OK, now that we've talked about what to take to Japan, there are some important aspects of Japanese culture to keep in mind:
- Cultures are different in Asia
- Separation of clean and dirty space
- Showing respect
- Building relationships
- Food etiquette
Cultures are different in AsiaIt may seem obvious to some, but cultures are different in Asia. Even though the Japanese language borrows Chinese characters for writing, the languages are quite different, cultures are quite different, and food is quite different. Some (both Japanese and Chinese) may find it rather offensive to confuse Japanese and Chinese cultures.
Here are some hints: Egg rolls are Chinese, not Japanese. It would be helpful to know the difference between a Japanese restaurant and a Chinese restaurant. You wouldn't want to tell your Japanese host that there is a Japanese restaurant you like back home and they have great egg rolls. It is also helpful to keep in mind that a Japanese restaurant may actually not be owned and operated by a Japanese person. For example, do you expect that all Italian restaurants are owned and operated by Italians? And all chefs at pizza shops are from Sicily? So if in fact the restaurant is not owned by a Japanese person, it may be that the chefs are also not from Japan and that the menu is not authentically Japanese. If you see kim chee salad on the menu, it could be a good sign that it is not a completely authentic Japanese restaurant. (Kim chee is extremely spicy pickled vegetables from Korea.) This also isn't to say that you wouldn't find kim chee on the menu in the Japanese restaurant if the owner really likes kim chee.
Separation of clean and dirty spaceMany people have heard that shoes are taken off inside a Japanese house and many people know this is to prevent dirty shoes from being worn inside the house, but some may not realize the complete concept of separation of clean and dirty space. As most people know, in a traditional Japanese house, one sits on the floor. While sitting on the floor, one's hands touches the floor, so it would be pretty unsanitary to touch the floor with your hands and then be touching food. OK, one doesn't normally touch food with one's hands, but it was only to illustrate a point. In a Japanese house, when sitting on the floor, one will touch the floor more frequently than you would in a Western-style house. Therefore, rubbing your eyes or some other acts would be much more unsanitary if the floors were dirty.
Since shoes are worn outside, and the outside ground is dirty, then the bottom of shoes become dirty. When one enters a Japanese house, there is actually the entry (
genkan) which is at the same level as outside. Then, one steps up inside of the house. The floor of the
genkan is still dirty because everyone still wears shoes in this area. One should not being wearing shoes when one steps up inside the house. However, when taking off one's shoes in the
genkan, if the soles of your socks touch the
genkan floor, your socks have now touched the dirty floor.
Therefore, when taking off your shoes, you want to be able to position yourself so that you can step out of your shoes onto the clean floor. In some cases, I have seen that when it is not possible to make a step onto the floor (perhaps there are too many shoes on the
genkan floor for you to get from where you are standing to the clean floor), people sometimes walk with their socks on top of other people's shoes (preferably of shoes already on the genkan floor, not while other people are still wearing them). That is, the top of people's shoes would be considered more clean than the
genkan floor with where the bottom of the shoes have been in contact. Of course, in informal situations, some people will step on the
genkan floor, so this is not a hard and fast rule.
And just in case you are curious, yes, dog's feet are cleaned after being outside. Of course, this can depend on the owners. And as a side note, at a Japanese airport, if they ask you to take off your shoes at a security checkpoint, they will either give you slippers or have you walk on a type of rug so that you do not have to walk on the floor with your socks. Do I need to mention here that it is a good idea to wear clean socks without any holes, and in particular, socks which do not smell (too much)?
Anyway, now that you have an understanding of clean and dirty, then this also applies to other objects, not just feet. The main example is luggage and bags. That is, if you go through a lot of trouble to make sure the floor is clean, then you would also not want to put dirty objects on the clean floor. If you have a bag which you have put down on the genkan floor (or on a floor outside of the house), then you would not want to put it on the clean floor.
That is why at a hotel check-in counter, many will have a small ledge for placing your carry bags. That is why is public bathrooms, you'll usually see a ledge for bags at the urinals and in the stalls.
While at the immigration check at Narita airport, the lines were rather long of about 50 people per each line. Of the 5 lines I looked at (approximately 250 people), only about 6 had placed their carry bags on the floor. Most were still holding their bags even with long lines. Of course, some people also had bags with wheels and kept their carry bags on top of them, which is often done by all people. In addition, some people may have had very light carry-on bags, so it was not necessary to put on the floor, but there were still many people with brief cases or computer bags, and they kept them off the ground. Conversely, there were probably less than 10% foreigners in these lines, but probably just as many people (approximately 6) had their bags on the floor. This is not a scientific study, but seems to indicate that Japanese tend to try to keep their bags off the floor.
Conversely, if the bag is big enough, then it must be put on the ground at times, so one would not bring it on a clean floor. (Or more accurately, one would clean off the bottom before bringing it inside to a clean floor.) One of the US commercials which shocks Kyoko the most are the hotel commercials where the guest has placed their suitcase onto a bed. The suitcase has been outside, on the same ground where people have been walking with their shoes, the same shoes which they wear wearing in public bathrooms, and then one places the suitcase on the bed?
Showing respectShowing respect is an important cultural point in Japan. One can see this in the use of language (to be described in more detail later). In Japan, traditionally, respect is given to elders, to educators, etc. Of course, Japan is becoming more Westernized and like the rest of the world, but one can still see differences in the Japanese culture for showing respect.
One aspect of showing respect is to be humble and to not put the other party in a awkward position (unless playing Twister). This also will be covered later in the use of language in more detail (how this aspect relates to the use in language, not on playing Twister).
Another aspect of showing respect is to bow. Bowing itself is a form of showing respect. Therefore, bowing is used in greetings, when showing thanks, when apologizing, among other instances. Bowing is so ingrained as part of Japanese society that out of habit, I have seen people bowing while talking to people on the phone.
Bowing is so important that if you do not bow, it is taken as a form of insincerity. For example, if one does not bow when making an apology, it will seem like an insincere apology.
There are generally three forms of bowing: casual, standard, and formal. Casual bowing is perhaps a 5-10 degree movement of the upper body. Standard bowing is about a 30 degree bow. And finally a formal bow is 45 degree bow. This will probably only need to be used in rarest of occasions.
The type of bow and duration of bow depends on how much respect should be shown. The person who should show more respect should have longer and deeper bows. For example, in a business situation, the customer should be given more respect than the supplier/provider of service. Within the same company, a senior person should be given more respect. Therefore, it can be important to know when someone has entered the company to know how long the person has been with the company.
One thing about bowing in Japan: It is NOT customary to put one's hands together in front of you when bowing. The hands are just on the side of the body or perhaps in front, but not with the hands together. The exception to this is when praying. Then one puts the hands together (like one would do in a prayer) and then bows. However, for normal bowing, one does not do this. I do not know about other eastern cultures, but this is not done in Japan.
Building relationshipsBefore the collapse of the bubble economy in Japan, building relationships was perhaps the most important aspect in business. Therefore, it was very important to try to establish a relationship with the customer, but once you were able to establish the relationship, you would find a loyal customer. These days, in order to compete globally, companies have found that reducing costs has now become an important aspect, so companies in Japan now have to buy from suppliers who can provide the best value for their money.
Building relationships is still an important aspect of every day Japanese life. Unlike Western society (in particular in US), where everyone is your "buddy", it is said that it can be difficult to build close friendships in Japan. [Something goes here, but not sure what.] One way of building relationships is to go drinking after work--sometimes with customers or sometimes with co-workers. It is not uncommon to see drunk Japanese businessmen returning home late at night. Hint: Be careful if the guy next to you on the subway looks like he might throw up.
A trend which seems to becoming popular again is karaoke. Unlike places in the US where you would sing in front of the entire crowd when singing karaoke, the norm in Japan are private rooms you can rent which can fit a handful of friends and co-workers, so you only have to worry about making a fool of yourself in front of people who know you.
Another type of club where Japanese businessmen may go are hostess clubs. My knowledge of hostess clubs are based on a Canadian documentary made around 1999, but these are the types of clubs where you go and a female hostess would sit next to you. The hostesses are trying to get the customer to buy more drinks and buy drinks for them as well. In return, they will engage in conversation and try to make the customer feel important. Some of the more popular clubs may be the ones with Western hostesses. This is not a call girl service, though. Of course, there are clubs which are shadier than others and some hostesses who are shadier than others, but it would be a mistake to assume the same type of services available at a hostess club and a call girl service.
The hostess club seems to be an offshoot of geisha, which is also sometimes mistaken by foreigners as a type of call girl service. The literally translation of geisha is "art" and "person". The geisha actually performs traditional Japanese art (song and dance for example) to customers, while also engaging in conversation and trying to make the customer feel important. The biggest difference then between a hostess club and geisha is then that the geisha is someone who has trained for many years the different Japanese arts and has trained for many years to be a proper geisha, while a hostess could be someone that was selected to work as a hostess just based on her looks. In addition, a difference is that a geisha would be considered "untouchable" while there may be customers who try to get too "friendly" with hostesses. And by the way, yes, there a clubs with male hosts, too, for women who seem to have more money than they know what to do with.
Food etiquetteI may be biased but personally I feel most Japanese food tends to be more healthy than other foods. Tempura and tonkatsu are deep fried, but otherwise, not a lot of oils are used.
One time when there was a dinner with some co-workers from US and co-workers from Japan at a restaurant in Tokyo, the Japanese colleagues were telling the US colleagues that generally you do not have to worry about "proper etiquette" in Japan. That is, there are fewer rules about what is proper etiquette in Japan than in US, so the colleagues from Japan were trying to put the US colleagues at ease about how to eat properly. One guy from the US then poured soy sauce into his bowl of white rice, in which the Japanese colleagues promptly dropped their jaws to the floor.
Therefore, one important rule is that white rice should not be "spoiled". Japanese people would not pour soy sauce (
shoyu) into their white rice or do anything else which prevents the rice from being pure. I am not sure if it is a philosophical viewpoint about keeping white rice "pure". Therefore are some logical aspects as well. The use of rice can be used to help offset some of the salt which is used in cooking, and therefore, cannot offset the other foods saltiness if it has soy sauce in it.
When eating rice, it is proper etiquette to lift your rice bowl while you are eating. However, you should not "scoop" food into your mouth using the chopsticks. You should still properly pick up the food to put it into your mouth.
In nicer restaurants, you will find that there is a place to put your chopsticks. This is called
hashioki (hashi = chopsticks, oki = to place) and often this is a small piece of porcelain. You will notice that it is placed in such a way that you rest your chopsticks horizontally in front of you. In Chinese restaurants, the way to place chopsticks is vertically (that is, the tip of the chopstick is placed pointing away from you). Therefore, in Japanese restaurants, you should remember to place the chopsticks horizontally when using a hashioki.
And typically, you should not "stab" food with your chopstick, even though that may seem easier in some cases. And finally, you should not leave your chopsticks sticking in your bowl of rice. This is a type of placement which is used when offering rice to dead spirits, so is most appropriate in cemetaries but not restaurants.
Pouring drinks for othersThe word for cheers in Japan is
kanpai.
In Japan, it is proper etiquette to pour drinks (especially alcoholic beverages) for other people. This even applies to beer since it is typical to drink beer from glasses instead of from bottles or cans. Therefore, it would be a major faux pas to allow someone to have an empty glass in front of them which then requires them to pour their own drink. Therefore, it is best to fill up their glass before it becomes empty.
When someone is pouring your drink for you, then it is proper etiquette to hold the glass up while they pour. Perhaps this shows appreciation for the person pouring the drink for you, and so it would seem like a lack of appreciation if you just let them fill your glass while it is sitting on the table.
Sometimes when someone is filling a glass, the person whose glass it is will quickly finish off the contents to allow the other person to pour into an empty glass. Therefore, it would seem proper to first indicate you are going to pour into someone's glass by holding the bottle in position to pour the drink which would allow the other person to pick up the glass and possibly finish off the contents before you start pouring.
And finally, since someone is always filling your glass, you may end up consuming quite a bit of alcohol. Therefore, the way to indicate you are finished drinking is to leave your glass full so that noone can offer to pour more.
Drinking soupIn Japan, you "drink" soup. That is, you are not given a spoon for consuming soup. You should lift the bowl with one hand and drink the soup. Since the bowl may be hot, you would want to lift the bowl with support on the bottom of the bowl, where the bottom of the bowl actually also provides an insulation from the soup itself. There may be clams, seaweed, or other items in the soup, you would then have your chopsticks ready in your other hand to consume those parts of the soup. In case of many soups, like miso soup, the soup contents may have settled, you would stir the contents of the soup with your chopsticks first. Since many Japanese chopsticks are traditionally made of wood, this helps moisten the chopsticks. Rice does not stick to moist chopsticks as it would to dry chopsticks, so this would help prevent single grains of rice from sticking onto your chopsticks while eating.
By the way, normally the way Japanese soup is served in a restaurant is with a lid over the bowl. You may find it is difficult to take the lid off of the bowl. The "trick" is while the bowl remains on the table, place one hand near the upper edge of the bowl with the thumb on one end and your other fingers on the other end. Then slightly squeeze the upper edge of the bowl while you remove the lid with your other hand.
Of course, if you are in a Western-style restaurant, soups are served as you would expect in the West with a spoon. This may also be true for Chinese restaurants as well.
Slurping noodlesIn Japan, noodles (in soup) are served very hot. Therefore, it is considered appropriate etiquette to "slurp" noodles as you are eating them. (Same may be true for drinking hot soups as well.) In theory, this allows you to be sucking the noodles into your mouth while also bringing in air as well. The air will help cool off the noodles so that the noodles are not too hot in your mouth.
Anyway, as one guy told me, in Japan, people pour your drinks for you and you can slurp your food--is this Heaven or what?
I can't believe how cold it has been recently. While I was in Vienna on my last trip, returning on March 17, there were a few days when it snowed! Even in the last week I was there, the high temperatures were generally around 1-2C (low 30s F), just barely above freezing.
