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Educating Tourists

Lothor said:
Be polite by the standards of your own country, and you'll be fine. All this stuff about etiquette booklets and, worse still, books is overkill and contributes to this 'unique Japan' nonsense.
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In the UK, it's considered perfectly polite to walk and eat, wear shorts and a vest in, say a church. You can direct the soles of one's exposed feet toward others whilst sitting on a shop's door step. It's fine to point with your finger at somebody even if you're right in front of them. Being tired and having no seating available, nobody would bat an eyelid at me sitting on the ground or a kerb as long as I'm not obstructing anything. I could leave a cash tip in a restaurant and it's virtually a non-negotiable requirement in the USA. In the USA you can talk in a loud voice in public and speak in a normal voice on your phone on a train or bus. Americans think it's fine to touch things in shops, art galleries and museums (not sure about that last one but my American friends tell me they're well known for doing this). In Indian and many other countries, one can belch when eatingand saying 'thank you' is not a requirement when being served. In the West it is fine to blow your nose, loudly, at the dinner table whilst people around you are eating ().

I am sure there are many other perfectly acceptable behaviours that would, ant the very least, aggravate Japanese sensibilities.

The etiquette pamphlet should be laminated
 
Lothor said:
All this stuff about etiquette booklets and, worse still, books is overkill and contributes to this 'unique Japan' nonsense.
Click to expand...
Still it's good to know basic etiquette rules that may not apply in your own country. I forgot where I was -- maybe Indonesia -- and I filled out the customs/immigration form with a red pen and they made me discard it and fill out another. It has some association with death apparently.

And growing up we always put our chopsticks straight up in our bowls of rice just for convenience sake. Come to find out that's not a good idea in Japan.
 
The red ink thing also applies to Korea, from what I've heard. It's probably a faux pas in Japan and China, too. I've seen enough Chinese dramas where people write letters and edicts in their own blood due to desperation that I'd think twice about using red except for when correcting mistakes. It's pretty gruesome.
 
She had a spot in the Japan Times for many years. She had a little Moo bar too.
 
When I see the 'foreigners' being interviewed and expressing surprise at silence in trains, 'after you please' behaviour not staring at naked people at an onsen/sento etc, I think to myself, 'Isn't this just normal behaviour from reasonably socialised people here in the UK?'
I've come to the conclusion the irritation toward 'foreigner' behaviour should be aimed at the South European/Latin American/USA as they're the ones who appear to be loud, appear to not understand the concept of queuing and have a more 'individualist' attitude to nature.
 
I was invited to my elderly neighbour's BBQ last yesterday and it was a lively affair of older people including a 99 year old ex-Marine delightfully enjoying his drinks and roaring with laughter all night (). At one point a few of us began discussing manners and some were saying they never allowed their children to place there elbows on the dinner table and insisted they ask permission to rise from the dinner table etc. But when I pointed out the reasons these were originally devised (in medieval times dinner table were trestle types; a wide plank resisting on a stand. If pressure was applied to it by one's elbows, it'd upend and everything would fly up into the air. You asked permission to leave a table so the host could ensure you weren't going to do something nefarious like go and get a weapon to kill the host!), they could see they were archaic and redundant concepts, ones they would, however continue. To further highlight the ridiculousness of some etiquette points; when someone offered me a piece of stilton cheese, she kindly cut off the apex of the wedge and gave it me. This is a no-no because that's the prime piece and shouldn't be given to anyone individually but instead a narrow segment should be cut and offered I also pointed out that loudly blowing one's nose at the dinner table (a personal bug bear) was considered rude and unhygienic probably everywhere in the world except the West.

What's acceptable to one group of people may not be to others, but that doesn't make those guilty of a faux pas, bad or overtly rude people. The one piece of good advice I've read in a book about etiquette is try one's best not to make those around you feel uncomfortable by one's own behaviour.
 
To enforce the "no elbows on the table" rule, my great grandfather would apparently grab a butter knife by the blade and whack the offending elbows with the handle. It was ok to rest your forearms on the edge of the table, as long as your elbows were below the lip.

To recap: showing your elbows is incredibly rude, but striking children with a butter knife? That's just good parenting.
 
To be fair... have you ever really looked at elbow skin? It's kind of obscene... there's nothing more akin to a scrotum on the human body. Now that I think about it, great-grand-papa may have been onto something...
 
nice gaijin said:
To be fair... have you ever really looked at elbow skin? It's kind of obscene... there's nothing more akin to a scrotum on the human body. Now that I think about it, great-grand-papa may have been onto something...
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You need to start exfoliating with a pumice stone and then moisturising your 'olecrsnal skin' DON'T pumice your scrotum
 

「駅員さん、これOKなの？」新幹線の外国人団体客、通路や座席が荷物で…あ然　「諦めて何も言わずに降りました」

新幹線の指定席に座っていたら、驚がくの事態に巻き込まれた。通路がいくつものスーツケースによって塞がれている。隣の座席が空いたと思ったら、キャリーケースが置かれて“通せんぼ”状態だ。注意しようにも圧倒されてしまい……。「駅員さん、これはOKなの？」。外国人の団体旅行客の荷物マナーに困り果ててしまったという20代の当事者に詳細を聞いた。
encount.press

Foreign tourists in a group on the Shinkansen train block aisles and seats with their luggages
 
I come from a peasant lineage, so I never even knew about the elbow thing until I went to a school camp where people were shamed when they put their elbows on the table. The reason for the rule was never explained and I didn't think to question it at the time.
 
Why you shouldn't put your elbows on the table
Historical and practical reasons
In medieval Europe, large shared tables were common. If someone leaned on the table, it could shake and cause food or drinks to spill.
In Japan, small trays or low tables (such as chabudai) were used, and putting elbows on them could easily make dishes tip over.

 
And we do not leave graffiti on historical landmarks.

Graffiti resembling alphabet letters was found carved into the East Shrine Gate at Meiji Jingu in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward on August 28, prompting a police investigation into a possible violation of the Cultural Properties Protection Law. According to the Metropolitan Police Department, the graffiti was discovered on a load-bearing section of the East Shrine Gate's column, which the national government has designated as an Important Cultural Property. The markings, believed to have been incised with a sharp object, measured roughly 5 centimetres in height and 20 centimetres in width, with several alphabet-like characters visible in multiple places.

​

Graffiti Carved Into Historic Meiji Jingu Gate

Graffiti resembling alphabet letters was found carved into the East Shrine Gate at Meiji Jingu in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward on August 28, prompting a police investigation into a possible violation of the Cultural Properties Protection Law.
newsonjapan.com
 
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