Etiquette
Manners and unwritten rules for navigating public spaces in Japan.
6 NOTES
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Japanese Chopstick Etiquette: Why Half the Rules Are About Death
The first time you eat in Japan, someone will probably stop you mid-meal — quietly, almost apologetically — to correct the way you’re holding your chopsticks. Then it happens again with how you set them down.…
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Ojigi: The Calibrated System of Japanese Bowing
You arrive at a Japanese hotel. The receptionist greets you with a small bow — chin slightly down, body angle perhaps fifteen degrees forward, brief duration. You check in. As you walk away with your key,…
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Genkan: The Foot of Pause That Separates Outside from Inside
You arrive at a Japanese house. The door opens. There’s a small step down — almost a tile-floor pit — between the door and the hallway. A row of slippers waits on the upper step, neatly…
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Japanese Business Card Etiquette: The Meishi Protocol
You walk into a Japanese conference room for a first business meeting. There are four people on the other side. Before anyone sits, before anyone speaks past the initial greetings, the cards come out. The next…
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Tokyo Implicit Rulebook ①: Japanese Train Etiquette
The Tokyo train network moves around 8.7 million passengers a day. At rush hour on the Yamanote line, you can stand pressed against four strangers and hear nothing but the announcement system, the brake hiss, and…
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Japanese Onsen Etiquette: Why the Rules Are About Trust, Not Cleanliness
Most English-language guides to Japanese onsen etiquette read like cleaning instructions. Wash here, rinse there, no swimsuit, no towel in the water. The rules are correct. The frame is wrong. A Japanese onsen is not a…
