Hi,
I’m living in Japan, and over the last two years, two Japanese friends (the first was a male and the second a female, both in their 30s, earning their own money and working in the service industry) traveled to my home country. Being retired, very open, and with a lot of free time, my parents offered those two times to host them for two days three nights (making them dinner, breakfast… those two days, paying all the lunch and dinners done at restaurants) and make them visit Paris.
My parents told me how polite and friendly they were, but they were pretty shocked at one thing: in those two cases, they let my parents pay for everything and *never* offered to pay anything, even once, as if it were granted. This would be considered unbelievably rude in my culture to not even offer to pay at least once or twice
I wondered if it was because my parents are way older than them and expected them to pay, or that they expect to pay back if my parents would go to Japan.
I would be very curious to here if others have faced similar experiences when inviting Japanese people in similar contexts, or if this would be considered a bit rude even by Japanese standards.