When we westerners think of Japan, we see cherry blossoms next to Mount Fuji, hear the never-ending nightlife in Tokyo, and taste sushi, of course. We idolize this country and its unique culture, dreaming of visiting it one day or even moving there, if only for a little while.
But as the online project Japan On shows, living in the Land of the Rising Sun can take some time to get used to. While sharing pictures and videos submitted by the locals, it reveals all the (little) things that are normal in Japan but rather unusual in other places around the world. Continue scrolling and check them out!
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Or just go to restaurants on your own where you live.
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It’s not stigmatised in Western countries either. People way overthink how much people will give a damn about it.
I'm definitely overthinking it! Until now I've only managed to have a drink or coffee alone but I'm sure noone really cares! I need to find the confidence to eat alone too
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I eat alone in restaurants all the time and prefer it. Half the people I see are also alone. Granted I'm probably not "normal" but this would be one of my least abnormal traits .
I do it too as well. I don’t eat out very often but when I do half of the times I am alone.
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This used to be the norm when I was travelling for work. It was a case of eat alone or don't eat, so I ate alone. :)
When I had foot surgery and couldn't make lunch for my husband anymore I got sick of him eating fast food. He was too embarrassed to go to any of the sit down places by himself. I had to remind him he is a grown man and when I had to travel for work not only was I terrified of flying, I did it alone and then had to go find a restaurant to eat alone. I was not going to eat crap food in a stressful situation. I wanted to sit down and be served. Now he realizes it's nicer to sit in Bob Evans for a club sandwich and iced tea alone than to eat Taco Bell in the car when it's 90f out.
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I was blissfully single for 10 years - I ate alone a lot. People though it was odd and I can't figure out why. I am hungry, it's cheaper to go out than to cook for 1, and I could get whatever I want. I do not understand a lot of American customs at all - and I was born here.
I was a waitress and bartender since I was 18. We had a lot of young men and women in the pubs for cheaper food come in by themselves. So it was easy for me to see it as normal.
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i mostly eat alone. i'm usually the only one doing so, or maybe, if there's a crowd, there may be another one or two of us. but it's not the usual thing. i don't think it's stigmatized, just....not done by very many of us...
It’s normal everywhere, it’s people’s reactions and judgements that aren’t.
I do this in the UK. Really couldn't care if people think I'm weird, I love food and my own company!
I eat alone at restaurants all the time here in the US, I've never felt odd or uncomfortable about it.
I've been eating often alone in different european countries. Sometimes it needed kind of overcoming for me but I never felt strange
But I eat out all the time alone in the USA. Is that abnormal? Never had anyone tell me it is.
Nothing wrong with eating alone. I had to do it frequently when sent away with work. I just took a good book along and enjoyed my meal - no problems at all.
we should normalise this in Europe too.. i am so sick of feeling super judged only because i have no friends to hang out for a meal once in a while...
Who is judging and why judge someone for eating alone? Where in Europe does this happen? I've been to France and Germany, where I have eaten alone. I'm really curious now, because I live in Canada and never thought anything was wrong with eating alone or going to a show alone.
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We introverts say, "So what?" The extroverts have panic attacks. :)
It should be normal everywhere. Sometimes you need your solo moments.
Who says it's not normal everywhere? Granted that I don't go to restaurants alone when on my free time, but I used to have work trips pre-pandemic and would eat alone all the time and also see lots of other people eat alone too. And I used to have lunch alone often too in a restaurant, because sometimes everybody else is busy when you have time for lunch and vice versa. Grow up people, when you have a job, you don't have a buddy to hold your hand all the time.
And to soften my comment a bit before anyone is hurt, I mean if you don't want to eat alone in restaurant, that's totally fine but don't judge people who do. Eating is something we need to do to live. There was a girl working in the same place I did. She ate in the toilet. We had a decent break room just few steps away but she preferred to sit on the bowl and nibble a sandwich (there were breadcrumbs and cucumber slices on the floor after her).
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I love eating alone but I’m always interrupted by someone either approaching me or maybe assuming I want companionship and start chatting away. Book, tablet, headphones, paperwork don’t matter, I don’t make eye contact but I guess people think I look lonely? I try to look busy but it does not work!
I love eating alone in a restaurant. I always take a book to read while I eat and so enjoy that alone time. American, by the way.
I don't understand why people have such a problem doing this. If I'm hungry, I'm hungry.
When I'm hungry, I eat. I don't need people for this task. I've pretty much got a handle on it.
I live in the US and go to eat by myself. We don't have cute little diners, so sometimes the staff wants to rush a single out to get a group of 3 or 4 in there, but it works.
False claim. Eating along in fast food, ramen, beef bowl, or isakeya (Japanese pub) is normal. Eating along in other places is not. You'll be treated as misfit if you eat along in a B.B.Q restaurant.
It's normal anywhere else. Nowhere in the world will people disturb you if you're eating by yourself.
I remember going to a movie alone for the first time (Canadian) and lots of weird looks from people... I don't get it, sometimes I wanna do something by myself, or sometimes friends are unavailable and I still wanna do something. Who cares if someone is alone, doesn't mean they are lonely and doesn't mean they want company
I travel a lot for work, so I’m honestly more comfortable eating in a restaurant alone than with company.
I went to the zoo by myself this year. I'm married, in my 40s no kids and just needed some time to myself. I wonder what people thought of me. Lol! It's great exercise, get a membership and it's cheaper than a gym. I also wore a mask the entire time. Gotta protect the under 12!
I eat out alone all the time. And all over the world over 2 decades. It's normal in a lot of places.
I used to treat myself on payday with a new book and a steak dinner. By myself. I miss that.
To learn more about Japan, I contacted the person behind Japan On, Vazer, and Gina Bear, a travel blogger who taught English in this mysterious country.
Vazer said they have been to many places around the world but no country amazed them as much as Japan. "It is very difficult to point out a moment in my life where my fascination for Japan started but I can say that I was interested in Asian culture since I was very little when watching anime, movies and having many Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Philippine friends who introduced me to many things from traditional to pop culture things from these countries," they told Bored Panda.
When Vazer came to Japan, they were supposed to be there for three months but one week before leaving, they ended up in Kyoto during the cherry blossom season.
"Walking through the Gion district and the famous temples ... filled with cherry blossoms as well as watching the energy and happiness of people enjoying Hanami (cherry blossom viewing) was the most beautiful scene I have ever seen. So a trip that was supposed to be 3 months ended up being a permanent stay."
After moving to Japan, Vazer traveled to many places but they kept getting surprised every time they went somewhere they had never been to before. "Even though it is the same country, every prefecture and city has its own uniqueness (food, architecture, history, traditions, festivals, etc). Also, since Japan (mainly in bigger cities) keeps changing day by day and it has many small and hidden things that most people around the world do not know about, it is very difficult to get bored in Japan if you keep exploring every corner."
Vazer said single-handedly running Japan On (with the occasional help of their friends) has been a fun, interesting, and extremely busy ride.
"I never expected that this small project which is just filmed from my phone would become so big, especially in a short time, so I am very thankful to everyone that has supported JapanON. Everyone's support is what keeps me going, even though, currently, I have been focusing on Instagram and TikTok only. I have bigger projects coming that will be revealed in time to give my supporters a better experience of Japan.
Tipping is saying 'this job is so low you can't possibly be paid well enough' so yeah...pretty bad
Gina Bear was 12 years old when she fell in love with this special corner of the world. "I was surfing the internet after I realized the animations I was watching were from Japan," Gina told Bored Panda. "I went to my local library and checked out a travel book on Japan. I was amazed by all the beautiful places in the country and fell head over heels in love with the Land of the Rising Sun."
"When I was 17, I had a student economics teacher who told me about the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program. He told me they invited teachers from all over the world to live and work in Japan. I set my sights on university and graduated with a bachelor's degree in English and a minor in TESOL. After graduation, I was invited to teach English on the JET Program and lived in Okinawa from July 2012 to July 2015."
During her 3 years there, Gina had noticed so many differences between Japan and the Western World. "I lived in Okinawa and even though it was the cheapest prefecture to live in, Japan is still very expensive. Since it is mostly a 'cash is king' society, it's also a bit harder to keep track of your expenditures," she explained.
"Another big difference is with so many cultural and societal expectations, I often felt like a bull in an expensive China shop."
"I was also not okay with some of the safety precautions that didn't exist," Gina added. "Okinawa constantly gets hit with typhoons. We had a typhoon so bad one year it blew over cars, knocked down trees, killed people, destroyed power lines, and caused landslides. But the logic behind going to work is, 'If the buses are running, we should go to work.' That was one of the most dangerous times I had to walk to school and even then, it was still storming. Honestly, I feel in America, if a situation was that bad and people had to go to work in those conditions, that is a lawsuit waiting to happen."
My experience (UK) is especially during rush hour - we commuters like silence as first thing in the morning we're asleep and coming home we're knackered. It's the non-rush hour travellers and tourists who are chatty.
When it comes to romance, Gina said something that immediately reminded me of Earthquake Bird, a 2019 movie based on a novel of the same name by Susanna Jones in which Alicia Vikander plays a young Swedish female expat living in Tokyo.
"As a foreign woman, dating in Japan was a major culture shock to me. I came to find Japanese men aren't very assertive," the travel blogger recalled. "They also prefer to date Japanese women (not all, but most). If you didn't fit the bill of a stereotypical very thin foreigner, with blonde hair and blue eyes, they also weren't interested. Dating in Japan as a foreign woman is a huge nightmare."
Another thing Gina couldn't get used to as a woman was if she wore tops (like she normally would in America), passers-by would look at her "as a piece of meat."
"Most Japanese women cover their tops to their necks and cover their shoulders," she explained. "In addition, they also wear very short shorts. I didn't feel comfortable dressing like this and I could never find clothes that fit me in the country."
Throughout her stay, Gina could also never get used to people refusing to get involved in a dire situation. "One time, my 16-year-old sister and I were being followed by a perverted old man at a public festival in Kyoto. Every time we walked away from him, he would come closer and closer. There was even a point where he was breathing down my back and it was super traumatizing because people created a ring around us to distance themselves from the situation, but never helped," she said.
"It would have helped us greatly if someone had told the creep to back away from us and not be so close."
Are car stackers not common around the world? They're pretty common in Australia too.
And almost always you'll find a shrine on top of department stores (which bought the land the shrine was originally built on)
Now that she has had time to reflect, Gina thinks being quiet was actually what took her the longest to adapt to. "Japanese speak very quietly even at pubs and izakayas. Even in public, you're expected to keep your voice down so you don't disturb others. At first, it really freaked me out Japan was so quiet, but I eventually got used to it and I learned to like and appreciate the consideration Japanese have for others."
The traveler also remembered how the Japanese save energy. "When I arrived at Narita International Airport, I didn't expect there not to be air conditioning in certain places in the airport. Also, at my school, instead of running the A/C as most buildings would in America, they would turn it off when they weren't in the room. This meant that when it finally came time to use the classroom, they would turn on the air five minutes before and we would all melt during the morning meeting."
If you want to learn more about Japan, visit Gina Bear's blog where she has extensively described her experience of living there.
“Most” is stretching it big time, although I lived outside major urban areas when I was there, so it could be a city vs non-city thing.
This is all about perspective! It's a corner of the building which is shaped like a triangle...
Japan is beautiful indeed, seriously, it's an amazing place. But please, please, please.... Stop assuming no other country in the world has the same or similar perks. Also, do not generalise. A "foreigner" in Japan can also be a Korean, for example, different culture, yes, but with enough similarities to make many of these things no big deal. Also, some places in Europe, a.k.a "The Western World" are surprisingly similar to Japan as well. I repeat, I do love Japan, but I'm tired of this trend of putting Japan on a pedestal. It gives us non-Japanese people a bad image, really. Because all this romantisation makes us all seem naive and oblivious. End of rant.
Yep, Japan is a very idealised country. It’s no worse or better than most places really.
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Why is it always Japan in these type of lists???? I don't understand. Look I love Japan, I've been there and I dream of going back, but please stop romanticizing it like it's the dreamland or something. I'd love to see "Cool things about Finland" or literally any other country.....
I feel the authors left out a whole load of things that are normal in Japan!
26 Neato Things About Japan; 34 Beautiful Facts About Belgium; 19 Quaint Inns in the Irish Countryside; 54 Reasons Americans Are Fat Trash And Should Die Slowly From B******e Spiders; 23 Italian Beaches To See Before You Die...
I'm spending way too much time trying to guess what type of US spiders BP censored. Badarsse Spiders?
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Safety of raw eggs largely depends on health and living conditions of birds that lay them--maybe Japan has different standards?
Load More Replies... Wow, their is allot of false information and fear monger in this going on by commenting and by just this post alone on Japan. I’ll tell you right now, they DO NOT take kindly to pedophiles or pervs. You should do a little research on all the gadgets alone they have on stopping pervs, not to mention all the notices everywhere as you travel along the train system, you will see them. Japan has a no holds barred policy on this stuff.and I’ve heard of some stories of people getting messed up from being pervs on trains during rush hour getting busted. The misinformation on this post is just Bligh. Idk who TF ‘Gina’ is but I call bs on her Japan blog.
You only put in positive ones, and some of them aren't even completely true or normal.
A lot of similarities with Taiwan. Then again, Taiwan was a Japanese colony from 1895 to 1945...
This notion that Japan is so much cleaner than American cities bugs me because our cities are sooooo much cleaner than they used to be. But I realized three reasons why Tokyo seems so much more polished than say, Boston, even though there is no trash in the streets of Boston anymore: (1) No leaves. The Japanese cities depicted have practically no roadside trees. That's not a good thing. (2) Smoother streets. I looked this up: Tokyo's average January lows are 35 degrees (2C), comfortably above freezing. Boston's are 22 degrees (-7C). Ice permeates the cracks in the streets, and when it gets well below freezing (asphalt retains heat), it expands and cracks the road, allowing for more ice to infiltrate, until you get enough potholes the streets become blotchy patchworks of asphalt as they are repaired. And the last one seems odd to write, but it just struck me: (3) The city of Boston itself writes a ton of symbols and codes on its streets, making them appear to be covered in graffiti.
I'm going to say it... the streets maybe clean but they look devoid of greenery
Japan is filled with parks. Everywhere you go, you're within walking distance (or a couple of stops on the subway) from parks that make anything in North America look like amateur hour.
Load More Replies... As an American, it's confusing and jarring that a)there's no tipping b) there doesn't appear to be ice in drinks c) no mention of people saying "How are you?"
So many people commenting like they're Japan experts after reading a Buzzfeed listicle or whatever. lol
Japan is beautiful indeed, seriously, it's an amazing place. But please, please, please.... Stop assuming no other country in the world has the same or similar perks. Also, do not generalise. A "foreigner" in Japan can also be a Korean, for example, different culture, yes, but with enough similarities to make many of these things no big deal. Also, some places in Europe, a.k.a "The Western World" are surprisingly similar to Japan as well. I repeat, I do love Japan, but I'm tired of this trend of putting Japan on a pedestal. It gives us non-Japanese people a bad image, really. Because all this romantisation makes us all seem naive and oblivious. End of rant.
Yep, Japan is a very idealised country. It’s no worse or better than most places really.
Load More Replies... Why is it always Japan in these type of lists???? I don't understand. Look I love Japan, I've been there and I dream of going back, but please stop romanticizing it like it's the dreamland or something. I'd love to see "Cool things about Finland" or literally any other country.....
I feel the authors left out a whole load of things that are normal in Japan!
26 Neato Things About Japan; 34 Beautiful Facts About Belgium; 19 Quaint Inns in the Irish Countryside; 54 Reasons Americans Are Fat Trash And Should Die Slowly From B******e Spiders; 23 Italian Beaches To See Before You Die...
I'm spending way too much time trying to guess what type of US spiders BP censored. Badarsse Spiders?
Load More Replies... Safety of raw eggs largely depends on health and living conditions of birds that lay them--maybe Japan has different standards?
Load More Replies... Wow, their is allot of false information and fear monger in this going on by commenting and by just this post alone on Japan. I’ll tell you right now, they DO NOT take kindly to pedophiles or pervs. You should do a little research on all the gadgets alone they have on stopping pervs, not to mention all the notices everywhere as you travel along the train system, you will see them. Japan has a no holds barred policy on this stuff.and I’ve heard of some stories of people getting messed up from being pervs on trains during rush hour getting busted. The misinformation on this post is just Bligh. Idk who TF ‘Gina’ is but I call bs on her Japan blog.
You only put in positive ones, and some of them aren't even completely true or normal.
A lot of similarities with Taiwan. Then again, Taiwan was a Japanese colony from 1895 to 1945...
This notion that Japan is so much cleaner than American cities bugs me because our cities are sooooo much cleaner than they used to be. But I realized three reasons why Tokyo seems so much more polished than say, Boston, even though there is no trash in the streets of Boston anymore: (1) No leaves. The Japanese cities depicted have practically no roadside trees. That's not a good thing. (2) Smoother streets. I looked this up: Tokyo's average January lows are 35 degrees (2C), comfortably above freezing. Boston's are 22 degrees (-7C). Ice permeates the cracks in the streets, and when it gets well below freezing (asphalt retains heat), it expands and cracks the road, allowing for more ice to infiltrate, until you get enough potholes the streets become blotchy patchworks of asphalt as they are repaired. And the last one seems odd to write, but it just struck me: (3) The city of Boston itself writes a ton of symbols and codes on its streets, making them appear to be covered in graffiti.
I'm going to say it... the streets maybe clean but they look devoid of greenery
Japan is filled with parks. Everywhere you go, you're within walking distance (or a couple of stops on the subway) from parks that make anything in North America look like amateur hour.
Load More Replies... As an American, it's confusing and jarring that a)there's no tipping b) there doesn't appear to be ice in drinks c) no mention of people saying "How are you?"
So many people commenting like they're Japan experts after reading a Buzzfeed listicle or whatever. lol
