What I Like In Japanese Etiquettes!

I am a person who loves traveling as much as I can and as much as my wallet can afford. I just do not travel just to get away from the stress of things. I also travel to experience the culture and traditions of the place. Though I have not yet traveled to a certain place, I research it beforehand. In this way, I am more prepared to know more about the country.

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The country that I want to visit is Japan. As I said before, we booked twice, once in November 2019 and July 2020. My sister has an examination in November 2019 so we canceled the flight. In July 2020, covid hit so there is a restriction on flying out of the country. Third time is a charm? Well, we will know soon!

In saying this, this article is about the culture, practices, or traditions of Japanese that I like. I will be highlighting their good culture of them. Of course, they are not a perfect race. They also have a bad side. So, let's begin.

1) They have high respect for elders.

Japan has the highest percentage of elders in the world. The setup in housing is that several generations of families just live on one roof. They are known to have long lives compared to other countries. It is because of their food and way of living. They love tea, fish, and whole foods. This contributes to a longer life. The elders are respected in the highest form in Japan because it is already part of their traditions since then.

2) Always on time.

Japanese are known to be on time all the time or evern earlier. They value the time of others that is why they do not want to be the cause of delays. This principle is applied in work, school, meetings, almost every aspect in life. In what I observe, time for them is like money. If you are late, you are wasting money, even if a single second wasted. I can see this in restaurants. The shop owner praticed the way of cooking in which people should enjoy their food hot and immediately. They do not want to keep their customer waiting.

3) Do not walk and eat.

The Japanese has this eating etiquette that you have to stay in one place to eat. They said that when you are walking while eating, you cannot appreciate the food that much. Other reason is that you might bump into someone who is also walking and then you might accidentally put the food on their clothes. The smell of the food might not be pleasing to someone while they pass you walking. It is acceptable to drink your coffee or soda near a vending machine, just be stationery.

4) Keep your voice down and put your phone into silent mode.

The train station in Japan is almost always jam packed. People came from different walks of life. They are often going to work or from work. They are tired from working and so, a quiet time is needed from all the chaos. Keeping your voice down is a sign of respect to others. Also, your phone should be in a silent mode. When you have to take a call, you have to leave it when it is not that important. In using a headphones or earphones, make sure that there is no sound leaking because when in rush hour, the train will get crowded and you might irritate others.

5) Taking your shoes off when entering a home.

I think this etiquette is common in Asian. In the Philippines it is the same in some homes. In our case, we have two different slippers. One for oustide and one for the inside. We still use slippers inside because the floor is cold between November to early March. I like this etiquette because it is cleaner that way. We do not like bringing dirt from outside. Also, it takes a lot of time to mop and clean the floor.

Final Thoughts

We have different culture, etiquettes, and manner. Some may view as bad manners to others, and vice versa. If you travel to our countries, we should research on their culture. We might offend them without knowing what we did wrong. It is also a sign of respect on their part. We do not like foreigners to disrespect our culture too. I just hope that the whole virus situation will be over soon. Right now, some parts of the Philippines is in Alert no. 3 because of the new variant. Hayys, when will this end?

Thank you for reading my article!

Lead image edited on Canva, Images from Unsplash

Opensea/Twitter/Noise.cash: @Jijisaur

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