At a little roadside store in rural Nagano, a foreign tourist is miming a rice bowl with her cupped left hand. Firm in the belief that Japanese washi (paper — wa meaning Japanese and shi meaning paper) was made from rice, she waves her flattened right hand across the "bowl," miming her desire for "sheets" of paper. Baffled by her gesture myself, I was at least able to communicate with her in English and ask what on Earth she was trying to buy. The local shopkeeper on the other hand was utterly perplexed; this bizarre customer seemed to be repeatedly miming that she didn't want a bowl of rice! But, of course she didn't, that was obvious.