I will have elementary to middle school children say “hello” to me, like go out of their way to or just pas by and say it casually
Little, little kids will ask their parents if they can talk to me (I always let them).
It’s not bad, I think it’s cute. Of all the things people talk about wrt living in Japan, this was not a thing I’d heard happening or expected to happen.
Just curious.
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Never heard anyone ask if it’s ok to say hi but in the morning sometimes they run by me on the way out of my apartment in the lobby screaming good morning they are cute af kinda makes my day ngl
“hello” as in in english i assume? then yeah.
once we even were in a museum (pre covid) where a school class of kids aged around 10 to 12 i guess, had a school assignment to talk to foreigners in english and ask them stuff from a little questionnaire (like favorite food etc) and note down the answers
It is common.
Especially if you look approachable enough, they tend to go after you.
I was on my way home on the phone, and they heard me speak English and they were like “hey what’s up who are you”, and I responded in Japanese “one moment I am on the phone, and when I am done, I will respond”, and they just left lmao.
A few weeks ago I was queueing up in Daiso behind a little girl and her mother. The little girl turned around, threw her arms wide as if to hug me and said hello… it was so sweet. She got a bit of a scolding from her mum though.
That happens to me often. Children who learn basic English phrases in school love to try them out when they see a foreigner. They usually giggle when I say hello back. Then I switch to Japanese and enjoy the look of surprise on their faces.
Yes. They think we’re a curiosity, like giving a giraffe a carrot at the zoo. It amuses them to hear the foreigner speak English when prompted.
Believe it or not this happens to me all the time and is normally followed by a stream of giggles because someone had the nerve to talk the weird language with the big hairy frightening man.
It happens to me all the time! Especially since I live near an あいさつロード, which the local schools designated so that their students greet people as they are walking by. They do it outside of school hours too.
When I lived in Ehime in the 90’s, this would happen all the time and occasionally I would feel like the Pied Piper as I walked along and a string of young children following me shouting hello or asking questions that they had learned recently. As others stated, was really cute and an enjoyable moment every time it happened.
I haven’t had kids ask if it was ok to talk to me, but did have a guy come up to me in the onsen to ask if his kid could talk to me since he was learning English, saw me, and was curious…. it was sort of weird, but I said ok and we talked for a few minutes before his dad thanked me and hurried him off. Not something I ever expected would happen while bathing.
Sometimes… There was this time I was hurrying to catch the bus so I zoomed past this elementary school kid, and he said Ohayoooogozaimasssssssss
I briefly looked back and said it back and kept running 😅
It’s either a hearty, loud HELLO!!!, or wide eyed bewilderment. I like them both.
I recently had a kid come up to me and started having a full on conversation with me.
Unfortunately, he was just saying a jumble of random English words and “replying to me” while I was actually speaking with my wife on my bluetooth headphones.
Happens to me often. Kids like to try out the English they learned in real life. They’re usually really happy if you reply to them.
The elementary school kids in my town greet people they walk past as a general rule, so they usually say hello to me in either Japanese or English. It’s so adorable. They usually become too cool for it around age 10 though.
Tell me you live in inaka without telling me you live in inaka.
I go to to Tokyo Disney often. I’m not Japanese and I am a big guy. I get lots of kids saying hello. Sometimes they even run up to me and hug me. Weird but it’s cute.