Short Japanese Culture Questions

I don’t have anything particularly helpful to say since much of what you mentioned feels quite mysterious to me as well (e.g. the thing about ‘compliments => pressure to give someone a present that’s similar’ sounds ridiculously unfair and very much overanalysed – and I overthink a lot, so I should know). I believe what you’re telling me; I’m just saying that I don’t have any answers myself.

Some of this stuff does remind me of Ancient Chinese etiquette from period dramas though. (E.g. if nobles visit each other and one of them compliments a particular possession of the other, it’s very common for that to be followed by gift-giving… but I always thought that only applied because 1. the giver was rich enough to afford it OR 2. the giver needed the recipient’s political favour/valued his or her relationship with the receiver. Also, I vaguely remember vassals who made huge but unsuccessful efforts to do things for their superiors being forgiven and praised for their loyalty, even if those who actually got things done were usually better liked.) I sincerely didn’t expect such etiquette to still be present today, especially among ‘ordinary people’ (i.e. people who don’t have massive fortunes), even if a lot of my own tendencies to ‘avoid stepping on people’s toes’ are probably inspired by traditional Chinese etiquette. (Obviously, I’m not saying Japanese etiquette is exactly the same, but I couldn’t help but notice.)

A random recent example

My Japanese teacher told me I could have simply said 良い週末をお過ごしください in a message to her, but since I think it’s not nice to tell anyone to do something, especially when it’s actually beyond their control – nothing guarantees your weekend will be good, after all – I went with the very roundabout 〜を過ごしますように祈ってます. Generally, the greater the difference in status between me and someone else, the less qualified I feel to phrase anything as an instruction or direct request, but my Japanese teacher didn’t see it as a problem. That’s also the day I decided Japanese people might not be as formal as I thought they were.

There is one thing I wanted to comment on though:

I don’t know if I’m in any way close to being right, but as frustrating as all those events sounded, I felt like the positive things your acquaintances did do for you fall quite clearly into the ‘social nicety’ category. In other words, perhaps at least for now, they’re not comfortable with anything that might lead to a deeper conversation, but still acknowledge that you have some sort of relationship and know each other. Maybe the reason is indeed ‘not being used to talking to a foreigner’ – I wouldn’t know – but at least they acknowledge that they know you, for what it’s worth. No point thinking too much about it, I agree, but I thought it might be helpful to get a feel for the depth of the relationship. (This is how I think about relationships, at any rate, and I prefer to know where I am in terms of social distance relative to someone so I know how I should treat them. I only invest in people I’m close to or am getting closer to, and if I know someone hasn’t warmed up to me yet, at least I know I don’t have to bother too much with them as long as I don’t make them uncomfortable.)

PS: While I realise that quoted extracts make a clear ‘replying to’ field somewhat unnecessary, I’m still not used to the fact that my posts no longer seem to be directed at someone by default even when I’ve chosen an intended/main recipient. :sweat_smile:

This might seem a bit harsh but what the hell do Japanese people do all day at work?
I guess due to foreigner priviledge when I got nothing to do I walk around.

So I guess like any place in the world you can be finshed but still force to stay at work. In my line of work there is no way in hell do people stay busy for SOO much.

Look busy, at all times.

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Honestly, most places I’ve worked, if you look like you’re finished, you look like you’re ready to get new tasks added onto your plate.

Aye. The “send email at x time” is my favorite feature ever. Just make sure you set something like 4:47PM so it doesn’t look weird. :wink:

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People don’t even say “have a good [such and such]” here though. Or at least not beyond, have a good new years.

Some people are pretty formal but it varies. There’s a guy in the office who exclusively uses ~ます forms, but he’s very endearingly polite

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Well, I’ve seen Japanese people use it, including streamers, if my memory serves me, but I must admit I have the impression it’s a translation of a concept common in English and French. Guess it’s not really a common phrase at any rate. :sweat_smile: Is there anything people tend to use in similar situations (e.g. when ending an email)?

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My coworkers are pretty confused by the idea aside from the ones well versed in English, but they’re all from the countryside. :person_shrugging:

(Un)fortunately, I exclusively email in English

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Wow lots of new questions! ^>^ Great to see answers as well. There’s a wiki in the OP post where you can link to your first post with each question (try to keep the question/description brief if possible). But it’s a good way to navigate the thread as the conversation moves along. :slight_smile:

Edit: Helped you out with the first question @Jonapedia , hope you don’t mind. I’ll attempt the second. ^^

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Yeah, I just saw the changes. Thanks!

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Glad you thought it suitable! :slight_smile:

Edit: I guess, you edited much better! :+1:

First time I did this, I realized the core of my own question. Kind of funny really, that it’s actually usually something quite succinct if you’re asked to boil it down to its core concept. ^^’

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It was mostly OK, but I made some changes so my intentions would be clearer. Thanks again! I had forgotten that there was a question list.

Yeah, true! There can be a lot of context behind each question, but ultimately there’s usually only one core issue.

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Summary

That sounds difficult to know to me as, in my experience, the younger people are, the more socially clumsy they are. I think I am not old enough to say that there are good old times which I also don’t think is true. But there has been definitely more focus on training manners, which are exactly a prerequisite to being able to understand the unfolding relationship, and as everywhere, manners are declining in Japan. This and the exposure to social media, movies etc. where people are exposed to quite random social interactions that tend to portray a distorted picture of human relationships and focus on very extreme parts of it.

Sounds I am very conservative, but I think I am not. Now, for example I am taking Shodo classes (thanks to you btw) and besides the teacher there are three other women, all of them significantly older than I am. And I love it. One is a tea ceremony teacher (I bring this up because you mentioned your mothers training) and the others also did that and accordingly they are a very pleasant company. They know how to deal with others and make them feel comfortable by how to talk and how to create a pleasant atmosphere. You might think this is superficial but I don’t feel that way. Surprisingly, quite contrary to what I may have thought when I was very young, it is especially the ‘cool kids’ who are not capable of dealing with unexpected situations, in both the country I come from and Japan.

What I am trying to say is, that I experience the younger generations, including mine, but increasingly the following ones as helpless in situations that they are not used to and this helplessness leads to awkward moments like the one you described . It sounds like a small detail but I think there is a large and scary background behind it.

Personally I feel overwhelmed by the lack of predictability of people. And I never expected much :joy:

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Oh! Well, I’m glad you’ve found something you enjoy. :slight_smile:

So… they’re also less likely to simply ignore things? :laughing: (Just as an additional thought, the reason I don’t like using ‘ignoring’ as a response is that it creates unnecessary confusion. If you verbalise a response or use body language, even if it’s just to shut a topic down, you help to guide the conversation.) I’ve also found that some of the older people I know are among the best communicators. (There are exceptions, of course.)

And actually, no, I don’t see it as superficial. I think that, even if you don’t intend to have a deep relationship with someone, it’s very important to be able to put others at ease. Being standoffish prevents communication from happening. I limit my investment in certain people in order to save energy and not get hurt, but it’s also because I tend to feel that those people don’t have my interests at heart, even at a superficial level. Otherwise, I prefer to remain open and to contribute to a pleasant atmosphere.

Hm… that’s an interesting thought. I haven’t really noticed, but I suppose ‘cool kids’ are used to having things go their way without much effort thanks to their position in a group, so they don’t really need to handle such situations.

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As someone who’s the person doing the said research, it feels very relatable, but you mentioned so many other points that I’m not sure I would fit in Japan in the end. Maybe if I somehow manage to assimilate.

I agree on それはちょっと being quite strong. It just feels strong to me. Many of the other points elude me completely, though :joy:

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Somehow I always wanted to do it but I thought I have to wait until I am better at Japanese… But so far there was not really a necessity to understand completely what I am writing :grinning:

My idea about this at the moment is, that a good communicator needs to be able to guide the other party a bit. Many people have insecurities or are not strong enough to express what they want etc. so in my impression a good communicator would be able to accept others communication flaws with a certain generosity because they would understand this happens out of insecurity, which I think it does most of the time in the case of ignoring (together with the intention to avoid uncomfortable topics).

Now in my understanding you are currently living in France, which is quite a different culture from where you said you are from, and it adds complexity that you talk about a conversation with a person from yet another cultural background in an mainly American forum :sweat_smile: In my experience most of the people in such a situation would have sooner or later a kind of identity issue that could be triggered by something seemingly small actually. Because it looks you are interested in living your life as a person that is able to interact with all kinds of people from different places, in the end, that’s what learning a language is all about, it might be a good idea to deal with such questions in a more scientific way. For example to write down occasions where you feel there is something wrong in your understanding together with your interpretation at the current moment. In my experience this interpretation changes quite a lot over time and if one would actually write it down, it might be easier to see a pattern on when and why such questions arise.

Of course I never did anything like that, but looking back now, such an approach would have prevented me from interpreting situations in a way that leads to unnecessary troubles. And it would be fun to read now :joy:

Sorry, with ‘cool kids’ I was talking about people (who could be adults) who are trying to make a cool impression by for example wearing flashy clothes with English text, American flags, blonde colored hair etc. in Japan.

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Was reading japaneseruleof7’s last post and it reminded me so much of this thread.

While most of it is in his usual exaggerated tone, I feel like these two quotes are so true it hurts.

In fact, anyone who lives in Japan for any length of time will discover you need two things to assimilate here: a) the ability to speak Japanese; and b) to avoid speaking altogether.

I wanted to ask a few more questions, but I knew what his answers would be, and of course he knew what I wanted to ask, thus there was no need for any further discussion.

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Hi,

As an avid romance VN reader, many times I encountered certain trope. Either narrator or one of the characters would mention (I guess as an explanation for the reader) that in old times / works (In the one I’m reading now, it was “昔の小説”), the expression “月は綺麗ですね” (or, in translated editions “The moon is beautiful tonight”) would be considered as an equivalent of love confession.

What I wanted to ask is basically - what is the story behind that trope?

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Thanks :slight_smile: Interesting - so if I’m reading this correctly, it’s kind of an ancecdote/urban legend that gained traction :wink:

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Basically, yes. It’s like how the phrase ‘let them eat cake’ is heavily associated with Marie Antoinette even though she never actually said that.

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