If you have a chance to come to Japan, you possibly find that Japanese have a lot of weird customs and wonder why they are doing such things.
There are our own reasons for each behaviour.
If you want to build a relationship with Japanese friends or business partners, understanding their way of thinking is very important.
In this article, I’d like to introduce Japanese weird behaviour.
Let me introduce myself a little. I am Hiro from Tokyo and I was born and raised here, so I well understand Japanese weird culture.
Why Japanese are so weird
Japan is an island country surrounded by sea and held a national isolation policy since the Edo period (1603-1867), so Japanese people tend to have distinctive ways of thinking. Usually Japanese cherish mutual trust among people and also cherish rich nature.
Due to the above circumstances, Japanese became quite distinctive and I’d like to share some of those.
Too quiet inside train
If you get on a train or subway in Japan, you may find how strangely quiet inside.
We Japanese consider that making a loud voice or talking on a phone is impolite inside public transportation and if you make noise inside, everybody inside the vehicle stares at you or speaks ill of you.
Strangely talking on a phone with a small voice is not allowed but chatting with friends with a normal voice is allowed.
Sleep everywhere
If you stay in Japan, you may find a lot of Japanese people sleeping in public places such as inside a train or on a bench in a park.
This could be because the Japanese believe Japan is an extremely safe country and no one steals your belongings even if sleeping.
Also, Japanese tend to have long working hours compared to other countries and a lot of Japanese cannot have enough sleep, so people often sleep inside public places.
I also get used sleep inside a train and getting used to waking up when it comes to getting off the station without using an alarm.
Bow everywhere
If you stay in Japan, you may find there are a lot of Japanese bowing. Japan is a country of politeness and bowing is the part of important behaviour to show respect to each other.
If you go to a convenience store or supermarket in Japan, you may see a lot of clerks bow to show gratitude of buying something at a counter.
Kind to others
Staying in Japan, you might find Japanese are kind to strangers
We Japanese are all educated not to do morally wrong things even if no one sees us.
If you lose a wallet or any property (such as your iPhone, laptop, etc,), those are highly likely to returned back to you through police stations.
Based on the research of the metropolitan police department, 67.3% of the reported wallet was returned back to the original owner in 2021.
Reference:
Not only that, you may find that Japanese clerks in a shop are very polite and try their best to solve customers inquiry.
Wear masks after Coronaviros pandemic is finished
Stayimg in Japan, you might find that majority of Japanese still wear masks even if the coronavirus restriction has been all lifted and the Japanese government announced that wearing a mask was your personal choice on 13 March.
Based on AI research by the Japanese broadcast “Nihon Terebi”, 89.7% of people were wearing masks at Tokyo station on 13 March 2023 when officially mask-wearing became a personal choice not by their rules.
There are a lot of reasons why Japanese are wearing masks and if you are interested in mask-wearing culture in Japan, please refer to below article.
Drinking culture in Japan
If you have a chance to work in Japan, you may find that there are a lot of opportunities of drinking with co-workers, supervisors or business partners.
We Japanese have a culture of building relationships of business to know each other more.
Japanese people tend to work hard and usually, there is no chatting inside their offices, but drinking is a good opportunity to release stress for them.
If you are interested in Japanese drinking culture, please refer to the below article.
Elementary school kids go to school by themselves
If you go outside in the morning (7-8 am) in Japan you may find there are a lot of elementary school children walk to school sometimes alone and sometimes with other kids.
There are even some kids getting on trains or subways to go to school without their parents.
This is because Japan is one of the safest countries and I myself also went to elementary school alone on foot probably around 10-15 minutes when I was 6-11 years old.
Often make an agreeable response
If you have a chance to communicate with Japanese you may find many Japanese make an agreeable response.
This is part of Japanese collectivistic culture and due to making smooth conversations with other people, Japanese don’t usually deny or refuse what you say but make agreeable responses even if they don’t agree those.
A lot of overtime work
Japanese do a lot of overtime work.
However, monthly average overtime work in Japan is 22 hours in 2022 according to Doda, Japanese famous recruitment company website.
22 hours per month means approximately 1 hour overtime work per day.
Depending on industries, there are more hard-working environment.
If you are interested in Japanese working hours, please refer to below article.
Reference: https://doda.jp/guide/zangyo/
Apologize soon
If you have chance to interact with Japanese you may find a lot of Japanese people soon apologize.
If you go to any restaurant in Japan, even a small things such as some food is not available or food is not coming to tables soon a writer/waitress apologizes for that.
This is common practice that they apologize even for small matters and for unblamed matters.
Even if they are nothing to be blamed about, they need to apologize their customers for upsetting.
Conclusion
In this article, I introduced weird Japanese behaviours and hope you understand how Japanese are thinking about those.
Thank you for reading this article till the end.
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