Originally posted by ymc at 15-10-2015 06:11
racial pride ...
I personally believe the main reason is that foreigners don't know The Rules that Japanese are indoctrinated with from an early age. You can see kids being schooled in how to react to other people and how to show respect ... and as an adult foreigner no matter how hard I try to be polite I'm constantly feeling like a bull in a china shop as a clumsily misread nonverbal cues. Their constant attention on others is so strong that you can walk perpendicularly across the rush-hour flood of people leaving the busiest train station in the World (Shinjuku) without breaking pace and without a single bump. They just avoid you like you've got an invisible force-field around you. Don't try that in New York or London ... unless you're ready to experience Brownian motion in adult scale.
I was once taken by an american friend to a BJ place - they let us in, but only after a long conversation in fluent Japanese where they first established that he was a regular, he himself understands how to behave, and then most importantly that he vouched for us guests that we would also behave well albeit in that clumsy way that gaikokujin do.
Not only behaviour, but I'm reliably informed that - to put it bluntly - we smell strange. The traditional japanese diet does not include dairy, no milk, no cheese, no yoghurts, etc. Apparently, those of us who do enjoy diary products ooze a certain dairy smell from our pores, a smell that we don't ourselves notice because we're walking in a cloud of it. But a to a pure Japanese who's used to the company of people who never had milk or cheese in their lives, we smell rancid.
In the end money is money, and they don't care how you look. But how you act matters a lot to them. It seems that being able to demonstrate the subtler forms of ritual etiquette will increase your chances. But you're still not guaranteed a yes unless they're desperate.
And, last point but by no means least ... let's not talk about dick size ... in case any of our bros get offended  |
