Hacker News Reader

Comment by presentation | Hacker News Reader

It’s interesting to me that my wife, who is Japanese, believes that in truth Japanese people are very unhelpful and unkind - she says that the politeness and helpfulness is a show that people do for foreigners as guests, but rarely show to one another. I think she’s exaggerating a bit, but there’s some truth to the different standards for different people.

View on HN

I’ve lived in two places that were described as “everyone is nice and friendly to you”, Montreal and Texas. In Canada it is actually true I think. Most people were genuinely nice. But they showed that with actions not words (viz. a car almost always stops if they even think you might cross). In Texas for sure everyone smiles and is all •howdy” but boy have I rarely met someone who truly meant it. I’d much rather live in Canada (if they start paying better lol), but I’d rather choose to live in NYC than Texas. At the least in NYC people show what they mean and are actually friendlier in actions than Texans.

Similar dynamic in that Canadians will tell you that their famed politeness is in fact passive aggressive.

Same is true for Minnesota

I’ve had the opposite experience, despite my biases expecting otherwise. People in rural areas and the south have been genuinely warm, welcoming, and helpful. People in urban areas like NYC or west coast cities have been rude, apathetic, or at best falsely polite in the sense that there’s nothing really behind that politeness. YMMV I suppose.

I think it's also an American rural vs urban south thing.

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.

Outside of Dallas and Houston I've only ever had genuinely nice people in Texas on the whole, and I lived there for 25+ years. I don't think Dallas/Houston are good representations of Texas as a culture

My experience was that people follow the politeness “script” very well but don’t actually go out of their way to think of or help others. Part of it is there’s no cultural middle ground: either you’re ignoring someone or you’re going to work 90 hours a week to pay for their dialysis, nothing in between (okay, an exaggeration). It’s different. In the end, people are people so you can squeeze the toothpaste on one end, but it has to bulge out on the other to compensate.

It's complicated. For people you have an obligation to, like relatives, superiors or customers at work, you have to go out of your way to be polite and helpful. But if you don't have that obligation, you don't need to do anything.

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.

> It's complicated. For people you have an obligation to, like relatives, superiors or customers at work, you have to go out of your way to be polite and helpful. But if you don't have that obligation, you don't need to do anything.

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.

I think people often times have too high expectations when moving to another country and assume that making friends / settling down is a straight path. In fact, especially at an adult age it is very, very hard to make new friends, regardless of where you live. Most people at that age already have their social circles set, build / expand their own family and are just not willing to invest emotionally into new relationships. And this is even harder when coming from a different country with different social norms. I live in Berlin, Germany and see this problem non stop, but not always from foreigners, also from fellow Germans who come from other cities like Hamburg, Leipzig or Köln. People end up moving back to their social circles because they have difficulties to adapt to the new environment.

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

>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.

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.

I remember when me and my partner gave our seat to an old japanese lady in tokyo we could literally see some tears in her eyes. I was kind of surprised at the reaction.

I’ve heard this too. Tokyo is my favorite place in the world that I’ve visited, but that’s as a gaijin — and I’m sure it’d be a different more repressive experience as a native.

I believe in Japan it is all a matter of "ranking". You have a bunch of them: bosses, elders, customers, etc... are all respected but the opposite might not be true.

Tokyo is one of the worst places I’ve visited. The people there are so fake. They don’t help you because they want to. They feel obligated to help.

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.

This sounds like you were just trying to confirm a preconceived bias against Tokyo, or maybe are extrapolating from circumstances that are very different. There’s no way Tokyo is the least friendly place in the world and Kyoto the most. I’ve lived in both and the people aren’t nearly that different.

Actually I visited Tokyo thinking it was going to be amazing. I was so excited to go to Tokyo. It really wasn’t all that everyone made it out to be. I was very disappointed.

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.

I lived in Fukuoka (and other areas in Kyushu) for a while, have visited Tokyo a number of times, and have also visited Kyoto. They’re all certainly different cities in various ways, but my experience has been that just like anywhere else in the world there are friendly, kind people in all three. I have a dear, kind, generous friend who lives in Tokyo (and is Japanese). Tokyo is definitely a big city with a lot of busy people, but it’s also my favorite city in the world by far.

the art of display dislike by indistinguishable way of Kyoto people is very famous in Japan. even people from other Japan city is difficult to understand they whether is angry...

Yeah I am thinking about the possibility too...

Tokyo is a large sprawling collection of 'centers'.. you're going to have to be more specific.

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

Perhaps if they’d claimed that “Tokyo is the least friendly place in the world and Kyoto the most” I’d understand your reply, but what they actually wrote was quite different:

> 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.

> They don’t help you because they want to. They feel obligated to help.

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?

So let's ignore that Japan teaches Etiquette and Manners in school and that's part of the reason they are friendly and polite.

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.

I've literally had Tokyo people go 10-15 minutes out of their way to help me find where I was going and so have several of my friends. Sounds like you just has a bad experience. It's not the norm.

But this is my point about them feeling obligated to help you. In Tokyo they are so strict about working. You cannot leave 5 seconds before lunch time and you can’t arrive 5 seconds after lunch time. If you ask the wrong person for assistance they may help you but they aren’t genuine about it. This is not the experience outside of Tokyo.

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

Whether it’s genuine or not is a personal non-objective opinion. It all comes down to whether they actually helped you or not. I can think of tens of countries around the world where they would completely ignore you in a similar situation; this is way rarer in Japan.

Possibly most of the people in Tokyo aren’t even originally Tokyoites. They’re random people from other cities living there for a couple years for the big city experience and decent work. There’s nothing intrinsically unique about their culture and personality, compared to, say, people born and raised on a small island and who’ve never left.

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.

I’ve had consistently the polar opposite experience. Tokyo people treat me fairly normal, but in Kyoto, people will absolutely insist upon broken English and ignoring what I’m saying despite speaking to them in Japanese. They’ll also look to others near me when I’m talking, waiting for them to translate my Japanese to…their Japanese?

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.

For what it's worth, in Japan itself, Kyoto people have a reputation for being snobbish, standoffish and unhelpful, and if anything that has gotten worse recently with the sheer amount of tourists inundating the city (until COVID, anyway).

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com