I’ve been here almost three years and working in a non-touristy area of Tokyo that’s quite out of the way. I’m still amazed at the amount of interactions that go like this:
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I walk in to an establishment
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Staff makes eye contact and then freezes, panicking until I greet them in Japanese.
It is astonishing how in the year of 2026, people still panic like a deer in headlights when faced with having to serve a foreign customer. I’ve worked numerous customer service roles back in the US and sometimes encountered people who didn’t speak English. You would never see someone freeze up or panic like this there. We’d just communicate via body language and pointing (and later, Google Translate).
I can see why one might get frustrated, but I don’t understand the fear and panic at the thought of having to serve a customer who doesn’t speak Japanese. Why do people treat English like it’s this big bad wolf that will attack if they don’t know much beyond hello? There are other ways to communicate. It’s not the end of the world.
Is there some cultural thing that I’m missing?
by astrochar