidebook, then check local norms when you travel.
