Overtourism in Japan, and how it hurts small businesses

Re:Overtourism in Japan, and how it hurts small businesses by sosborn on Friday July 11, 2025 @11:47AM (#44533520)

Those signs have nothing to do with protecting culture. Most of the time, they are simply a naive defense against dealing with a population often doesn't speak Japanese very well.

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Re:Overtourism in Japan, and how it hurts small businesses by anigbrowl on Friday July 11, 2025 @07:00PM (#44537651)

There's no prohibition against requiring customers to be able to speak Japanese, and this works very well as a tourist filter.

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Re:Overtourism in Japan, and how it hurts small businesses by ChromaticPanic on Saturday July 12, 2025 @04:01PM (#44544687)

The signs say No Foreigners not No non Japanese speakers . A subtle but important difference.

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Re:Overtourism in Japan, and how it hurts small businesses by sosborn on Sunday July 13, 2025 @12:21PM (#44551494)

Every time I've come across one of these signs and wanted to patronize the establishment, a friendly chat with the manager in Japanese was always enough to get them to let me in.

YMMV.

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