It really took a lot of convincing for us relatives to make grandmother give up the car. I feel you. The older generation see it exactly like this. But, the younger generation is much less dependent on owning a car of their own.
In reality, there are many more cheaper AND more practical ways to get around today, both for the young and old. For the elderly, we have both specialized taxi-cars that are subsidized making them very affordable, along with a flexible bus transport that’s part of the public transportation system (so costs the same any other bus ride in the city) - literally anyone can call to be picked up, where and where to.
I find that unless you’re working full-time, it quickly becomes hard to make a monthly public transport card worth it, rather than just paying for the specific rides you take. And being a pensioner, you’re certainly not going to be using public transport more. Buses and trams are equipped to handle people in wheel chairs or similar as well. So, most elderly tend to use them as well. The costs of owning a car is just not worth it. Especially when you get older.
I think this depends massively on where you are, both which country and where within the country. For example, in London it has pretty much always been possible to get around via public transport with no need for a car at all, and the same is true in most cities across the world. In towns it is more variable – I get the impression that European towns tend to have good public transport, but in the UK it is much more variable and more likely to be unreliable, low frequency, unhelpful routes, etc. Out of towns is even worse – the village my father lives in has a population just under 3,000 people, and the bus to the nearest town runs only every two hours, with the last bus home in the evening at 18:00. And it’s apparently impossible to get a taxi during mid-afternoon because all the taxis are busy doing school-run work. Personally I picked the place where I live so that I can live without a car (I walk and cycle, because the buses in this town are awful), but that’s a luxury I can afford because my job pays well enough to let me buy a house near the railway station and not too far from work – people in less well-paid jobs generally end up living further out from the town centre and in places where the car is the only practical option.
All this could be massively improved with good government policy (i.e. subsidizing, regulating and controlling public transport better), but right now in the UK it’s still pretty poor in most areas outside cities and large towns.
Recently I went out of town and I got a lot of 日本語上手s which I normally just brush off. Most of them were accompanied by わかりやすい though. Was there a campaign to change small talk or be specific about what’s 上手? Have other long term residents gotten an uptick in this particular compliment?
as someone who lives kinda in the boonies of japan, having a car is basically required. if you don’t live in the big cities it’s just not viable. Even in a town of close to 300k people, the public transport is on a 2 hour cycle, and often does take upwards of 2 hours just to get to work each day despite it being 13 km away. It’s just not worthwhile outside of big cities (such as Okayama, Tokyo, Osaka, ect.) to use public tansport, if you value your time.
How is this even physically possible? ^^; I feel for you. I grew up 15 km away from the nearest bigger city which only recently got to 100k people, but that takes 20 minutes tops. And there were still 2 bus rides per hour to the city. Inside this small town, expect buses every 5-15 minutes for most places. The further away you live, the fewer rides since that’s inevitable, but there are always rides at the times to allow working people/students commute to and from work/school for example, with higher frequently of rides compared to the middle of the day or the evening. Just common sensical city and public transportation planning really.
where I live, there are a lot of train stops but only a couple trains) around 15 stops in the 15 km route, it takes a train 1 hour to go from first stop to last stop. since there is only 1 train in the morning, if you miss that one you have to wait for it to come back, hence why it can take up to two hours if you miss the train in this town. as for why it takes me two hours, simple. I leave earlier to ensure I don’t miss the train and be late lol.
I have noticed this too! I think they’ve maybe gotten used to maybe seeing their compliments rejected and are trying to be more specific so we actually take the compliment? maybe
No problem! I think it’s kinda like the idea of when you offer a business guest tea, they’re politely supposed to reject it at least 2x and then the third is when you do accept it, but the person offering tea is supposed to keep asking if the guest wants tea until they give in.
(I was taught this in a college business Japanese class where we had a conversation test with this scenario…)
It’s rude to accept first because then you think you deserved the compliment/drink, second time is a little better, but it’s more humble to accept on the third. Although after the third time if you don’t accept maybe the person gets offended that you don’t think their words mean anything and that you don’t want what they are giving you.
I am just thankful my social anxiety reads as politeness here so I don’t gotta keep all the rules stuck in my head on repeat.
Oh yeah it’s kinda funny how often what reads as like, timid/nervous/anxious in the US just turns into like…good manners over here. I held the elevator door for a sensei once (bc I don’t trust elevator doors tbh) and got told I had very japanese manners, lol.
It was the nicest compliment that sensei ever gave me. Great teacher! Very strict >.<
I also find rejecting N times only to finally accept out of politeness to the host a thing of habit. It mostly stems from a base level of anxiety, though.
Really daft one, do Japanese follow British or American naming conventions for floors? Is the floor level with the street the ground floor or first floor?
I’m trying to imagine how they would even say it that way in Japanese. Surely they wouldn’t put グラウンド or something in front of 階 as a counter, it just makes no sense.
Presumably if Japanese people go to the UK, they find themselves forced to say グラウンドフロア or whatever, to adapt to the craziness, but I’m talking about if they were going to label their own buildings differently using 階.
Well, in polish we also have separate word for ground floor (“parter”), that isn’t included in the numbering/counting system. (In elevators etc the button will be marked with 0, but nobody uses “0” when talking about ground floor).
The thing is, that the word “piętro” - our equivalent for 階/floor - means only floors above ground floor.
I love the Swedish systems of doing whatever. Some buildings have “entréplan” entrance level. But, that could also be any floor, depending on where the entrance in located in some complex buildings. Some buildings just do their own thing. Like the ground floor being floor 2 or some such. Much confusion for sure! Expect the unexpected is all I can say and read the buttons in the elevator carefully. or look at a building floor map for guidance. ^^;
Much confusion for sure! Expect the unexpected is all I can say and read the buttons in the elevator carefully. or look at a building floor map for guidance. ^^;