Name: 12 Things NOT to do in Japan
Uploaded: 2018-05-23T05:06:30.000Z
Duration: 12 min 55 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Past simple

I won't lie, I didn't know a whole lot about Japan before I got here.

I knew what Pikachu was, and I'd seen the Last Samurai about three times,

and that was probably the extent of my knowledge.

I actually did most of my reading about Japanese etiquette

on the horrific 12-hour flight between London and Tokyo.

And I've pretty much just winged it ever since.

In hindsight, there are lot of things I know now

that I would've done well to comprehend before I got here,

so today, I've taken five years of experience in the field

and compiled it into this list of "12 Things Not to do in Japan".

So when you're on your flight here, you needn't worry about reading about cultural etiquette;

you can sit back, relax, and enjoy the in-flight entertainment,

with incredible titles to choose from, such as:

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Disappointments!

And I think we can all agree, of those three movies,

the most compelling would have to be Sherlock Bones: Ace Detective.

Especially with that brilliant tagline: "The world's first talking police dog on a mission im-paws-ible!"

"Mission im-PAWS-ible"... It doesn't really work, does it?

So walking down the street whilst eating and drinking isn't illegal;

and you're not going to get arrested by Ace Detective Sherlock Bones.

But what you will get is the stare of disapproval.

A lot of people don't know this one until you get here and never see anyone doing it.

What you'll find is, if someone wants to eat or drink something quickly outside,

they'll buy it at the convenience store and then eat it or drink it out the front.

Same with vending machines; if they buy something from the vending machine

they'll drink it there and then next to the vending machine.

The main reason is, people are very conscious about keeping the streets clean here,

and you don't want to ruin someone else's day by having them walk through your spilt coffee.

That said, all you need to do to avoid the stare of disapproval is

just stop and eat and drink whatever it is there and then.

Maybe it's on a bench, maybe you're just standing at the side of the road, whatever.

Just don't walk whilst eating and drinking and you'll be all right.

No. 1: Never put your chopsticks upright into the rice, as this is part of

a ritual conducted at funerals when offering rice to the spirits of the deceased.

Similarly, no. 2: never pass things from chopstick to chopstick, because again,

this is done during funerals to pass the bones of cremated relatives.

So that kind of imagery doesn't go down well over dinner, as you'd expect.

Probably best not to conjure up imagery surrounding death before- before you've even had your lunch.

And thirdly, don't do the rubbing of the chopsticks.

You know when you open wooden chopsticks and you like to do that

to get rid of the splinters and just because it's fun.

But don't do it in Japan because it's seen as rude to the owner

because you're basically saying, "Oh, your chopsticks are probably cheap."

Probably the greatest thing about Japan ever

and the reason that I eat out several times a week, just because I save 20% automatically.

In Japan it's believed that customer service should always be exceptional,

But it's not necessarily rude to tip someone,

it just creates this awkward situation where the worker, the staff,

would feel like you're assessing their performance and they could potentially lose face.

So you might think you're being nice by giving someone a tip, but you're not.

You're just creating an uncomfortable situation for the worker

and they'll probably just reject your tip outright.

There's a real emphasis on being mindful when you're using public transport in Japan

that's often completely absent in many countries.

Numerous are the times that I've been riding a train in the UK

and someone nearby has been screaming at their partner down the phone

and I felt like I was part of the argument,

like some kind of unpleasant 4D experience.

But given Japan's density, it's especially important to be mindful

when you're stuffed in a train alongside fellow commuters,

With that in mind, don't ever, ever talk on your phone on the train.

That's a massive like, NO thing to do here.

And even talking loudly is looked down upon.

If you're on a local train or a subway train and you get a phone call,

And if you're on a bullet train you can go

to the little compartment in between the carriages and take your call there.

I remember, for the first few years that I lived here,

whenever someone handed me a business card I was utterly terrified

because until then business cards, to me, had always just been

a bit of paper, a bit of card, with some writing on.

Once you've exchanged business cards, the trick is to imagine you've just been handed

the lost treasure of El Salvador or something.

First, study it meticulously: the name, the job position, the details...

And then either put it in your business card holder

or just put it on the desk if you're at a business meeting. Just put it on the table.

Never play around with business cards or put them in your back pocket

because they're seen as a physical extension of the person themselves.

And you don't want to stuff somebody's physical extension down your back pocket.

If you're doing business in Japan always, always carry business cards.

You don't want to be that awkward foreigner who's stood there writing out

their name and number 50 times in one hour on the back of a tissue.

And for the record, I AM usually that awkward foreigner scribbling down my details

and subsequently, I hate myself when it happens.

If you've got a runny nose, standard procedure here is just to keep sniffing

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12 Things NOT to do in Japan

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