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The personal log of Peter, owner of JLIST.com, the home of "wacky things from Japan"

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Things Foreigners Do that Surprise Japanese

As an American living in Japan, I know how surprised Japanese can get when foreigners internalize the society around them too much. Here at J-List, the Japanese staff have gotten used to me doing things like bowing while speaking Japanese on the phone to someone or pulling out a kotowaza (Japanese proverb) to make a point. According to an interesting online poll, some other things gaijin do that surprise Japanese include speaking using dialects like Osaka-ben, singing enka songs at karaoke, giving dates in the Japanese calendar system (e.g. Showa 43 instead of 1968), drinking fruit-flavored milk with a hand on one hip after a bath (sounds odd, but I do it most every week), and sitting seiza, or in proper Japanese kneeling position. Another thing that surprises Japanese people is when foreigners are polite, or when they line up properly in crowds -- it seems sad to me that this kind of behavior be the exception and not the rule. When Japanese go drinking with a foreigner, they always seem to expect him to order a Budweiser, since that's what all foreigners drink, right? But I'm much more likely to ask for atsukan, or hot sake, which always seems to surprise Japanese around me. The holy grail of a foreigner living in Japan is when a Japanese person temporarily forgets how to write a difficult kanji and you casually jot it down for them. That's only happened a few times to me, but it was glorious, let me tell you.

6 Comments:

Blogger Hinano said...

Hahahaha they forgot a Kanji and you wrote it for them LOL! XD

10:37 PM

 
Blogger Peter in Japan said...

Doesn't happen very often, but when it does it's fun. Back in the day, of course, I did nothing but study Japanese so I was better then. I impressed my wife the first time I met her by being able to write the kanji for rose, which is 薔薇 (ばら). Ah, those were fun times...

12:38 AM

 
Blogger JOhn said...

When you come to the states to visit do you talk with a Japanese accent? I mean pronouncing English words with a slight Japanese accent?

4:42 AM

 
Blogger Tiffers said...

"The holy grail of a foreigner living in Japan is when a Japanese person temporarily forgets how to write a difficult kanji and you casually jot it down for them. That's only happened a few times to me, but it was glorious, let me tell you."


Haha awesome!

Yes, like John said, do you have a strong accent now, or did you ever have one?
I just now had a thought: I suppose it is so, but do Japanese people differentiate between different accents? I can tell if people speaking English are from England or Australia, or even from a country that speaks Spanish. I know from のだめカンタービレ that there is a "gaijin" way to speak Japanese (Stresemann's Japanese... haha) but are there separate gaijin accents too?

8:45 AM

 
Blogger Peter in Japan said...

Hi, no accent at all. I've been known to speak "overly easy English teacher-ben" sometimes, although I'm glad I'm not a teacher anymore, since being bombarded by students' broken English for months or years at a time is not a good thing. The Japanese have a terrible time with accents and can't usually go beyond telling Americans apart from every other English speaker.

11:13 AM

 
Blogger tudza said...

Don't most places serve sake cold? That's the way most of the good stuff should be servered.

Ordering hot sake is what they expect gaijin to do. Now if you order the sake that is meant to be served hot hot, then I suppose you get bonus points. Goes good with the niku jaga (sp?).

Seattle has a really good sake bar, they have shown me the way ( to blow $30 on a bottle of sake ).

12:17 PM

 

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