What is the rule?

Talking on the phone

On Saturday, while I was on the bus, I suddenly heard a man speaking loudly on the phone. It seemed like a work call, but I could see an old man sitting in front of me turn around and grin at him. He didn’t bother, finished his call and then heard another woman talking loudly to a friend saying “It’s not okay to talk on the bus whether it’s work or not ”, probably thinking of being “nice” and trying to tell him that it’s rude. The man didn’t mind.

Is it rude to talk on the phone if you are riding a public transportation like a train or a bus? Everybody was yacking or talking on the phone when I used to ride the bus in New York, and even on Amtrak people FaceTime to their children or family or whomever. Though I should mention that there is a silent car in Amtrak so not all the cars are full of people talking, but generally, nobody cares.

In Japan, if you ride a public transportation, there will always be a sign saying “Please refrain from talking on the phone” and even since COVID, there is an announcement saying do not speak loudly. I guess this is our culture of being respectful to other people = be quiet?

On the train

I have seen an article saying a “weird” scene in Japan. Almost everyone is sleeping or looking at their phone! I never took a train or a bus in the States so I am not sure how it is but one thing I can say is that I do not feel safe if I slept on a train like in New York. Any country I go to and ride a train or a bus, I do not feel comfortable and be unconscious. But I guess this explains the culture of Japan, being a safe country without robbery or getting in a life threatening situation easily.

One more thing that I should add is that Japanese do not get enough sleep. There is a data from OECD 2021 (The Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development) that Japanese sleep the worst with 7 hours and 22 minutes a day compared to US as 8 hours and 51 minutes with the average being 8 hours and 28 minutes for all 33 countries. (Note: This data does not differentiate how long the person actually slept and how long they are in bed) For nearly 20 years of my work life, I see most people sleep less than 6 hours and devote their life to work. I think this is why Japan built the Industrial Revolution around 1886, we are hard workers.

Manner at the table

My colleague from Belgium came for a business trip and she was surprised that people can smoke in restaurants. Those are mostly “Izakaya” style restaurants but she said that Belgium is very strict on where you can smoke, and needless to say, smoking in restaurants are not allowed in the States either. You’ll have to go outside to find a place to smoke or don’t smoke. I hardly remember my colleagues that smoked while I was working in the States but I see many people smoking in Japan. For the sake of being under stress or just wanting to be in the crowd, I don’t know.

When you want to take food from a big bowl or plate, what do you do? Normally the waiter will share the meal with you or there’s another set of silverware that you can use. But if not and you are using a chopstick? You see your colleague take their chopstick and turn it around the other way and use the other end to take the food. This seems to be a manner well known but this is considered NOT a good manner. Other side of the chopstick you might have put your hands on so it’s not clean, and most of all, the other side of the chopstick can be only used for god. Long time ago, China used chopsticks to serve food to god and was a sacred treasure. Therefore, when it came to Japan, it was used only by God and the Emperor.

What is the rule?

Actually, I don’t think there is a rule for non-Japanese. But if I may say a small thing, we were taught not to slurp the soup. Miso soup, soup in ramen, any soup, we should not make any noise (Those zzzzz noises). But when it comes to eating noodles, it’s polite to slurp. Even with Japanese tea, we have to make the last drink with the slurp sound and it means we are finished drinking, thank you very much. Weird? Maybe.