It's a competition of sorts. There used to be people where I work who would one-up each other on spicy food. They were long past the point where you could act

It's a competition of sorts. There used to be people where I work who would one-up each other on spicy food. They were long past the point where you could actually taste anything but the "heat", but they wanted to see who could take the most punishment. I have a Japanese friend who explained the fugu thing to me (at least, the way he saw it). Every once in awhile a group of people die when they eat fugu that's not prepared properly. So when you go out with your colleagues you try to work the latest such incident into the conversation, and then you order fugu. The goal is to eat it with the supreme nonchalance while trying to make your coworkers visibly nervous.