Super Convenience!

The Japanese have a reputation for being innovative and coming up with new ways to make everyone's life a little more convenient. I had my first taste of this phenomenon when I bought a crappy Datson B-210 back in college, which sported a single key that worked in both the ignition and the hatchback and didn't mind whether it was upside-down or not, which was a lot more convenient than the dual keys that came with the Mustang I'd owned before. When I came to live in Japan I was greeted with many more of these small but much-appreciated innovations. First there's the faucet that juts out of nearly every toilet here, giving you a place to wash your hands with the clean water as it runs into the tank after a flush, or the spring-loaded toilet paper holders that let you insert a new role with a flick of your wrist. The toilet seat heater/butt washers also fall into the "extremely convenient" category. I'm a big fan of margarine tubs in Japan, which have little holes in the lid that allows you to keep a butter knife half-in and half-out of the tub, so you don't have to get a clean one from the drawer each time you butter toast. They also have blocks of cheese that's already pre-sliced, so you can pull off a piece without cutting it. If I were in charge of coming up with new products at a company in the U.S., I'd mine Japan for ideas til the cows came home.