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The biggest one I've seen with my own eyes is smoking outside in public. When I first came to Japan you would see lots of people smoking while walking, or smok

The biggest one I've seen with my own eyes is smoking outside in public. When I first came to Japan you would see lots of people smoking while walking, or smoking on outside train platforms. Then one day somebody put up a big billboard all over the place that had a drawing of a person holding a cigarette and a child. It said, "You hold a cigarette at the height of a child's eye" or something to that effect. From that day on, practically everyone stopped smoking and walking. It's really incredibly rare to see it now. It might have been a localised effect around where I lived, but other people I've talked to from around the country remarked on it as well. I've seen other things like it, but this was the most remarkable to me. The government seems to randomly put up signs like that to see if they take hold. It never seems to go gradually -- with early adopters, etc, etc. Either everybody goes with it or nobody does. I'm trying to think of something that is easy to verify, but it's nearly midnight here and I can't think of anything off hand. If I remember I'll try to post back later.

njwi332 6y ago
Another one I've seen recently is the reaction to covid. I live in Tokyo, and being in tech circles was doing my prep shopping and isolating a few weeks before everyone else. I had one Japanese friend invite me out for drinks like 3 times in a week, I turned her down saying I was isolating due to covid and got a 'wow you're so strict!' reaction. Not two weeks later and the government declares a state of emergency. Suddenly this same friend, and all her friends, are filling Instagram with 'Stay home' stories and virtual workouts. Granted, not everyone in Tokyo took it seriously, but the change in behaviour within the majority of my personal circle was literally overnight. For another one - bubble tea. A year or so back it went from not popular at all to lines over an hour long outside most bubble tea places, and the word 'tapiru' from tapioca and suru - roughly 'to bubble tea' was one of Japans hot phrases for the year [1] [1] https://japantoday.com/category/national/nominees-for-japan%E2%80%99s-2019-buzzwords-include-kutoo-tapiru-and-paprika https://japantoday.com/category/national/nominees-for-japan%...

njwi332 6y ago

Another one I've seen recently is the reaction to covid. I live in Tokyo, and being in tech circles was doing my prep shopping and isolating a few weeks before everyone else. I had one Japanese friend invite me out for drinks like 3 times in a week, I turned her down saying I was isolating due to covid and got a 'wow you're so strict!' reaction. Not two weeks later and the government declares a state of emergency. Suddenly this same friend, and all her friends, are filling Instagram with 'Stay home' stories and virtual workouts. Granted, not everyone in Tokyo took it seriously, but the change in behaviour within the majority of my personal circle was literally overnight. For another one - bubble tea. A year or so back it went from not popular at all to lines over an hour long outside most bubble tea places, and the word 'tapiru' from tapioca and suru - roughly 'to bubble tea' was one of Japans hot phrases for the year [1] [1] https://japantoday.com/category/national/nominees-for-japan%E2%80%99s-2019-buzzwords-include-kutoo-tapiru-and-paprika https://japantoday.com/category/national/nominees-for-japan%...