Quote:
Originally Posted by YuriTokoro
My English seems to be really bad…
Filling other people’s glasses is not duty. Pouring each other is a Japanese custom, so if you (from foreign countries) want to behave like Japanese, you should pour other people. In doing so, you need to be careful, or there is almost always someone who pours people before you notice.
Still, nobody accuse you when you don’t pour the people.
Thank you!
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The clarifications of this obligation caught my attention. I had not thought about whether the emphasis was to pour drinks for the other person, or for a person just not to pour a drink for themselves. I am familiar with the thought that if a woman pours her own drinks she will not marry, but I thought the emphasis was more one of social heirarchy. One would pour drinks for the oldest or most honored people present out of respect, and then for any younger women present.
Or perhaps there's Confuscian confusion going on in my mind, which would also make me wonder if the tradition of women not pouring their own drinks started because men controlled how and when everything was done - at least in public.