For me, it’s the real simple, trivial, borderline silly things that I think many people in the world can relate to, like giving souvenir gifts after going on a trip, the ability to show appreciation to others (lmao), and, uh, the ability to appreciate/enjoy nature (lmfao).
Some less general points include rice as the staple starch, soy sauce as a staple ingredient, chopsticks, fish (cooked or raw), no shoes on in the house under any circumstance, sleeping on the floor (futon optional), the concept of AND native word for “omotenashi”, etc.
Edit 1: I also noticed that Japanese people think that their houses are really small and that foreigners all live in multi-story mansions (English) with their backyard being lush meadows overlooking a prairie. I grew up in government housing lol.
Edit 2: The cultural/religious view that every object has a god attached to it is a uniquely Japanese view which explains why they view all objects differently from savage foreigners. Uhh, Native Americans, First Nations, Pacific Islanders, Indigenous Taiwanese, and many many many others would like a word??
Also, the idea that I, a foreigner, cannot understand simple “indirectness” or the expectation that I am a self-centered, direct, and confident person.
I happen to come from somewhere without four seasons (Pacific Island), so I get trumped there lol.
Of course, there’s a whole other list of cultural things in Japan that don’t align with mine. I just find it amusing how they sometimes expect us foreigners (esp. non-East Asians) to all fall under one unified culture just like them (major /s). And if we don’t match their solidified image of foreigners, they assume we’ve positively Japanified or we’re strange outliers lol.
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Even in the USA I have always taken my shoes off in my home. But I know that many homes in the USA dont do that.
Just general kindness and politeness. Speakly politely, holding the door for people, helping out lost people, throwing my trash in the garbage instead of the street.
So much good behavior is (or at least was) taught to kids in the USA but if feels like half of them forget to use it when they get older.
Taking off your shoes.
As a Scandinavian, it just baffles me that that is something they think is so unique.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying they should know specifically that Scandinavian people do it too but it’s just so weird. It’s not like I went “OH MY GOD? You guys take your shoes off as well???” When I first heard that Japanese people do it… it’s just really strange to me that many J people seem to think that EVERYTHING they do is soooo “unique”… maybe not the word I’m looking for but I hope you know what I mean.
Taking shoes off is a big one, but houses in my home country will often have a kind of genkan, or genkan-like space where you can take your shoes on and off.
I honestly thought that, while *ALL* Japanese homes have such a space, it wouldn’t be unusual for homes outside of Japan to have them too, but some Japanese people I have told this to simply cannot even comprehend the concept, it’s like their brains short circuit or something.
Four seasons.
To a lesser extent, healthy food and safety.
This might be an old one, but I sometimes get the hint that Japanese people are mystified that people outside of Japan shower daily and that the concept of washing your body every day is unique to their culture. Perhaps they are referring more to the idea of actually sitting in a bath and not just showering. But I do get questions on this quite a bit in conversations.
Omotenashi is just hospitality – there is nothing particularly special about it.
Using chopsticks. It’s quite normal for adults and even teens or kids in the US to be able to use chopsticks.
Juggling. Apparently, this is a Japanese thing, and I learned “Japanese tejina”.
Not even the idea that Japanese people think “all foreigners are pretty much the same” is uniquely Japanese. Saw plenty of that before I left the UK too…
edit: Just to add onto this, but I also find it baffling when other non-Japanese people speak about Japan like it’s a mystical alien place with strange rituals and habits. It’s just people in a country. Japanese people are more similar to every other countries peoples than different.
They think chopsticks are “Japanese culture” and I have to remind them they were invented in China. Kanji too.
Being aware that there are four seasons in any particular location on the planet.
I feel like Canada does a few of those as the norm. Maybe not rice as a staple though.
Four seasons. It’s baffling to meet natives who’re surprised to hear other countries have them too. It’s even arguable that Japan has more than 4.
High speed trains.
Japan has a lot of course and they are arguably better than most other countries’, but quite a few countries in Europe have 250-300 km/h trains as well, not to mention China now.
All homes in Russia have a genkan for shoes removal before entering the home. It has always been part of Russian culture.
People being clueless about other cultures!
“I’m glad you can eat rice, most foreigners cannot.”
Four seasons
Being physically able to eat rice
The existence of sushi
New Year’s Day on 1st January
The existence of any New Years celebrations
Being able to write kanji (stares at the Sinosphere)
Xiaolongbao soup dumplings
School sports day
Japanese being a foreign language
Work parties
Other countries have 7/11, or the fact that they are an American store chain.
>and that foreigners all live in multi-story mansions (English) with their backyard being lush meadows overlooking a prairie.
Have you seen any of the houses from the US or UK shown on Japanese TV? Everything are exactly that, giant 6000 square foot homes, 4 car garages and backyards as big as Japanese neighborhood parks.
They’re not exactly wrong with the idea of larger houses in general though. The average US home runs 2400 square feet while Japanese run 1100 square feet.
Black hair, AKA the most common hair color in the world.
Japanese people being uniquely able to digest seaweed.
So in 2010 there was a study suggesting that a specific type of bacteria developed in the gut flora of seaweed eaters that allowed them to eat seaweed more effectively (not surprising, this is the status quo of how gut flora works). This study came up again in the news when another study was done on the topic in 2022.
This has been misinterpreted over time and now there is a sizable population of people who think that Japanese people are uniquely the only people who can digest seaweed properly.
Also that blue butt thing. Some babies are born with a blue mark on their lower backs, and my former boss would bring it up in conversation every few months. “The only people who have it are Mongolians and Japanese, unique stuff”. Yep, talking about baby’s butts. You do you, boss man.
The “Tatemae” is actually a fact in most of the countries, but people still talk as it is purely Japanese, it makes me laugh everytime lol
It may be a bit more “stronger” here but it doesn’t change much
4 seasons + reading the room
“Working hard (like a Japanese).”
Who else doesn’t knock off at 25:00 on a regular basis?
Shit, I think my old colleague at my previous company in the US west coast HQ was an insomniac. He never seemed to be not working. The poor bugger probably got oursourced to India due to COVID-19 anyway 🙁
Shoes thing, definitely. Just because I guess many Americans (?) and people in some Western European countries don’t take off their shoes generally, many Japanese people have been given the impression that the majority of the world doesn’t take off their shoes… but it’s actually the opposite, most of the world does.
Liking seafood. Went for lunch on a school trip with my co-workers and they wanted unagi but were worried I wouldn’t eat it. Told them I love fish and really want to try unagi and got the biggest “eeeee sugoi”.
Punctuality. I was raised by my mom to always be back on time (or early) at home, so now I am always punctual in my personal or professional life.
Someone once insisted to me that only Japanese people care for old things and repair them instead of throwing them out. Only Japanese people are capable of showing respect to objects, valuing them for their craftsmanship and respecting the expertise that goes into them. Only Japanese people re-sharpen their knives and only Japanese people take time to fix things that break. Everyone outside Japan just throws everything away and buys new the moment it’s not in peak shape.
It gave me a lot to think about while I was walking through my local Don Quijote.
Just like not being super loud and brash, and having some manners. I’ve been told many times that I’m “so Japanese” when I’m just not loud.
Funniest one though was a former colleague being amazed that we have bowling in the UK. She thought it was a Japanese invention that wasn’t available elsewhere.
The amount of full grown adults I’ve informed that “bye-bye” is English and just a play on “Good-bye” is staggering
Returning found items
Some Japanese people (and it would appear, non-Japanese people) seem to think that only Japanese people think of their culture as being unique, while there are people from cultures all over the world who think their culture is unique, so thinking one’s culture is unique is not a culturally unique trait.
“Our houses are small!” bruh, I’m from the UK. We have the smallest houses in Europe.
I used to live in Singapore last year. A fact some “izakaya friends” were aware of. They took me to a Chinese restaurant and made me taste the most generic dishes on the menu not believing my continued insistance that the very same dishes were sold everywhere in Singapore, a majority Chinese country.
Another favourite is of course the four seasons. Most people I talked to about it would actually believe that 4 seasons existed elsewhere, but it went without saying that changes were much more pronounced in Japan. Even doubting that was (and likely still is) sacrilege.
Politeness is a slightly difficult one. Japanese has more ways of expressing things politely than both German and English but naturally that does not mean the concept of politeness is foreign to me. Yet Japanese people are continuously surprised that I could muster politeness. I’ve chosen to interpret it as me being praised that I can speak polite Japanese but that may be wishful thinking.
On a sidenote, there’s also a reversal of this. Seemingly universal things, supposedly different in Japan. My mother used to work for a Japanese company in Germany, which meant she had to deal with a fair few salarymen over the years. She gained the impression that Japanese men (and presumably women) would not laugh in public; a prejudice she taught me when I was young. Nowadays I know that they will not laugh as often or as freely as German people, but the prejudice in its extreme form is definitely wrong. Laughing is simply not considered well mannered in front of strangers in public by old people, but even they seem more relaxed about it than what my mother would have me believe. I had a good chuckle with elderly strangers (and women to boot) from Kyoto, in Kyoto, in public. These are what I would have deemed the least likely people in the least likely place to laugh and yet they did, so I feel confident in saying this myth is utterly busted.
Tempura.
Tempura was invented in Portugal in the 1600’s.
Splitting the bill at a restaurant.
Met some people in Kyoto and we had dinner at a really nice izakaya. At the end when it came time to pay I offered since I was visiting as a way of saying thank you, they insisted that they pay since I was visiting they wanted to be good hosts. I suggested we split it evenly down the middle, and they said ‘ah perfect. The Japanese way’
I didn’t want to be rude and say that this is super common everywhere else, but they really seemed to appreciate splitting it.
Even the drunk salarymen sleep on the ground.
How about “honne” and “tatemae”?
Not unique at all, but some people explain it like it is some mysterious Japanese characteristic.
Being shit on by your boss, and working overtime and weekends.
==Canada==
are you grouping east asian together? Do you know there are hundreds type of rice and chopsticks are different in shape between this countries?
I cringe inwardly when someone launches into a lengthy monologue about how not wasting stuff is a Japanese concept. Yes, the idea of using up everything, or reusing, or recycling, or repurposing is known the world over. The word mottainai is Japanese, but the concept is universal. Any time it’s used in the media, you’re about to get some grade A twenty first century nihonjinron.
It’s all a matter of degree and flavor, right?
There is hospitality everywhere, but there’s a little Japanese flavor to how they do it here, and a little French flavor to how they do it in France. There are aggressive business people everywhere, but there’s an American flavor and an Indian flavor. Plenty of Americans go hiking and appreciate the miracles of nature, but I can understand why the stereotype is that we’re consumers who are indifferent to nature.
Obviously it’s obnoxious if someone says “hospitality is the exclusive domain of the Japanese,” but if someone says, “The Japanese flavor of hospitality is distinct and I like it,” then… Yeah sure fine?