Noise on Bus

The following is a situation where people use the reasoning "This is the way things are done in Japan" in order to justify getting the result they want.

I was visiting a friend in Tokushima and we were riding a local bus at about 8pm.

There were 3 young guys at the front of the bus talking to each other. My friend and I were almost at the back, talking to each other. No one else was on the bus.

A small man aged about 50 got on the bus and sat directly behind me. Almost the second he sat down he leaned over and started waving his hand in front of my face to get my attention and saying "excuse me, excuse me" People like that usually just want to practice their English and find out where you are from, if you can eat sushi and so on.

Not this guy. Before his butt had even warmed up the seat he informed us (in English) "Excuse me but in Japan people do not speak so loudly on the bus. Please--" and he made the "shh" sign with a finger over his lips. He had a cold look on his face.

Not only had he been on the bus all of about 10 seconds, we were just a minute from the final stop where everyone was getting off. But he couldn't hold out that long. So much for "gaman suru."

This blog is about people's opinions in general, and I realize that this guy is simply an uptight guy, but anyway he's an example of how some people think. A lot of people think foreigners are noisy. It comes up a lot. Foreigners can have a hard time renting an apartment and the reason some landlords give is that foreigners are noisy. If you live here, it just gets a little more annoying when people preface things with "In Japan..." And so on. I wouldn't have minded half as much if he had just said "Would you guys keep it down a little please?" If some Vietnamese kids in America threw their empty soda cans on the ground I wouldn't say "In America we put our cans in the trash." Instead I'd just say "Hey don't do that."

Not to mention the people that are likely to use that rationale tend to be sticks-in-the-mud who want you to do things their way. A foreign friend of mine was riding in a car with his supervisor. They were in a small street in the small town where they lived, going slowly. My friend saw a Japanese friend of his and as they rode by said "Hey Taku! How's it going?" (in Japanese) and not even loudly. His supervisor got very upset and said "In Japan we don't do that! We don't hang out of car windows and shout to our friends!" Actually people do but she could use the "cultural" thing as a tool to get what she wants. If you disagree it's an affront to the entire culture.

Imagine if you had an uptight aunt and you had the Jordanian exchange student over for a BBQ. Maybe he put a lot of ketchup on his burger and your uptight aunt, being meddlesome by nature, said "Anwar, in America we don't put so much ketchup on our food!" to get him to fit her view of the world. (ie "I don't like the way these young people are sloppy and have poor table manners.") She should have just said "Whoah Anwar! That's a lot of ketchup! Are you sure you want so much?" That's the kind of thing you can expect to encounter as a foreigner in Japan in 2005. Granted, it's not everyone but it's not uncommon either.