Japan is a ceramic paradise, plain and simple.
I tried to explain this to some people back in San Diego a few weeks ago. Most just looked at me like I was some garbanzo bean-eating hippie who thought that Jerry Garcia was God. There are just no criteria for them to understand the significance that ceramics have played in Oriental culture. When I mentioned that whole museums in Japan are devoted to ceramics, some having priceless national treasures, my culturally deprived listeners just shrugged their shoulders and said, "whatever."
To most of them, pro sports is culture.