Swedes crack jokes about Norwegians, Poles knock the Russians, and though everyone likes a good Italian joke, they're less funny than they used to be thanks to the genuinely grotesque antics of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
But Japanese do not tell jokes at the expense of their neighbors, the Koreans and Chinese.
They also don't tell jokes centering on taboos, other religions, people with variegated sexual preferences or people in power. The dirty joke is virtually unknown here; and when foreign fellows tell them to their Japanese girl friends, the reaction is invariably a swift geeee! (yuk!), followed by sayonara (goodbye).