Japanese Culture

While working at the pool I’ve made a friend named Kei (pronounced Kay). He’s in his late 20s, has his Bachelors in Business, spent a year in Australia on a fishing boat, and has a really cool electronic Japanese/English dictionary. While on break at work we have really interesting conversations about Japanese culture and American culture. Go figure, now I’m going to have a hard time remembering the cool things we’ve discussed…

In Japan, people can’t drive until they are 20 years old, which is also the legal drinking age. You’d think this would be a problem, but driving drunk is a HUGE deal in Japan – you’ll lose your license and have to pay thousands of dollars in fines. Needless to say, I don’t think people choose to drink and drive all that often… Also, there are police stations on literally every corner – they ride bikes, walk around and drive cars. But, if a police car with lights on seems to be following you, you don’t have to pull over unless they talk on the loudspeaker. How do I know? Not from experience – a friend of mine had a cop car behind them with its lights on and he pulled over, but the cop car just went right on by.
Riding bikes around Tokyo seems to be more common than driving cars. Most streets have bike lanes, and it is way easier to find a parking spot for a bike than it is for a car. I think I still prefer to drive; I rode a bike off base once and almost got hit by a car that wasn’t paying attention. My old boss at the pool has told me that she’s had two American employees get hit by cars and no one stopped to help them. She said it’s because Japanese people are afraid if they stop and help they will be involved in a law suit… =(
My friend Kei doesn’t really like Japan (even though he’s Japanese) because Japanese people are expected to be shy and quiet. He’s quite outgoing and friendly, and he doesn’t like it that typical Japanese people aren’t. I’ve heard that teaching English can be difficult because Japanese are so shy and timid they don’t talk a lot. That and they don’t want to miss-speak and say something incorrectly. I guess every job has challenges!