What Prompted Your Interest in Japan?

In high schol i studied french and german. My parents are both more or less from the south, but we didn't really connect with the deep south culture so much. Growing up there just any kind of, you know, fantasy of living elsewhere. That could be new york, could be boston, sotit could be a different country. It was exciting. And so a my parents from work started going to japan. The first time they went, they just came back kind of raving about it,. But the second time they came back, they brought all these souvenirs. They were like shaped like nights and samurai and rock star adlike.