PREFECTURAL PECULIARITIES

Niigata-ken – After Okinawa, Niigata is the least educated prefecture in Japan. A mere five percent of Niigatans go to college or university, and when you compare this number with the 63.2% of people from Nagano (whose citizens are the best educated in Japan), who have gone on to post-secondary education, it becomes obvious that this prefecture has some educational catching-up to do. A gamblers’ paradise, Niigata is famous for its love of horse racing and pachinko. Maybe gambling debts are the reason that they also have the highest suicide rate in the country.

Doesn't reflect to well on us ALT's , ne??? And it's just plain depressing! :(

FYI-

Q. Why do people line up for hours in front of new pachinko parlors?

A. The reason is that when pachinko parlors open up, they often set the machines to pay out more often in hopes of attracting more customers and creating a favorable buzz in the pachinko community. Serious players, or 'pachipro' also have systems for determining which machines are more likely to pay out. In order to get into the parlor quickly and have first choice of the machines, people have to line up hours in advance of the opening.

Well...At least we're not:

Saitama-ken – Saitama is the New Jersey of Japan and is widely known as ‘Dasaitama’ (Ugly Saitama). And it isn’t only the prefecture that’s known for its ugliness - the people are too. If you see someone with no fashion sense in Tokyo, popular wisdom has it that they probably live in Saitama. It’s okay to make fun of Dasaitama though, because even the people who live there hate it. When its residents participated in a survey on ‘whether or not you like the prefecture you live in’, Saitama ranked 55th out of 56, and when asked ‘Is your prefecture comfortable to live in’, they came in dead last. On the positive side, Saitama also has one of the lowest rates of deaths from seijinbyo (lifestyle-related illnesses such as cancer, heart disease, and high-blood pressure) in Japan.

OR

Aichi-ken – Aichi in general, and Nagoya in particular are known for producing the thriftiest people in Japan. Their savings accounts are inevitably among the largest in the country, and the people are known for their extreme economization measures, such as taking flowers home as ‘omiyage’ from funerals. That's just wrong!

To see how other Prefectures rank in, check out this site:
http://www.quirkyjapan.or.tv/