Common sense is uncommon, things you hardly see in Japan

photo by Bob Jagendorf

Innovative gadgets, fun events coming up one after another, unique items and cultures, you encounter a number of new surprises while you stay in Japan. On the other hand, you may notice you hardly or never see a few things that are very common in your country. So, let’s see what sort of things Japan is missing.

Workers who enjoy decent vacation

If you have worked in Japan, you might have been shocked by the work life of the Japanese with long working hours and little holidays. Of course, it’s been for long since companies were mandated to give its employees paid holidays. However, the paid leave acquisition rate of Japan still remains quite low. Obviously, Japanese workers have a very different point of view from other nations in regard to taking vacations. While workers in many other countries commonly take a few weeks’ vacation every year, Japanese workers spare only a week to travel overseas. Well, they may say anyone who can spend a whole week for holiday is very lucky in Japan. This idea of Japanese workers was formed under the complicated circumstance affected by working environments of Japanese-own companies, social orders built over years, too many public holidays and many other things. Anyway, it seems like Japanese workers have to keep dreaming of a dream of a decent vacation, which is taken for granted in Europe and many other countries.

Alcohol limits for drivers

You know, Japan has a zero-tolerance policy towards drink-driving. Article 65, paragraph 1 of the Road Traffic Act prohibits all drivers from driving under the influence of alcohol, no matter the size and class of a vehicle, or age of a driver. While there are many countries that set no tolerance for drink-driving like Japan, many other countries have the legal alcohol limit for drivers at a very low level. But countries that have an alcohol limit for drivers are way more tolerant than Japan when it comes to drink-driving, as the alcohol level tolerated by other countries’ law easily exceed the alcohol level Japanese police prosecute or fine drivers for drink-driving. In reality, Japanese police normally prosecute or fine drivers whose alcohol level in the breath is more than 0.15mg/L. However, police officers can exercise their own discretion in charging drivers for drink-driving even though their alcohol level in the breath lowers 0.15mg/L. So, don’t drink before driving. There is no guarantee that you won’t be charged unless you are completely sober.

Wave-and-go payments

I know you have heard this so many times, but again, Japan is a cash society. Of course, people also use a credit card or debit card sometimes. But most of the times, they pay by cash at a convenient store, supermarket and other retail shops and never go out with just a credit card in their wallets. On the other hand, people who live in a credit card society no longer sign when they use a credit card at cashier. They just punch in a few digit PIN on the machine to authorize the purchase. Moreover, a wave-and-go type of payment is becoming more common in these credit card advanced countries. In Japan, prepaid e-money such as Suika and Rakuten Edy is more commonly used. To tell the truth, Visa payWave and Mastercard Cotactless have already been introduced in Japan, but used only in a limited number of places. However, these wave-and-go payments are just about to expand its share in Japanese society toward the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. So, everyone may be using a wave-and-go in Japan in the near future.

Large size shoes

Surprisingly, over a hundred million people live in Japan, a tiny island nation. Japan is well known as one of the most populous countries in the world. Perhaps this is the reason why things in Japan are designed to be small. Houses, hotel rooms, meals, people, everything is so small. You might have felt as if you became Lemuel Gulliver in Lilliput. One of the most common problems that foreign travelers often mention is that there are no large size shoes in Japan. Come to think of it, general shoe retailers in Japan normally sell about 22-24.5cm women’s shoes and about 24.5-28cm men’s shoes. In other countries, women’s shoes of 28, 29cm or men’s shoes over 30cm are commonly sold at shoe shops. So, finding right size shoes in Japan is hard task for foreign travelers unless they are similar size to the Japanese.

Long wedding reception

Different countries have different cultures. Such cultural differences can be particularly obvious in ceremonial manners of each country. As for wedding, half an hour wedding ceremony followed by 2-3 hours reception party is the typical course of Japanese style wedding. In western countries, there are minor differences between countries but traditionally a wedding ceremony starts around 3pm for half an hour, then guests enjoy drinks and chat while the wedding party goes out for photo shooting. Everyone comes back and a reception party starts about 6pm, then the party goes on until midnight. There normally is the first dance by bride and groom towards the end, and everyone dance with the music DJ plays until the party ends. But this is not a big wedding at all compare to Indian wedding. Incredibly, Indian wedding lasts for at least 7days! Families, relatives, friends, everyone gather for a wedding reception and dance dance dance with dance tunes. Well, you probably can’t experience such a huge wedding reception.

Soap opera

70’s and 80’s legendary rock band, Queen. One of their great hits “I Want to Break Free” was released in 1984. It is well-known story that, in PV of this song, each member dresses up as a character from “Coronation Street”, the long-running TV drama series in U.K. This TV series is one of those called “soap opera” that runs for years on TV. A story of soap opera normally set in one particular place and characters regularly come in and out. As for “Coronation Street”, the start of the program was in 1960! Since then, this program has been one of the best TV drama series ever in U.K. Other than U.K, soap operas are made and broadcasted in many other countries. As for Japanese-made TV drama series, most of programs are run for a few weeks to longest one year, so there is no TV series running for decades. Soap operas which mirrors trends of the time are something you can’t have in Japan.

Why Japanese people, why?

So, it turned out that there are quite a few things you can’t have or experience in Japan. As for some items introduced in this column, you might wonder why gadget-loving country like Japan miss out such a basic thing. But Japan is being more internationalized in these days, so some of the items and things mentioned in this column may become common in Japanese society in the near future.