(Pop) Cultural Absence of Knowledge 1 - Language

When I ask the average Western person what they know about Japan, if I subtract the complete misses (Kung Fu from China, etc) and subtract the war, what we're left with is usually a sort of strange and twisted and inaccurate version of Japan. I believe this is part to do with pop culture, with it selectively pulling from other cultures while ignoring certain other parts.

But first, let's look at the English language. The words imported from Japanese into English (so-called loanwords) are also telling of this phenomenon. Here's a list I found online (of some) of what has been imported into the English language from the Japanese language with some cultural notes by me:

banzai - here's the 50s 60s coke bottle glasses and headband image.
futon - ok standard living thing, but a futon in japan is a thin mattress, not these weird wooden contraptions you see in the west.
geisha - a bit outdated, mysterious misunderstood mispronounced. there's a common pattern of these words that refer more to a japan of hundreds of years ago.
go - games and i'm sure some videogame words have made it outside Japan too.
haiku - nice poetry form, if a bit outdated, enjoying its height in the 1700s. hibachi - food, wow we take a lot of these.
judo, jujitsu, karate - what would the East be without fighting styles?
hara-kiri, seppuku - from this we learn that all japanese are suicidal sword wielding maniacs, again this is history.
kabuki - i don't really have a comment.
kamikaze - here we learn that all japanese are suicidal airplane wielding maniacs
kimono - you'll be hard pressed to find 1 person in 1000 people here wearing kimono rather than typical western dress.
ninja - yeah.
ramen - the fuel of salarymen, japan's junk food.
rickshaw - how many centuries ago?
sake - ok, food and drink again, though this just means 'alcohol' in japanese.
samurai - oh this is a big one. old again, this could make a book.
soy - food.
sukiyaki - food.
sumo - traditional japanese sport, fighting style, giant fat guys. of course.
sushi - food again.
tempura - food.
teriyaki - food.
tofu - food.

I'm sure I'm missing some words here, feel free to add any you can think of.

If you can put those words together into a meaningful picture of Japan, I'll send you some sushi. Ancient floor-sleeping suiciding raw-fish-eating video-game-playing wooden-cart-pulling kabuki ninja something or other.