Never have I seen tamer cats than during my stay in Japan. I have seen Japanese cats submissively undergo treatments that would have sent any Belgian cat into a hissing, clawing and biting frenzy.
You can imagine my surprise when I came across the following scene in a shopping street in Okinawa:
How often do you see a grown man walk around with a cat dressed in a pink cape decorated with bows, flowers and what have you not? In most cases, the answer to that question will be “not very often”. Unless of course you live in Japan, in which case you will be forced to respond with “occasionally”.
My amazement increased when I saw that the cat would lie down and get up again on command. As the man walked off, the cat meekly followed at his side. Although obedient, the cat looked far from happy. My initial tendency to laugh at the scene soon changed into a feeling of pity for the cat.
Let’s have a closer look at the cat. Don’t you think it looks a little bit like Nyan Cat? Only Nyan Cat looks a lot happier.
The Japans 
I personally enjoyed certain people’s utter indulgence in sub-culture as well. Whether or not this guy was making a deeper statement or just being himself, I’ve no idea, but here’s a guy eating a cup of ramen while walking his pet corn and a leek.
http://skvltd.tumblr.com/image/28965399429
My motto is: in Japan you never know what you’ll see next!
And sub-culture people are always cool about it as long as you are about them. That guy and I walked his veggies around for about 2 laps just to rub that fact in others’ faces. Pretty sure pictures were taken of us.
I ran into a similar character in front of the Toyota City train station: a guy sitting there with two rabbits and a bird. I wrote a post about it: https://thejapans.wordpress.com/2011/11/27/people-watching-the-bunnyman/
Lol, aww… Yeah, Nyan Cat looks a bit more hip-happy than our other poor feline friend…
I don’t know why, but songs about cats always make me happy. A few seconds of Nyan Cat suffice to brighten my day.
This illustrates a huge difference between cats and dogs: dogs don’t get visibly depressed when you humiliatingly dress them up. They just grin and bear it, haha!
You are right! Dogs seem to get excited about just about anything. This internet joke about dogs illustrates my point: http://9gag.com/gag/3690140
My friend’s cat knows how to do “ote”, though rather reluctantly.
Impressive! As for my own cat, I am convinced that he understands almost all commands I give him. He just prefers not to obey them 🙂
Wow I have never seen that!
Some dogs don’t even take to kindly to being on a leash.
My dogs barely obey commands. I would like to say because they are stupid little dogs but I am sure if I tried hard enough they would learn.
Do you ever watch ‘The Dog Whisperer’? Sometimes I try his tricks on my cat! 🙂