Job Discussion Forums

[sidjameson]

I teach a culture class where we compare Japan with western, well mostly UK culture. Today while teaching a fly came into the room which met with the usual shrieks of terror. I explained that in the UK this wouldn't happen.
This then turned into a pretty productive 2 minute mini class.

So it got me thinking if there were any more little slices of cultural behaviour that I could throw into the class every now and then. One a week would be nice.

So I thought I would see what the good folks here could come up with.

Off the top of my head I'll add:

How people will line up outside restaurants, even when the line is pretty long. Can't see people doing that in the UK. At least nowhere near as much.

How it is almost essential that anybody who owns a phone must adorn it with a fluffy character. Ideally two.

It's not unusual for respectable looking people to have a beer in their hand at 11am if in the appropriate situation. In the UK you'd look a bit of an alchy. (sp?)

Any more?

[wabisabi365]

A couple of things I've noticed:

>Organized cheering at sport matches (I'm thinking baseball here in Japan as opposed to football in England). From what I've seen, there are gracious losers and beaming winners on the sidelines. Fans don't beat each other up if their team loses even though they take the sport very seriously.

>Even the worst singers at Karaoke receive applause. Back home I imagine an off-key warbler would be heckled until he or she gives up or passes over the microphone. At the very least, they'd be told to their face not to give up their day job (all in fun, of course). I just haven't seen that kind of jabbing done when someone's crooning off-key here. Everyone gets the same amount of positive support.

[sidjameson]

Thanks Wabi....I like those.

[JimDunlop2]

Just a little side comment about the cheering: at Japanese football matches, the cheering section (near the home team's goal) will cheer NO MATTER WHAT! Even if their team bullocks things up royally! I find this hard to do... Especially when someone on your home team just did something really, really stupid.

The kicker is, (no pun intended), that at the end of the match, the home team does a walk around the entire stadium, thanking the fans, bowing, waving, and sometimes even stopping for a quick autograph or photo with a young fan... At THIS point, however, all bets are off, the fans stop cheering and if the players didn't play very well, they get seriously heckled, jeered and booed as they make their round....

I was quite surprised... It's all very civil -- you don't have to worry about taking your kids to a football match and ending up in the middle of a riot or sitting next to hooligans. Neither is there any swearing, fighting, smoke bombs, etc....

[gaijinalways]

Men will wear some very feminine attire (colors, ribbons/barettes in their hair), and be considered sexy no matter how unmuscular they are in some cases.

People will think nothing of staying quiet, even when a word would probably save someone else a lot of effort in some cases.

Store personnel sometimes seem to have no personality, and get flustered if you ask questions not covered in the company manual.

[furiousmilksheikali]

[sidjameson]

Furious, thanks for the comments but actually I am probably the most student centred a teacher can be. This class is meant to be a lecture. It's not a language class. To be honest though I still break it up with seminar type discussions and communication type pair work as their English ability would make a 90 minute rant very hard for them to listen to.

I am always super careful not to sound condescending. Actually the problem tends to be the other way. So far in my class we have covered food, pub culture, drugs, obesity, the class system and this week the rise of individualism and it's dangers. I sometimes worry that the UK is coming across as a nation of binge drinking chavs who live off a diet of pie and chips.
Any suggestion for a topic that actually puts the Uk in a more positive light in comparison with Japan would be welcomed.

[Apsara]

Athletes crying- like really sobbing- when they lose. The losing team at the Koshien high school baseball final is an embarrassment to behold every year. I cannot imagine that happening in the New Zealand high school rugby finals. It's just unthinkable.

Another one is that people take off their shoes to step up on a chair to reach something on a high shelf for example. I have been here so long that I am now kind of shocked when I see non-Japanese climbing up onto a chair in their shoes

People wearing white gloves to carry or unpack boxes- one of my Japanese friends even has a special pair of gloves for packing and unpacking her suitcase, as I discovered when I travelled with her recently.

[door3344]

[jademonkey]

In Australia, people only really get a bit excitable if a snake (a real one that can kill you) comes into your house. We don't worry too much about poisonous stuff because it's everywhere.

Japanese people find the Australian bush terrifying- I went hiking with my wife and we saw 3 tiger snakes (they're lethal to humans) and a black snake (probably lethal, I don't know) in about 4 hours, which was very exciting and caused her to vow never to hike again.

[bornslippy1981]

Eating habits when it comes to fruit - no skin on apples or grapes, and using a toothpick to pick everything up.

Eating habits when it comes to vegetables - no raw carrots, celery, broccoli, etc.

[nonsmoker]

[JonnyB61]

[southofreality]

[Eva Pilot]