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Something that you cant get used to??!!


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Being a Gaijin here of course there's gotta be some kind of customs that you just can't get used to!

 

Weddings do my head in here! The amount that I must fork out (3man for me or 5man with wife) kills me! I have been invited to 11 weddings this year!! thats a total of 550,000 yen if i went to all of them! Some are for friends (not really close) and others were for aquaintances... My wife can't believe that I get asked to so many! I think its the "look at my gaijin friend status!"

Call me a kechi bastard if you will but I dont even give that much as a present to my own family whom i love so much!!!!

 

This is just my opinion, no disrespect intended ( not a whinge either!) just something that i think I will never get used to...

 

But thats not to say that Oz is any better... how about all the freeloaders waiting for a FREE P%$S UP happen!

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A potato in the exhaust pipe works a treat, but I dunno if you can do it while the engine is running. Getting it in might be a bit nasty for you. I doubt it would poison the inhabitants. Much.

 

(I once watched a couple who had given me good reason to hate them pushing their car up and down the road and dicking about with jump leads, all day and a very hot one at that, while unbeknownst to them a potato, one of theirs in fact, was stuck far up their exhaust.)

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The wedding thing is a major financial strain on young Japanese as they go through the "all of my ****** friends are getting married stage". My wife hates it, especially since a lot of the weddings she bankrolled have susequently ended in divorce. I'd advise the OP to come up with a list of convenient excuses for the future. Going to a wedding should be about buying a toaster or an electric jug and then proceeding to eat and drink enough to pay for several more.

 

I can't get used to the surgical masks, they're just endlessly comical. I saw a gaijin wearing one once-that's getting into the spirit of things a little too earnestly isn't it.

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OK, here's another one - those young people who stand up against subway train doors like strips of limp seaweed, staring blankly out into the darkness ... even when the carriage is nearly empty and there's loadsa room to sit down.

 

Sit down! Relax! Make yourself comfortable! Think happy thoughts!

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Men who even when confronted with a urinal that forces you to spread your liegs and stride still manage to pee on the floor!!! How hard can it be to take aim!!!

 

Sorry this is probably not Japan specific but it really annoys me especially when I am busting for a pee and the only urinals require a three foot wade through wet floors!!!!!! mad.gif

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the general vague and bumbling way things are done here, including the way the japanese answer a question to the way they walk down the street.

 

The mono-cultural aspect. Living here it is easy to forget that there are another 3.8 billion people in the world.

 

The fact that so much of the food has so little flavour (and often tastes the same... good old dashi).

 

The fact that I have *very* firm and unwanted bodily contact on the train each night with at least 5 or 6 people at one time who I don't know and who have not had a shower in 24 hours.

 

Those things frustrate me.

 

What amuses me is the way many ordinary japanese men think they are so tough and manly when they couldn't scare the skin off a custard.

 

Having said all these things I would choose Japan over any other asian country (if I had to choose one and stay there for a few years).

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SHOPPING!!!! I can't get over how no matter what u want to buy or get, whether it be buying a pair of shoes, trying to book a holiday, renting an apartment or, as I tried to do the other day, buy bedlinen, bedspreads, night tables, coffee table and a sofa, the shop assistants insist everything is muri/dekinai/muzukashii etc and you end up walking out empty handed. They rarely offer alternatives or try things another way. Why don't the sales people try their best to make a sale (although this too can be very frustrating!). I'm tired of having stuff to buy and not being allowed (ok, helped) to spend my cash.

 

There is no way, given the shopping list of furniture and soft furnishings that I tried to buy last week, that I should have been allowed to walk out of that shop without buying a single thing - and believe me, it wasn't for the lack of trying.

 

Buying shoes! How many times have I gone into a shop and the sales assistant says "we don't have big sizes" or I try on a shoe and she says "Chisai?". All without even looking at my feet. If they did, they'd see that I'm not Big Foot. I'm a size 23!! they just assume the gaijin is large.

 

And travel agents! Don't get me started. TELL ME WHAT U CAN GET ME, not what u can't. Check the next day, next flight, another hotel, different company, different country, anything. I WANT A HOLIDAY, SELL ME ONE NOW!!!

 

I'll stop now as all this is bad for my blood pressure and I'm get so wound up about this. Better book an appointment.

 

Actually, I have to go shopping later grrrr.

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As a frequent pedestrian it pisses me off that drivers have a complete disregard of pedestrian crossings.

 

You could wait at a crossing until nightfall and no car would stop. I asked the police if cars are supposed to stop at pedestrian crossings where people are waiting. His answer was "Yeah, but they don't do they" with a laugh. Perhaps if he did his frickin' job instead of stopping innocent foreigners on bicycles.

 

I'm now in the habit of walking out in front of the traffic and making it stop (with an eye out for escape routes if in case it doesn't).

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Sharon, that's the same nearly everywhere in Japan these days unfortunately. I can't understand it. It's not only the poorly paid shop staff who maybe have no reason to give a toss - shop owners who stand to lose personally often can't be interested in a sales.

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And spitting and peeing in the street! (seems we can't write ******* )

 

I detest those foul stinking mannerless throwbacks who hoik up a big loogy and spit it down on the road/stairs/train platform. They could at least aim for a grate in the road, the nearest garden, or the train tracks. But no, they have to slag where everyone stands or walks. Walking from home to the train station the other day there was a lump every couple of meters.

 

Then you get the old (and young) guys peeing on the street, quite often right next to a convenience store which has a toilet ready and waiting to receive their offering, but no, lack of manners and hygience means that they just have to hang it all out and spray the roses anywhere they want to.

 

Who says the Japanese are hygienic?

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 Quote:
Originally posted by namenya:

Who says the Japanese are hygienic?
I have counted so many behaviours which say that this is a myth. But then there are other very hygenic practices that support the "Japanese are hygenic" thesis.
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Yes they are very hygienic - they don't wear their shoes inside public buildings. Sharing 20 year old plastic slippers that live in a cardboard box ensures the hospital, library, city hall is free of dogshit and everybody is free of nasty contagious foot complaints. Hey, hang on a minute, that last bit can't be right...

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OK heres my 5 cents worth

 

I hate that:

Everyone avoids eye contact with everyone

 

What you did in the weekend is a HUGE secret

 

Who you date is an even bigger secret

 

People look in your shopping trolley to see what youre buying

 

The way people only turn their lights on dip when its pretty dark

 

People I work with dont talk to me much, then they drink and talk loads, then drink more and turn into 12 year olds on cask wine.

 

You cant bring your own snacks to work as its rude

 

just a few off the top of my head, no I dont have the november blues really...

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