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Japanese Travel Tips for Visiting America
- byoung2 13y agoThe grocery checkout is a related to car culture. In America you shop for the month since you can fit it all in the trunk. Items are sold in bigger boxes, and you get beer by the 18 pack. When I was in Japan I shopped every day, just getting what I could carry in one hand on the train. One Sapporo and some rice makes for short checkout.
- a3n 13y ago> and you get beer by the 18 pack. I really don't mean to come off as snobbish, but, what kind of beer is worth drinking that comes in 18 packs? I'm not sure I've ever seen anything but cans of alcoholic water in that configuration.
- jevinskie 13y agoThat is a bit snobbish. Nobody should have to apologize for their beverage of choice.
- coldtea 13y agoWhy not? If something is worth doing, it's worth doing right.
- dmm 13y agoAmerican Lagers are a fine style of beer. And many of the most popular ones are fine examples of that style.
- coldtea 13y agoWell, one would hardly consider them beers in the first place.
- JonnieCache 13y agoOptimising every aspect of your life like that has rapidly diminishing returns. Before too long you end up like that one guy writing blogs about your bespoke fucking japanese spoons or whatever it was. Pick a few things and maximise those. Presumably the guy buying the 18 pack of beer chose something else.
- BugBrother 13y agoNo. You're factually correct that it is like premature optimizing code, but it is a hobby for quite a few people to optimize their lives. Others collect money. Some friends do board games. Or sport. (Personally, I spend a lot of time learning about some odd interests.)
- adventured 13y agoThere is no such thing as "right" when it comes to the subjective world of taste (whether food or beer). There are only snobs that claim there is a "right" and everybody else who enjoys what they like regardless of the snobs.
- Avshalom 13y agoI'mma go with Chesterton on this: if it's worth doing, it's worth doing poorly.
- barrkel 13y agoDo you optimize your choice of cups? Of USB cables? Brake fluid in your car? How far do you go to get the perfect sugar? I get my olive oil from an electrical hardware store around the corner from where I work - http://mroliveoil.com/page19.htm http://mroliveoil.com/page19.htm - how far do you go to get yours? Lots of things are worth doing - often unavoidably so - but that doesn't mean you need to optimize each and every one of them until they're "right".
- lmm 13y agoCups and USB cables are tools, a means to an end. (I do buy fancy sugar, because I bake as a hobby). Beer is supposedly something you do for fun - it's not like it's nutritious - and if you're just drinking to fit in or using it as a way to get drunk, you might have a problem.
- ngoldbaum 13y agoYou're the Ron Swanson of olive oil.
- coldtea 13y ago>Do you optimize your choice of cups? Of USB cables? Brake fluid in your car? How far do you go to get the perfect sugar? No, I don't "optimize" everything, but I do optimize a lot of stuff. If you like beer enough to consume 16 cans a week, then it sounds like something worth optimizing. In general most things diet related are quite important to leave to chance. And if fun is involved too, then optimizing them can be fun too. You don't have to be OCD about it, just to try different brands and experiment. >I get my olive oil from an electrical hardware store around the corner from where I work how far do you go to get yours? Hmm, that's a bad example, as we value olive oil very much in my country, so I even have my own olive trees and produce my oil in cooperation with the village mill. Well, my parents do at the moment, as I live abroad now.
- a3n 13y agoThe question wasn't meant for people to justify or apologize for their choice of beer. Despite its (unavoidable?) snobbishness, it really was the bare question itself, "what kind of beer that comes in 18 packs is worth drinking?" A few responses actually answered that; "beer that I can, or choose to, afford" was the essence of many of those. Or "because I like it" were some others. Interesting, and probably not surprising, that most responses addressed the snobbishness behind the question, and that was as valuable to me as the responses that addressed the question.
- mam8cc 13y agoI'm an avid craft beer drinker that is involved in home brewing as well as trading. I've had word class beers in my fridge sitting next to a 30 pack of Beer 30. Beer is beer is beer. People drink what they like, and not everyone likes Heddy Topper/Westy 12/KBS/etc. Cheers!
- rwc 13y agoYou came off as snobbish.
- Texasian 13y ago4, 6 and 12-packs are just as inconvenient if you're hopping on the subway to head home. Even if they aren't as bulky, they can still be plenty heavy if you can't grab a seat or if the floor is too nasty to put stuff on. Plenty of good session beers are coming in 12 packs these days too.
- rayiner 13y agoWhen I was in Chicago, I'd buy Goose Island (locally-brewed, hardly alcohol water) in boxes of 12.
- maaku 13y agoI think that was his (snobbish) point - only mass-produced domestic beer like Bud or Miller is in boxes of 18. Everything else seems to be boxes of 6 or 12.
- binxbolling 13y agoBut that's just not true. In the NE, I can get Smuttynose, Harpoon, Long Trail, Sam Adams, etc in 18 and 24 pack boxes. I have difficulty imagining it's that different for the rest of the country. And whatever you think of those beers, they're certainly not of the Bud/Miller variety.
- maaku 13y agoI haven't seen that anywhere where I live (northern California). Just 6 packs and 12 packs for anything except "domestic" (piss beer).
- tptacek 13y agoEhh. We could go back and forth on Goose Island.
- nollidge 13y agoHow could you possibly not mean to come off as snobbish? There is no other way to interpret your comment other than snobbery. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, necessarily, but at least be honest with us (and yourself). EDIT: What's wrong about it is classism, though. Not everybody can afford premium microbrews.
- thisone 13y agoand not everyone likes premium microbrews either. sometimes I wish I had the gif "stop liking what I don't like" on a hotkey.
- cobrausn 13y agoYou probably already know this, but that was snobbish. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWBV7yKWhWE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWBV7yKWhWE
- beachstartup 13y agoyou can pick up high quality microbrews at pretty much any decent grocery store these days so i'm not sure where your sense of superiority is coming from.
- kalleboo 13y agohttp://www.7netshopping.jp/food/detail/-/accd/2110181641/subno/1 http://www.7netshopping.jp/food/detail/-/accd/2110181641/sub...
- freehunter 13y agoSierra Nevada, Sam Adams, and Blue Moon can come in large packs. I know I've gotten 24 packs of those, along with some much more local brews that aren't nationally distributed. But if you're talking about American beer overall, Budweiser is much more common and therefore a better indication of mass-market American culture.
- a3n 13y agoToday I was reminded that there are other parameters for beer than my own.
- ekianjo 13y agoYou don't need to shop everyday in Japan. That's retarded. I live in Japan and only shop once a week (and I don't eat out every single night). It's not that hard to get organized and have a shopping list with you.
- dagw 13y agoBut if you pass food stores on your way home anyway, why not shop every day. A weeks worth of groceries is a a bit of a pain to carry no matter how you look at it.
- verisimilidude 13y agoExactly. When I lived in Tokyo, there were several excellent grocers and produce shops on my walk home. There was no reason to plan ahead. Every incentive—cramped living quarters, convenience of the shops, no car, always having fresh ingredients relevant to the mood of the night—all pointed me toward daily grocery shopping.
- skwirl 13y agoTip #11: Don't call things "retarded" if you are an adult.
- kalleboo 13y agoAlso depends on the size of your home. Buying a week's worth of food for me and my SO means we'll be playing Tetris all week.
- ulfw 13y agoThat only works if you buy no fresh groceries/fruits/veggies or other perishables. I guess Americans love living on processed food then.
- aaronem 13y agoWell, "love" is a strong word, but our society is built in such a way as to provide strong incentives toward doing so, especially for people with low income or little free time or both.
- diogenescynic 13y agoAmerican tastes changed vs Japanese and European tastes after World War II. The veterans coming home had eaten lots of canned food and other non-perishables while the Europeans and Japanese citizens had to eat what they could find locally and seasonally. It's had a lasting impact.
- officemonkey 13y agoThis finally explains the difference between one grandmother's cooking (Depression-era home cooking from scratch) and my other (younger) grandmother's cooking (Post-WW2 TV dinners and frozen vegetables.)
- j_s 13y agoCitation needed! (Actually, this is the first time I'd ever heard of this idea and I would greatly appreciate any additional reading material you could point me to.)
- wil421 13y ago> In America you shop for the month since you can fit it all in the trunk. That is absolutely absurd no one shops at the grocery for a whole months worth of food. Most perishable items like meat and produce will barely survive a whole week. Everyone I know usually goes once or twice a week.
- RogerL 13y agoWell, the post was probably a combination of a bit of hyperbole and lack of details. We go on a 'big' shopping trip once a month or so, where you get all the staples. Then, on a more frequent basis you get the perishables. This lets you efficiently go to small markets for produce, use the quick lanes in groceries, and so on. But, I am not sure I buy that this is the reason. I don't even know if the report is accurate. Are we really (on the whole) slower than the average Japanese market? I know we have a culture of 'friendliness' at the check out - lots of 'hi, how is your day going' nattering, and if you have a club card they peer at it, mangle your name, ask if they got it right, insist on you giving the correction, then say 'good day Mr Xybpppphhht.' All that slows things down a bit. But laser scanners are pretty fast, and a lot of cashiers really rip through very quickly. It also might be regional. Thinking about it I think the grocery clerks where I grew up all went hell-bent, and things seem more laid back here in CA. It's challenging to make pronouncements about an entire country as large and culturally diverse as the US.
- wil421 13y agoI think you have a lot of good point here. Friendliness is definitely something that people come to expect from retailers. Could that be why Japanese lines are so fast. Maybe since they are only buying a few goods at a time the lines go quicker.
- evli 13y ago'horse laughing' is an hilarious concept. I had noticed this in the international students at my university, how the japanese would always cover their mouths. Curious habit.
- hcho 13y agoAssuming you are American, some segments of your society cover their mouths when saying "shit". That's more curious.
- de90 13y agoI've honestly never seen anyone do that..
- sp332 13y agoThere are a bunch of reasons that inform that. On TV, they used to have censor bars over people's mouths as well as "bleeping" what they said. So putting your hand over your mouth emphasizes the obscenity - plus it's funnier :) Also, from a distance no one can see your lips so it gives some plausible deniabilty. It can also make the outburst quieter, which helps when you're fake-yelling.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- thorin 13y agoThis is hilarious - I thought it was a joke article at first like the Daily Mash. I can't imagine what the author would think of the UK or Europe. The Russian article linked at the end of this one is even more ridiculous.
- new_test 13y agoAs a Russian, it is spot on (well, except for "Did you know that bribes are illegal in America" bit)
- taternuts 13y ago> “When Americans are talking, they might put their foot on a nearby chair, or even a table. They might cross their legs so that one foot rests on the opposite knee. In American culture, it is considered an acceptable norm, but often causes irritation in other countries.” I'm very curious about this one - I can see putting a foot on a nearby chair/table could come across poorly, but crossing your legs by resting your foot on your knee?
- lmm 13y agoIt's crude, almost offensive even... but then you realize that our travel guides are just as broad-strokes.
- ojii 13y agoThe first link to the source is actually all about tipping, which I'm surprised didn't make it onto the list. While American style tipping is odd to me as a European, it just feels even odder the longer I live in Japan (where there is literally no tipping, I couldn't even tip if I wanted to). Quite hard to explain this whole concept to Japanese (that were never in the US) sometimes. EDIT: So is the third link. Well not entirely, but the first half.
- ekianjo 13y agoHonestly even after traveling to America several times I don't understand why this practice is still going on. It's just annoying for everyone (the employee, and the client) and a cause for embarrassment. In Europe we tip people when we get extra good service from them,, so that tipping feels special. That's the way it should be.
- Mindless2112 13y agoAs an American, I don't understand why tipping still goes on either. It should be banned -- it's discriminatory[1] and just generally a pain in the butt. [1] http://freakonomics.com/2013/06/03/should-tipping-be-banned-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/ http://freakonomics.com/2013/06/03/should-tipping-be-banned-... (or more directly, http://tippingresearch.com/uploads/customer_racial_discrimination10-30-06.pdf http://tippingresearch.com/uploads/customer_racial_discrimin...)
- ekianjo 13y agoThis being said, tipping led to excellent Curb your Enthusiasm episodes. :)
- leephillips 13y agoAnd some memorable Reservoir Dogs dialogue.
- altcognito 13y ago
- JonnieCache 13y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_syndrome
- patio11 13y agoMy travel agent once gave me a guide for visiting the US. I wish I had saved it. It was a combination of decent advice, keen cultural insight, and utterly whacked-out ravings. (Relatedly, this is broadly true of much writing about Japan in the US.) The thing which sticks with me most is, in a note about US tipping culture (an utterly foreign concept in Japan), the line "Many Americans may require a calculator to determine what 20% of $18 is. It is unwise to offer to assist."
- jparishy 13y agoIt is so very true, though. Over the years I've had to teach my "trick" for figuring out tips without a calculator to pretty much all of my friends (the spiel: 'move the decimal one place to the left; double that number'). I was always surprised by how magical it appeared to them :|
- dionidium 13y agoIt's painful to watch an otherwise successful person whip out a calculator to make sure they don't accidentally give their server an extra 30 cents on an ~$18 lunch bill. Just round up and move on with your life. Everybody wins.
- tzs 13y agoTip calculators all go the wrong way (well, all the ones I've seen do). Suppose I order a pizza and it comes to 16.12. A typical tip calculator will tell me that with a 15% tip, this would be 18.54, and with a 20% tip it would be 19.34. I don't want to screw around with that .54 or .34. I want to give the delivery person an integral number of dollars. Probably hand him a $20, and tell him how many dollar bills to give me back. I made a tip calculator Dashboard widget to calculate tips from that perspective. With this widget, I enter 16.12, and it gives me a little table that looks like this: $17.... 5.5% $18....11.7% $19....18% $20....24.2% $21....30.5% I can glance at that, and see that $19 or $20 for combined $16.12 pizza plus tip are reasonable options. If it were summer, I'd probably go for $19, especially if I could do that without breaking a $20. If it were winter, I'd probably just go with a $20 bill and no change, to get the transaction over with as quickly as possible so I could close the door and stop losing my precious heat.
- JonSkeptic 13y agoThis article was an interesting read. It highlights a lot of the positives of American culture. Sometimes it's good to hear such things. Thank you, I needed that.
- evo_9 13y agoBring a bottle of Tabasco sauce. Seriously, I love Japanese food but after 2 weeks I was dying for some kick (other than wasabi).
- crazypyro 13y agoI think you got confused. This is for people visiting America from Japan.
- pm215 13y agoThe utility of "air quotes" for English-as-a-second-language people is a neat idea, actually. It's often hard to get sarcasm across in a language you're not totally fluent in because either you don't get the tone of voice right or listeners will assume you didn't mean the tone of voice anyway. An out-of-band gesture is a nice unmistakable signal which avoids that issue entirely.
- epaladin 13y agoIs that just an American thing, or an English speaking thing in general? I didn't realize how second nature it was until I used it in Japan a few times- and noticed the usual effect was not achieved. I don't think I ever tried explaining it to anyone though.
- rmc 13y agoAir-quotes would be understood as sarcasm in many other Anglosphere countries like the UK and Ireland. Remember the USA produces a lot of TV & film that's watched in the rest of the Anglosphere, so we'd be familiar with US speaking patterns like that.
- agersant 13y agoWorks in France too.
- gpvos 13y agoIt works in many European languages and countries.
- wikwocket 13y agoIs it really possible that American driving manners are better than Japanese ones? That has to be a mistranslation or embellishment. I might believe it of other Asian nations, where traffic lanes and rules are more suggestions than anything else, but I cannot believe that Japanese drivers are anything like the aggressive, presumptuous, arrogant, frankly insane drivers we have here. And I count myself in their number!
- shortsightedsid 13y ago> I might believe it of other Asian nations, > where traffic lanes and rules are more suggestions > than anything else Haha. So, true.
- jimbokun 13y agoPittsburgh drivers are shockingly polite. Moved from here to New Jersey, then back again. Was hard to adjust coming back, with the person across from you at an intersection patiently waiting for you to go first.
- greenrice 13y ago"The Pittsburgh Left" is very common practice there, which is to give the right of way to the opposite car in the intersection that is turning left. Definitely a much more relaxed and polite driving environment than anywhere on the east/west coasts.
- snogglethorpe 13y ago> Is it really possible that American driving manners are better than Japanese ones? It's absolutely and utterly untrue. Japanese drivers are generally very good, and tend to be reasonably polite/easy-going (the notable exception being anybody in a Ferrari or the like, but that's universal I guess), both in the countryside and in big cities. There are some annoying ingrained habits in Japanese driving (e.g. there's always a car or two that drives through when the light turns red, they seem to ignore yellow completely), but by and large they're fairly law-abiding. As a pedestrian, one doesn't feel like a target / second-class citizen (I'm referring to driver attitude here, though of course better urban design also helps). American drivers, welll....... ><
- lxe 13y agoThis guy definitely did not get enough exposure to American food. It's a huge country with a vast variety of regional cuisine as well as international dishes melded by the immigrants to match the American tastes.
- dmlorenzetti 13y agoI went to grad school in Boston. Many foreign students complained about how homogeneous American culture is, how there are no restaurants besides McDonalds and Burger King, etc. But most of them formed these impressions by driving, or taking a bus, to NYC and back. If you don't get off the freeways, you really don't see what real life is like. Similarly, I visited a friend in France once. On the way there, I took the TGV from Paris. I don't remember anything special about that leg of the trip, and learned nothing about France. On the way back, we drove, and passed through a bunch of little towns. I have a fond memory of helping a boater open a gate to a canal lock, and I still have a strong impression of how contained French villages are compared to American ones.
- konceptz 13y agoI would argue that NYC is anything but homogeneous, especially the food.
- prewett 13y agoThey might be talking about cooking at a home stay, for example. And you could argue that mashed potatoes, boiled/steamed vegetables, casseroles, etc. are not exactly flavorful. Certainly they don't have the subtlety in flavor like Japanese food does. But, Americans aren't into subtlety...
- jimbokun 13y ago"There is almost nothing special to eat based on the different seasons of the year. Basically, they like sweet, high fat, high calories things." Go to U.S. supermarkets or restaurant chains, you will find this is mostly correct. Went to Olive Garden a couple of days ago, had some pork that was nicely cooked, but drenched in some kind of sugary syrup. It would have been much improved by eliminating the sauce entirely. You even have to look closely at the ingredients when buying "Mexican" salsa or hot sauce. I sometimes get these home before discovering sugar on the ingredient list. Adding sugar to something meant to be hot and spicy totally perplexes me. And I've lived here pretty much my whole life.
- chadwickthebold 13y agoGod bless America and their damn good car manners
- fidotron 13y agoThe optimism thing gets me every time. Gross generalisation time: I've met very few Americans I disliked as individuals, but an awful lot that in groups become intolerable. A lot of it seems to be that the barrier for nonsensical optimism creeps lower with each extra member added to the group until absolute irrationality reigns supreme. If you try to burst this bubble you are screwed, and the only thing to do is walk away and hope to be far enough away that when it blows up you're not in the blast radius. The thing is one time out of ten they're right and the cynics among us are wrong, and you have to love them for that. As Churchill is often quoted as saying you can always trust the Americans to do the right thing, once they've tried every other possibility.
- normloman 13y agoEverybody comes to America to make their dreams come true. They cling to that optimism to hold on to their silly dreams when the odds are against them. Naturally, the culture reflects this. We're delusional. I notice a similar optimism on Hacker News. Everyone's going for a piece of the gold rush.
- pswenson 13y agoI've noticed every country I visit thinks walking down the street in the US is a dangerous activity, getting assaulted is routine, murders are common, etc. fact is, violent crime is way down since the 1990s. Not saying current levels are acceptable, but it sure isn't as bad as it is perceived.
- rmc 13y agoIt's the high level of gun ownership that kinda freaks some of us out. And seeing police with guns walking around like normal.
- LyndsySimon 13y agoEven as someone who regularly carries a handgun, I can completely understand that. Coming from a culture where "gun = criminal or solider" to the US must be a huge culture shock.
- rmc 13y agoMore like "gun = thing you use to kill people/animals", seeing a cop in a post beverly hills street caring a leathal weapon is like WTF?
- rmc 13y agoTo put it another way, we're not used to seeing guns around. It would be like if everyone was walking around with axes or swords. Why the hell does a traffic cop have an ax?!
- grecy 13y agoThere are 10 times more murders per capita in the US than my home country. An entire order of magnitude makes one stop and think. If I offered you a drive in two different cars, and one was an order of magnitude more likely to burst into flames - which one would you choose?
- 13y ago
- coherentpony 13y agoGood car manners? This person has clearly never driven in Austin.
- jtbigwoo 13y agoCompared to other countries, Austin is a paradise of calm, reasonable drivers. For example, it's fairly common in Asia (though not in Japan AFAIK) for a traffic light to be viewed as a suggestion rather than an absolute command. I've been in a taxi that was rammed and pushed through an intersection by the truck behind it when our driver didn't react quickly enough to a gap in oncoming traffic. The taxi driver wasn't even particularly mad. It apparently happens all the time.
- michaelochurch 13y ago11. Never, ever get any kind of sick. Our medical care is of lower quality than in most OECD countries, inefficiently delivered, and catastrophically expensive. (Rates of medical error are quite high, because younger doctors-- esp. residents-- work extreme hours.) An ER visit can run you $5,000 or more. Appendicitis goes into the $50,000 range.
- saryant 13y agoThen why do people from around the world flock to American hospitals? As one example, the Texas Medical Center, one of the best in the world, treats 18,000 foreign patients a year who've traveled there specifically for the quality of care.
- jtbigwoo 13y agoPerhaps it should be revised, then, to say, "If you're going to get sick, make sure it's in a place like Austin, Cleveland, Rochester, Baltimore, or New York that has a great hospital. And make sure that you get taken to the premier hospital in the region (e.g. don't let somebody take you to Kings County instead of New York Presbyterian). Be prepared to pay considerably for care at these facilities. Quality and cost are highly variable overall."
- michaelochurch 13y agoThen why do people from around the world flock to American hospitals? They don't. Absolutely no one comes "to the U.S." for medical care expecting superior treatment. Not since the 1980s. Some people, for whom money is no object, come to specific doctors. If that doctor's in Paris, you go to France. If that doctor's in New York, you go to the U.S.
- logfromblammo 13y agoTipping puts the burden of service quality feedback on the customer rather than the business manager. It also encourages the server to increase the customer's bill total. Most of the benefits of the practice are exclusive to the business, with no benefit to customer or employee. Restaurants could pay servers a commission or bonus based on the bill total or for specific items on the customer's bill. Customers could be asked to rate the service they received on a scale from 0 to 10 instead of calculating a percentage of their bill total. But tradition is a tough thing to fight.
- prewett 13y agoYou don't have to tip. So you do get a certain minimum service. In Beijing, no tips required or expected. But, unless you're at a Western-style place, or HaiDiLao, no service expected, either. Should service be required (ordering more items, correcting something, requesting something essential that was forgotten, paying the bill, etc.), yelling "fuwuyuan!" ("waiter"!) loudly will often, but not necessarily, procure you service. So that tip does buy you something. 20% extra for standard service, though, is ridiculous, and I hate it. Nor do I do 20%--even fancy places only do 18% gratuity, at least, the last time I was at one.
- skywhopper 13y agoI love the sarcasm how-to, but I wonder what the Japanese think of western European meal practices if they find a 40-minute dinner to be extravagant.
- test1235 13y ago>4. Nobody is impressed by how much you can drink. In fact, shame on you. Unfortunately, this isn't the case in UK. People love to talk about how much they can drink, and love to reel off an exact list of everything they drank the previous night like a list of achievements. (in my experience of my peers throughout my life up to and including the age of 32) Binge drinking in the UK is a huge problem. http://www.alcoholpolicy.net/2012/06/statistics-on-alcohol-england-2012-confirms-continuing-upward-admissions-trend.html http://www.alcoholpolicy.net/2012/06/statistics-on-alcohol-e... http://www.nhs.uk/news/2013/02February/Pages/Binge-drinking-rates-could-be-higher-than-thought.aspx http://www.nhs.uk/news/2013/02February/Pages/Binge-drinking-... https://catalogue.ic.nhs.uk/publications/public-health/alcohol/alco-eng-2013/alc-eng-2013-rep.pdf https://catalogue.ic.nhs.uk/publications/public-health/alcoh...
- RogerL 13y agoThat one was somewhat overstated. It entirely depends on what circles you move in. I know plenty of people that brag on their drinking, and/or like to deride others for being lightweight. Surely there is a large contrast between Japan and the USA on this matter, and the article writer was probably influenced by that. It certainly would be safer to act as the article suggests, because it is true for many situations, and the average tourist (that would need this guide) wouldn't be able to suss out the subtleties.
- freehunter 13y agoAs you mentioned, in some circles being able to drink a lot on somewhat-rare occasions is something that would win respect. Being able to handle your alcohol is an important aspect in some American circles. Drinking a lot and drinking often is mostly frowned upon. Being drunk outside of a social engagement designated specifically for getting drunk is almost universally frowned upon.
- jobu 13y agoThe bit about laughter surprised me the most. I had no idea it was considered embarrassing to laugh publicly in Japan.
- Kluny 13y agoThey're also spot on about how we perceive Japanese women laughing - when they turn away and cove their mouths, it does look sneaky.
- davesque 13y agoI expected that this article would just be another way to feed into negative stereotypes about Japanese. While a lot of it is just the typical raving, there are one or two items which I would say are pretty spot on. Their vending machines _do_ put ours to shame. Also, as an American, you don't realize how much we use sarcasm until you travel abroad and realize people aren't getting it. It's nice, actually. Sarcasm gets old :P.
- mcguire 13y agoAnd the #1 tip for United States-ers visiting Japan? If you're a woman, burn your dirty underwear to keep every male above the horizon from trying to sniff it.