Started as borrowed Chinese noodles and quietly became the thing Japan's most proud of feeding people.
Fun fact: Japan voted instant ramen the nation's greatest 20th-century invention, ahead of the bullet train.
Their language isn't related to a single one of their neighbours', which is a properly impressive level of stubbornness.
Fun fact: Ernő Rubik took a full month to solve his own Rubik's Cube after inventing it in 1974.