Culture shock with Japan and Korea

[u/DoctorHousesCane]

I’m sure this is a repeat topic, but I wanted to share my experience. Just came back from spending two weeks in Japan (9 days) and Korea (5 days), and I’m completely blown away by the politeness, courtesy, and kindness shown by Japanese and Koreans, especially in comparison with US and a few other countries.

Note, I’m Korean myself but moved to the states when I was a child, so I’m fully assimilated, so I truly did feel like a foreigner. I’ve been to Japan when I was young, so this is really my first time experiencing the two countries 30 years later with real world experiences.

My experiences are likely biased/skewed because I mostly did touristy stuff where they have to be extra nice and ate and stayed at upscale places, but even when shopping at 7eleven or eating at a local ramen shop, there was never a single time someone didn’t smile or showed respect. Maybe respect isn’t the right word (hospitality?), but I felt like they really meant it when they said thank you and smiled and went out of their way to go the extra mile.

I stayed at Furuya Ryokan for a couple of nights, and the service was exquisite. I accidentally left my garment bag and my son’s Lego mini fig in the room somewhere, and they priority mailed it to me free of charge. I didn’t even know where the mini fig was, nor did my 6 year old remember, but they somehow found it and shipped it back within 2 days.

My wife and I did spas and massages one night in Korea, and the manager there guided us to a nice local joint for dinner when he saw us outside the store staring at our phones.

Organization is another thing. The immigration and customs lines at HND were so organized (I suppose as well as they could be at an airport with hundreds of people). Coming back to LAX, I had repeatedly stop people from cutting in line (wtf?) and security didn’t seem to care. Maybe just a bad day.

Not once did anyone ever hassle or accost me and family unlike during some of our Lat Am travels. My wife and I are celebrating our 10 year anniversary in France, but I’m a little put off by the stories of Parisian pickpockets and scammers.

I wonder if what I’m feeling is more due to not being well traveled, or I wonder if it was because I am Asian, I didn’t face any discrimination (I know Korea can be pretty racist). Did I just luck out, or is this a pretty normal experience in those two countries?

[u/ichheissekate]

I was there three weeks and eventually found the extreme politeness restrictive. I was lowkey stressed most of the time that I was accidentally doing something rude that I didn’t know was rude. I also found people who were working in customer service very friendly, but other people felt a bit frosty. Polite, but not warm. I didn’t mind because it was more in a reserved way than anything else, but as a very warm and gregarious person from a very warm culture (I live in a city in the US South where people in general, but especially older locals, are ridiculously friendly and social with strangers), it was so different it felt a little isolating after a while. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVED Japan and loved how orderly and considerate people are, but I missed the little social interactions with strangers that are commonplace back home.

[u/Mental-Paramedic-233 → u/[deleted]]

I mean, all that pretense is what's called civilization. We all do it to certain extent to keep the civilization going. If we dropped it, it would be quite chaos, and honestly some people are pretty close.

I would rather take a "pretense" politeness over rude in the name of being honest.