Can you ever get truly "close" to someone who is Japanese?

sorry if I offend any one here by my statments :sorry:

No one is offended, just saying

But I love it when people read into things waaay to much and try to complicate matters more than it is to begin with. This is life people, not diplomacy at national level

Comparing Japanese to each other, naturally the focus is on differences in personality since the culture remains the same. Comparing Japanese to Americans, the focus is on the difference in culture. Neither is more right or wrong than the other. As far as I can tell, there is also nothing particularly offensive or difficult to understand (or so it should seem) in either perspective.

Elizabeth said:

Comparing Japanese to each other, naturally the focus is on differences in personality since the culture remains the same. Comparing Japanese to Americans, the focus is on the difference in culture. Neither is more right or wrong than the other. As far as I can tell, there is also nothing particularly offensive or difficult to understand (or so it should seem) in either perspective.

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We belong to different cultures habitudes....even there is lot of differences between american an european lifestyle....and between europeans...italian and spanish are similar in many things meanwhileuk irish and germans are more similar to americans...I visit Korea an Japan and there are many differences between them even tehy are both oriental
lands and near...and japanese invasion have gotten many things in Korea.

Koreans could let you understand easier what thay think than japanese.
They both (men) like soju and sake....also beer like americans and
nothern europe guys.
We prefer wine...as now we have the best wine in the world...even french
have reconized this year (the first time) the value of italian wine.
Most of us drink wine during meals not wthout food...but as everywere we also have our drunks.....but generally we do not drink so much like english or americans (beer wisky coctails etc...)
Even jp gastronomy it is very different than kr or chinese.
Events dress like kimono are so much different tan korean an chinese.
I have meet nice persons in Japan as in Korea...but sometime some were not so gentle.....but just in few cases.

ippolito said:

We prefer wine...as now we have the best wine in the world...even french
have reconized this year (the first time) the value of italian wine.
Most of us drink wine during meals not wthout food...but as everywere we also have our drunks.....but generally we do not drink so much like english or americans (beer wisky coctails etc...)

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it's not the first time. some italian wines are terrific since a long time and there are many specialties. but italy still has a lot of work to do to go and reach the levell of a mouton cadet or any other top bordeau or burgundy wines. but i agree with ippolito, italian wines are comming fast and i enjoy them a lot. so are many others such australian, californanian, south american.
eventually, it will reach japan, korea and china. anf then it will be one hell of a problem, since there are not enough winyards in the world to satisfy everybody.
water will be polluted, cows wont give enough milk...
what are we going to drink ???
HELP !!!!!!!!

We drink a lot of wine here in Japan. It's one of the popular items to give as a gift,too. I still have problems looking for my favorite wine,though. Have to go to the bigger stores (usually in the big cities) to buy one. But if you're not very choosy,they have wine in almost every liquor store or even the nearest convenience stores.

cricket said:

We drink a lot of wine here in Japan. It's one of the popular items to give as a gift,too. I still have problems looking for my favorite wine,though. Have to go to the bigger stores (usually in the big cities) to buy one. But if you're not very choosy,they have wine in almost every liquor store or even the nearest convenience stores.

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yes, i know that !
but what i mean with "when japan, china and korea start consuming wine" I mean like in france, italy, spain, portugal, greece, you have breakfast with wine and garlic sausages and fresh loaf of bread. Then you end the day with a last glass before going to bed....
now, here we have real wine consuming.
wait for you turn to discover the joy of an all-day drunkeness !!!!
hips...

We usually have breakfast with cappuccino and croissant or bread with jam
not wine in the morning.....only alcholist...or people for east europe that lives here( there are many ).
Brunello di Montalcino or Santa Cristina have all the charatteristic to beat franch wines...and we have a lot of goo white wine like pinot verdicchio etc..
I saw that in Japan it is very expensive so I carry 3 bottles of a good wine
for friends.

Did you start dating your boyfriend for the "novelty"?

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Any novelty of the romantic kind has long since worn off. He used to say, for instance, that he didn't want me staying in his condo concurrent with other guests. It was later explained this was to avoid any overlap which might cause the other person any inconvenience in such a confined space (I might have the television tuned too loud in the morning or the room I use makes it too difficult to enter). Initially of course I was under the impression it had something positive to do with me.

Entering a mentality like this takes time, but if you can, it does tend to relieve a lot of the psychological angst (am I being too aggressive ? too reserved ? why isn't he responding?). Always, always, always think of the other person/people first and everything should more or less fall into place, the inner voice motivating your actions becomes natural and effortless....and you may eventually get to your real goal as well.