I know Japanese are getting tired of foreigners breaking unspoken rules, but won’t speak to foreigners about what they are doing is wrong. On the flip side I believe most foreigners want to be told what they should or shouldn’t be doing in Japan when it comes to rules.
So this had me thinking. You know how in USJ or Disney world when you are waiting in line there are safety videos about the dos and don’t? What if they put videos in the immigration line on the rules people should follow? That way every foreigner coming in should known the unspoken rules and the Japanese don’t have to feel uncomfortable about calling foreigners out.
Of course it’s not going to account for everyone, but maybe it would help decrease the rule breaking. What do you all think?
by AggravatingBiscotti1
24 comments
I don’t know how widespread it is but I saw this poster up at an Oedo line station
https://www.gotokyo.org/en/plan/tips-for-tokyo-sightseeing/index.html
There’s no shortage of public awareness campaigns on tourism etiquette being created by the government and other related agencies.
The intake line at immigration, where 100s of people are standing around looking for their passports, digging documents out of their bags, trying to wrangle kids who have been stuck in a plane for 15 hours, all of it on maybe 4-5 hours of sleep, is not the right venue for such initiatives.
That’s especially true when you consider that you’d need to cover so much ground in such a campaign that it would probably take a full hour to go through it all.
Europeans need to be told to take their shoes off at nicer restaurants, not to crowd the train station entrance, not to photograph the Maiko etc.
Chinese tourists need to be reminded not to piss in public and to make room on the sidewalk for others.
Americans need to be told not to be so fucking loud, to carry their trash back to their hotel, and that no most restaurants won’t substitute items.
You’re not getting all that in a 5-minute video.
The kinds people that are inconsiderate arseholes who break the social rules are the kind of people who would ignore warnings or advice not to do so. There are no hard set rules anyway, just be considerate of those around you and follow the spirit of the customs of wherever you go even if you get it wrong and people will be tolerant of it.
Telling people the unspoken rules is against the unspoken rules.
I really don’t think it’s a matter of ignorance, it’s a matter of trashy people being trashy.
No amount of crash coursing is gonna solve people being trash.
Half the rules foreigners break Japanese break too. Especially when it comes to manners on trains. There’s no reason foreigners *specifically* need to be “educated” when it’s an issue regardless of race/residence status.
Oh please. YouTube is saturated with videos about all the things foreigners shouldn’t do, or inadvertently do to piss off Japanese people, and it’s tiresome. The message is loud and clear. ‘We’re xenophobes but we’re too cutesy and shy to just say it.’
And I used to live in Japan, so I’m not just an outside observer. I worked there, kept my head down, followed every rule, and have still never felt so unwelcome in a country.
Oh my god this is so insufferable, both to foreigners and Japanese alike. They’re not wilting little flowers, they’re human beings. Why can’t some people stop patronizing and infantilizing them?
At least a flyer should be handed to every foreigner who arrives in Japan, containing behaviors considered unacceptable.
While your suggestion comes from a good place, most unspoken rules are common sense, and we need to stop acting like it’s cultural differences causing most of the problems. Japanese people are pretty forgiving of the genuine, minor mistakes that you might expect visitors to make. Less self-entitlement, more consideration for others, and some situational awareness will take you 90% of the way, and there are signs in other places that tourists might turn up (like bathrooms/trains etc.) that tell you what (not) to do if there have been problems in the past.
Self-entitled assholes will be themselves regardless of whether you try to educate them or not. You shouldn’t need to tell anyone over the age of 6 not to carve/write their name/initials into buildings or trees, and yet, it still happens ([not just in Japan](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/a-tourist-vandalized-this-ancient-house-in-pompeii-now-he-must-pay-for-the-damage-180984611/?itm_source=related-content&itm_medium=parsely-api)). It’s not difficult to copy what the locals are doing, and people shouldn’t need to be specifically told a million basic things that any functional adult should already know, like not to dangle off the handholds in the train, or to stop hogging/blocking all the space people are trying to move through (trains, footpaths, doorways, escalators etc). I had someone barge past me from behind with a suitcase (which hit me) onto a train once, and there is a 0% chance they didn’t know that was rude af.
I’d like to see awareness while driving people just step out in front of traffic
Nobody gives a sht about foreigners breaking social niceties or unspoken rules. It’s just common sense like don’t be an asshole, don’t get in people’s way, don’t litter, be considerate of others.
Common sense stuff that anyone should know already. There’s nothing special about rules in Japan.
It’s funny, I come back to visit my home country and there’s people with their feet on the seat on public transport. People playing their cell phone TikTok or whatever out loud. I go to watch a movie and popcorn and trash everywhere.
I guess you can put signs up, but where does it end? How many signs? Have you been to a Japanese park, don’t bbq, fireworks and so on. You can’t stop people from being entitled dicks with signage.
People in Japan are generally respectful and thinking of others but entitled pricks will always be.
Why not make people take a 250 question exam at immigration and if they don’t get 90% or better, they get put on a plane back?
It would be better for everyone involved if both Japanese people and foreign people, residents or not, would stop conflating “foreigner” with “tourist”, including you OP. The frustration over “foreigners” is really easy to exaggerate wildly because people on all sides of the issues generalize everything to everyone, instead of talking about specifically tourists being specifically an issue in places that don’t have the infrastructure to handle them not following the rules, it becomes about literally all people that are not ethnically Japanese being too “foreign” to be compatible with Japanese society.
Foreigners breaking local rules isn’t a problem, the huge number of tourists getting directed to the same three places exclusively in Tokyo and Kyoto is. We don’t need to teach “foreigners” how to behave, we need a better handle on tourism with more facilities and staff to help out along with governmental initiatives to reduce the impact on local communities in and around tourist areas. People’s manners are mostly fine, and as it’s been said elsewhere people that break rules will do so no matter where they are.
But this rhetoric that is a free piggyback for Sanseito idiots and nationalists to jump on needs to go. Correct the discourse, this is about tourists, not “foreigners”.
What unspoken rules? Just **look around you** and learn.
Let’s be real. The biggest and most upsetting episodes are people who know better but do not care.
An example where it’s not that foreigners are breaking the rules, but simply that they have no way of knowing them:
Yesterday, someone who was planning to come to Japan posted on Reddit, looking for a friend to hike Mount Fuji with.
I thought, “This is it.” I had a bad feeling about it.
The issue also lies on the Japanese side. There are two hiking trails and four climbing routes, and they are easily confused by foreigners.
I figured some might even try to reach the summit wearing beach sandals.
I contacted the official Mount Fuji website.
There are people here both visiting and living here who sometimes take advantage of Japanese people’s patient and pacifistic nature. In 25 years I’ve seen people do things that they would be afraid to do in their own country for fear of a scolding or in extreme cases a beat down. It’s a distinct culture for sure and some things still don’t make sense to me and other lifers but people could always be kinder to each other, less self-indulgent…and a bit of respect goes a long way.
Its really not that hard, people just suck. Any educational materials would be ignored by 99.9% of the people who are rude and inconsiderate. They dont need education, they need therapy. 99% of Japan’s social rules are the same as any other organized society’s. Anything else is easily covered by to old adage, “when in Rome, do as the Romans do.”
If you want useful educational materials for people who will actually read and use it then I’d suggest a pronunciation guide for please and thankyou. A little “sumimasen” goes a long way.
Your idea is a good one, and in fact many local Japanese municipalities, cities and towns, have already made many advertisements and easy to understand posters, outlining rules and customs, aimed at tourists, and placed in hotels, stations and tourist attractions. But it’s all done inside Japan, and foreigners only see it after they already arrived, when it’s probably too late. Preparation needs to happen sooner.
How about outside Japan?? The Japanese national government, or ministry of foreign affairs, must create educational media, to prepare foreigners before they enter Japan. They should make cultural education pamphlets, videos, commercials and advertising campaigns, to show in foreign media, online, and in airports, embassies and consulates around the world.
The sooner the cultural education happens, and the more time the foreigners have to learn it, the more effective it will be.
Been plenty of guide books for decades. No one reads anymore.
1). Be considerate of others.
2). Respect community facilities and resources (toilets, benches, parks, Priority seats etc). Share them.
3). Situational awareness is extremely important in busy cities. Move out of the way when stationary. Walk on the same side as the country drives.
4). If unsure, take 10sec and watch what others are doing. Follow the lead of the masses.
All the things you should do in any country.
You mean like how to use toilets stickers?