What are very small things about life in Japan that seem trivial to most but wear on you after a long time?
Keyboard switching: nearly two decades here and it still drives me insane some days. Having to switch back and forth between Japanese and alphabetical keyboards countless times a day drives me nuts. And then starting to type/dictate something only to realize I’m on the wrong language keyboard and then having to delete/redo everything is even more maddening some days.
Round chopsticks: it feels like multiple times a day where I’ll set my chopsticks down, either on top of a bowl/plate or on the table only for them to roll off onto the floor and bounce in different directions.
by byebyebirdie123456
37 comments
These kinds of threads popping up every other week… does that count?
The ANA app is absolute shit.
Ever since I started taking my daughter to daycare, and now to elementary, I absolutely hate those vans that ride around the neighborhood and pickup/drop off elderly.
One used to block the street to by daughters daycare a few years ago to drop someone off. Always during pickup time when there were parents and little kids everywhere, a couple times they nearly ran over little kids, including one incident with my daughter and I.
Ever since then I notice them everywhere and can’t stand them. Also other people parking and blocking streets in our neighborhood, same thing.
slippery ass lacquered fucking chopsticks
who the fuck thought that was a good idea?
People not being able to merge correctly into a highway. I have only driven in Japan, so I don’t know about other countries, but the amount of people just merging at the beginning of the merging lane instead of using the whole merging lane to speed up and merge in smoothly grinds my gears every freaking day!!
When my colleagues mix between half width and full width number/punctuation marks （like this 100,0００円) inside the same document
People who uses turn signal right when they are turning.
Requiring katakana not hiragana, or half width not full width, etc; it is literally trivial to convert from whatever I type to whatever you need. Just convert it, right there in the web form.
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Multiple cars not stopping when you’re clearly waiting at a zebra crossing.
Bicycle riding on the right side to the point they’d rather crash into a wall than letting me ride on the left side of a road.
Names and online forms.
The tiny backspace on Japanese keyboards drives me up the wall.
The small fonts and dense walls of text. Or may be I’m just old.
making payments at the checkout has more steps than is necessary.
would you like to pay by card or cash?
if by card, will you be inserting the card or using contactless?
after entering pin/using contactless > please press this button to finalize the checkout
it could simply be: choose payment method > card > make both insert/contactless available for use without the user having to specify which > take payment and automatically finalize checkout without requiring the user to press another button
Having to write full texts like manuals etc. in excel at work. Excel is a spreadsheet program. Why not use Word???
Having paid holidays that are “recommended” to be used three times a year (New Year’s, GW and Obon).
Banks, doing anything with banks here. And also how no one seems able to walk normally in Tokyo.
Kinda recent but my God when I insert a ¥500 coin and the vending machine spits it back out at me
Noise-blaring vehicles (街宣車): political, commercial, droning old man monologues, all SO VERY LOUD.
People walk too slow or stop in the middle of the way without looking behind them. People who walk in exactly the middle of the way instead of leaving space for people to walk past them (I’m a runner so I always stay as close as I can to one side of the pavement to let space for other people).
The triple handling of goods at the supermarket. Cashier should bag the goods as they scan them. Saves time and space. I am not sure whether it is the time or space waste that is most annoying.
Garbage stickers are the bane of my existence. Why on earth could they not decide on a standard system instead of every postal code having different rules.
Also it does not make it easier how vague they are regarding the type of garbage you are throwing out. I always end up putting more stickers on than I have to cause I don’t wanna deal with it.
Being forced to write my name on every form, and then being forced to write the Katakana underneath it when my name is spelled exactly the same way just so that I can move on to the next page on a website. Not to mention that the katakana must be a certain type of katakana and width.
Running out of toilet paper.
Forgetting my umbrella / to check the weather.
When my partner takes a long time to get ready to go out.
Cell phone battery running low and no time/place to charge it but forgot my power bank.
When I forget it is rush hour and it takes 20 minutes to get to supermarket instead of normal 10.
Filling out pointless forms at hotels, airports etc with information they already have.
People bringing out calculators for basic arithmetic. Something simple, like giving change from 1万円. I feel, it happens way more in Japan than in other countries.
Men in the women’s car
Not being able to predict my next visa renewal length. What will be is this time? 3 years, 5 years, god forbid 1 year?
Shops inside of shops.
Shops inside of supermarkets, malls, hidden alleys.
Once or twice I had to find one of them for a take out and gave up.
All those Japanese mothers on bicycles! They have no regard for road rules.
And sometimes their kids following behind on their own bicycles. It’s amazing not more people get into accidents.
NHK
the loudspeakers for political speeches in the morning
Slippery tiles outside, we literally have tsuyu, why would you decide to put slippery smooth tiles everywhere possible
People stopping/parking in the middle of the road. Tiny water cups at restaurants. High tolls.
No bike parking near points of interest.
Cafe I like to go to is 30 min by bus/train (circuitous route), or 7 min by bike. So I bike. But the cafe has no parking of it’s own, and the closest parking is a shitty double-decker parking that’s always full. I don’t think there is anywhere I’m legally allowed to park my bike within a 7 minute walk of this place. If I try parking in the overfull lot–I get a warning. If I try parking in a neighboring business with excess bike parking–warning. If I try parking in a dead part of the pedestrian street next to a planter–warning.
It’s insane. I’m trying to spend money at businesses. Let me park my bike in any empty out-of-the-way place FFS.
Female cleaners in male toilets
also re keyboards, the small backspace key, and that whole area around the pinky.
People with limited to no spatial awareness (mainly at Costco)
People remaining stone faced after receiving a greeting
People who sit at tables in eating areas and don’t leave until a long time after they’re done when they know people are waiting
People who laugh when no talent talents say Umai after they take a bite of something on TV.
People riding bicycles through the intersection at full speed coming from a complete blindspot, and the laws that allow this.
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