It May Seem Rude to You, But Not in Japan

You know how there are certain things you do in your country that can be considered rude? Well, in other parts of the world it may be the opposite. I say this a lot, but Japan is a unique country with it's own culture and lifestyle. What you may think is rude, may not be in Japan. I live in America, so I will be talking about concepts I'm accustomed to.

Stories From Japan: Lost Gaijin

I had two public talks a few weeks ago. One talk was about manners in Japan and another was on travel in Japan. Both brought up really interesting questions from the attendees. But one question really stuck out to me. "What do you do when your lost?" Now the logical and predictable thing to do is to ask for help, but most people either don't know Japanese to that extent or have no confidence in their Japanese to ask for help. Instead of answering with these replies I simply said "do the lost gaijin look."