20 Japanese Customs to Help a Tourist Blend in With the Locals
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Before my recent trip to Japan, I watched YouTube videos to learn the correct use of chopsticks. Most Japanese meals require these, tricky, wooden utensils, called Ohashi, to get tasty tidbits from plate to mouth.
I struggled to gain the dexterity of keeping the lower chopstick stationary, while moving the top chopstick to transfer food, without it landing on my lap. After many hours, I mastered this challenge, but upon arrival in Tokyo, my learning curve for Japanese customs and general rules of behavior required a crash course.
I became aware of Omot nashi – the concept of hospitality through polite and respectful actions toward others and the environment to benefit the happiness and comfort for all.
When I practiced these manners, the Japanese people showed appreciation for my attempt to embrace their culture. Any traveler to Japan, who learns even a few of these standards of behavior, will be admired as a considerate visitor.
Greetings, Interactions, and Public Etiquette
A tray lies on every counter to place yen bills, as money is never handed directly to the clerk. Photo by Carol
1. Learn basic phrases and words to gain smiles from Japanese people with whom you interact. I greeted strangers on the street with Ohayo to say ‘Hello.’ I offered Arigatou, meaning ‘Thank you’ perhaps twenty times a day, as showing gratitude for even minimal assistance is considered polite. Sumi Masen which implies ‘excuse me’ is another response that the Japanese love to hear.
2. The Japanese word ‘she’ meaning the number four, is similar to their word for ‘death.’ They avoid saying or even responding to Number 4 because it is so unlucky. When I tried to impress a waiter by ordering ‘she birus’ for our table, my request went ignored. Then I held up 4 fingers, and he promptly delivered four beers with a smile.
3. Handshakes signal an invasion of one’s personal space. Instead, use a slight bow of the head, with palms together, as a means of greeting or departing. I found myself bowing, often for unclear reasons, but excessive politeness wins over rudeness every time.
4. In Tokyo, where millions of people live within a cramped space, individuals using sidewalks, escalators, and pathways of any kind must keep to the left. This allows bicycles, skateboarders, pushcarts, baby carriages and others to pass on the right. Staying to the left shows consideration.
5. During COVID, all public trash cans were removed and never replaced. Despite this, not one discarded bottle, can or paper lies anywhere. Every street is impeccably clean. What’s their secret? They don’t eat or drink while walking anywhere because it suggests bad manners. People consume food or beverage bought in front of a vendor’s stand and the seller gladly takes the trash back when the person is finished.
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6. A more common practice, individuals carry their own plastic bag for their daily trash and then dispose of garbage items either at home or hotel. I routinely took a plastic bag whenever I left the hotel, and I felt like a local carrying trash around. Respect for the environment is universal in Japan. I traveled on buses, trains, subways, and the Shinkansen or Bullet train and never saw one scribble of graffiti.
7. White-gloved taxi drivers, don’t chat, they drive. It’s a good idea to ask hotel staff to write down your destination in Japanese to hand to the driver. Most taxis have automatic doors. Opening or shutting the door yourself shows impolite disregard to the driver. Before I knew taxi rules, I tried to open the door when we reached our stop. The driver quietly reprimanded me with a firm, but polite ‘No.’
8. In major cities like Tokyo, Kanazawa, or Kyoto, if your hotel is located on a major thoroughfare or busy street, taxis will not stop in front of the hotel, so as not to slow down the flow of traffic. You must be prepared to exit the taxi on a side street and porterage your own luggage. Bellhops seem to be a rare, perhaps non-existent service.
9. Hotel full-maid service is not a daily practice, but rather every four to five days. Emptying room waste cans and replacement of used towels happens every day. But no one will make the bed, clean the bathroom or vacuum the room unless you specifically arrange that for an additional charge with the front desk. It is the guest’s responsibility to be tidy, or not!
10. Tipping remains an insult to any Japanese service worker. It felt strange leaving a restaurant after a delicious meal with flawless attention, without tipping, but this Japanese custom required no learning curve.
11. Buying anything in a store needs a bit more training. No cashier receives money directly from the shopper’s hand. A small tray, placed on every counter for Yen bills, and a coin machine take the money offered. As you add coins, the coin box tallies the total, calculates your change and spits it out, while the cashier places change in yen bills on the tray. Counting the change before you leave ranks as highly impolite, suggesting lack of trust.
12. Vending machines selling hydrating drinks, soda, iced coffee and green tea literally show-up every 50 feet; in alleyways, attached to electric poles, or installed alongside a road. On a 95◦, humid day, I wanted sparkling water but jumped back when the vending machine started talking. An AI view slot, located in the center of the console, analyzes the buyer’s facial expression and advises the person before he makes a selection. A Japanese woman behind me translated what the machine had said. “You look overheated. May I suggest a Gatorade?” The Japanese love their advanced technology.
Read More: 10 Interesting Yet Unknown Facts about Japan and Japanese Culture
Proper Chopstick and Dining Etiquette
This type of Japanese sushi can be eaten with your hands instead of chopsticks. Photo by Carol L. Bowman
1. I could use chopsticks, but I had to learn proper chopstick etiquette. Never pass food between two people’s chopsticks. Never use chopsticks to take food from a table’s communal bowl. And never wave chopsticks around in the air when talking. Always use the chopstick rest, lay chopsticks parallel, never crossed, and don’t stand your chopsticks up in a bowl of rice, as both of these suggest a practice at funerals.
2. When ordering drinks, everyone at the table must first raise their glasses in a toast of ‘kanpai.’ To not toast ranks as extremely rude to your tablemates and the occasion.
3. Slurping noodles, the louder the better, gives the preparer the impression that you are enjoying the food. So, slurp away. Drink soup by holding the bowl to your mouth with two hands. Using chopsticks to pick-up Japanese sushi, prepared with raw fish or seafood pressed onto an oblong clump of rice, results in disaster. Rice invariably falls into the soy sauce, tagged as a sloppy eating habit. The good news: Using your hands to eat this type of sushi is acceptable’: a rule that saved me, big time.
4. Blowing one’s nose at the table rates as a huge no-no. Always leave the table to blow your nose, never use an unsanitary hankie; only paper tissues will do.
5. Moistened cloths at every place setting in a restaurant are meant to wash your hands before a meal; not to be used as a napkin, and never used to wipe your mouth. No matter how hard I tried to adhere to this, I was driven to using this soft, wet towel to wipe my face after slurping noodles.
Read More: How to Use Chopsticks Like a Pro: Insider Tips for Travelers to Japan
Slippers, Socks and Space-Age Toilets
No shoes are allowed on tatami mats inside personal residences. Photo by Carol Photo by Carol L. Bowman
1. Removing shoes before entering restaurants, personal homes or community centers with tatami straw floor mats, or before entering a Shinto Shrine or Buddhist Temple is a universal custom in Japan. Always have a pair of ‘temple socks’ in your pocket, purse or backpack, as walking in these areas bare foot suggests disrespect.
2. Many places provide house slippers for individuals to wear. To use the restroom, you must change into bathroom slippers, provided outside the door. Never return to the public area still wearing unsanitary bathroom slippers.
3. Electronic, space-age toilets, called washlets have been installed in most public buildings, hotel rooms and 80 % of private homes. A built-in, 7 button, control panel attached to the bowl allows the user to select Hygenic, water sprays for posterior or bidet washing, seat warming, blow dryer, deodorization and a sound system to mask the tinkle of ‘doing your business.’ Curious Carol had to push all the buttons, at once! The startling responses created a most unforgettable bathroom experience, but there was no flush lever. Finally, putting my flat palm against a small black hole in the wall did the trick.
After almost three weeks, when I set foot back on US soil at the San Francisco airport, I realized how much I had come to value the reserved Japanese and their respect for others. I observed rude, obnoxious people wearing sloppy clothes and eating on the run. I longed for the lack of chaos, and total comfort we felt throughout our travels in Japan. A culture that seemed so alien to me at first, suddenly, I missed.
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Author Bio: After a life-long profession of treating the mentally ill at a PA psychiatric hospital for 33 years, Carol L. Bowman retired to Lake Chapala, Mexico in 2006 with her husband, to pursue more positive passions. Her family thought that she too had ‘gone mad.’ She teaches English to Mexican adults and also recently to disadvantaged local children and writes for local and international, online, and print publications. Using her adventures in over 120 countries, Carol has captured a niche in travel writing. A frequent contributor to El Ojo del Lago, she’s won several literary awards from that publication. Her psychiatric field work netted a contribution to the anthology, Tales from the Couch. Recently she has also been featured in two more anthologies, Insider’s Guide to the Best of Mexican Holidays, and Bravados, Life, Love and Living in Lake Chapala, Mexico, all available on amazon.com
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