Table Manners – Japan

Japanese manners:

• Never place chopsticks stuck vertically into a bowl of food, as this is the traditional presentation form for an offering to one’s ancestors.
• One should wait for the host or hostess to tell you to eat three times before eating.
• Accepted practice in helping oneself to a communal dish such as a salad, is to reverse the chopsticks. However this is regarded in an all male, or casual situation, as too formal and additionally, a female habit.
• Women should cup their other hand beneath their serving when using chopsticks to convey food from dish/bowl to mouth. Men should not do this.
• In communal dining or drinking, the youngest person present should pour alcohol for the other members of the party, serving the most senior person first. The server should not pour their own drink, rather they should place the bottle of sake, beer, wine or spirits, back on the table or bar, and wait to be served by a senior. The receiver of the drink should hold up their glass/cup whilst the drink is being poured.
• One should always clean one’s hands (but not face) before dining with the hot steamed towel provided.
• Japanese soup is eaten holding the bowl to one’s mouth, never with a spoon. The exceptions to this are o-zoni, the traditional soup served on New Year’s Day; soups with noodles are served in larger bowls, such as ramen, are acceptable to eat using chopsticks, although the soup itself is still consumed from bowl to mouth.
• If something might drip onto the table while being transferred in the chopsticks, use the bowl of rice in your other hand to catch the liquid. It is important to not allow this liquid to remain, and so the discolored portion of the rice must be eaten. Rice (in a bowl) should remain white if it was served as such.
• It is usually polite to finish all sections of a meal served at around the same time. It is suggested that one should take a bite from one container, and then take a bite of rice. One should then take a bite from another container, have another bite of rice, and so forth.
• It is perfectly acceptable, and rather encouraged to make a slurping noise when eating hot noodles such as udon, ramen or soba. This is standard behavior in Japan, and Japanese maintain that inhaling air when eating hot noodles improves the flavor. One should not, however make any noise when eating soup.
• When taking a break from eating during a meal, one should place one’s chopsticks on the chopstick rest (hashi-oki) provided. A hashi-oki is usually a ceramic rectangle about four centimeters long, or in some restaurants, a halved wine cork is provided.
• It is acceptable to cradle one’s rice bowl in one hand when eating.
• One should not gesture using chopsticks.
• Never pass food from one pair of chopsticks to another. This technique is used only in Japanese Buddhist funerary rites when transferring cremated bones into an urn.
• When pouring wine or beer, the hand holding the bottle should pour forward, not backward (over the back of the hand) which is considered an insult.
• In traditional restaurants, one needs to sit in seiza, on less formal occasions sitting is also done in tailors style (Indian style) or with two legs together on one side (females-only)
• There is no tipping in Japanese restaurants.

MANNERS and ETIQUETTE:

Source: Wikipedia

Random Facts About Japan

• It’s rude to sneeze in public in Japan.
• Japanese pizza sometimes has mayonnaise, corn, and seaweed.
• Japanese salad has corn in it.
• Many Japanese people think Americans eat corn and potatoes everyday.
• Japanese subways are completely safe and always clean.
• Japanese streets are very narrow and don’t have names.
• Everyone in Japan hang their clothes out to dry.
• Japanese elementary students wear yellow caps.
• The school year begins in April, not September.
• Golden Retriever is the most popular dog in Japan.
• Adults read comic books (manga) as much as children do.
• The Japanese drive on the left side of the road, just like the British.
• The word for “rice” and “food” is the same in the Japanese language.
• In Japan it’s harder to graduate from high school, than it is to graduate from college.
• Some Japanese refer to the younger generation of Japanese as the “new human beings”.
• Most Japanese don’t have home computers – they use their cell phones instead.
• Despite cold winters, many Japanese homes still do not have central heating.
• There’s no such thing as central heat and air in Japan.
• Job resumes in Japan include a photo and a person’s age.
• The bathroom in a Japanese house isn’t where you would find a toilet.
• Traditional Japanese toilet looks like a urinal on the floor.
• Japan is 70% mountains.
• Japan is made up of over 6000 islands.
• There are wild monkeys in Japan. And they do not like to be looked at in the eye.
• The Japanese Prime Minister is elected by legislature, not by people.
• The Japanese use four different writing systems.
• A traditional Japanese breakfast consists of rice topped with natto (fermented soy beans)
• In Japan they eat squid, eel, octopus, crabs, prawns, all fish .. etc!
• The Japanese say that the Chinese will eat anything.
• In Japanese, the word for “wrong” and “different” is the same.
• In Japan, the teachers move from class to class and the students stay in one room.
• “McDonalds” in a Japanese dialect sounds like “Ma-ku-do-na-ru-do”
• Instead of “Ohayo Gozaimasu” (good morning) Japanese youngsters often say “Oha!”
• Normal Japanese kitchens don’t have ovens.
• Christianity comprises less than 10% of the Japanese population.
• In Japan, when you move into an apartment, you have to bring your own light fixtures.
• You don’t wear shoes in the house, you wear slippers.
• One US dollar is approximately 120 yen.
• Fruit is very expensive in Japan.
• There are very few public trashcans in Japan.
• In Japan, even local calls are charged by the minute.
• In Japan, you eat your soup with chopsticks.
• Many people wear uniforms i.e bank tellers, grocery store clerks, postal workers .. etc!
• Most Japanese say that they are Buddhist, but don’t believe in the Buddha.
• The “Walk” lights on Japanese street corners make a chirping sound so that the blind can know when to cross the street.
• Pokemon is not popular in Japan.
• In Japan, fair skin is regarded as beautiful.
• Many Japanese women dye their hair brown.
• Refrigerators in Japan are tiny.
• There are very few original castles in Japan because of bombing during WW2
• Japan has the seventh largest population in the world.
• The Japanese know more about American politics than American do.
• Popular Japanese music is terrible.

How to Apologize in Japan

This video by Japan Culture Lab teaches you all the different bows you need to know to survive in Japan, in the corporate world even.

PS; It’s a joke XD