As the title says, as me and my friend exited a bar in goldenguy and started on our way home, i saw a guy that had a fire fit on. Black shirt with shiny black patterns, black pants, black shoes,, you could tell he put effort into the fit
Me (stereotypical drunk irish guy) saw him as i was walking past with my friend, and gave him a fist bump and said “kakkoi desu” (youre cool) (atleast from my limited understanding of the japanese language) then we continued to walk on
For the next two hours my friend and i argued about wether or not what i did was disrespectful
He insisted that what i had done was disrespectful, but i firmly believe that i meant no disrespect at all when i went about those actions, i just wanted to pay a cool looking fella a compliment
From my point if view my friend seems to come from a perspective by which he sees every action through a lens that says “this is how the Japanese want you to act while in their country”
Which i get, the Japanese have a lovely culture built on respect and overall wellbeing. Thus when a stereotypical “drunk irish” pays you a compliment at 6am, if you are that Japanese person in question youll probably think “thats nice, but realistically its not sincere” but i genuinely dont think that that Japanese person would think “oh my god, why is this drunk irish baka gaijin talking to me. He didnt even say sumimasen before he fistbumped me” Which my friend seems to think would be the ‘respectful’ thing to do
Like if i was walking home or to a taxi at 6am in limerick and a Japanese fella said i looked cool, id be over the fucking moon about it. Id be riding that high for weeks. But now because of my friends opinion im second guessing myself.
Is there a right of wrong in this situation?
Im in japan for another 3 weeks with him, so i dont want to keep poking him, being like “ohhhhh is wht im doing offensive to the japanese, ohhhhhh”
if im completely in the wrong yaknow
I genuinely feel like i have done nothing wrong buti really want to hear other peoples perspective before i go about making conclusions
by Carzy0734