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So have you guys ever wondered what Japanese people are really thinking? Well in this video I wanted to share with you guys
Some of the things that they never tell you but, they're actually thinking inside of their head.
So I've been in Japan for more than 15 years
And I'm going to be sharing with you some of the stuff that I've learned all along the way
In general, Japanese people like to follow the rules.
So when others break those rules, it's very frustrating for them.
On top of that Japanese people don't like interacting with strangers
so they'll try to avoid speaking out at all costs and the reason why I know this is
Because I've actually made a lot of these mistakes myself.
When you do come to a different country you want to be as respectful as possible.
But it's just hard because a lot of the times, the Japanese don't tell you that you're pissing them off.
But just keep in mind that I'm generalizing things, not everyone is like this in Japan.
These are some of the guidelines to help you guys understand what Japanese people are thinking and
So maybe you don't piss them off when you come to Japan.
Number One: "Not wearing masks in public when you're sick."
If you ever come to Japan or have watched Japanese videos or any of my videos for that matter.
You'll notice that a lot of people are wearing masks.
Getting on airplanes or sometimes when they're just on the train.
So what a lot of people think is that Japanese people are scared of getting sick.
And so they wear the masks to protect themselves from other people transferring any viruses or any sicknesses to them.
That's actually partly true. But the other side of it is they're trying to protect other people.
When Japanese people get sick?
They don't want to transfer what they've caught or their illness to someone else,
so they wear a mask to protect other people.
So it actually pisses them off is that when someone else is sick, and they're not wearing a mask
As a common courtesy, Japanese people
expect others, when they're sick, to wear a mask.
So, if you're ever in Japan and you do get sick, it would probably be good to wear a mask.
Number Two: "squatting in public."
If you ever been walking the streets in Japan.
Especially Tokyo you probably rarely see Japanese people squatting.
The reason for this is when Japanese people see someone squatting
they actually think that this person is poorly brought up.
One thing that I kind of see personally in Tokyo,
especially with tourists is
"I'll go to a department store"
and I'll just see them like sitting against the pillar or sitting like actually on the ground in the department store
or maybe they're sitting on some stairs.
This is actually the same thing as squatting in public. Japanese kind of view that as behaving poorly.
So the thing is in Japan department stores are considered luxuries,
so it's kind of weird for Japanese people to see someone squatting when they're trying to like get that luxury experience.
It's kind of like seeing someone picking their nose right next to the Chanel shop or like the Gucci shop.
So if you do feel tired, then definitely find a seat.
I know in Tokyo is a bit hard, especially because there's not a lot of places to sit.
You can definitely try to find a seat or,
what Japanese people will do is they'll find a cafe and they'll sit there.
Number Three: "Blocking traffic"
Now this kind of goes hand in hand with like sitting in department stores or squatting in public.
Basically, you're making a nuisance of yourself when you're blocking traffic,
so for example:
You'll be walking on the street and you'll just see like a group of tourists
just standing in the walkway and not letting people pass by.
That just like really pisses people off because a lot of people are trying to get from A to B.
And you're just like getting in their way and you're not kind of
considering others not to say that all foreigners or tourists do this.
But Japanese people will do it, too.
But as you get kind of older you realize to be more courteous of others
and you try not to get in other people's way.
So, if possible if you need to stop don't stop in traffic;
try to go off to the side where you're not actually getting in people's way.
Number Four: "expecting places like food stalls to accept credit cards."
And now we've gone over this so many times in my other videos
that Japan is still very much a cash based society.
If you're buying street food probably not expect them to
accept a credit card it because it's just kind of common sense.
Common knowledge that these places don't accept credit card
and they will get kind of like annoyed.
It's kind of like, "why are you asking me to take credit card
when you know this place, these shops, don't take credit cards?"
Because at the end of the day it
just makes you look like you don't have any common sense.
Alright.
So it just started to rain,
so I needed to find some cover and what better way to do it than here!
Let's continue on.
Number Five:
"Eating at tourist trap spots."
Now this one again maybe doesn't piss Japanese off per say,
it is kind of embarrassing to go and eat at these kind of places
because it's just so much food that Japan has to offer.
When foreigners go to these like very very
tourist trap places and eat it's kind of like
"aww you kind of missed out."
Thing is I've actually gone to a lot of these
like tourist trap places myself.
Just not knowing better and I kind of wanted to give you some pointers on
what's a tourist trap spot and what is not.
This usually applies to for example, like "Izakayas", Japanese drinking restaurants.
So, the ideal for a good Japanese restaurant
would be a place like this that keeps it simple with minimal signage.
What you'll find
Instead with like a lot of tourist trap places is not only will they have their sign,
it may be in English,
but they'll also have a signboard with pictures and not only Japanese but it also has English on the menu.
You're kind of like "oh."
So they are like catering to a foreign market . One of the biggest giveaways for this is not only do you see English
but you see like Chinese and Korean, you see like three different languages on the menu.
You might want to step back a little bit because this could be a tourist trap spot.
Well one thing though this kind of goes against what I was saying,
like for example, if you go to ramen shops nowadays.
There's ramen shops.
They get really, really popular and they have a lot of foreigners coming to it
just to make the experience a little bit easier
for both parties, they just added the English to the menu, but originally they didn't have it.
So, it's not like they were initially trying to like get foreigners to come.
It's just foreigners started coming so they had to kind of adapt
and add an English menu.
Oh, and this is probably the biggest giveaway out of all of it.
If you ever hear one of those like aggressive shamisen music playing in the front of this door,
you should probably run because
they're like trying to attract tourists like you would not believe.
But at the end of the day if you want to come to Japan and you just feel comfortable
Eating at these like tourist chop spots then yeah, that's fine.
But if you want to come to Japan and you want to kind of experience like authentic Japanese cuisine.
I would say just like try to stay away from these places. All right.
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Number 6: "eating with it off hand underneath the table."
So this one was like really weird to me because what I didn't know this until after coming to Japan and
back to be honest with you. I still do it sometimes.
The way you're supposed to eat in Japan is you're supposed to just have some dominant hand you're eating with your chopsticks and you have
Maybe happy a rice bowl on the other hand and you're just like you're just like eating like this.
But sometimes if you know.
You don't have the bowl in your hand and you're just eating on the table.
Like I sometimes take my off hand and I put it underneath the table or like just on my lap and I heat with just
one hand, but apparently this is just kind of bad manners in Japan.
This is something that Japanese kids grow up with where their parents like telling them to always show
Their other hand because I think just in general
People like to put their off hand underneath the table or on their lap where they eat
I don't know if this is a thing in your country, but it definitely is something here in Japan
So when you eat and you want to have kind of good manners
Then you should leave or you should show
Your off hand the entire time just like put it on the table and finally before we get out of this place
Number seven not cleaning up after you eat
So cleanliness is kind of one of those pet peeves that Japanese people have they like to keep everything clean?
You know in general so when you're eating in a public place
It's always like kind of
Proper manner just to clean up how to yourself while you're eating and especially after you eat maybe in other countries
You expect the waiter or the waitress?
To clean up after your eating so you can like leave all of your crumbs on the table
You can leave, you know your french fries or your noodles. It's just like spilled on the table
It's okay just to leave the table like that
but in fact in Japan
It's a common courtesy to
actually gather all of the napkins of like the loose items and put it all in the bowler in the center or the plate and
then if there's any like spots on the table just to like wipe it down with a napkin make it kind of tidy because in
Japan no one wants to have like a really
Messy table even after they leave is that an international thing or is that a just just a Japanese thing?
All right, so that's enough about food. Let's move on to the next one
Number eight making people wait, this one actually pisses a lot of Japanese off
So in general, I think Japanese people are very punctual and that's just because they're being considerate of others
They don't want to make other people wait, so when there's twisting meet someone say for example for work
Then they'll usually arrive 5 to 10 minutes early on site
They'll probably like go up a minute or two before going to the front desk and check them themselves in it's just like it's one
Of those things being considerate is probably on the priority in like thinking of others
So the fact that you're late meaning you're wasting other people's time and Japanese people don't like to waste time and in fact they hate
It when someone else wastes their time, in fact, it's I've been here so long
It kind of pisses me off to be honest when people that I have a meeting with are late
I'll actually set up a lot of international calls like on skype or whatever people overseas are always like 5 10 15 minutes
Later that email me to the floor
Sorry got stuck in a different meeting and I think it's almost like common practice to be late when you're setting up a meeting
But me being in Japan and working in I know a japanese-style environment for so many years
I've just got accustomed to being on time or if not early to all of my meeting
So if you ever come to Japan and you're meeting up with a Japanese friend you have dinner reservations
Or just meeting someone for for business or for pleasure
You want to be on time if not early?
So definitely keep that in mind when setting up your meetings
But there is one caveat to this. So as people get more comfortable with each other than I wouldn't say
It's accepted to be late
But it's more forgiving and it's not as big of a thing when compared to if you are
acquaintances
or if you were a business meeting at the end of the day is just being considered and none that don't understand why that's so
Hard for some people maybe it pisses me off with him Japanese people number nine talking to someone in line
so again
This one is another thing that kind of surprised me kind of one of those reverse culture shocks when I went in the States
I was just waiting in line at the supermarket and all of a sudden someone behind me
Just started talking to me asking me about the weather or the sports theme or something like that. I was completely shocked
I think it's because I've been in Tokyo so long that people here in Tokyo
At least they don't appreciate it
When a random person it just approaches them
Especially if they're just doing their like normal daily tasks like going to the convenience store to buy something
It catches a lot of people off-guard and it kind of just makes people uncomfortable
I know there's like there's people out there that like to talk to people but if you want to kind of
Respect that people's boundaries and their spaces. Then you might not want to just like come up and start talking to them
so I think the exception to this is if you do have a reason to talk to someone so for example
You are lost and you need like directions, then you can like say soon less and excuse me
And then ask for the directions
I think this is probably more mainly to do with the city because there's just so many people there's so many like
Interactions that could potentially happen that you don't want to like continue to get bombarded with people
So people are kind of in their own zone in the city. Maybe if you were to go out in the countryside
It's less likely people have the guard down more. So so in fact they may actually appreciate you're talking to them
Don't take this as like all of Japan is like this but maybe like in the city areas where people are just more closed off
Then you might make them feel uncomfortable and finally number 10 talking way too loud
now I see this all the time when you're on the train when you're on the bus you're in a restaurant and people are just
Talking so loud that it interrupts you what's it's kind of off-putting and it actually pisses a lot of Japanese off
I've heard my Japanese friends comment about it
it's just something that people kind of like get really turned off by because people do like their personal space and
Someone like a group of people are talking way too loud conscious being inconsiderate about their surroundings
Then it just kind of like pisses people off
It just scene says that you don't really care about the other people around you and I mean if you're just like talking normal
It's not a big deal, but I will say that it's not like I don't hear Japanese people do this
I mean
like you'll probably sometimes be on a late train and people are like talking loudly because everyone's drunk on the train or
You'll go to maybe like a festival and people are talking about but just like in normal
everyday
Daytime scenarios people like try to keep their voice down so they don't bother other people
So if you are walking around and you don't want to piss people off then
Just like keep your volume - as my grammar school teacher used to say keep your 12-inch voices
No one's made more than 12 inches 1-yard voice because in the States, so yeah. Those are my top ten things
I don't know if this video gets really popular
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