Job Discussion Forums

[Black_Beer_Man]

Have you ever walked behind a group of slow-moving university students? They walk slowly like grandpa. And if you walk behind them closely, they do not move to let you pass. What's up with that?

It's actually an effort for me to walk that slowly.

[timothypfox]

I can see you have some growing pains in Japanese society.

My take on this is that the smaller and shuffle step type of walking developed from wearing traditional clothing such as the kimono or yukata, and the type of wooden shoe called the getta.

Though these clothes are not generally worn today, I suppose moving about with slowly with small steps (even though there is no longer any clothes to restrict people's movement) is still considered polite and modest - or good-mannered if you like.

If people see you walk as quickly as you do, it may surprise and even scare people here as aggressive. You most certainly will stand out for having different body language.

The students that "don't let you pass" may have bad manners and I could see this happening at any university campus in the US. However, it has been said that personal body space is not a private as it is in say - North America. This comes from people being used to living in much small rooms and high population density living and probably the use of smaller body movements.

Anyways, I may be overdosing you here on too much cultural relativism. Sometimes I feel people walk unnecessarily slowly, but you can't really change a whole society of people. You will need to change yourself.

But on a more positive note, you can always smile and politely say "excuse me" or "sumimasen" to get a group of students to move even if most Japanese would never do that. You as a foreigner are expected to act differently. They will most definitely say "sorry" and move, and perhaps giggle.

[kathrynoh]

[Black_Beer_Man]

[teacheratlarge]

Supposedly Tokyo and Osaka are rated the fastest for walking speed in the world. Hard to believe it some mornings when I go to work as I usually pass everyone.

Yes, some people are engrossed in the smartphones or just don't have a pressing agenda, so they move like snails.

[rxk22]

Nothing to do with kimonos. Nobody wears em. Esp not guys. It comes from most Japanese including my wife, not understanding how shoes fit. Nor caring either.

[Vince]

That used to annoy me, especially when they'd look back, see you behind them trying to get by, but wouldn't extend the basic courtesy of stepping aside a bit. Worse was when a group of them would walk side-by-side, taking up the entire width of the walkway. You'd pretty much need to push through them (which is what the fast-walking sararimen did).

There was a little lovebird couple that I often saw at the train station. They'd smugly walk through the station incredibly slowly and willfully oblivious like they were royalty. They always seemed to be right in the middle of the walkway so that they'd block as much traffic as possible. They did this once while the train was pulling into the station, so I finally just ran by the side of them and offered a little sumimasen (out of habit, not because they deserved it). As I was passing them, I kind of expected them to have a negative reaction, but also thought that my opinion of them was probably too harsh and that they might even apologize. Nope! As if they had been waiting for the chance, they both yelled, "hen na gaijin!"

[Solar Strength]

[Black_Beer_Man]