When in Rome, Watch T.V. テレビ

So, customs in Japan are very different from America.

     The fortunate thing about this problem is that no one can accidentally confuse me with a native Japanese person, which means that they give me extra grace and have low expectations for my adherence to cultural norms. 

     The unfortunate thing is that I have no clue what to do in different situations, and I don't even know which situations should be different from America. I know that I have already made several faux pas, and every time I do there is an awkward pause (because the poor Japanese person was not expecting that) before they politely move on as if nothing happened.  

      Although there are some great resources online in vlogs and websites about what to do/not do in Japan, they can't possibly cover all of the little things, so I am left to asking my awesome new friends (who both speak English and are willing to help me) or just watching other people to see what they do. Another great way to learn is to watch children's television. It sounds silly, but several of the things that I noticed people doing on the streets are also shown (and even explained, albeit in Japanese) on the children's t.v. because the kids don't know what to do either! So that's great when I can find it (between all of the other odd programming on my t.v.)

     In addition to habits and actions, there are several other things that have struck me as uniquely Japanese (or at least not American). Here is a short list of some of the things.

1.   Everything is smaller: rooms, kitchen tools, dishes, notebooks, gifts, food, furniture... and smaller usually means more adorable. かわいいですね！

2. Nothing wasted: there is no wasted space or wasted goods. Below is a shower/laundry room combo so that every inch of the little spaces will be well used.

3. Trash and Recycling: they are very particular about what goes where. Take for example, a water bottle. The bottle goes in plastic recycling while the cap and label go into burnables. Coffee cans into non-burnable. Here is a public receptacle in a mall to illustrate my point.

4. Katakana: there is a shocking amount of katakana EVERYWHERE. Katakana is the special alphabet that Japanese uses for borrowed foreign words. It is on the billboards of foreign restaurants like Denny's and McDonald's, but also on almost all packaging. Apparently foreign things and English are very cool. 

5. Miss-spelling: in their attempt to inundate signage and clothing (and everything else) with foreign words, they don't always get it right...

6. Fashion: stateside, you can always tell if someone has a Japanese heritage or is actually Japanese by there fashion. And the two distinct things that I have noticed about Japanese fashion is that it is always impeccable - the people here look neat and ironed no matter where they are. I also noticed that they mix a bolder color palate. Below are example wedding dresses on display in a wedding shop window. 

7. The lack of distinction between green and blue. Below is a sign giving directions to some shop that was three stoplights ahead. Notice that the "green light" is blue. The green lights on the street are all legitimately green, but signs and billboards that illustrate green lights indiscriminately switch between a green and blue hue. In Japan, they use the same word to describe both colors. It is not that they are color blind, it is just that they don't make the distinction as a culture. Interesting cultural-linguistic phenomenon. Linguistics-nerd problem.