text: For Japan is truly a kaleidoscope of lifestyles and images , local cultures and the rice farmers in rural heartlands and the subway millions of teeming Tokyo ; the Zen Buddhist monks and the fad-obsessed teenaged fashion victims ; the solemn temple ceremony or the hellish din of the pachinko parlor ; exquisite temple architecture or all-pervasive soulless concrete apartment buildings .
  
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  Japan is seen to be one of the only Asian cultures to have its features spread to the West .