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It can be reasonably said that there are two ways of doing most things: the way most people do them
and the way Japanese people do them. Very occasionally, however, there may be perhaps one
or two countries that do things in a similar way to the Japanese, so to avoid confusing the
matter I'm going to concentrate only on differences between the West (Europe and America) and Japan.
It's not as though there's a shortage, after all.
Westerners...
The Japanese...
...have a bath OR a shower to get clean.
...scrub themselves meticulously clean in the shower and then get into the bath.
...are frightened of snakes.
...are fine with snakes but are terrified of cockroaches.
not scary
scary
...clear their noses by blowing, often loudly, and wiping.
...clear their noses by sniffing, often loudly. To blow your nose in public is rude and uncivilised.
...apologise when they've done something bad.
...apologise profusely when someone else has done something bad. If they've done something bad
themselves apologising would cause too much embarrassment all round.
...walk around indoors with their shoes on.
...either remove their shoes or change to 'indoor shoes' when entering buildings.
To avoid changing shoes every time they change buildings, there are often bits of outside which are officially inside,
and sometimes bits of inside which are officially outside.
To walk on these areas in the wrong shoes is as just as unthinkable as walking inside with outside shoes, or vice versa.
The picture shows a path which is actually outside but officially inside.
Note the two stripes running across it - the 'officially inside' status is overridden in these areas,
allowing people who are actually outside to cross the officially inside area while still remaining
officially outside.
...enter meeting rooms and other people's offices quietly, so as not to disturb anyone.
...shout "Shitsurei shimasu!" ("I'm being rude") at the tops of their voices when entering, so
the people already there all know how sorry the person feels about disturbing everyone.
...wear dark socks with dark trousers.
...quite happily wear white socks with black trousers without even the smallest sense of guilt.