Being polite.

[nyappyrebecca]

Sometimes what one country think is rude, the other doesn't. My Japanese teacher told my Japanese class that it's considered rude to ask how old someone is in Japan. I wonder.

Maybe I learned it from Japanesepod101.com or another source, I don't really remember, but I also heard that it's rude to stare at Japanese people when you're talking to them. Although, I think that's common sense but I've had conversations where we'd just give each other our full attention without looking away and not be offended by that.

Are there any other differences someone like me (like me as in I am considering living in Japan) should know about?

I know it's rude to talk on the phone in the train. Is it rude to eat? I've seen a couple Japanese people eating snacks on the train but it seems uncommon.

[Taurus]

I tried to make a class about this for my students, giving them a list of things and they had to guess which ones were rude and which ones weren't.

One of the things I included was talking with your mouth full, because my wife and her family always talk with their mouths full and it completely freaks me out. But when I brought it up with my wife she explained that in Japan it's considered rude to keep your conversation partner waiting for your reply so it's okay to talk with your mouth full.

Except when I brought it up in class, the Japanese teacher who was with me pointed out that in Japan everyone is brought up to know that talking with your mouth full is incredibly rude. I wonder how many other Japanese 'customs' that my wife has told me about actually exist...

Anyway, I think it is considered rude to eat while walking or on public transport, but some people definitely do it. Same with blowing your nose in public - it's considered rude, but people do it.

[nyappyrebecca]

It's considered rude in Japan to blow your nose in public?

I was in a Japanese restaurant with my friend in Japan. She said it was considered rude to leave right away after eating in a Japanese restaurant there. But she wasn't Japanese so I asked my Japanese friend. She said that wasn't true.

[taikutsu]

Everyone is going to have a different opinion about what's rude and what isn't, so I don't think you will get a definitive list, especially for little things. And... we can't all be Miss Manners now, can we?

[QuackingShoe]

Nothing on this Earth can make me stop putting my elbows on the table.

[jhalton]

It's rude to be too noisy on trains (maybe public places in general)

I was talking to my friend on a cell phone on one of the many tokyo lines and a salary man tapped me on the shoulder and just shook his finger at me and made this face=> >:|

I don't think i was being very loud (for U.S. standards) but I guess not being used to japanese standards I was being rude.



But oh man, I'd like to take a bunch of japanese people on a tour to the southside redline train in chicago when all the ghetto people are yelling and acktin tha foo just to see the look on their face that people can be so rude and obnoxious and undignified.

I like the good manners signs on the trains there. I doubt anybody would care if they put them up in america. Most likely people would be offended that someone is telling them to "not act stupid".....how dare they?....



On second thought...does anyone in japan even care about these things? They do look cool from a design standpoint tho

[prometheus2003]

We have signs like that in DC, but I think our public transit system is cleaner than most. It was a bit of a culture shock riding the NYC subway.

[nihongojackie]

I worked for a few years in a Japanese school in a mountain town. They told me, it was very rude for me to:

1) Drink anything while standing at the same time or drink while walking around.
2) Eat and walk at the same time or eating anything on public transportation.
3) Fanning myself on sweltering hot days with a piece of paper as the students weren't allowed too-so I wasn't either.

These are the ones I heard a lot.

[nihongojackie]

Oh yes. More things are coming to me now.

Whenever there was a meeting the gym of our school the teachers never brought out enough chairs for all the faculty to sit down on. Say there was 10 teachers, 9 chairs were there. And if you sit down, which I stupidly did, thinking the others just didn't want to sit, I found out that was very rude

I'm sure more will come later.

[Zelg]

Oh yes. More things are coming to me now.

Whenever there was a meeting the gym of our school the teachers never brought out enough chairs for all the faculty to sit down on. Say there was 10 teachers, 9 chairs were there. And if you sit down, which I stupidly did, thinking the others just didn't want to sit, I found out that was very rude

I'm sure more will come later.

I know this thread is a little old but I had to ask about this. Sorry if I sound redundant but are you saying that whenever there was a meeting in the gym of your school, the teachers would purposefully bring out less chairs than there were people to sit in them with the whole point being to not sit in them? Or do you mean there were time that not enough chairs were brought out on accident and then it was considered rude to sit because one person would be left standing?

[community.japanese]

Zelg-san,
hope it's the latter case.
Generally, if chairs are not enough for everyone, we should encourage other people to sit down.
If you don't do that and "serve yourself first", it can be considered as rude.

If nihongojackie-san is still out there to respond, we can find out the truth!

Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com