Early impressions (part 1)

I was reading back through old journals of mine and I found some entries I'd written early in my stay in Japan. These posts were written in my first few months living in Yokohama (mostly early 2008). I thought I'd post some of them for you, since, although the content is old for me, it may be new for people who haven't spent much time in Japan. ^_^

***

Random cultural observations:

In an elevator, one guy held back for a moment to let two others leave first. Those two men bowed to him and said 'sumimasen' ('excuse me'), before leaving.

After living here so long, it's easier for me to kneel, sitting on my feet. Before I could only do it for a few seconds.

All women carry handkerchiefs. They are not for blowing your nose; rather, for drying your hands in a public restroom. I knew this before but I only noticed recently that I was constantly the only person drying my hands on my coat.

In Western countries, 'yes' is a tick. In Japan, it's a circle. A teacher at my school always goes through students' work and circles the correct sentences in red pen. To me it looks like she's marking them wrong.

Also, some gestures are different. To gesture 'come here', you wave your palm down, which to us can actually look like the gesture for 'go away'. Also, to gesture "me", instead of touching your chest, you point to your nose.

Crabs are gestured by making 'scissors' with your index and middle fingers. Cats are gestured by making one hand into a fist - a 'paw' - and holding it to your face like a maneki neko.

This doesn't always happen, but if you're out in a group and someone is ordering food for the table, you can often expect them to order WAY too much. And then when it comes, they won't eat it quickly. Food often sits on the table getting cold while people are talking, and nobody ever eats the last piece.

People often ask you if you're cold, when it isn't cold. And people almost always leave their coats on while riding trains and doing their shopping, even though it's far too warm for comfort.