r/AskAJapanese

I understand that many Japanese people only speak Japanese. But for the ones who speak more... which languages besides English? Chinese? Korean? Portuguese?

Whenever Japan gets mentioned on social media, the coment section is almost always filled with grossly exaggerated, outdated, or just completely made up bullshit about Japan like below.

"Japanese people work 12 hours on average, sleep at the company, forced to attend drinking party, can't leave office until your boss leave, zero freetime left for hobbies and it's considered completely normal"（outdated and grossly exaggerated misconception about working culture）

"Japanese people are just robots with no emotion"

"Japan's birth rate is low because japanese people are lonely overworked racist misogynistic suicidal weird perverts" （and when the topic is low birth rate in other countries it's just because of economy or something. They never say the same to other countries including the countries with lower birth rate than Japan, such as Italy, Spain, Chile, Thailand）

"used panty vending machines are everywhere in Japan"

"Japan's age of concent is 13 years old"

"Japan has extraordinarily high suicide rate"（and never say the same to countries with higher suicide rates like the US, France, Belgium or Thailand）

"Japan has uniquely high underreported rate of sexual crimes, it's worst hellhole when it comes to sexual assaults" （Japan has certainly low underreported rate of sexual crime（10〜30%） but it's the same almost everywhere in the world. （28% in the US and only 5.8% in Canada）It's not unique to Japan）

"cheating is considered completely normal in Japan"

"Japan has extraordinarily high conviction rate"

It's so weird and tiresome. I really hate how people talk about Japan like that

Hello! I just got back from my trip in Tokyo—overall, it was really fun and went better than I expected! It was my first time travelling to Japan, so I was a little nervous, but all went well :) I have nothing but good things to say about my short time there!

But I just had one *slight* issue, and I’m not sure how to phrase this properly as I’m not thoroughly well versed in Japanese culture besides surface level knowledge, so I apologize if I come off ignorant, but I noticed throughout my time there I had a lot of Japanese locals take pictures of me? Barely any foreigners, but mainly locals, mainly older crowds, but sometimes younger Japanese locals will just stop and stare me down 😅 I do know that Japan has an over tourism problem within the past decade, and a lot of locals don’t like it, especially towards more rowdier foreigners. I totally get that, so I made sure to have kept to myself as much as possible and followed all the common public etiquette.

First time this has happened was in Senso-ji Temple, when an elderly woman had come up next to me and snuck in a few photos. I didn’t even notice her because I was in the middle of conversing with a friend, and it wasn’t until minute or two when that friend had also realized she was there and pointed her way. The woman had just smiled and walked away. I was a bit frazzled, as it was only ME she took a picture of, and not my friend who was also obviously a foreigner as well. Just me. No one else.

I told another friend about this who’s been to Japan more than once and for even a longer time, and they ended up telling me it most likely has something to do with the fact I’m obviously not white. I’m brown, obviously a darker shade than your average East Asian, and the majority of Japanese society. And it explains why my other friend who travelled with me, who has a paler complexion, barely gained any looks or uncomfortable attention.

While a handful of people who’d come up to me randomly did give me compliments, it didn’t make me feel good—I don’t know how to take it? Does that make sense? Like, it felt like they were more wowed that there was a person of color that was a darker shade, than anything else like to say my hair looked nice or my clothes were cute.

Is this normal in Japan? Again, I liked my time there and the people I’ve met were so kind, I learned so much about the culture, as well as visited so many places besides Tokyo. But for such a modern country with millions of people in and out every day, it was surprising to be treated like this. I also had another incident by Shinjuku station—infamous, I am aware—around a later time where I was hounded relentlessly by those men loitering around the place. Mind you, I was just trying to walk out the station and immediately go to a restaurant to meet a friend. At some point, one of them had touched my arm and said something about my skin…I was thoroughly shaken up, to say the least, especially when I was even followed and berated to the point I had to run off.

Also, I’m not blissfully unaware that colorism and racism is an obsolete concept in our world anyway. It’s unfortunately bound to happen, but still, I can’t help but have felt very uncomfortable with the way I was looked at and treated, both by a good sum of woman and men. I’m a traveller myself and have been to multiple countries, the most I’ve experienced was a staring problem (specially in Germany and China 🙃) and, sure, I’d preferred not to be stared at, but I can learn to ignore it. Japan had been the first country to make me so unfathomably and uncomfortably aware that I am of darker skin and I stand out from everyone else.

Then again, I’m a foreigner, so everything I’ve said thus far doesn’t even matter anyway because I’m not meant to belong in Japan, besides the passing foreigner who’s there to just sightsee.

To the outside world looking in it seems like every week there is a 1000-year-old shrine being burned down. Is this a natural occurrence and just so happened to be reported in the last few months, or are there culprits behind this that are being actively investigated? It's really disheartening to see cultural structures be destroyed.

Whether it's for sports, live music concerts or something else, which stadium in Japan do you love the most?

I was in Kobe, just finished having dinner with my wife. We walked past an establishment where 2 young girls (maybe in their 20s?) were standing out front, likely to get people into the bar they work working (my assumption). When I walked past, we made eye contact for short time. After breaking eye contact and walking a little further, one said “munch munch”, then the second one said the same thing. My wife and I tried googling this and can’t really find anything that fits the context. Does anyone know what this means?

Are there certain popular time periods of Japanese history that are commonly read about or people in Japan will study outside of an academic setting and, if so, what are the most common ones? For example, I'm from the United States, and, for those interested in US history, it's not entirely uncommon to see books on the US Civil War on people's bookshelves.

I'm currently visiting Japan, and while our tour guides have been great, they have mostly worked at universities, and so I was curious to get an answer from someone not in academia.

Hello. I'm an American (25+) and grew up appreciating Japanese culture quite a bit. I learned the language and teach English to my Japanese friends. I personally feel that the naming culture in Japan, 漢字 are quite beautiful. Specifically, one that meant a lot to me was 凪(なぎ) because that meaning, I find a lot of comfort in it. I'm not sure how to explain it, but that's how I want to come across? I know it's in regards to the sea which I also have a special connection to. TLDR: I really love that word/name.

I'm an artist and expressed to my Japanese friend the conflict of trying to name myself and I casually mentioned 凪 and she said it fit and that I should use it. I always write it as ナギ because I don't want people to think I'm Japanese or pretending to be if I use the kanji.

I just don't want to be disrespectful to Japanese people and culture by using a name/word that comes from Japanese culture when I'm not Japanese. I also don't want to disrespect my Japanese friend that gave me the name either. Am I overthinking this? I'm just really worried about it.

Edit: Thank you all for your honesty and responses. I truly do appreciate you taking the time to respond.

Hello everyone, I’m currently a physics student and I have great chances of working under the wing of a Japanese nuclear engineer, for context he has a Phd as such I addressed him as such, my first language is Spanish so I tried my best to morf Spanish honorifics into English to show more respect.

But I ended up making an impression so good that he asked me to address him as momo, short for momozaki, is this as big of a deal as I’m thinking of it?

I live in Japan and often visit shrines to pray, but I realised you don’t often hear “I prayed for xx at my local shrine and 2 days later, it happened!” the way you kind of do from Christians in the west. So this is kind of just meant to be a light hearted conversation. Have you had a good outcome from praying before?

How common is belief in things such as spirits, ghosts, superstitions, yokai and cryptids? I know Japan is decently spiritual because of Shintoism being quite engrained in culture, but does it translate over to many people genuinely believing in Ghosts and Spirits?

Do many Japanese people claim to have supernatural experiences or know someone who has had one? Is it something more common with the older generation or is it equally spread out? Are there regions considered more supernatural than others or places considered taboo because of the supernatural?

Question out of curiosity, I don't know how I should flair this

Idk if this is the culture or that Japanese people want to keep things Japanese, I get that somewhat. But the sheer amount of Japanese websites I stumbled upon that doesnt allow foreigners to access or download something leaves me somewhat surprised, compared to other websites in (languages that I know)

I wanted to download DMM so I can try to play the JP version of Uma Musume, and I can only download DMM if I am in Japan

And I try to read some manga on sites, and it blocked me, I use mostly mangawalker but it uploads slower than even the pirated or raws on a monthly basis.

And I always feel guilty for reading so much pirated things because I genuinely want to support the mangaka but in my country the same manga is twice the price compared to Japan. (being a minor with an allowance of 50 a month and actively trying to save money, this is a lot)

All is unless I use VPN and I am broke so I use a free VPN, but I can't choose location (being a 10% chance I get connected to Japan at random)

I keep wondering why that's the case, why do a lot of Japanese websites seem to block foreigners from accessing or downloading their stuff, which is a bum.

I understand it when it comes to foreign/made up names, but there are times when their names have a corresponding kanji. My guess is that it could be for the sake of speed as they have to write dialogues and such, but I wanted to see if there was anything else

Asking this from a Filipino perspective since, in our country, whenever a politician or high-profile person (such as a business tycoon) gets caught in a major scandal, usually about corruption, they tend to vehementy deny it to the point of running away into hiding, or sending out "cleanup crew" to silence those who would bring the truth out and ruin their reputations. (The worst local case so far has been the fake "shootout" at the Senate, done as a distraction to let a senator that's wanted by the ICC escape arrest.)

In Japan, should such a high-profile person be found out to be involved in a similar huge scandal, what are they most likely to do?

ex. raising prices of common goods, overcrowding, littering, noise pollution, not respecting the culture, etc. or have tourists generally not changed anything economy / living-wise?

In many countries especially USA UK China, your big “end goal” in life is to buy a house/get on the property ladder. In China, it is because that used to be the default way to secure your assets value against inflation until recently. It is completely normal for your whole family to chip in to help you buy an apartment, sometimes that’s the whole reason they’ve been saving money this whole time. In the UK, the goal is to get on the “property ladder” and become a landlord (at least in the past). The sign that you made it would be if you bought a house, saved up for down payment for a bigger one, move into that one and rent out your old one and repeat. I dunno how it works in the USA but probably similar to the UK. In all of the above, the premise is that the house price will continue to increase.

I’ve heard that’s not true in Japan due to the earthquakes, houses there are built to be temporary and they depreciate over time, and are quite cheap compared to the rest of the world.

So what exactly does the Japanese citizen work for then?

First off, I want to say I did try to look in other more menstruation-focused subreddits to ask this question in first, but I found they didn't seem to have enough Japanese users/people outside Japan interested in Japanese period products that I could expect an answer.

The title is a little joke-y but I've kinda seriously been wondering, every time I go to an Asian market or beauty store here in the US I always (like actual 100% of the time) see they have a decent to small stock of Japanese period pads. This is despite the fact that I don't live in an area with a high Japanese population (though many other people of different Asian nationalities live here), so I feel it can't just be Japanese expats wanting to buy the brands they're used to.

Every time I pass by them I just can't help but wonder... How do they sell enough to keep stocking them? Who buys them? Are they like, better than domestic pads here?!?!?!

If you've tried both US brands like Always/generic store brands/etc. and the Japanese pads I'd seriously love to know your thoughts. Cause every time I walk past those isles I'm just like, "who would pay a premium for imported pads if they're not unique in some way...?"

Hi guys, I'm a Vietnamese living in Vietnam right now. I’ve always loved Japan, the culture, the food, just everything and I really want to move there in the future.

But recently, I've been seeing a lot of stuff online saying that Japanese people actually don't like Vietnamese that much. I've read the news about some Vietnamese people causing trouble, stealing things, or getting into accidents over there.

Since I've never met a Japanese person in real life, I just want to know what the reality is on the ground. When Japanese people meet a Vietnamese person, do they naturally keep their guard up? Like, are they low-key wary or hesitant around us?

I just want to know the truth so I can prepare myself mentally. Any honest thoughts or experiences would be really appreciated. Thanks!!