In general, everyone in urban southern areas is "busier" and more brusque than their rural neighbors. However, southern politeness still demands a token hospitality even to strangers, so you get a weird twilight of warmly-greeted, but coldly-helped.

More rural, and people have (or take) more time. Someone will have no complaint talking about local trivia with you for an hour or more.

Foreigners occupy a weird spot in this hierarchy as "guests" to all Japan in a sense, so people often feel an obligation to help them, much more so than they would to a random Japanese person in the same situation.

I think you've hit the nail on the head.

I've spent time in Japan, and have been living in Asia, and as far as East Asia is concerned, I think a lot of people mistake "polite" for "friendly".

Of course, there are friendly people in East Asia. You can find friendly people everywhere. But if generalizing the characteristics of populations, Japanese are probably among the most polite if not the most polite you'll find anywhere. Friendly? Not so much.

In fact, in my travels in Japan, I've always been amazed at how limited the "friend" social networks of most of the expats I've encountered are. Japan is a very, very tough nut for "gaijin" to crack socially.

Since Japan attracts many people for various reasons, I think this general problem gets blown out of proportion and sold as a uniquely Japanese issue, which it is not. There are just meant people moving to Japan and therefore sharing their experiences, which often times are as described above. Japan definitely has a lot of issues, but I don't think this one in particular is exclusive to Japan

I'm not an expat (nor do I talk to many in Japan), but I have traveled to Tokyo for work about once a year for nearly a decade, prior to covid. I've made friends with plenty of my co-workers there, and a much higher percentage of ones that have moved on to other companies, etc., stay in touch with me than people that I have spent significantly more time with locally that changed jobs. A couple have already asked me when I'll be back now that the travel restrictions are starting to ease up.

I've also had nights where I've met random people while out drinking and made "friends" where we spent the night bar hopping and having a generally good time. I wouldn't call them friends, but they were certainly friendly - I don't think you drunkenly grab some gaijin and drag them off to the next bar out of politeness.

I'm not exactly an extrovert that makes friends wherever I go, either. I'm definitely not doing the heavy lifting in these scenarios.

My experience is that there is culturally a significant bent towards politeness, for sure, but it's also been that there's certainly plenty of friendliness as well, and more than I see day to day in America.

But wow if you get out of Tokyo, people are so nice and friendly. Kyoto is my absolute favourite place. People are so kind and helpful and friendly, and they want to help you and recommend places to visit or eat at etc.

> Tokyo is one of the worst places I’ve visited

and

> Kyoto is my absolute favourite place

Are people’s personal experiences now to be conflated with claims of an objective nature? I’m not sure why you would do that but it’s no better than a straw man.

Kyoto is just an example as it’s my favourite place I’ve visited. But pretty much everyone outside of Tokyo is a billion times better than those in Tokyo.

Edit: also I said one of the worst places I’ve visited. I didn’t say most unfriendly.

The local post office in a Setagaya suburb and the ticket office for the ferry in Asakusa are going to be worlds apart.

I don’t have this experience elsewhere. I think Kyoto folks are just burnt out on tourists and many shut down when they see a foreign face. Not all people in Kyoto have this problem, but I’ve encountered this consistently each time I’ve been there but nowhere else in the country.

But yes, foreigners are a dime a dozen in Tokyo so nobody really cares. If you go out to inaka (countryside), you get a lot more attention.

Wow, what kind of logic is that? Someone is doing X and you are deciding their reasons for them?

Maybe someone is tired and still going out of their way to help you, but you choose to view it as insincerity.

Sounds like you are projecting your insecurities on to others, or got treated as less of celebrity than you were looking forward to (a common thing among Westerners visiting Japan). Judging people for helping you, really?

Let's look at any country in Asia. If you're lost, and you see a couple of people just chit-chatting with each other, in no hurry. You approach them and ask them for directions. The vast majority of the time they are more than willing to help, and in my experience, I haven't had someone not try to help. Singapore, Cambodia, Thailand, Korea, Vietnam, Indonedia, Taiwan... Now do the same in Tokyo, the majority of the time they don't want to help, were rude, walk away, get flustered even if you try to speak Japanese instead of English.

Yet you go to any other part of Japan and this is not the case.

You're telling me that because Tokyo is the 1 place in Asia I've visited where people tend to be rude, agitated, flustered, walk away, etc. That I'm the problem because I'm a westerner visiting Japan. Even tho talking to my Japanese co-workers who say "oh this is just Tokyo, we are just too busy here". Nope I'm a westerner and I'm the problem.

> https://www.businessinsider.com/japanese-worker-punished-for...

Your experience is definitely very uncommon. I’ve been to Tokyo countless times and they’re not any different than the small town I currently live in in Japan. If anything, you probably talked to some people who are way too used to tourists asking them for “directions” then trying to turn it into a chance to hook up—way too many people try this and some people have learned to just avoid tourist-looking types, especially women.

The term “jaywalking” is a pretty American term (that there is a term at all) invented by the car lobby way back when to stigmatize pedestrians. Of course it makes sense to cross the street (that’s what it’s called—there’s no dedicated word for it) if it is safe to do so.

And of course it would be madness on any always-busy street or on a road with four lanes or more.

Come to Mexico and that notion will be dispelled pretty quickly.

Here you can find pedestrians crossing anywhere they please, bikes going against you, street vendor carts, and cars still crossing after a red light... all at the same time.

I was in NYC just a couple of months ago and in comparison everything was quite orderly.

I drew my own conclusions too and had better understanding of how “it was orders I was following” happens.

Yup, Americans leave this impression all over the world. Loud, obnoxious tourists who don't think local laws and norms apply to them.

As Scott Alexander points out, these Americans counter intuitively are not being self critical when they say this, they are talking trash about the "other" Americans they don't like.

Americans are regarded as irrespectful, but treated well because they hope they leave a dollar tip.

When a foreigner comes to do bussiness, not just an American, we expect corruption and exploitation to come with it. We are hardly ever proven wrong.

Would you mind sharing the link to the post?

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anythin...

It's long but worth reading. But under break VII contains the relevant part:

START QUOTE

My hunch – both the Red Tribe and the Blue Tribe, for whatever reason, identify “America” with the Red Tribe. Ask people for typically “American” things, and you end up with a very Red list of characteristics – guns, religion, barbecues, American football, NASCAR, cowboys, SUVs, unrestrained capitalism.

That means the Red Tribe feels intensely patriotic about “their” country, and the Blue Tribe feels like they’re living in fortified enclaves deep in hostile territory.

Here is a popular piece published on a major media site called :America: A Big, Fat, Stupid Nation". Another: "America: A Bunch Of Spoiled, Whiny Brats". "Americans are ignorant, scientifically illiterate religious fanatics whose “patriotism” is actually just narcissism." "You Will Be Shocked At How Ignorant Americans Are, and we should Blame The Childish, Ignorant American People."

Needless to say, every single one of these articles was written by an American and read almost entirely by Americans. Those Americans very likely enjoyed the articles very much and did not feel the least bit insulted.

And look at the sources. HuffPo, Salon, Slate. Might those have anything in common?

On both sides, “American” can be either a normal demonym, or a code word for a member of the Red Tribe.

END QUOTE

In my experience left leaning (or really blue tribe, read the article for the difference) American travelers do the same thing to try to prove to foreigners that they "aren't the bad type of Americans" (ie, the right/red tribe) that they perceive that foreigners dislike (whereas most foreigners I encounter take for granted that all kinds of people come from all places and don't judge that much by nationality), the irony being that the foreigners don't usually ever say all that much negative about the US and it's the American's who are trying to distance themselves who end up being the ones who vocally dislike America (but really just the people they think are ignorant)

During the 2016 Trump campaign there was much talk about coal workers and such. Yet there are more yoga instructors than coal industry employees—not just miners but everyone employed by the coal industry.

> According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in February 2017, the industry employed 50,300 people. Note: that isn’t miners. That’s the whole industry. (An earlier estimate by the Census Bureau from 2014 had the number closer to 76,000 — still quite small). There are more yoga instructors in the United States than coal miners — and that gap will continue to increase.

> Now let’s do some comparisons. As Ingraham notes, the entire coal industry “employed about as many as Whole Foods (72,650), and fewer workers than Arby’s (close to 80,000), Dollar General (105,000) or J.C. Penney (114,000). The country’s largest private employer, Walmart (2.2 million employees) provides roughly 28 times as many jobs as coal.” In other words, despite its historical importance, coal is negligible economically.

* https://legal-planet.org/2018/08/23/yoga-instructors-bend-co...

Didn't year much about the Yoga Lobby.

Jay walking also happens a lot in China unless some barrier or traffic warden is involved. This is the case in much of the developing world as well.

It's different in Poland for example. If you don't just go on a pedestrian crossing (no lights), no car will stop. Because of that it's more likely for people to cross on a red light because they know car drivers are trained to watch out for them. A really bad development. People die because of this.

A very helpful campaign in Germany were signs which told you to be a good example for children. It grew into the consciousness of the population and you very rarely see people cross on red when there are kids around. Also having green on demand buttons which give you FAST results helps too. They are very popular in Germany now.

Here in NYC people will cross as the light turns green and end up with an entire intersection at a standstill.

It's amazing because even my poorly trained Greyhound has picked up a concept of "we stop for something" at intersections. He's not quite sure what, but he'll wait for some signal from me.

Yet somehow people are unable to figure that out.

And you know what? I like it. Cars are given special treatment everywhere else in this country. I was in D.C. and VA last week and had to wait 5 minutes (!) to cross many intersections. So in NYC I sympathize for the commercial traffic and the people commuting from places without train coverage, but for everyone else, I don't really care if pedestrians hold them up. They could have been pedestrians too.

* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2924825-fighting-traffic

> Back then a 'jay' was basically some sort of boor or doofus. If you translated it to more modern english it would literally be idiotwalking or similar.

If other cultures don’t have some kind of stigmatic word for “crossing the street without pedestrian right-of-way” then of course it is American-specific. Just like how saying “person who has several sexual partners” and “s***” are supposed to communicate two very different things.

DC is one of the worst; it sometimes feels like the pedestrians and cars are in competition with each other, and each just violate the rules because there's zero expectation that the other will follow the rules.

I've seen older footages of Tokyo (1960s) where the streets were pretty chaotic and dirty. Also Miyazaki described how the rivers used to be very polluted, which inspired the bath scene in Spirited Away. Not sure at what point it changed.

Also remember Americans telling me Seoul being dirty in the 80s, but is generally cleaner than western cities these days.

The West Coast at least used to be more rule-abiding. Many years ago now, I remember a co-worker complaining he had gotten a ticket for jaywalking in San Francisco I think. Of course, these days you probably need to murder someone to get the police involved in SF but I digress.

And when I worked in a smaller city fairly near Boston, when going out to lunch, I was pretty much the only person who was inclined to just cross the street while my coworkers waited for the light.

So it does vary.

That would give people way more time to clear out the right turn lane each cycle and reduce incidences of people trying to force their way through pedestrians.

But people don't even respect the basic "don't walk" so it's asking a lot...

There are many studies that crosswalk actually increase the number of accidents because people feel safer and pay less attention when crossing them, so cities have been removing them in a lot of spots.

I cannot fathom her logic.

But yes, my time in Tokyo informs me the place is amazing. Just not for me anymore.

And one nice thing about Tokyo is one can live in very small but clean and private apartments if needed. I’d take that over roommates and illegal basement suites.

From what I hear, things have changed in some places. Not sure the cause. Sometimes strikes maybe cultural things as well.

NYC switches train schedules after midnight to every 30m or 1h until 5 or 6. The schedules in Tokyo are at worst every 10m, but most are every 3-5m, or 5-7m until the last train.

There's tradeoffs both ways. I really like being able to get a train after midnight in NYC, but I somewhat prefer the frequency and consistency of the train lines in Tokyo.

I've heard it's insanely difficult to get a residency visa there, along with of course the language barrier. Was that the case for you?

There’s also a points system to fast track getting a visa. This can also get you a permanent visa in one year.

During Covid all of this is virtually stopped, but starting to open back up starting tomorrow, Nov 8.

Work visas do depend on finding an employer - I do know of several people who worked for multinational corporations and asked to be transferred to the Japan office.

There’s also the option to self sponsor a work visa by running a business in Japan, though it does have capital requirements and is a little tricky.

I wish there were more opportunities in Tokio, apart from what you’ve described there seems to be a good tax scheme for expats and it also has so much to offer culturally. I was in touch with several recruiters though and all their clients weren’t moving forward due to the pandemic.

Recycling is a scam so there's no point. It all goes to the landfill.

I wouldn't consider that as the best public transit ever.

It definitely created an unnecessary morning rush at Futako Tamagawa.

Just picture the "sustainable" by unpacking that crowded train into a 4 wheel vehicle for each person and the carbon emissions, energy consumption, and space consumption that is being avoided. It's like we're the latest Intel processors and Tokyo is running on TSMC 5nm M1 Max. Sure we have the space to brute force our economy into competitive performance... but how long will that last?

The Japanese population is declining, so not sure how it's not sustainable and Covid took many workers off from commuting.

Thats why its very ignorant to think that the national trend is the same as the local trend.

And covid had very little impact on commuting in Japan. Remote work is not a thing yet for most employers.

https://reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/qljo6s/massi...