Dave Barry was Not Making That Up.
My fathers an engineer and was sent to Japan to look at a manufacturing process, no big deal. The first Japanese man enter the room my father was waiting in and bowed, my father bowed back and he said, ‘oh, so sorry’ and ran off to get another Japanese man who entered bowed, my father bowed back, same thing ‘oh so sorry’ and ran off. This continued for quite awhile until finally the vice president of the company entered and was confused when he met my dad. Years later my father realized he wasn’t bowing low enough so the employees thought he was someone far more important so they kept getting their superiors.
I, for one, found this comment a bit much. While I can understand your drive at humor, please be aware that, much like 9/11, some topics that involve terror for many people are best touched sparingly - and perhaps not so much in a joking context.
I’m not mad or anything, just please be aware.
A relative died in that show.
Thanks,
-NB
I really don’t want to pile on, but I checked that member’s location: Santa Barbara. I really don’t think people outside of New England understand how much the Station night club fire really affected us. It really was like a natural disaster up here, and a lot of people know people who were hurt of killed in that fire. [/hijack]
In Soviet Russia stupid smiling frustrates YOU!
This is what I came in here to add. I can’t believe more people haven’t mentioned it, but we are very anal about punctuality here. It seems like some cultures have a much more relaxed view on this.
Yelling across the restaurant to get a server’s attention is common. Doing that in the US would imply that they weren’t paying enough attention to see you if you made eye contact or raised your hand. Yelling, “Excuse me!” in a voice loud enough to be heard across a crowded restaurant might earn you a request to leave in the US, but that’s what you’re supposed to do in Japan.
Slurping. There’s a guy at work who sounds like he’s trying to drink algae through a colander whenever he eats anything, not just noodles. There was a guy who used to sit next to me in the staff room who drank his tea by slurping, expelling air; slurp, <phaaa>, slurp, <phaaa>. Always at least three times in the same cadence. That was more individual than cultural rudeness, but oh man did it make me want to pound him sometimes.
Your body is not private. People will ask about your weight, age, if you have trouble going to the bathroom, etc. It’s a bit worse if you’re foreign, because they’re curious, but it’s part of the normal culture too.
If you had time off, especially if you went on a trip, it’s common to hear, “Oh, it looks like you gained weight over the vacation,” when you get back. If you ate good food and didn’t do anything but laze around and sleep (the Japanese definition of a good vacation) you should have gained some weight, thus the compliment that’s rude by American standards.
The kanchô gag. Oh yeah, that and being hit in the balls, or having your tits grabbed if you’re a woman. And we’re not talking just 5 year olds, it has happened to teachers, foreign and domestic, all the way up to high school.
Pointing with the middle finger. Berating subordinates in public, with derogatory terms, head slapping, and other abuse thrown in for seasoning. Calling someone by his or her first name in a mistaken attempt to be “friendly” when both US and Japanese manners call for more formality in that place and time.
I’ve been groped a couple times by different guys who reportedly wanted to see if foreigners do have big dicks. I don’t care what you wanted to “find out”. Even if I were gay grabbing my crotch without permission or warning in the middle of the bar is fucking rude. You’re damn lucky I just knocked your hand away instead of breaking your wrist. Unlike you, I have some self control. Assholes. If it was once, I’d pass it off as one rude guy. More than one attempt by different guys at different times, I’m forced to believe it’s not entirely beyond the pale even if it’s not exactly the norm for acceptable behavior.
Getting blind stumbling drunk (often quite early in the evening), and the associated pissing and puking in public. Party occasions like: end of the year, beginning of the year, hanami, tanabata, kôyô, and “shit that we just made up because we feel like getting drunk” season contribute to a pervasive stink of barf around train stations during their observance. One of my first nights out in Japan, I saw an older guy in a suit urinating in the street, facing traffic. Not the last time I’ve seen that either.
Shocking, but not actually rude, I’ve seen people passed out, face down on the pavement at 6:00 or 7:00 in the evening. One girl at a train station was barely responsive even to face-slapping, and probably should have been taken to a hospital by her friends.
A lot of middle-aged men seem to revert to middle-school age — which involves a lot of sitting in laps, arms around shoulders, hands resting on knees, and occasional crotch and ass grabs — when they get sufficiently lubricated with alcohol. Not for me, thanks. I don’t mind if you find me a bit standoffish. Work parties are so much fun! I can’t imagine why I find excuses not to go most of the time. I swear that I’ve been petted less in the US at parties where gay friends were in the majority.
Anybody who thinks Japanese are polite and reserved obviously hasn’t lived here.
Except in Oregon.
I forgot about the slurping! One of the teachers I sat next to would always drink his tea boiling hot like this: <sluuuuuuuurp> “Atsui! Atsui!” (Hot! Hot!) <sluuuuuuuurp> “Atsui! Atsui!” <sluuuuuuuurp> “Atsui! Atsui!”
I could never figure out why he wouldn’t just wait five minutes.
'cause that’s when it tastes the best!
Fun too!
So that’s it! Here on Okinawa it never gets below 50 or so, and rarely below 60, yet people dress like they’re in Alaska all “winter.” One day in early spring this year I was out walking my dogs. The weather was perfect–high seventies, sunny, gorgeous. I was wearing shorts and a tank top and still sweating a bit. Everyone I passed was wearing long sleeves and a jacket. One woman was wearing an ankle-length down coat, complete with a hood and scarf that covered the lower half of her face, and mittens. Jogging.
I really don’t get this particular phenomenon–it’s insane, and I don’t particularly care if I’m rubbing their faces in the fact that they’re about to have a heat stroke because it isn’t the right month to dress for the weather. Call me culturally insensitive. 
Well, isn’t that cute. This is the first I’ve heard of this. I cannot imagine how I would react if some stranger tried to shove his fingers up my ass.
Bulgarians do this too. I don’t think it’s rude, I just find it weird. I think it’s because there’s a pervasive belief that being cold will make you sick. In the fall, I’d walk to school, and because I was usually running late, I’d have to hurry. Halfway there, I’d be so warm that I’d take off my light jacket. Then I’d walk into the teachers’ room at school and everyone would go “KYLA! You’re going to catch a cold! Aren’t you freezing? It’s so cold out!” etc., etc. Then, when I did spend the winter miserably ill with the Sinus Infection That Would Not Die, I got a lot of “I told you so!” from my coworkers.
A couple months ago, I was in Sofia, walking around on Vitosha, the main shopping boulevard. It was probably the warmest day of the year so far, and I took off my long-sleeved t-shirt, so I was just wearing jeans and a t-shirt. It felt fantastic. But after a few minutes, I noticed that no one else was doing the same. After that, I started paying attention, and I swear, not a single other person I saw ALL DAY wasn’t wearing a jacket. It was probably in the mid-60s. A day like that in April in Chicago, and people are out sunning at the beach.
Weird.
I saw a great photo once of the South African rubgy team on a spring tour to the UK.
It showed the English and South African teams sitting alongside each other in their separate dugouts - this was about March/April and the weather was a nice north european spring day - 21-23C.
The English team were stretched out in their shorts and t-shirts, basking in the sunshine, whereas the entire South African team were dressed in full tracksuits and wooly hats, and were all hunched over desperately trying to keep warm. 
When I lived in Denver, it was a common site to see people walking around in summer hiking/outdoors wear, usually with shorts, when temperatures were below freezing. In inner city neighborhoods in Cleveland, I’ll often see people wearing heavy, “poofy” jackets when it’s in the high 60s (high 10s/low 20s C).
I was based on Okinawa for 18 months back in the 60’s. I remember the heavy clothing very well. It always puzzled the hell out of me.
The thing that drove me absolutely insane was the shuffling. The locals all wear sandals and when they walk, they can walk for miles without their feet ever lifting of the ground. The shuffling, scuffling sound used to drive me crazy. I’d wake up screaming “Pick up your feet!”.
Fast forward 10 years. I’ve told my wife the story and she thinks I’m exaggerating. We are at a large amusement park here in New England and suddenly I start getting goosebumps and flash backs. I told her to listen. There was a large tourist group shuffling along just behind us! She then understood.
I wonder if Zombies do that…
Okay, I may be going out on thin ice here, but I think your reaction is in itself another American Thing. I could be wrong, but I’ve gotten the impression over the years that not everyone in the world has the “That’s not funny; my brother died that way” attitude. They don’t cry over a dead bird like we do. I mean, when you think of what a lot of Europeans went through during WWII, if they took every reminder of that so hard, they’d never get out of bed, and that attitude may have filtered down to succeeding generations.
So the joking about tragedy is also an American thing, because it inevitably follows that some people can’t resist. Europeans, OTOH, don’t feel a need to make jokes, because they don’t let tragedy live forever either; they just accept it and move on.
Again, I could be wrong, but that’s what I’ve gathered over the years.
Speaking as a Brit Ive always tried to stop myself making tactless remarks to the recently bereaved and feeling incredibly guilty when Ive slipped up ie.“It was dead in the pub last night”.
But when my mum died a few years ago (as one example)colleagues of mine put both of their feet in it the day after with remarks like "Dont worry mate it may never happen etc."and then stop guiltily when they remembered and a female friend of mine asked after my mum a couple of weeks later.
I wasnt upset or offended ,they werent doing it deliberately and while they were as kind to me as they could be in the circumstances it would have been absurd of me to expect the rest of the world to stop because of my personal tragedy.
Oversensitivety suggests that your more concerned about yourself then the person who died .
Over here in the armed forces and amongst sky divers we have a “Grave yard humour” (Typical of Frank hes even late for his own funeral)about sudden deaths ,it prevents self pity,introspection and morbidity.
As all of my immediate family except one sibling are dead(and before you ask Im still comparatively young and nowhere near retirement) as are a good many of my mates (all of them suddenly) nobody within a five mile radius of me would be able to open their mouths without directly or indirectly touching on the fatal subjects.
Death isnt sacred we all catch it.
I have noticed though that people seem to edge away from where Im standing at any given time ,almost as if they were nervous…
OH MY GAWD! Kancho?? OH MY GAWD!!! I am so never bending over again. And the groping, what??? How could I be here 9 months and no one warns me about these things!!! AAAhhhhrrrrgggghhh! My SDMB subscription proves its worth yet again.
But, really, I don’t know why I should worry. No one comes near me. Like Saturday, midafternoon on the Yamanote Line, seating in my car was standing-room only, except for the seats on either side of me. My gaijin friend, seated across the car from me, practically had people sitting on his lap. I wasn’t spreading out my arms or anything, either, and my bags were on the overhead shelf.
Sleel, I’m both glad for the heads-up and traumatized to think that these happen and could happen to me.
Overt class divisions. In Nigeria, we’d go to lunch with our African secretaries. We, my British collegue and I, an American, would chat and joke with the waitress. The secretaries would give their orders and that was it. When the waitress dropped off our meals, we’d continue the banter; the secretaries turned their heads away and noses a bit higher in the air until the server was gone. After work, at the bar, I asked long term ex-pats about this. It’s just the way they do things, they said. I’d have been slapped silly and had my mouth pinched if I tried that with my mother within earshot.
Nigeria is another country where they work at their own pace. My collegue was worried I’d want to get things done in “American time,” then get frustrated when things happened in “Nigeria time.” Nothing happened quickly because there was always some resource not available that caused delay: the phone wasn’t working, there was no gas in the station, all the paper was stolen in shipment, whatever. In America, these would seem like stalling tactics but in Nigeria, it was a way of life.
Three things (which not yet been mentioned in quite this way) are considered acceptable in rural Mexico, but not in most of the U.S.:
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Asking someone how much something they own cost them. (Actually, this may only be considered rude in the New York area).
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Loud music, often over public loudspeakers in the smallest of villages, is okay, especially at 6 AM. Also, barking dogs.
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Calling someone, even a stranger, a nickname based on some physical feature (Guero for “pale-skinned”, Gordo for fatso, Chino for curly-haired – don’t ask! - etc.)