The "have you heard of Samurai" question reminds me of this story where a writer (nonfiction writer Mary Roach, I think) was talking to someone from the Japanese astronaut training program about this task they'd assigned all their astronaut candidates. The Japanese person said, "I don't know the word in English, but it's a paper folding craft?" Mary: "Oh, Origami?" (The candidates were put into tight quarters with a stack of paper and instructed to fold 100 paper cranes and string them on a piece of string, as a test of how well they could do something kind of fiddly and repetitious under difficult circumstances.)