Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnBraden
I guess I'm not the approachable kind of guy. Or maybe I do stink! LOL I'm sure I smell different than they do, since I don't buy their hygiene products-I use my American-brought. Well, I'd still love to have such encounters next March.
I do remember another incident on the Yamanote. It was the first time I had gone to Japan as a tourist and I found myself separated from my friend. I took the train from Shinjuku towards Ikebukuro. I'm used to standing by the doors on the trains in Chicago since the trains are much shorter and narrower than the Japanese. I was standing next to a young couple, early to mid-20s and the guy couldn't stop sniffling. After a while I did what I was always taught to do. (Can you see where this is going and how un-Japanese it is?) I went into my backpack and grabbed one of the dozen of so packs of tissues those girls kept handing me on the street and handed it to him. He was visibly surprised and took it. He didn't blow his nose though, though now I know why. After a few stops, they got off and the girl actually turned around to face me and bowed. The look on both of their faces when I handed him the tissues was priceless. I wonder if I insulted them, even though I was just being civil and not expressing my displeasure at the sound of him sniffling. Any comments on that one? II now know my error and that blowing your nose in public is considered rude, but, dude, the guy was just hurting bad!
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For those who don't know, blowing your nose is embarrassing for Japanese people because it draws attention to them themselves which is humiliating etc etc, but somehow snorting it in over and over isn't embarrassing lol,
it doesn't make much sense to me