I guess I'll address some of the things. Japan is kind of a weird place.
moretimethansense said:
StereoMike said:
Japan is the only country with 4 seasons.
You have got to be shitting me.
Really?
No really?
I'm sorry but, really?
That someone could possib... Really!?
Yeah it's really weird. It comes from this thing called Nihonjinron which basically means "studies on the Japanese people. Originally it started as social darwinism but with Japanese people on top instead of white people, but nowadays almost all of it's crazy theories are regarded as just that: crazy. But for some reason this is the only one that stuck.
Keepitclean said:
StereoMike said:
Well, I'm a Canadian living in Japan so I have kind of a long list of misconceptions people have about "foreigners". I'm not Japan bashing here, but these a pretty much held as truth by anyone over 30 or who has never left the country.
1. Foreigners can't eat natto, umeboshi, or raw fish. (note: that's "can't eat" not "don't like")
As in you don't have the right to or can't eat because you will die if you do?
Like we can't process it right or something. I've never gotten a straight explanation. The best one I got was from a Japanese person whose English wasn't great, telling me that it's not part of our traditional cuisine so it's reasonable to think that we can't deal with eating it. That's the clearest explanation I've got though. The best way to respond to a person who acts surprised that you like sushi is to ask if they can eat pizza, and they'll look all shocked and confused as to why you would ask them that.
bahumat42 said:
StereoMike said:
Well, I'm a Canadian living in Japan so I have kind of a long list of misconceptions people have about "foreigners". I'm not Japan bashing here, but these a pretty much held as truth by anyone over 30 or who has never left the country.
1. Foreigners can't eat natto, umeboshi, or raw fish. (note: that's "can't eat" not "don't like")
2. Foreigners can never speak Japanese as well as a Japanese person, because Japanese is the most unique language in the world.
3. Foreigners all speak English.
4. Foreigners do not know how to use chopsticks, and must be praised non-stop when it turns out that they can.
Oh and here's a bonus one, not about foreigners but still a hilarious misconception that is widely believed here:
Japan is the only country with 4 seasons.
well to be fair those are all fairly explainable
1) sushi isn't that common outside of trendy circles and japan
2) every language bums itse3lf
3) english is a very common language and most travellers to japan will speak it
4) ok this ones kinda dumb because it takes like 10 minutes to learn to use chopsticks
also lol on the final one. Thats probably down to the media portraying only 2 seasons (summer and winter).
sorry to pick apart your post.
Hey no problem, picking apart posts is all right with me!
1) I don't know where you're from so maybe it isn't common where you are, but I haven't been to a city where sushi isn't pretty much commonplace. I don't even know a single person, whether back in Canada or from other countries, who's never tried sushi. And anyway, most people who come from abroad to live and work in Japan love Japanese food, so it's still kind of strange why people would think we can't eat it.
2) Yeah that's the thing. Every language is fairly complicated, and to tell the truth, no one can speak a language as well as a native speaker unless they've been speaking it their whole lives, which makes them a native speaker anyway. But the thing is, the prevailing belief here is that it's only Japanese that is like that. Any other language is perfectly learnable, but Japanese is portrayed as some mysterious thing that non-Japanese will never be able to penetrate. It's quite strange. I mean I've studied French and Japanese, and in terms of the speaking aspect of those languages, Japanese is way easier. Writing is another matter entirely unfortunately...
3) Yeah it is the universal language, so maybe it works to try and speak it when you see a foreign person. The thing is though, it's a very common sight to see a Caucasian tourist/ex-pat with no English skill talking to a Japanese person (asking for directions, or how much bus fare is or something)
in Japanese and the only response they get is one that comes out as extremely confusing broken English. The reason for it I think is that in the school system here, people are told that if you want to speak to foreigners, you need to speak English because foreigners speak English. And no one questions it until it becomes just an accepted fact that "non-Japanese = speaks English".
