Is there a way to apologize for this?
 

Apologies for sounding like a snob, but I seriously need your help.

We dearly love a particular cozy bar in our small town. Excellent jazz, even better owner/bartender, and not like anything else in our area. We are selective as to who we'll even tell this place about, because noisy and rude Americans will just wreck this place (and there are many Americans here). Well, my DH invited a friend there the other night who is reasonably well-mannered, but this friend invited another person who is N-O-T :mad: !!! I couldn't believe he was there in the first place (my boss' husband, on top of everything else), but as the night progressed...well, I won't get into even more details, but he was rude, said inappropriate things loudly, and even BLEW HIS NOSE into his cloth napkin :eek: . DH was horrified, as am I. This is our favorite place in town. Yes, the owner made a ton of money that night, but now I'm embarrassed to go back there and feel badly that he was subjected to that. The guy didn't say anything rude to the owner, just was one of those noisy jerks you see around.

The owner doesn't really speak English and I don't speak Japanese well at all, so I have no idea how to apologize. He definitely recognizes us as he even knows what we like to drink.

Please tell me how we can apologize for having brought that guy in there, or if at this point we even can. I don't even know if an apology would be appropriate. I know it sounds over the top, but this place is like a sanctuary in this town for us. A friend who speaks Japanese told us what DH could have said that night with the guy standing there (that 'guest' wouldn't have known the difference anyway), but after the fact I have no idea what to say. It's not like we can drag his ass back in there and say "sorry we brought this rube in here; we don't agree with one jackass comment he made and will never subject you to anyone like him again." No worries: this guy will never show up there on his own because there was no Toby Keith playing, but I still want to apologize.

Sorry so long. Please do advise.

G

DH?

Designated Hitter?

Department of Health?

Dirty Harry?

Demon Hunter?

Overall, I wouldn't think twice about it. If you are a good customer, then you will be welcomed with open arms. An owner of a bar is not a thin-skinned. You could simply say the next time you go "Kono mae, sumimasen," meaning "Sorry about the last time [we were here]." I think you are overthinking it. There is no reason for you to lose your sanctuary because of the actions of someone else, your guest or not.

I used to work at a bar in Japan, and some of our "best" customers were awful.

I'm guessing DH means "dear husband" here.

DH = Dear husband
 

sorry about that..i'm talking about my husband when i said "DH."

Thanks, MMM, and good point. Maybe i'm just embarrassed at what this guy was doing & saying and don't want to be associated with that crap, so maybe my apology would be selfish. Anyway, thanks for the tip!

Oh where are you from then(just being nosy)? I have a bad habit of having to know everyone's exact ethnic mix! It seems to come across as racist but my dad isn't really interested in other people and mum's brought me up not to be like him!

I don't think it's selfish to apologise.

This is rude generalization, and I think you should avoid making them, unless you want to continue to sound like an ignorant asshole.. then by all means.

Rick and tokusatsufan: i'm American
 

I am an American, but I live near a US military base, which changes everything. I know what I'm talking about. This is not a generalization about all Americans; it IS a generalization about the loud and obnoxious Americans who go into bars and other businesses around here and act like jerks. I can understand why you didn't like my comment, but understand where it's coming from. There are a lot of us try hard to be good guests here, respecting the culture, enjoying the company, food, drinks, people....but many others who spoil it. You would cringe too if you were having dinner at a small family-owned local restaurant and a pile of people who looked just like you walked in talking louder than everyone around them, letting their kids walk on tatami with dirty shoes, treating the owners rudely rudely, etc. Or if you were at a fish market, standing right in front of the owner, and another citizen of your country came up and said "EW Gross! I would never eat that!" It happens ALL OF THE TIME. You can imagine why I don't want it to happen at this place.

So sorry for sounding like an ignorant asshole. I should have made my stupid initial request even longer than it was, I guess.

You live near an American Military base? I dare say that would explain most the idiot behavior from the Americans. Soldiers, particularly young ones, can be very stupid when they inhabit bars. I'm ex army, so am very familer with idiot troops, doing idiot things. I include my self in that, since I'm as guilty as any of em. Marines can be worse, cause they loose a collective IQ point for each addtional marine added, throwing beer into the mix only compounds that effect.

If I were you I would make a family pact set in stone that results in divorce made effective immediately if broken, never to invite anyone, absolutely anyone to your special bar.
That would be a great way to repay the owner for any disrespect you fell you may have inadvertently caused.

tenmins...i think you're on to something. luckly he's even more horrified than i am, if that is possible, so hopefully this is a lesson learned.

You live near an American military base. So do the locals. They are used to it. Trust me.

This is the silliest thing I have read this week. Agree to bring only good friends and know who is coming. Your relationship with your spouse is more important than your relationship with the bar. Again, I worked at a bar in Japan for a couple years, and you see regulars come and go. Your spouse cares about you more than the bar does. Don't even joke about getting divorced over this.


Stop being horrified. Watch TV and look at these people who have survived the worst earthquake/tsunami in modern history in Japan. See true stoicism and prioritizing. Really, your poor guest is down at problem number 21046 between "Does this go in burnable or non-burnable?" and "Do I take the escalator or the stairs?"

Honestly if I were Japanese reading your comments Ginam I'd be so insulted.

Do you expect all Japanese people to behave the same? If one of them is a douchebag do you then superimpose that on all of them? Do you expect that Japanese people do that towards westerners?

You've got some weird shame issues towards your heritage or something that are being brought to light by this.

It's SO safe to assume that everyone in the bar saw that some of the Americans were jerks, and others were not. It's even SAFER to assume that they saw how humiliated by the former's actions you were lol.

What's the deal with all this hypersensitivity? Is this how foreigners try to adopt Japanese culture? cuz it's getting butchered lol

Don't take things so seriously. The point I was making is that if you have found such a place that you treasure keep it to yourself. When you want to go out with friends and friends of friends go to another place that you don't care if they're loud or not.

Steady on mate. A lady asks for some simple advice about how to be polite and gets caned for it. What the hell is this forum for anyway if someone can't get some friendly advice about experiences they are having in Japan?

thanks & well-said
 

you've made my points better than i would have. i get it that the owner knows we're not the same as that pseudo guest that was there, but i can still be embarrassed. loud is fine...jerky isn't. if james could see the stuff i see regularly, there's be a little bit less encouragement to chill out or question my own feelings about my heritage or whatever. seriously, the crap people pull around here would get their asses kicked in their own country, but they seem to think it's perfectly reasonable here, even though what they're doing isn't the norm here either. i'm not trying to assimilate (really? i'll ever blend in?), nor do i think my hosts here are fragile. i just know that we DO get viewed as a bunch of assholes because the same things happen so often.

if rude people want to find their own way into places i like, that's just the way it goes. the problem here was that it was one of us who took him there. yuck.

thanks for chiming in, tenmin...and thanks again to MMM for the tip as to what to say next time.

Well you then you should specify. I can fully imagine some of the immature military personnel, looking for an outlet from the discipline and acting like d-bags. But for other Americans who are here by choice, and are little more mature, getting throw into that category can be offensive.

Good point. I forget not everyone is surrounded by us :vsign: