How to Identify Japanese People

I had a business trip to Japan at the end of October for a week. It was my first trip back to my home country after a year and three month absence. I visited my hometown and saw my family and friends. It was a great trip; I especially enjoyed eating my favorite Japanese dishes.

During my trip, I figured out my own way for identifying Japanese people at airports. I have summarized it in this blog post.

In old movies, Japanese people were typically depicted as people with cameras dangling off their necks. No one is like that nowadays, but I have found some features that represent today’s Japanese people. I’m not sure if it really works, but let us look at three examples.

1.    Men who wear high-cut, slim-fitting pants.

2.    People who put bandannas on their suitcases to identify them.

3.    People who walk with their heads down.

I would say that number one really works, in particular for business suits. In Japan, most suit stores sell only slim fitting pants because it helps to have a good figure. I never see Western people wearing slim-fitting pants as part of a business suits. Japanese people basically don’t have long legs. Tight and slim-fitting pants are really popular. They are popular not only for business suits but also for casual clothes. As for casual clothes, hipster pants and low-rise pants are commonly preferred by Japanese people. Since low-rise pants look best on slender people who are short or petite. Japanese people with short torsos will be able to get benefits from low-rise pants. Of course, I have some, but I don’t wear slim-fitting pants in the U.S.

I often see suitcases with bandannas at airports. I would say this really works for identifying Japanese people as well. Japanese people are really nervous about their luggage, so they often put a mark on their suitcases. A bandanna is commonly used as a mark because various designs of bandannas are sold at around $2 everywhere in Japan.

Number three is a typical way of walking for Japanese. This style of walking with one’s head down was formed from the lifestyle habit. Japanese people used to wear Japanese-style sandals until a few decades ago. Japanese people used to shuffle their feet along. They didn’t walk starting on their heel like Western people. From this habit, Japanese people came to walk with their heads down. Also, Japanese people are likely to use mobile gadgets, such as cellphones and potable gaming machines while they are walking.

As for me, only number three was true for me. I wonder how I looked to foreigners at Narita Airport and San Francisco Airport because I wore a San Jose Sharks hoddie with loose fitting pants and had soft-sided luggage with a Sharks tag…

Salty and Sweet

I had a Salted Caramel Mocha at Starbucks recently. I felt that it tasted kind of like uni (sea urchin). Uni is the one of the most popular and expensive ingredients in Sushi. The drink didn’t taste like raw Uni. It was like the uni flavor that is commonly used for snacks.

Do you have a similar kind of experience? The idea of combining different flavors to make a new flavor is popular in Japan, in particular among younger people.

When I was a high school student, I enjoyed discovering new flavors by combining two or more different foods. The following combinations are typical examples:

Japanese style custard pudding + soy sauce = uni (sea urchin)

Mandarin orange + seaweed + soy sauce = salmon caviar

Japanese people like sushi, but we can’t afford it so often because of the price. So, younger people often try to find flavors that are similar to the taste of sushi ingredients by combining low price ingredients. I’m curious if there are food experiments for finding new flavors in the U.S.

I would say that mixing up sweet with other flavors sometimes results in something I like. In the U.S, I have experienced many fabulous flavors which I was not used to eating. 

A typical example is pancakes. In Japan, pancakes are thought of as a kind of snack and aren’t eaten as a meal. I couldn’t even imagine the combination of pancakes and bacon when I was in Japan. Now pancakes and bacon with maple syrup have become my favorite. Rice pudding is another example of a food that I couldn’t imagine before because the combination of rice and milk is very unusual in Japan. I felt disgusted when I saw it for the first time, but its taste was great. Sweet seasonings are often used in American dishes, especially in meat dishes. I don’t know a lot about meat dishes that have a sweet taste.

Sweet-tasting meat dishes might be a clue to making new flavors from the combination of unusual ingredients. I should try unfamiliar flavors more often. Maybe I will find an unusual combination between American ingredients and flavors that make a unique taste similar to the flavor of sushi ingredients.

Do You Believe in Ghosts?

Have you ever seen a ghost? Do you believe in ghosts?

I believed ghosts existed until my early 20’s. I don’t anymore. They might exist or they might not. I really have no idea.

As I mentioned, I used to believe in them. I was frightened by ghost stories when I was a kid. My experience living in New Jersey changed my mind. Living in a different culture from my own altered my point of view.  

How do you feel when you see a cemetery or a grave? To me, the atmosphere of a Japanese cemetery inspires fear in my mind because in Japanese culture it is said that the souls of dead people gather at graves.

In the U.S, I have the exact opposite feeling when I see a cemetery. There was a cemetery near my apartment when I lived in New Jersey. I drove by the cemetery on the way to work. When I saw it the first time, I felt it was pretty beautiful, with green grass and white gravestones. I liked that place and often took a walk to the cemetery on the weekends. I didn’t feel any fear from the cemetery. While I was walking, I used to think about how I would feel if I met a ghost. My English skills then were worse than now. I was wondering whether a ghost showed up, I would be able to understand what he/she wanted to say. I thought that I might not be able to communicate with non-Japanese speaking ghosts and would not be frightened by them. I also thought about what kind of language they would speak because they would not be human.

While I was taking a stroll at the cemetery, I also thought that zombies might not speak Japanese. Since I don’t believe that a dead person can come back to life, zombies don’t make sense to me. I feel weird when I watch zombie movies, in particular when zombies bite humans, and they become zombies. The reason is simple. Cremation is the common way of burial in Japan and burying in the ground is basically prohibited. We don’t have a tradition of burying dead bodies in the ground. Therefore, I would say only a few Japanese speaking zombies exist in the world. Each culture has a different understanding of death.

After I went back to Japan, I went to my family’s cemetery. I didn’t feel any fear anymore. I thought that if I took my American friends there, they would feel it was a cool place.

I figured out that my fear of ghosts was from my Japanese cultural background. When I go to a place which is said to be haunted, I always wonder how those who have a different cultural background feel about the place.

This is one example of how living in a different culture totally changed my perceptions.