My lovely wife was born and raised in Japan.
The other day I was telling her how my sister had an imaginary friend when she was really young. The rest of us knew this friend was imaginary because he was a boyfriend with blue hair.
My wife had never heard of this "imaginary friend" concept and believes it is uniquely (and bizarrely) American. I told her that I think it is probably a phenomenon found in Western society because we tend to emphasize how important it is for children to be creative and use their imaginations, while Eastern society tends to emphasize how important it is to conform.
So who's right? I know we have some members in Italy, the UK, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, and others that I'm forgetting (sorry!). Is the "imaginary friend" thing unique to American childhood?