Won't Miss #503 - the "insult and smile"

It wasn't the least bit uncommon for Japanese people to say rude things about me to one another in Japanese. In some cases, I think they felt I could not understand and, in others, I think they didn't care if I did. It happened with such regularity that I started to take it in stride. That being said, there was another level of this behavior which did make me angry and that was when people would say something rude about me to a compatriot and then turn around and notice I was looking at her (it was always a "her") and then smile sweetly and nod at me as if exercising some sort of courtesy or kindness to the dumb foreigner.

This sort of nastiness followed by some sort of fake niceness was far worse than the casual rudeness that people indulged in at my expense and I do not miss it. 

Won't Miss #494 - being hung up on (a lot)

Wrong numbers are a fact of life in any country. The main difference between getting a call from someone who is confused or dials incorrectly in Japan as compared to the U.S. is that, if you answer in English, and I always did because that was the language I expected my callers to speak, you will more often than not be immediately hung up on. This isn't just because you are speaking English as salespeople (and NTT, damn their souls to a purgatory in which someone tries to sell them something they want and then never follows through, is the worst) will start blabbing on in Japanese even if you have the audacity to say "hello". It is because people think it is okay to be rude to foreigners or because they are so shocked that they panic and slam the phone down (perhaps they fear gaijin cooties being transmitted through the phone lines). Seriously though, I got very tired of people who mistakenly called me and didn't have the courtesy to say, "I'm sorry" (gomennasai/ ごめんなさい) or "I made a mistake" (shitsurei shimashita/失礼しました｡) before disconnecting. The worst ones would not only call and hang up on me, but then they'd do it again with the same mistaken number and hang up once more without a word.

I won't miss wrong callers simply hanging up on me without so much as an "I'm sorry."

Won't Miss #487 - wide stances

There are signs on Japanese trains telling people not to sit with their legs open wide because it is so common for men to sit as if it were imperative that they keep there knees as far apart from each other as a couple of angry, violence-prone weasels. My boss once expressed his frustration with these men by remarking that he'd love to ask them if their testicles were swollen. I am in no way exaggerating when I say that they are sitting to occupy the maximum amount of space possible on crowded trains. Japanese men seem to display this territorial body language much more often than men I've seen in America. Well, it's either the fact that they do it more often or I noticed it a lot more because in the context of the smaller, more densely packed areas of Tokyo, it seems far more inappropriate and selfish behavior.

I won't miss seeing these men who seem to believe they need to stake out a maximum amount of territory with their legs (or who suffer from some odd disorder in the cajones). 

Won't Miss #427 - "Wao"

This lovely lady at a local festival did not say "wao", but she did have the right expression to convey the idea. Please do not believe I am lumping her in with the rude people I describe below. I'm sure she's a model of politeness and grace.

Let me begin by saying that "wao" (wah-oh) is what the Japanese see the English exclamation "wow" as. You see it written as "wao", but sometimes "wow", but it is almost always spoken as "wah-oh". It is the latter with which I take exception. Perhaps because of my stunning countenance, Japanese people will occasionally look at me and loudly utter "wao" in my direction. This angers me more than its nearest Japanese equivalent, "sugoi". Both are rude, but saying it in Japanese is somewhat more excusable since it may be a shocked utterance at the sight of an obviously non-Japanese person and the offender may believe that their words will not be understood. The use of "wao" is several steps closer to intentional rudeness as the choice of "English" is meant to make sure that I understand they are shocked at my presence.

I won't miss hearing idiots exclaim "wao" when they see me.

Won't Miss #395 - the chop and/or wave

Walk through any busy, crowded street or station full of commuters attempting to dodge each other and you will sooner or later run across the "chopper". This is a man who thinks that by putting out his hand and chopping through the air that the crowds will part before him and let him through. In fact, he expects that you will facilitate his easy movement through the throng at your own expense because of his hand gesture. In addition to the chopppers, there are the "wavers". These are people (again, almost always men) who think they can break rules and even endanger others by simply waving to signal their intention to do something reckless. It's as if they believe the wave places responsibility for the outcome onto others. This is very common with cars that cut-off or illegally pass or go around other cars at red lights and sometimes results in tragic accidents.

I won't miss these men who are so arrogant and selfish that they think the world should accommodate them merely because of a hand gesture.

Won't Miss #394 - being followed in shops

At lunch recently with a new acquaintance, she remarked that she felt all Caucasians should spend some time in Japan to begin to get a clue of what it feels like to be a minority in their home countries. One of the experiences which certainly breeds empathy for black folks back home is not being picked up by cabs. Another is being followed around in stores. This generally happens in larger spaces, though not necessarily expensive shops (it happened to me in a Daiso 100 yen shop, among other places). I'm not sure what motivates it, but it has happened to me despite my feeling that I neither resemble a kleptomaniac granny nor a thieving hood. Usually, a plain-dressed man tries to surreptitiously case me as I browse the store looking at their goods. He could think he's going to catch a thieving foreigner stuffing goods in her pockets. He could be just rude and acting on curiosity.  He may simply be interested in exactly the same goods as me and coincidentally following the same meandering path throughout the store as I am and think that I'm reverse-following him and that's why he's glancing at me so often. He may find the upper-middle-aged foreign lady so hauntingly beautiful that he can't resist her charm. He might even be a salesman applying his trade in some bizarre stealth fashion and awaiting just the right moment to pounce. (Note how all of my theories become more and more bizarre as I carry on... this is called thinking like an apologist.)

Whatever the reason for this bad behavior, I won't miss being followed around in Japanese shops.

Won't Miss #390 - dirty looks for English

I always get gawked at in public because of my appearance. Though I don't like seeing people do triple takes when they see me and just have to look back again and again, it's usually just basic rudeness. When my husband (who is also American) and I are out walking around, we, rather reasonably, speak English to each other. It's important to say here that we are not loud talkers. We speak at a reasonable volume, certainly no more loudly than other people having conversations and a good deal lower than more raucous groups of Japanese people or those on cell phones. However, when we speak English to each other, occasionally someone (usually a man), will whip his head around as if an insult had been lobbed like an errant glob of expectorant at the back of his head. A malevolent look, sometimes for the duration of our remaining in each other's presence, is directed our way. Recently, we were subjected to about 9 minutes of nasty looks and disgusted sounds for speaking to one another in the presence of a particular man while riding on a train. It's as if the very act of speaking our native tongue to one another is unspeakably inappropriate behavior and our insistence on continuing to engage in such behavior incites rage on the part of the offended party.

I won't miss people who think I've engaged in some sort of horrific social faux pas for having the audacity to speak my native tongue in public when having a private conversation with my husband.

Will Miss #389 - civilized behavior in theaters

Since I haven't been to an American movie theater in over two decades, I had forgotten how badly behaved that some people can be. Often the absence of a bad experience does not register as a necessarily good one. I hadn't thought about how people do extremely rude things in movie theaters in the U.S. until I saw some FaceBook updates about people who talked loudly, kicked the back of seats, and put their feet up on top of other people's seats or next to their heads. Generally, it's not uncommon for people back home to make complete nuisances of themselves without regard for the ability of others to enjoy the movie.

I have never experienced overtly bad behavior in a theater in Japan and I will miss the fact that people have enough courtesy not to act like asses in theaters.

Won't Miss #383 - okonomiyaki

In theory, I should love okonomiyaki. Well, I should love it as much as you can love a food that looks like someone hurled the contents of their dinner onto a grill. For a society so obsessed with the appearance of food, it's surprising that this "Japanese savory pancake" is so popular. Okonomiyaki is a food that is prepared "as you like it", so you can customize the composition. Unfortunately my first experience with this particular dish was one of those typical negative experiences that foreigners have in Japan. I was in Japan visiting my then-boyfriend (now husband) and one of his students wanted to go for a meal with us. She arranged a time and date and met us at an okonomiyaki place. She chose the cuisine without consulting us about our tastes, but we were both relatively new to Japan and figured we'd go with the flow. All proceeded as planned except she showed up with 4 friends who didn't speak English and they proceeded to giggle and carry on in Japanese 95% of the time. She essentially wanted to show off having gaijin "friends" to her Japanese friends and ambushed us with a crowd of people who thought we were entertainment to accompany their meal, not actual human beings with whom they had to behave graciously. 

I didn't care for the (too fishy) okonomiyaki that I had during that titter-fest and though I'm sure that I could custom order a version I'd enjoy, I will forever associate it with an early experience with extremely rude behavior that showed some of the worst Japanese people can sometimes offer foreign visitors. 

Won't Miss #361 - rudeness (qualified)

Shhh. Listen carefully. Do you hear that rustling that sounds like fabric rubbing over fabric? That's the sound of dozens of Japanophiles', apologists', and assorted foreigners' underpants wadding up at the title of this post. They won't even read it before dashing off indignant e-mail messages about how Japanese people are less rude than most Westerners (and especially most 'merkans). Those who do read it are likely to demonstrate profound reading comprehension shortcomings, but for the rest of you, those with open minds, good comprehension skills and sufficient attention spans to actually read what I mean rather than infer, I will explain.

I'll start by saying overt rudeness in Japan is rarer than in some other cultures, especially America and China, and therein lies the issue. If the cultural norm is that people are rude to one another, people treating you discourteously is something that you can shrug off. You know that it's not directed at you specifically, but rather just a part of usual life in that culture. When rudeness is very atypical, you feel very personally targeted by that behavior. It's not just another part of life, but an overt attempt to single you out for bad treatment. The context and frequency very much matter in how you feel about how you are treated.

I won't miss how much more being treated rudely stings in Japan because it feels more like a personal attack.

Won't Miss #241 - the doodoo street

Signs like this one telling people not to leave their dog's feces all over the place are abundant in residential areas in Tokyo. There wouldn't be a need for these signs to be plastered everywhere if people weren't leaving poop behind when walking their dogs.

There's a back street near my home which I always take to go shopping for groceries as it leads to a wonderful shopping area not too far from my apartment. The street is often traveled by pedestrians, but not in great numbers, and particularly not at night. It's also very popular for people to walk their dogs along when they need to "go walkies". Though there are rules (possibly even laws) in Japan about picking up after your dog, people who take their dogs out to do their business on this street frequently do not clean up if no one is around. It's so bad that every single day when I walk down the street, it smells like dog crap and there are piles of it in various parts of the street (which is for pedestrians only, not an area for traffic). This is despite the fact that people who live in those areas are cleaning up the street in front of their homes everyday. That means there's a fresh layer of crap being left behind on a regular basis.

I won't miss seeing and smelling the results of people who willfully and blatantly ignore the rules or laws about cleaning up after their dogs simply because no one is there to see them do it.

Will Miss #159 - easily scaring off solicitors

Newspaper salespeople are a scourge in Tokyo. They frequently come to the door and sometimes aggressively try to convince people to buy subscriptions. I've been told by my Japanese acquaintances that sometimes the salespeople get angry and rude if they are turned down. Some even bang on the door, try to grab the door and yank it open, and one apparently tossed something angrily at a door. Being a foreigner though, I can scare off 95% of solicitors by simply speaking English. Newspaper salespeople in particular tend to simply walk away without another word once I say "yes?" in answer to the doorbell's ring.

I'll miss being able to spook unwanted visitors merely by speaking a few words in my native tongue.