Jump to content

Recommended Posts

OK we had the engagement ring costing 3 months salary crazy thing going on, any other crazy mad bonker 'traditions' here in good ole' Japan.

 

Not a Japan bashing thread, just a fun discussion, hopefully.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Seemingly neverending cycles of "okaeshi" (< ?).

 

Give someone a present, you'll get one back, if you're good you have to give one back, etc etc etc etc

 

Presents often not exactly what you want.

 

Only winners are the omiyage/gift shops.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Bobbing. Not bowing, that endless bloody bobbing that certain people do - up and down, up and down. In traffic, you wait to let someone turn, you flash your lights and gesture 'go ahead', and instead of getting on with it, they sit in their car and bob at you three or four times.

 

I find myself staring balefully at this kind of person, and as they're usually of a fairly nervous disposition anyway, it just makes them want to bob even more. It's a vicious circle of bobbing and hostility.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah, I mean lots of small bows, so the person looks like one of those little black and white bob-tail birds.

 

Yesterday after writing that post, I stopped for two old ladies so they could cross the road, and they took so long bobbing at me ALL the way across the road that I was tempted to run them both over. Whatever happened to the democratic nod?

Link to post
Share on other sites

Stupid traditions - the one that says Japanese women have to go back to their mothers' for a month following childbirth. I think this has its roots in a traditional post-birth isolation, but the reason I've been told contemporary women do this is so they can learn childcare, i.e., how to wipe their kids' bottoms. Even before this, many women stay in hospital for good few days after the birth (which many hospitals won't let the father watch), so you're looking at your kid coming home as late as five weeks, by which stage your wife will no doubt have been inculcated with her mother's way of doing everything.

 

I told my wife before marrying her that this is a definite non-starter.

 

Some childbirth in Japan related info is here

 

http://www.thejapanpage.com/html/book_directory/Detailed/389.shtml

Link to post
Share on other sites

Also the dad gets to miss the early stages when the kid's shit smells more like a tasty dairy product than, well, shit - so he misses the grace period for learning to change nappies.

 

Patter of tiny feet there NoFakie?

Link to post
Share on other sites

Nah not yet. Maybe another coupla years.

Gotta nail that switch cab 900 first.

 

The trade off is going to be with all his/her mates going "Is that your granddad?"

 

I'll learn to live with it no doubt \:D

Link to post
Share on other sites

My friend just went through this crap with his inlaws. He had to go over to grandmas house just to see his baby. The grandma even said he wasnt doing enough. What can you do went you dont even live with the baby.

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 2 weeks later...
×
×
  • Create New...