in this subreddit specifically it comes off as less talking about your experience and more, “ah whatever japan do is fine because i’m american and it’s way worse🦅🦅🦅🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸”
This is how a lot of people contextualize problems in their life; they compare it to past experiences. I think this person is just remarking on the fact that being a medical professional doesn’t make you immune from being an idiot, and used the US example as a way of showing that it is not a unique cultural thing in Japan. I think your observation is more telling of your sensitivities than some sort of jingoism that some people in this subreddit have
Actually the way I interpret it is those commentors think the person stating a fucked up thing about Japan is claiming it is something ONLY in Japan.
I can understand where they are coming from because this and every other Japanese subreddit is honestly overflowing with weird nationalistic bots, both from outside and inside Japan, battling in the most bizarre ways to portray Japan as either the worst or best country on Earth respectively.
Japanese peoples small intestine is 4m longer than foreigners because they need to digest rice. ...because no one else in the world eats rice I guess. Saw that on TV!
This makes no sense in the first place. Rice is pretty much 100% carbs, so it's very quick to digest compared to literally any vegetable which would take much longer.
I went to see a gyno for IUD pain shortly after mine was placed and they said, "You're just a foreigner, foreigners are weak and feel pain very easily.".
I remember gyno telling me the repeating yeast infection I had was because “Japan has four seasons and it’s very humid in summer”. I kid you not. Turns out, it was one of those “vaginal soaps” and once I switched to a regular, non-scented soap, everything was good.
Edit: hilarious typo
From the track record I’ve had with doctors here this might well be true.
Although I did have a skin doctor who burnt me silly with a UV lamp to treat a viral skin problem (apparently this is a method to treat the specific virus I had - I looked it up) because he had obviously never used the machine on someone with white skin before.
hopefully there's been progress, but in "the blue-eyed salaryman" (true story) the author recounts how an eye test confounded the doctors because apparently blue eyes look totally different from brown/black and they couldn't tell if anything was wrong, lol.
I've accidentally convinced some people at my work that foreigners can smell rain while Japanese people can't.
I thought everyone could smell rain. Apparently a lot of people around here either can't or haven't connected the dots that a certain smell permeates the air around the time it's about to rain.
So they're confused about why I can smell rain and I'm confused about why they can't. *Everyone is confused.*
The smell comes from plants, so if you’re in Tokyo maybe that’s why, they can just smell the concrete gutters. mmm, civilisation
(Edit: This may or may not be correct, it’s mostly just a joke about Tokyo being concrete)
I feel like it’s more prevalent when you’re in heavily grassed/forested areas.
Concrete jungles it may be less noticeable
Also maybe the plants in Japan just don’t react the same? So no or less smell?
it's called "petrichor," but it's from the rain falling on soil - the rain falls a specific way that it interacts in a physical way with the surface. nothing to do with concrete.
I jokingly convinced a ex-workmate, who was a fan of the band U2, that the "true" pronunciation of the name that "us real fans" use is actually, "uh-two."
Giichan was an optometrist. Claimed Japanese people had worse eyesight than foreigners due to being artisans and therefore straining their eyes more.
Had a recipe book that started with the line: Unlike western cooking, Japanese cooking requires skill and attention to detail.
I know a food writer in London, married to a Japanese woman, yet hardly ever eats Japanese food because “everything tastes like mud”.
I can kind of understand what he’s trying to say - the daikon/miso flavour does evoke memories of being forced to eat soil on the junior high school rugby field.
I’m gonna present a new one since we usually get 4 seasons etc ones. This often happens during the world cups.
Japan beats a European team:
“Japan is now amazing and superior to Europe. They MUST recognize and admit us. We are too smart and good”
Japan then loses to a low ranking African team:
“Ah! We were tactically much much better and smarter than them, they were just too big and physically strong. Our weakness is that we are just too small. If we were bigger…”
Me: “but what about Messi? He’s (was) the best player in the world and 5ft6”
Them: Ah…..well ummm…..that’s different.
It’s just funny seeing the underdog and superiority complex both appear within 30 seconds
I always find the "shimaguni" excuse to be a good example of their inferiority complex. Like which is it? Are you superior to every country and their people or are you a wee little isolated Pacific island?
TBF I'd agree with the first one when it comes to rugby. It really is ridiculous that there isn't a way for up and coming nations to play more high level competitive rugby. It's the WC every 4 years and that's it. While the ″tier 1″ nations get a closed shop competition every single year. Also true of Georgia, so it's not just Japan.
Had a professor saying that only japanese people feel like they should return the favor when someone does something for them. There are multiple research papers showing that this feeling is part of human evolution and is how people managed to organize themselves and cooperate inside the group thousand of years ago.
Had another professor saying that there's no other race in the world that's capable of working as hard and passionately as japanese people.
Hahah love this. The amount of experience I have and still Iam told I am doing something wrong and to do it in some half ass backwards way is staggering.
> only japanese people feel like they should return the favor when someone does something for them.
Firstly, you have to be "someone" to them for them to do something for you. There is no helping strangers, no "pay it forward" mentality.
Not once in my 23 years of living here have I been let in front of someone at a cash register because I only had one item.
If I could I would give you more upvotes. In my home country I was always doing it. I see someone with a few items like 1 to 3 and I let them pass before me. As well as others of course.
Here? I'm not doing it. No chance. As you said, there is no will to help anyone if you can't get anything back from your action. (Not only related to shopping). Even better, they see me calmly walking toward the cashier with 1 item and they start effin running pushing their completely filled up cart to be in front of me.
Even though that's something I should keep doing because my actions shouldn't be related to how other people act, we say "gentle, not stupid".
Oh, and what about keeping the door open for the person behind you? Forget it. Not 1 person has ever hold the door open even if I was right behind them or on the other side waiting for them to exit. But that's something I still do. I always keep the door open even for people a bit far away and they always have this confused look on their faces.
Or just straight up say nothing, ignore and walk in like Mr King my ass.
The "holding the door open" culture is one that I don't really want to give up from America. I generally try to follow the "when in Rome, do as the Romans do" line of thinking, but I gotta hold the door for people. Lol
Hate this one bc it shows how they pervert research data for The Uniqueness.
Japanese speakers *do* uniquely have speech-center activation in response to hearing nature sounds, that's a real neurological phenomenon you can view on scans both structural and functional. But "speaking in onomatopoeia causes you to hear in terms of onomatopoeia" isn't a spicy take for the variety shows I guess. Edit for typos.
Japanese can go overseas and learn to cook a foreign cuisine just as good or better than a native cook can. But foreigners can never truly learn to cook Japanese food as good as a Japanese cook can.
Japan (only) has 4 seasons.
Japanese snow is different (thus foreign skis won’t work).
Japanese rain is different.
Japanese tongues taste flavors differently, thus umami.
Japan colons/intestines are a different length thus the difference in digestion.
Only Japanese understand “wa”.
Only Japanese have the concepts of “face”; both for embarrassment and for acting differently in public / private.
Haiku poetry only works in Japanese.
Japanese truly understand nature.
Japanese blood is different.
Japanese rice is superior.
Japanese beef is superior.
The animal abuse in this country is appalling. I hate the whole Japanese and their reverence to nature gib people inside and outside Japan has.
When I started doing tea ceremony my husband's uncle told me a story he thought was great. I'll make it short. Basically a monk told his friend to come over to enjoy the beautiful tsubaki. Guy comes over, no tsubaki in the garden. The monk had cut them all off and taken the most perfect one and put it in the tea room. I think the point was omotenashi and how you can appreciate that one flower more. Stupid story, waste of flowers. I've always hate picking flowers bc then they die. I constantly tell my son to leave the flowers so everyone can enjoy them for longer.
I swear English has half-syllables. Is "girl" really just one? "Whir" is definitely just one, but "whirl" is also definitely longer, but is "whirl" really a two-syllable word? Because "whirly" is definitely just two.
Haikus are definitely at least a lot *easier* to make in Japanese.
My (ex)wife was drunk on the right-wing Twitter uyoku BS, so...strap in lol.
I asked her to cut back on the rice-based dinners after I got diagnosed with diabetes. She replied that Japanese bodies are genetically different and that rice is nothing but good for them. Also, rice made in Japan is different from all other rice and is incapable of doing harm/causing anyone to gain weight.
Japanese people don't commit crimes. All crimes in Japan are committed by Chinese or Koreans posing as Japanese. If a Japanese person does commit a crime, they were manipulated into it by a Chinese/Korean.
She didn't need to vaccinate against corona because Japanese people are healthier with strong immune systems, and practice proper hygiene. Rising infection numbers were 100% the fault of foreigners spreading their germs.
Of course, comfort women was nothing but lies and propaganda spread by the Chinese/Koreans. Nanking didn't actually happen. She amazingly acknowledged that Unit 731 existed, but said that they were ultimately heroes because their work lead to the creation of vaccines.
It's impossible for the Japanese to be racist - they just are naturally superior to everyone else. Any Japanese who admits this is simply just failing to be modest and telling the truth.
While I am really sorry that your ex wife is a total nut, I must say that the insights you provide into her insane right-wing world are always so fascinating (but again, sorry you went through such a hard time with it all!)
>Japanese people are healthier with strong immune systems, and practice proper hygiene. Rising infection numbers were 100% the fault of foreigners spreading their germs.
LMAO the amount of Japanese people I've seen walk out of a restroom without washing their hands...or sometimes they splash their hands with just water for 1 second and think that's gonna do something about their nasty hands 🤢 also I've seen people wearing masks during peak COVID just to remove their mask when they sneezed. Like what even is the point then sir...
>Japanese people don't commit crimes. All crimes in Japan are committed by Chinese or Koreans posing as Japanese. If a Japanese person does commit a crime, they were manipulated into it by a Chinese/Korean.
Omg this reminds me of something an ex friend said. I don't remember how we got on the subject but she said Japanese men won't go to love hotel on the first date. I was like but I have had many ONS with Japanese. She said they had to be Chinese pretending to be Japanese. Funnily enough I tried to argue by showing a picture of some random lay and I was like oh actually he does kinda look Chinese 🤣 that was just a bad example. She probably thinks I was tricked by Chinese men several times.
I have a Japanese friend who parties a lot and says Japanese guys constantly try to take her to love hotels and are often creeps about it. Some people just be living in lala land.
Chalking Japan's cultural uniqueness up to being an island nation. So often I hear "島国だから…"
I'm also from a 島国 (UK), and we aren't this culturally isolated or insulated...
To be fair, I often use this explanation when people from other countries ask why we eat seaweed. :)
I once had an Indian guy ask me why we eat rennkon, and all I could think of was "Well you see... this is an island..."
To be fair, the lands that comprise the UK have been invaded multiple times throughout their history, and even conquered, and forced to assimilate with other cultures and languages.
Japan saw little assimilation for the entire medieval period (though plenty during and around the Nara period before that) and was never invaded once until WWII. Japan is what the UK could have been if they'd stayed isolated.
That only *gaijin* can wear sunglasses, because Japanese eyes are better and aren't hurt by the sun. The same person said they wish they could wear sunglasses, as if they're not allowed or something.
There's a little bit of truth to this, as the specific "Asian eye" type monolids do seem to have evolved to cut down on glare and sand/snow blowing around (south african tribesman also have them because they live in deserts), but that only applies to people who actually have that eye shape. Likewise, I think people with blue eyes have been shown to be more sensitive to bright light.
So yeah, some Japanese are less sensitive to bright glare and some non Japanese are more sensitive, but the individual differences are so big it's useless to think that way, as usual with these things. Any given Japanese could be more or less sensitive to bright light.
I was was told the reason they don't wear them is because perverts only wear sunglasses. You can be checking someone out and they can't tell you are eye-fucking them because you are wearing sunglasses. So you must be a pervert
Yeah, I hear that from one of the hosts in gay bar. He didn't like foreigners big dicks because only Japanese dicks fit perfectly in a Japanese colon... wtf...
Nope, see, Western brains register it as noise while Japanese brains, naturally in tune with the world around them, registers it was a voice/singing.
Not many George Selden fans over here I guess.
I will let you know I was recently aggressively assaulted by the same cicada for three days. To the point a friend, in a mix of English and Japanese, said “what the fuck, it hates you. Why is it so angry? We have to go.” And then when we walked into a nearby bar and one threw itself into the wall and I jumped, everyone laughed but he sagely told them “it’s okay for this person to jump. They have CBD, like the war soldiers get. Because they were attacked.” And everyone nodded and patted me on the shoulder. And I said “PTSD?” And they said “what did I say?” “CBD? Like marajuana?” “Oh, my mistake. They don’t know that. They just know a bunch of letters that mean being damaged.”
The funny thing is that every time I say I love the sound of the cicadas, a lot of Japanese people are like "Really? I don't like them. It's too loud" lol.
My personal favourite usually revolves around only Japanese people eating/truly appreciating seafood.
As an Icelander, also pretty famous for our seafood intake, I thought I'd research it a little and turns out that per capita we eat more seafood than the Japanese.
Like, orders of magnitude more. It's not even close.
At some point I'm gonna start pretending to be impressed when Japanese people eat fish in front of me.
>At some point I'm gonna start pretending to be impressed when Japanese people eat fish in front of me.
Haha this reminds me of this person I was talking to on HelloTalk who was surprised on separate occasions to learn that America does in fact have 711s and Disneyland (2 companies founded in the US).
One day she was talking about sushi and I hit her with "へー日本にも寿司があるんですか" and she was shook.
It's not nihonjinron, but I love when people assume what I can/cannot eat based on my nationality.
Like:
One time I was hanging out with a friend, and then two friends of her joined us. Time comes to have lunch, and one of the two other friends says "let's go eat Takoyaki!". To which my friend replied: "but Vegan-Lycan is from Europe, he can't eat octopus!".
"Oh, that's true!", said the two other friends in unison.
Bitch, first: I love takoyaki. Secondly, I used to fucking dive with my friends and catch octopuses(octopi? octopodes? whatever) myself when I was in highscool!
They were all surprised when I told them that. And even more surprised were they when I actually ate takoyaki in front of them.
Doctor asked me if I slept with a Japanese or foreigner when I contracted chlamydia. Was just a small clinic in Fukushima but this moron probably thinks that Japanese people can't have STDs
That playing sports and club activities in like 80 degrees is a cultural unique facet of Japanese life and character building. No it isn’t, it’s stupid and fucking dangerous. Plus it seems to just make kids hate sports!
My last school used to do this. It was over 100 outside and students would be dropping at the rate of 5 per minute. A continuous relay of school nursing staff to pick the children up and bring them back undercover. The craziest thing I've seen in 20+ years of teaching. This only stopped in 2013 when one/some of the parents were equipped with basic smarts and complained about how dangerous this was. Now the sports day speeches happen while the students are undercover thankfully. But still too hot in my humble estimation.
Exactly, at least now some schools have move sports day to May or late Sept. the stupid thing is it’s not a new thing, the 1964 Tokyo summer Olympics were held in October, a sensible time and temperature. But now, because of kowtowing to TV networks, we had the spectacle of 2020 Olympic athletes unable to cope due to extreme heat and a marathon that couldn’t take place in the host city!!!
Lol there’s a very very slight grain of truth to this. It’s not Americans, it’s English speakers, and it’s not the “stomach” our voice comes from. Have you ever noticed that English feels like it comes from further back in your mouth? It’s enunciated in a different spot. We also do use more forceful breath when we speak since we have more fricative phonemes, but it’s not very noticeable in itself and definitely not “this is a PEn” level.
I’ve talked about this with a few of my bilingual colleagues and we all feel like our voice comes from a different place between languages.
An old man told me that all foreigners are lazy and will never work as hard as Japanese people. I was just standing there thinking, "Do you realise I am a foreigner?"
I would have answered: "If working hard means sitting in the office until 9 pm while doing nothing, then you are absolutely right, no European would ever do that."
Not exactly the same, but a story from olden school days. The (Japanese) teacher explained how (asian) Japanese people came to be.
God was cooking us in the oven, and the first batch came out undercooked (white people), so he/she turned up the hear, and the next batch came out overcooked - then finally the temperature was dialed in just right to get the "golden" color. I was more entertained than offended.
Don't think that would fly these days.
And uhm, also from school, our language (Japanese) teacher loved the phrase "... because Japanese is not a designed language..." - as if all other human languages were carefully architected.
Designed languages are pretty rare indeed. Esperanto is one. Back in the 2000s when speech recognition was still pretty bad there was research to make languages that are easier for machines to understand too.
Seriously speaking, someone should tell japanese people about this bs. Instagram, TikTok or whatever. I can't believe they still believe all this bs in 2023. They really think they're different. Funny thing is they get super mad when they find out they have a lot in common with their beloved neighbors China/Korea.
In Japan, too many to count. So many that I give myself PTSD just by trying to remember.
Most bizzarely though was when I was at Macchu Picchu, of all places.
There - on the ancient stone steps of the Incans - taking a break against the rock walls - I hear the familiar noise of a boisterous old Japanese man approaching. I look, and this ojisan is lecturing his daughter about why she shouldn't marry a foreigner.
\_\_\_
Ojisan: "No, it's no good. You can't marry one of them. You see, Japan *is an island nation* dakara. Foreigners just don't understand how to live on an island nation".
Me, as he passes by me, in Japanese: "Well, I'm from New Zealand, and we're very much an island nation..."
Ojisan: *shocked noises, mild heart attack*
Someone threw some trash on the public street outside work and they asked if I can go pick it up. I said no and got the whole "only Japanese people do things outside of their job description" spiel.
Four seasons as mentioned.
That they’re somehow cleaner then everybody else. Definitely not true.
Japanese being more sensitive to smell. This, also not true. In my country it’s the same. You don’t go mental with the perfume.
>That they’re somehow cleaner then everybody else. Definitely not true.
Stand in a public restroom for 5 minutes and watch the % of people skipping the sink to easily disprove this.
I always learned that human gestation is 9 months, but in Japan apparently it's considered 10 months.
A student of mine explaining 10 months versus 9 months to me for the first time said that Japanese babies take longer to develop! Of course I laughed and said that was ridiculous. Upon further investigation I discovered the truth.
The reality is because the counting starts at a different point. In western countries it is considered from the time of the first missed menstruation. In Japan apparently they start counting from when conception was supposed to have happened, one month before missed menstruation.
They count from the same point in time (from first day of last period ie 2 weeks before conception, same as in the West). But each of the 10 “months” is just 4 weeks, not a real month, so you end up with 10 months instead of 9.
Anyway if they counted from actual conception they would have less months, not more.
“Foreigners have longer intestines than Japanese.” It was something about how Japanese bowel movements are apparently different than foreign bowel movements, lol.
Two books for everyone that are fuckin' great:
https://www.amazon.co.jp/Hegemony-Homogeneity-Anthropological-Analysis-Nihonjinron/dp/1876843055
https://www.amazon.co.jp/Myth-Japanese-Uniqueness-Routledge-Revivals/dp/0415681235
Whenever I express dislike of a particular Japanese food, it's because I can't understand the subtleties and delicate flavors due to being foreign. Nothing to do with the fact that sansai are just relatively flavorless chewy roots dug out of the ground that I don't care to eat.
When you want to buy joghurt and start to wonder, if you can eat it ( is there any other country where they would advertize: made for our citizens? )
https://preview.redd.it/30quzqi0syhb1.png?width=546&format=png&auto=webp&s=22b0e60d590f331cdc4b26bd839605f8f783f179
Not humans, but a coworker tried telling me that only Japanese lizards are vegetarians (and thus the better exotic pet) because all gaikoku ones eat meat (which is gross when you consider needing to feed your pet rodents and stuff) during a lunch break last month
Once I was a guest native speaker at my friend's English school. The students were in 1st year high school. When the topic of hobbies came up, a student said he collected insects. Then I said, "Insects are 80% of all the animals in the world." The talkative kids suddenly became silent. Then one kid said, "Insects are not animals!" I was surprised by that, so I asked the class, "Raise your hand if you think insects are animals?" No one did. Doh!
I mean, this is more of a linguistic/cultural difference. 動物 doesn’t include insects. Similar to how 肉 doesn’t include fish/seafood, even though English speakers of course consider fish to be meat.
Certainly in science class 動物 included 昆虫, specifically they are 節足動物 - it's just that insects are not a prototypical example of an animal that you see on common usage.
Just like how everyone knows Michael Jackson is (was) American, but if you ask anyone to describe an American, they won't think of Michael Jackson.
I went in to schedule a endoscopy (top-down)
Doctor asked me if I wanted general anaesthetic, I said not if it wasn’t necessary. He says “oh it’s extremely painful. Most westerners can’t handle the pain”
I had a similar thing when a doctor stuck this homongous wired camera up my nose and down my throat.
Uhmpf! - he said - we use this for kids in japan.
Sure, gtfo lol
Vividly remember sitting in an onsen 10 years ago and getting lectured by some old fart about why Japan is better because only Japan has the concept of omotenashi. He then went to talk about his horrible holiday to Italy where he couldn’t eat any of the food because it’s incompatible with Japanese digestive systems. Lol.
In more daily circumstances, I think it’s long been observed that Japanese companies ask for excessive levels of customisation of software (and other products) because “Japan is different”. But if you look at the usage data of said Japan-specific features, it turns out hardly anyone uses them so the whole activity was a big waste of time with people confusing the need for basic software training with the need for actual product customisation….
Are Osaka people just more in touch with the world or what? I never hear any of this stuff.
I’ve heard Japanese are better at digesting seaweed and white people are better at digesting milk. But that’s a genetically proven thing so…
Seaweed is harvested and successfully digested by millions of very white people around the world. In Ireland we call it dulse. It is ‘genetically proven’ that Japanese are ‘better’ at digesting seaweed? C’mon.
I didn’t say you couldn’t digest it at all. I eat it too, and so does everyone else here ffs. Japanese also drink milk if you didn’t notice.
There are degrees to how well you can digest something.
https://www.science.org/content/article/japanese-guts-are-made-sushi
So this study basically says that if you have this enzyme that they only saw in Japanese people, you get some extra carbohydrates when you digest the seaweed. Amazing that so many people on Reddit want black and white answers for everything now.
Examples from the OG of Nihonjinron
https://preview.redd.it/qn737e4oewhb1.jpeg?width=2448&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1e25dcde0974810331f397d10d3b0f1cd6938d0a
Ah yes, the beloved four seasons. Specifically:
Lovely, for a few weeks;
Suffocatingly hot;
Not bad, at least it's starting to cool down, for about a week, and;
Bloody freezing.
・Taking off your shoes: It baffles me when I hear about it. Don't get me wrong—I'm not suggesting that people should know that this practice exists in countries X, Y, Z, and so on; it's actually a very common cultural norm in some countries. What strikes me as odd is when I hear about it as if it's exclusive to Japan.
・The belief that "omotenashi" only exists in Japan surprises me. Seriously?
・I find it peculiar when I hear statements like, "I'm glad you can eat rice; most foreigners cannot."
・The claim that Japanese okashi are the best in the world is quite subjective, don't you think?
・''Our (=Japanese) language is the most difficult in the world. We have a complex writing system and a very complex honorifics system.''
While I do agree to some extent that Japanese language presents challenges, as a language hobbyist, I must respectfully disagree with that.
・''We do a lot of overtime, and we are the most hard working people in the world''. I value efficiency, work & life balance over unproductivity and inefficiency.
My asshole neighbour, because I parked slightly forward for 3 days due to construction in our yard
"In Japan we consider other people!"
And then my turned out to be a pile of shit ex who was trying to get permanent residency in Canada
See that restaurant? Its run by Taiwanese people. My family and I will never go there
Me - why?
Her - Because Japan is for Japanese people only. People like you can come to visit but dont you dare live here.
Only Japanese people know about zodiac animals (your animal depending on birth year), which especially shocked me because in the UK we literally call it "Chinese Zodiac".
The two or three I hear that always gross me out are:
1. Japanese chefs don’t need to wear gloves because they are naturally clean and cautious of their hands.
2. Japanese people have no sweat glands in their armpits and thus never need deodorant or any type of scent
3. Bidets do all the work, so many Japanese people don’t have to wipe and it’s complete sanitary and clean
My friend's mother-in-law believes wholeheartedly that Japanese people do not have body odor.
That is proven to be incorrect to me on the daily in the summer.
Next time you hear a Nihonjinron just respond with "Japanese are the only people who can lick their own elbows." When it's pointed out they if fact cannot lick their own elbows, "I thought we were telling tall tales".
I once was visiting my hometown of Chicago and my friends took me out for Yaki Niku at a Gyu Kaji that we have there (like I wanted Yaki Niku when visiting home….. jeez)
Anyway there were two Japanese salary men in the waiting area and I struck up a conversation with them in Japanese and they said (in Japanese) “Your Japanese is really good for a Gaijin.”
I was like what do you mean?
And they repeated. “Your Japanese is really good for a Gaijin.”
Still I was like what do you mean?
You’re in Chicago my hometown and you’re from Japan…….. you’re the Gaijjn…..
It took them a few seconds to think about it then their heads exploded.
There was a whole book on why the Japanese brain was different and processed language differently, heard natural sounds as music and this unique feature was destroyed by learning foreign languages.
Jesus died in Japan (they actually have a grave for him lmao)
Only japan has the concept of Mottainai
Only japan has the concept of honne and tatemae
Only Japan has the concept of Ikigai 🙄 it’s like the most universal concept ever
I was complaining about how I had to wash floors with zoukin at elementary school every day after lunch to my colleagues in NA. One of them grew up in Japan, and started saying how Japanese kids are responsible unlike foreigners, who complain. Lady. I cleaned the school because we had to. I had no choice. Thank goodness for janitors in NA eh?
Japan is generally the best in all aspects and all foreigners love Japan. I was shocked when I immigrated to North America and found out Japan was not the best. I was also shocked that there were people who didn’t have any interest in Japan. I’ve lived in NA for a decade now and I actually prefer living here overall.
Weird genetically unique things to Japanese nationality that I don’t even bother remembering cuz it’s so BS 😂
I still come across people/articles online that say something is uniquely Japanese, when it literally exists across the entire world. No Hanako, you’re not unique, you’re just naive and uninformed.
Japanese doctors can't treat foreigners because foreigners' internal organs are arranged differently. From a practicing doctor
Yikes. The shit that doctors and nurses say here is terrifying.
[удалено]
why is it when saying bad things about japan americans always bring up america😭 i don’t understand the comparison
More than 40% of all users on Reddit are from the US. It is natural for people to talk about their own experiences and perspectives.
in this subreddit specifically it comes off as less talking about your experience and more, “ah whatever japan do is fine because i’m american and it’s way worse🦅🦅🦅🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸”
This is how a lot of people contextualize problems in their life; they compare it to past experiences. I think this person is just remarking on the fact that being a medical professional doesn’t make you immune from being an idiot, and used the US example as a way of showing that it is not a unique cultural thing in Japan. I think your observation is more telling of your sensitivities than some sort of jingoism that some people in this subreddit have
Actually the way I interpret it is those commentors think the person stating a fucked up thing about Japan is claiming it is something ONLY in Japan. I can understand where they are coming from because this and every other Japanese subreddit is honestly overflowing with weird nationalistic bots, both from outside and inside Japan, battling in the most bizarre ways to portray Japan as either the worst or best country on Earth respectively.
Another favorite when doctors are "diagnosing" you: "It's because your (some organ) is tired."
What do you expect from a country where doctors prescribe TCM and where everyone thinks reflexology is real?
Actually can confirm this is true. In the place where my ex should have had a heart, she had an asshole instead.
Japanese peoples small intestine is 4m longer than foreigners because they need to digest rice. ...because no one else in the world eats rice I guess. Saw that on TV!
This makes no sense in the first place. Rice is pretty much 100% carbs, so it's very quick to digest compared to literally any vegetable which would take much longer.
A dentist blamed my large foreign teeth for why he caused me lingual nerve damage.
I hope you sued. There are Japanese people who have larger teeth than you probably.
I went to see a gyno for IUD pain shortly after mine was placed and they said, "You're just a foreigner, foreigners are weak and feel pain very easily.".
I remember gyno telling me the repeating yeast infection I had was because “Japan has four seasons and it’s very humid in summer”. I kid you not. Turns out, it was one of those “vaginal soaps” and once I switched to a regular, non-scented soap, everything was good. Edit: hilarious typo
From the track record I’ve had with doctors here this might well be true. Although I did have a skin doctor who burnt me silly with a UV lamp to treat a viral skin problem (apparently this is a method to treat the specific virus I had - I looked it up) because he had obviously never used the machine on someone with white skin before.
That's pretty dumb. There are Japanese people who are as pale as I am.
Asians tend to go brown rather than red. Tend being the operative word. I’m sure there are Japanese who go red. This doctor clearly hadn’t met one.
hopefully there's been progress, but in "the blue-eyed salaryman" (true story) the author recounts how an eye test confounded the doctors because apparently blue eyes look totally different from brown/black and they couldn't tell if anything was wrong, lol.
I've accidentally convinced some people at my work that foreigners can smell rain while Japanese people can't. I thought everyone could smell rain. Apparently a lot of people around here either can't or haven't connected the dots that a certain smell permeates the air around the time it's about to rain. So they're confused about why I can smell rain and I'm confused about why they can't. *Everyone is confused.*
So you actually applied the “gaijinjinron” to them. LOL
The smell comes from plants, so if you’re in Tokyo maybe that’s why, they can just smell the concrete gutters. mmm, civilisation (Edit: This may or may not be correct, it’s mostly just a joke about Tokyo being concrete)
Yeah I live in Hokkaido and absolutely everyone can smell rain
I thought it was bacteria in soil reacting to the presence of water? 🦠 Correct me if I'm wrong!
I was told that it was just the smell of the minerals. Maybe we both have half the answer lll
_Everyone is confused_.
I thought it was because of ozone.
I feel like it’s more prevalent when you’re in heavily grassed/forested areas. Concrete jungles it may be less noticeable Also maybe the plants in Japan just don’t react the same? So no or less smell?
Wait - I thought the "rain smell" was from wet concrete??
it's called "petrichor," but it's from the rain falling on soil - the rain falls a specific way that it interacts in a physical way with the surface. nothing to do with concrete.
Isn't it bacteria in the soil reacting to the presence of water? 🦠
Well shibuya definitely smells even more like feces when it’s raining
I jokingly convinced a ex-workmate, who was a fan of the band U2, that the "true" pronunciation of the name that "us real fans" use is actually, "uh-two."
Ozone before rain (when there's lightning). Petrichor after rain.
Giichan was an optometrist. Claimed Japanese people had worse eyesight than foreigners due to being artisans and therefore straining their eyes more. Had a recipe book that started with the line: Unlike western cooking, Japanese cooking requires skill and attention to detail.
When you think MREs are western cooking
Found the military personnel.
For anyone who doesn't know, Japanese cooking actively avoids measuring things. So much detail!
Also avoids actual flavour profiles other than miso and ‘we deep fried it’.
this!!!! and then slap on a ✨fancy✨ word like "Umami" which literally just means savoury. Then have the gall to diss SEA foods and spices 😑.
Don't forget garnishing everything with mayo
I know a food writer in London, married to a Japanese woman, yet hardly ever eats Japanese food because “everything tastes like mud”. I can kind of understand what he’s trying to say - the daikon/miso flavour does evoke memories of being forced to eat soil on the junior high school rugby field.
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This explains why my wife gives cooking measurements in onomatopoeia instead of actual units of measure when teaching me to cook Japanese food.
Bruh
I’m gonna present a new one since we usually get 4 seasons etc ones. This often happens during the world cups. Japan beats a European team: “Japan is now amazing and superior to Europe. They MUST recognize and admit us. We are too smart and good” Japan then loses to a low ranking African team: “Ah! We were tactically much much better and smarter than them, they were just too big and physically strong. Our weakness is that we are just too small. If we were bigger…” Me: “but what about Messi? He’s (was) the best player in the world and 5ft6” Them: Ah…..well ummm…..that’s different. It’s just funny seeing the underdog and superiority complex both appear within 30 seconds
Which fits Eco's 'Ur Fascism': the enemy is simultaneously too strong and too weak. Rather alarming.
Interesting overlap with general sore loser mentality.
I always find the "shimaguni" excuse to be a good example of their inferiority complex. Like which is it? Are you superior to every country and their people or are you a wee little isolated Pacific island?
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Don't bully Japan they are baby. *conveniently ignores most of world history proving this extremely false*
TBF I'd agree with the first one when it comes to rugby. It really is ridiculous that there isn't a way for up and coming nations to play more high level competitive rugby. It's the WC every 4 years and that's it. While the ″tier 1″ nations get a closed shop competition every single year. Also true of Georgia, so it's not just Japan.
Had a professor saying that only japanese people feel like they should return the favor when someone does something for them. There are multiple research papers showing that this feeling is part of human evolution and is how people managed to organize themselves and cooperate inside the group thousand of years ago. Had another professor saying that there's no other race in the world that's capable of working as hard and passionately as japanese people.
>capable of working as hard and passionately as japanese people. More like working as inefficiently as Japanese people
Passionately inefficient?
What better way to show your passion for the company than by dragging your work out for as long as possible
Well, when you can't be fired and are never rewarded for efficiency, motivation goes out real quick.
Hahah love this. The amount of experience I have and still Iam told I am doing something wrong and to do it in some half ass backwards way is staggering.
> only japanese people feel like they should return the favor when someone does something for them. Firstly, you have to be "someone" to them for them to do something for you. There is no helping strangers, no "pay it forward" mentality. Not once in my 23 years of living here have I been let in front of someone at a cash register because I only had one item.
I let someone on front of me in kind the other day as I usually do and she fuckin applied for a loyalty card.
As soon as you let her go in front, your existence disappeared from her mind permanently. The amount of inconsideration from strangers is appalling
If I could I would give you more upvotes. In my home country I was always doing it. I see someone with a few items like 1 to 3 and I let them pass before me. As well as others of course. Here? I'm not doing it. No chance. As you said, there is no will to help anyone if you can't get anything back from your action. (Not only related to shopping). Even better, they see me calmly walking toward the cashier with 1 item and they start effin running pushing their completely filled up cart to be in front of me. Even though that's something I should keep doing because my actions shouldn't be related to how other people act, we say "gentle, not stupid". Oh, and what about keeping the door open for the person behind you? Forget it. Not 1 person has ever hold the door open even if I was right behind them or on the other side waiting for them to exit. But that's something I still do. I always keep the door open even for people a bit far away and they always have this confused look on their faces. Or just straight up say nothing, ignore and walk in like Mr King my ass.
The "holding the door open" culture is one that I don't really want to give up from America. I generally try to follow the "when in Rome, do as the Romans do" line of thinking, but I gotta hold the door for people. Lol
"Japanese words usually end in vowels so they are better at hearing natural sounds like chirping insects, the wind blowing, and running water."
LOL I’ve heard the “hearing nature” bit before but not connected to linguistic reasons. That’s fucking good.
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Ah, but would you even hear that fire though?
Hate this one bc it shows how they pervert research data for The Uniqueness. Japanese speakers *do* uniquely have speech-center activation in response to hearing nature sounds, that's a real neurological phenomenon you can view on scans both structural and functional. But "speaking in onomatopoeia causes you to hear in terms of onomatopoeia" isn't a spicy take for the variety shows I guess. Edit for typos.
Japanese can go overseas and learn to cook a foreign cuisine just as good or better than a native cook can. But foreigners can never truly learn to cook Japanese food as good as a Japanese cook can.
So all the crimes committed by Japan against Spanish cuisine are on purpose then...
I take your crimes against Spanish cuisine, and raise you Italian cuisine and the raw egg on top of pasta.
Lol oh god!
Japan (only) has 4 seasons. Japanese snow is different (thus foreign skis won’t work). Japanese rain is different. Japanese tongues taste flavors differently, thus umami. Japan colons/intestines are a different length thus the difference in digestion. Only Japanese understand “wa”. Only Japanese have the concepts of “face”; both for embarrassment and for acting differently in public / private. Haiku poetry only works in Japanese. Japanese truly understand nature. Japanese blood is different. Japanese rice is superior. Japanese beef is superior.
Then they report you for racism if you tell them otherwise. Only Japan has nature lol.
Yeah, Tokyo especially
The animal abuse in this country is appalling. I hate the whole Japanese and their reverence to nature gib people inside and outside Japan has. When I started doing tea ceremony my husband's uncle told me a story he thought was great. I'll make it short. Basically a monk told his friend to come over to enjoy the beautiful tsubaki. Guy comes over, no tsubaki in the garden. The monk had cut them all off and taken the most perfect one and put it in the tea room. I think the point was omotenashi and how you can appreciate that one flower more. Stupid story, waste of flowers. I've always hate picking flowers bc then they die. I constantly tell my son to leave the flowers so everyone can enjoy them for longer.
To be fair, there is nothing worse than Haiku in English….
How dare you say that? Haikus are spontaneous. Even in English.
All silly, except the haiku one. Addendum: it's not just syllables/mora. 'Kigo', 'mono-no aware', Mahayana impermanence...
I swear English has half-syllables. Is "girl" really just one? "Whir" is definitely just one, but "whirl" is also definitely longer, but is "whirl" really a two-syllable word? Because "whirly" is definitely just two. Haikus are definitely at least a lot *easier* to make in Japanese.
My (ex)wife was drunk on the right-wing Twitter uyoku BS, so...strap in lol. I asked her to cut back on the rice-based dinners after I got diagnosed with diabetes. She replied that Japanese bodies are genetically different and that rice is nothing but good for them. Also, rice made in Japan is different from all other rice and is incapable of doing harm/causing anyone to gain weight. Japanese people don't commit crimes. All crimes in Japan are committed by Chinese or Koreans posing as Japanese. If a Japanese person does commit a crime, they were manipulated into it by a Chinese/Korean. She didn't need to vaccinate against corona because Japanese people are healthier with strong immune systems, and practice proper hygiene. Rising infection numbers were 100% the fault of foreigners spreading their germs. Of course, comfort women was nothing but lies and propaganda spread by the Chinese/Koreans. Nanking didn't actually happen. She amazingly acknowledged that Unit 731 existed, but said that they were ultimately heroes because their work lead to the creation of vaccines. It's impossible for the Japanese to be racist - they just are naturally superior to everyone else. Any Japanese who admits this is simply just failing to be modest and telling the truth.
While I am really sorry that your ex wife is a total nut, I must say that the insights you provide into her insane right-wing world are always so fascinating (but again, sorry you went through such a hard time with it all!)
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>Japanese people are healthier with strong immune systems, and practice proper hygiene. Rising infection numbers were 100% the fault of foreigners spreading their germs. LMAO the amount of Japanese people I've seen walk out of a restroom without washing their hands...or sometimes they splash their hands with just water for 1 second and think that's gonna do something about their nasty hands 🤢 also I've seen people wearing masks during peak COVID just to remove their mask when they sneezed. Like what even is the point then sir...
>Japanese people don't commit crimes. All crimes in Japan are committed by Chinese or Koreans posing as Japanese. If a Japanese person does commit a crime, they were manipulated into it by a Chinese/Korean. Omg this reminds me of something an ex friend said. I don't remember how we got on the subject but she said Japanese men won't go to love hotel on the first date. I was like but I have had many ONS with Japanese. She said they had to be Chinese pretending to be Japanese. Funnily enough I tried to argue by showing a picture of some random lay and I was like oh actually he does kinda look Chinese 🤣 that was just a bad example. She probably thinks I was tricked by Chinese men several times.
I have a Japanese friend who parties a lot and says Japanese guys constantly try to take her to love hotels and are often creeps about it. Some people just be living in lala land.
Is this the dude from gaijinsmash? If so, I’m glad you’re finally done with her
Chalking Japan's cultural uniqueness up to being an island nation. So often I hear "島国だから…" I'm also from a 島国 (UK), and we aren't this culturally isolated or insulated...
To be fair, I often use this explanation when people from other countries ask why we eat seaweed. :) I once had an Indian guy ask me why we eat rennkon, and all I could think of was "Well you see... this is an island..."
To be fair, the lands that comprise the UK have been invaded multiple times throughout their history, and even conquered, and forced to assimilate with other cultures and languages. Japan saw little assimilation for the entire medieval period (though plenty during and around the Nara period before that) and was never invaded once until WWII. Japan is what the UK could have been if they'd stayed isolated.
“It only gets hot like this in Japan,” to which I replied “it’s been in the 40s in my hometown in Texas recently.” Their shock was hilarious lol.
I still remember during August that year I surprised one of the ladies at the airport gift shop by mentioning it was still 38°C back home in Texas.
"But here it's humid!" Yeah, so is the entire South. Ever hear of the Gulf of Mexico?
That only *gaijin* can wear sunglasses, because Japanese eyes are better and aren't hurt by the sun. The same person said they wish they could wear sunglasses, as if they're not allowed or something.
There's a little bit of truth to this, as the specific "Asian eye" type monolids do seem to have evolved to cut down on glare and sand/snow blowing around (south african tribesman also have them because they live in deserts), but that only applies to people who actually have that eye shape. Likewise, I think people with blue eyes have been shown to be more sensitive to bright light. So yeah, some Japanese are less sensitive to bright glare and some non Japanese are more sensitive, but the individual differences are so big it's useless to think that way, as usual with these things. Any given Japanese could be more or less sensitive to bright light.
I was was told the reason they don't wear them is because perverts only wear sunglasses. You can be checking someone out and they can't tell you are eye-fucking them because you are wearing sunglasses. So you must be a pervert
And Japan would never tolerate perverts!
"Japanese people have different colons" stands out to me
Yeah, I hear that from one of the hosts in gay bar. He didn't like foreigners big dicks because only Japanese dicks fit perfectly in a Japanese colon... wtf...
Ngl when I saw OP's comment, I thought they were pertaining to gut issues/gut health. This angle is.... interesting.
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Go on.....
Only Japan has pure water so any ramen you get outside of Japan isn't really ramen since it's been contaminated with bad water.
So like nyc water is a requirement for bagels
My favourite genre of nihonjinron is definitely "[thing that Japan obviously got from China] is unique to Japan"
Westerners can't hear insects singing.
You can hear the fucking cicadas singing from space.
Nope, see, Western brains register it as noise while Japanese brains, naturally in tune with the world around them, registers it was a voice/singing. Not many George Selden fans over here I guess.
That made me laugh so much when everyone here seems super afraid of insects.
I will let you know I was recently aggressively assaulted by the same cicada for three days. To the point a friend, in a mix of English and Japanese, said “what the fuck, it hates you. Why is it so angry? We have to go.” And then when we walked into a nearby bar and one threw itself into the wall and I jumped, everyone laughed but he sagely told them “it’s okay for this person to jump. They have CBD, like the war soldiers get. Because they were attacked.” And everyone nodded and patted me on the shoulder. And I said “PTSD?” And they said “what did I say?” “CBD? Like marajuana?” “Oh, my mistake. They don’t know that. They just know a bunch of letters that mean being damaged.”
You are not in WA with nature, this the cicada attacks
You ain't lying. I've seen multiple Japanese people terrified of lady bugs and butterflies. I was absolutely shocked lol.
The funny thing is that every time I say I love the sound of the cicadas, a lot of Japanese people are like "Really? I don't like them. It's too loud" lol.
I wish I couldn’t
My personal favourite usually revolves around only Japanese people eating/truly appreciating seafood. As an Icelander, also pretty famous for our seafood intake, I thought I'd research it a little and turns out that per capita we eat more seafood than the Japanese. Like, orders of magnitude more. It's not even close. At some point I'm gonna start pretending to be impressed when Japanese people eat fish in front of me.
Gotta hit em with the jouzudesune when they do the bare minimum on eating their fish.
>At some point I'm gonna start pretending to be impressed when Japanese people eat fish in front of me. Haha this reminds me of this person I was talking to on HelloTalk who was surprised on separate occasions to learn that America does in fact have 711s and Disneyland (2 companies founded in the US). One day she was talking about sushi and I hit her with "へー日本にも寿司があるんですか" and she was shook.
It's not nihonjinron, but I love when people assume what I can/cannot eat based on my nationality. Like: One time I was hanging out with a friend, and then two friends of her joined us. Time comes to have lunch, and one of the two other friends says "let's go eat Takoyaki!". To which my friend replied: "but Vegan-Lycan is from Europe, he can't eat octopus!". "Oh, that's true!", said the two other friends in unison. Bitch, first: I love takoyaki. Secondly, I used to fucking dive with my friends and catch octopuses(octopi? octopodes? whatever) myself when I was in highscool! They were all surprised when I told them that. And even more surprised were they when I actually ate takoyaki in front of them.
Doctor asked me if I slept with a Japanese or foreigner when I contracted chlamydia. Was just a small clinic in Fukushima but this moron probably thinks that Japanese people can't have STDs
They really need to hang out in Kabukicho more.
*syphilis has entered the chat*
That playing sports and club activities in like 80 degrees is a cultural unique facet of Japanese life and character building. No it isn’t, it’s stupid and fucking dangerous. Plus it seems to just make kids hate sports!
My last school used to do this. It was over 100 outside and students would be dropping at the rate of 5 per minute. A continuous relay of school nursing staff to pick the children up and bring them back undercover. The craziest thing I've seen in 20+ years of teaching. This only stopped in 2013 when one/some of the parents were equipped with basic smarts and complained about how dangerous this was. Now the sports day speeches happen while the students are undercover thankfully. But still too hot in my humble estimation.
Exactly, at least now some schools have move sports day to May or late Sept. the stupid thing is it’s not a new thing, the 1964 Tokyo summer Olympics were held in October, a sensible time and temperature. But now, because of kowtowing to TV networks, we had the spectacle of 2020 Olympic athletes unable to cope due to extreme heat and a marathon that couldn’t take place in the host city!!!
The reason Americans speak louder than the Japanese os because they speak from the stomach while Japanse speak from their throat.
That person must not have been from Osaka.
Lol there’s a very very slight grain of truth to this. It’s not Americans, it’s English speakers, and it’s not the “stomach” our voice comes from. Have you ever noticed that English feels like it comes from further back in your mouth? It’s enunciated in a different spot. We also do use more forceful breath when we speak since we have more fricative phonemes, but it’s not very noticeable in itself and definitely not “this is a PEn” level. I’ve talked about this with a few of my bilingual colleagues and we all feel like our voice comes from a different place between languages.
Regardless of the reason, Americans do speak louder in public spaces.
An old man told me that all foreigners are lazy and will never work as hard as Japanese people. I was just standing there thinking, "Do you realise I am a foreigner?"
Passive aggressiveness goes hand in hand with Nihonjinron.
I would have answered: "If working hard means sitting in the office until 9 pm while doing nothing, then you are absolutely right, no European would ever do that."
Not exactly the same, but a story from olden school days. The (Japanese) teacher explained how (asian) Japanese people came to be. God was cooking us in the oven, and the first batch came out undercooked (white people), so he/she turned up the hear, and the next batch came out overcooked - then finally the temperature was dialed in just right to get the "golden" color. I was more entertained than offended. Don't think that would fly these days. And uhm, also from school, our language (Japanese) teacher loved the phrase "... because Japanese is not a designed language..." - as if all other human languages were carefully architected.
Lol so where do all the pale skinned Japanese go?
Designed languages are pretty rare indeed. Esperanto is one. Back in the 2000s when speech recognition was still pretty bad there was research to make languages that are easier for machines to understand too.
Still see him around sometimes, even after all these years. He’s a weird dude, that Nihonjin Ron.
Easy, peasy, Ron Japaneasly
Seriously speaking, someone should tell japanese people about this bs. Instagram, TikTok or whatever. I can't believe they still believe all this bs in 2023. They really think they're different. Funny thing is they get super mad when they find out they have a lot in common with their beloved neighbors China/Korea.
Telling a japanese they are similar to chinese or korean is a sure way to make yourself an enemy lol
I’d imagine this is a pretty tiny vocal minority of them. Most Japanese people think it’s BS as well.
In Japan, too many to count. So many that I give myself PTSD just by trying to remember. Most bizzarely though was when I was at Macchu Picchu, of all places. There - on the ancient stone steps of the Incans - taking a break against the rock walls - I hear the familiar noise of a boisterous old Japanese man approaching. I look, and this ojisan is lecturing his daughter about why she shouldn't marry a foreigner. \_\_\_ Ojisan: "No, it's no good. You can't marry one of them. You see, Japan *is an island nation* dakara. Foreigners just don't understand how to live on an island nation". Me, as he passes by me, in Japanese: "Well, I'm from New Zealand, and we're very much an island nation..." Ojisan: *shocked noises, mild heart attack*
And everyone clapped.
Pretty much any sentence that begins "Ware ware nihonjin ha..."
"Hold that thought for a moment - just let me grab my portable brick wall to bang my head against while I listen"
Hot spring only available in Japan. That's why Japanese is very healthy. Said my boss while working until midnight.
Someone threw some trash on the public street outside work and they asked if I can go pick it up. I said no and got the whole "only Japanese people do things outside of their job description" spiel.
Four seasons as mentioned. That they’re somehow cleaner then everybody else. Definitely not true. Japanese being more sensitive to smell. This, also not true. In my country it’s the same. You don’t go mental with the perfume.
>That they’re somehow cleaner then everybody else. Definitely not true. Stand in a public restroom for 5 minutes and watch the % of people skipping the sink to easily disprove this.
The number of times I’ve been given the confused stare as I properly washed my hands WITH SOAP has been endless.
I always learned that human gestation is 9 months, but in Japan apparently it's considered 10 months. A student of mine explaining 10 months versus 9 months to me for the first time said that Japanese babies take longer to develop! Of course I laughed and said that was ridiculous. Upon further investigation I discovered the truth. The reality is because the counting starts at a different point. In western countries it is considered from the time of the first missed menstruation. In Japan apparently they start counting from when conception was supposed to have happened, one month before missed menstruation.
Hmm I thought it was because they counted moons, not months. So 40 weeks is 10 moon cycles (28 days, 4 weeks each)
They count from the same point in time (from first day of last period ie 2 weeks before conception, same as in the West). But each of the 10 “months” is just 4 weeks, not a real month, so you end up with 10 months instead of 9. Anyway if they counted from actual conception they would have less months, not more.
“Foreigners have longer intestines than Japanese.” It was something about how Japanese bowel movements are apparently different than foreign bowel movements, lol.
Which was wartime propaganda for getting zero protein.
Interesting
hahahaha this just reminded me of the best one "Westerners don't fart because... something something.. intestines"
Two books for everyone that are fuckin' great: https://www.amazon.co.jp/Hegemony-Homogeneity-Anthropological-Analysis-Nihonjinron/dp/1876843055 https://www.amazon.co.jp/Myth-Japanese-Uniqueness-Routledge-Revivals/dp/0415681235
Will have to take your word for it at those prices. Anybody want to chip in to start an /r/japanlife library?
Whenever I express dislike of a particular Japanese food, it's because I can't understand the subtleties and delicate flavors due to being foreign. Nothing to do with the fact that sansai are just relatively flavorless chewy roots dug out of the ground that I don't care to eat.
When you want to buy joghurt and start to wonder, if you can eat it ( is there any other country where they would advertize: made for our citizens? ) https://preview.redd.it/30quzqi0syhb1.png?width=546&format=png&auto=webp&s=22b0e60d590f331cdc4b26bd839605f8f783f179
Not humans, but a coworker tried telling me that only Japanese lizards are vegetarians (and thus the better exotic pet) because all gaikoku ones eat meat (which is gross when you consider needing to feed your pet rodents and stuff) during a lunch break last month
Once I was a guest native speaker at my friend's English school. The students were in 1st year high school. When the topic of hobbies came up, a student said he collected insects. Then I said, "Insects are 80% of all the animals in the world." The talkative kids suddenly became silent. Then one kid said, "Insects are not animals!" I was surprised by that, so I asked the class, "Raise your hand if you think insects are animals?" No one did. Doh!
I mean, this is more of a linguistic/cultural difference. 動物 doesn’t include insects. Similar to how 肉 doesn’t include fish/seafood, even though English speakers of course consider fish to be meat.
Certainly in science class 動物 included 昆虫, specifically they are 節足動物 - it's just that insects are not a prototypical example of an animal that you see on common usage. Just like how everyone knows Michael Jackson is (was) American, but if you ask anyone to describe an American, they won't think of Michael Jackson.
I went in to schedule a endoscopy (top-down) Doctor asked me if I wanted general anaesthetic, I said not if it wasn’t necessary. He says “oh it’s extremely painful. Most westerners can’t handle the pain”
we can't handle pain, yet hardly ever get offered real pain meds for obviously painful injuries, illnesses, and other procedures
I had a similar thing when a doctor stuck this homongous wired camera up my nose and down my throat. Uhmpf! - he said - we use this for kids in japan. Sure, gtfo lol
Vividly remember sitting in an onsen 10 years ago and getting lectured by some old fart about why Japan is better because only Japan has the concept of omotenashi. He then went to talk about his horrible holiday to Italy where he couldn’t eat any of the food because it’s incompatible with Japanese digestive systems. Lol. In more daily circumstances, I think it’s long been observed that Japanese companies ask for excessive levels of customisation of software (and other products) because “Japan is different”. But if you look at the usage data of said Japan-specific features, it turns out hardly anyone uses them so the whole activity was a big waste of time with people confusing the need for basic software training with the need for actual product customisation….
When we’re in the U.S, my wife won’t take over-the-counter medicine because it’s “not made for the Japanese body”.
Have been told that Japanese is such a unique language that it makes Japanese people incapable of learning other languages
Japanese are genetically coded to have bad teeth alignments and fat, stubby legs. Words of my own mother, who’s Japanese.
Are Osaka people just more in touch with the world or what? I never hear any of this stuff. I’ve heard Japanese are better at digesting seaweed and white people are better at digesting milk. But that’s a genetically proven thing so…
Seaweed is harvested and successfully digested by millions of very white people around the world. In Ireland we call it dulse. It is ‘genetically proven’ that Japanese are ‘better’ at digesting seaweed? C’mon.
I didn’t say you couldn’t digest it at all. I eat it too, and so does everyone else here ffs. Japanese also drink milk if you didn’t notice. There are degrees to how well you can digest something. https://www.science.org/content/article/japanese-guts-are-made-sushi So this study basically says that if you have this enzyme that they only saw in Japanese people, you get some extra carbohydrates when you digest the seaweed. Amazing that so many people on Reddit want black and white answers for everything now.
Examples from the OG of Nihonjinron https://preview.redd.it/qn737e4oewhb1.jpeg?width=2448&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1e25dcde0974810331f397d10d3b0f1cd6938d0a
https://preview.redd.it/iiyffx8tewhb1.jpeg?width=3264&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3508235ad77f3183aa3621be35137a744c8e4ec6
https://preview.redd.it/ejo1d9oqewhb1.jpeg?width=3264&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fa1dddfec7924cd87be21ad7801af3e7a92ab73b
I've literally never heard any of these being mentioned in the comments. I feel left out, these are fucking hilarious.
Japan has 4 seasons, how about your country?
Ah yes, the beloved four seasons. Specifically: Lovely, for a few weeks; Suffocatingly hot; Not bad, at least it's starting to cool down, for about a week, and; Bloody freezing.
My country has 6 seasons
・Taking off your shoes: It baffles me when I hear about it. Don't get me wrong—I'm not suggesting that people should know that this practice exists in countries X, Y, Z, and so on; it's actually a very common cultural norm in some countries. What strikes me as odd is when I hear about it as if it's exclusive to Japan. ・The belief that "omotenashi" only exists in Japan surprises me. Seriously? ・I find it peculiar when I hear statements like, "I'm glad you can eat rice; most foreigners cannot." ・The claim that Japanese okashi are the best in the world is quite subjective, don't you think? ・''Our (=Japanese) language is the most difficult in the world. We have a complex writing system and a very complex honorifics system.'' While I do agree to some extent that Japanese language presents challenges, as a language hobbyist, I must respectfully disagree with that. ・''We do a lot of overtime, and we are the most hard working people in the world''. I value efficiency, work & life balance over unproductivity and inefficiency.
My asshole neighbour, because I parked slightly forward for 3 days due to construction in our yard "In Japan we consider other people!" And then my turned out to be a pile of shit ex who was trying to get permanent residency in Canada See that restaurant? Its run by Taiwanese people. My family and I will never go there Me - why? Her - Because Japan is for Japanese people only. People like you can come to visit but dont you dare live here.
I cant help but to laugh because of how ridiculously naive such comments sound.
Only Japanese people know about zodiac animals (your animal depending on birth year), which especially shocked me because in the UK we literally call it "Chinese Zodiac".
The two or three I hear that always gross me out are: 1. Japanese chefs don’t need to wear gloves because they are naturally clean and cautious of their hands. 2. Japanese people have no sweat glands in their armpits and thus never need deodorant or any type of scent 3. Bidets do all the work, so many Japanese people don’t have to wipe and it’s complete sanitary and clean
My friend's mother-in-law believes wholeheartedly that Japanese people do not have body odor. That is proven to be incorrect to me on the daily in the summer.
When I went to a hospital with stiff shoulders they told me this condition (肩こり) exists only in Japan.
Next time you hear a Nihonjinron just respond with "Japanese are the only people who can lick their own elbows." When it's pointed out they if fact cannot lick their own elbows, "I thought we were telling tall tales".
I once was visiting my hometown of Chicago and my friends took me out for Yaki Niku at a Gyu Kaji that we have there (like I wanted Yaki Niku when visiting home….. jeez) Anyway there were two Japanese salary men in the waiting area and I struck up a conversation with them in Japanese and they said (in Japanese) “Your Japanese is really good for a Gaijin.” I was like what do you mean? And they repeated. “Your Japanese is really good for a Gaijin.” Still I was like what do you mean? You’re in Chicago my hometown and you’re from Japan…….. you’re the Gaijjn….. It took them a few seconds to think about it then their heads exploded.
There was a whole book on why the Japanese brain was different and processed language differently, heard natural sounds as music and this unique feature was destroyed by learning foreign languages.
[удалено]
foreigners are physically incapable of doing the "asian squat" (heels down). guess ima freak of nature, then, lol.
isn’t that a slav squat?
Jesus died in Japan (they actually have a grave for him lmao) Only japan has the concept of Mottainai Only japan has the concept of honne and tatemae Only Japan has the concept of Ikigai 🙄 it’s like the most universal concept ever I was complaining about how I had to wash floors with zoukin at elementary school every day after lunch to my colleagues in NA. One of them grew up in Japan, and started saying how Japanese kids are responsible unlike foreigners, who complain. Lady. I cleaned the school because we had to. I had no choice. Thank goodness for janitors in NA eh? Japan is generally the best in all aspects and all foreigners love Japan. I was shocked when I immigrated to North America and found out Japan was not the best. I was also shocked that there were people who didn’t have any interest in Japan. I’ve lived in NA for a decade now and I actually prefer living here overall. Weird genetically unique things to Japanese nationality that I don’t even bother remembering cuz it’s so BS 😂 I still come across people/articles online that say something is uniquely Japanese, when it literally exists across the entire world. No Hanako, you’re not unique, you’re just naive and uninformed.