Calcifer

I was tempted to import this festival to NY this morning when a 2-inch long roach walked by me on my way to work. YUCK!

Justme123456

Well said! On point, I was somewhat-recently in "piss alley" with a couple of friends (gaijins, mind you) and a solo-eating salary-man in his 50's slid over a few stools to sit next to us for a moment as he was paying his bill. He leaned over and quietly said with a little bit of foreign language struggle: "Please, I hope you enjoy your stay in Japan". He stood up, bowed and disappeared in the crowd before we could express our gratitude at his sincere kindness. It makes me smile every time I remember it to this day.

smithrh

Nice thread!

Let me add my 2 yen - this is from 13 years ago...

Being taller than most people (I'm only 5'11").

Being stared at (or studiously ignored) because I'm light haired and blue eyed.

Beers available in vending machines. Calpis. Sweat.

Amazing attention to detail and timing:

* Trains are ON TIME. If the schedule says 12:11, it's 12:11.

* Have Google Earth? Take a look at the Shinkansen staging yard near the monorail - they are lined up *perfectly*.

* I saw - and took a picture of - a 5 or 6 man crew meticulously fixing a very small hole in a street, couldn't have been more than a few inches wide

A little heater in my hotel mirror in the bath to prevent condensation so I could shave without messing up the glass.

Being asked to countersign my travelers checks MORE THAN A DOZEN TIMES because my signature didn't quite perfectly match what the hotel manager was looking for - I still chuckle about this.

Pointing at food replicas to order - great food for the most part, even if I had no clue what it was.

Electronic musical chimes abound. Hard to explain if you haven't been there, but these were omnipresent when I was there...

100+ FM stations in the hotel room

Amazing neon, just amazing

Seeing at least a smattering of English (Engrish) nearly everywhere in Tokyo that I went.

"No Westerners" signs

The ever-present tissue being handed out on the streets. Some of the first advice I got - "Take some, you never know"

T-shirts in English that make no sense, or worse.

No tipping - service was, for what I could see - taken quite seriously and personally.

The warrens of Akihabara.

Dang, I really need to go back!

Pickles

I've never seen one of these, although no doubt they exist, according to Aldwinckle. Anybody seen one of them?

valve bouncer

Nope, saw some "No Americans" signs in Okinawa. When I lived in Okinawa the video store had a "no foreigners" sign there but he let me sign up no problems, told me that it's only military-people they wouldn't lend videos to.

LapLap

I can't give any comment to 13 years ago, but for the past 5 years I've never seen one. I took the advice from a series of guidebooks and some internet sites that I might not be welcome at places with the sign "SNACK" on them, but having peeked into a few of these I'm not sure I wanted to go in anyway.

And a couple of years ago, when I was snooping around the lobbies in an area in Osaka with many 'Boutique' Hotels I stepped though some sliding doors to be confronted with newly arrived silence and hard stares from a huge room full of... I may never know for sure. If I'd been in London and they'd been caucasian, I would have taken them for Cab drivers. But there was a yakuza like quality to this gathering, not that I stayed long or dwelt on details. And it really freaked MrLapLap out who'd been standing behind me. I bowed, said gomen nasai, and left. Very quickly. All I can say for sure is thet there'd been no "No Westerners" sign.

abmj-jr

David Aldwinckle (Arudo Debito) lists a bunch on his website. He is a bit of a wild-eyed activist, but has photos.

http://www.debito.org/roguesgallery.html

LapLap

I'm in complete sympathy and support of this guy's campaign. But for Tokyo itself there are 5 signs listed and one of these discriminates against locally active foreign prostitutes (the 'foreign' bit is excessive, but as it's arguably regarding "a clear and present endangerment of public morals" this particular sign seems legal enough). Not one of the signs says "No Westerners". I don't doubt that there are more, but they are obviously very difficult to find.

My anger is focused especially on those who discrimate against ethnic Koreans living in Japan Now where could I source a couple of stinkbombs before a visit to Princess Plumeria's establishment...?

mosburger

Korea might be the most ethnocentric and sometimes fanatically nationalistic country in the World, so it's not all one sided. And some of the Koreans in Japan have been very succesfull, as can be seen from the Lotte empire.

LapLap

And this same argument could excuse the way some racists treat British Muslims and those with family from India in the UK

Isn't the guy from Lotte's wife Japanese? I know he has a Japanese name as well as his Korean one.

When Princess Plumeria makes a policy of not having her staff perform pedicure on ethnically impure feet, I doubt she feels she is doing her bit to redress some kind of perceived 'balance'. I personally don't accept it, don't believe it has a place in modern Japan and have, thankfully, married into a family with no inclinations towards this kind of prejudice.

kcvt750

Racism in Japan? Surely you jest.

ksandness

--Shopkeepers in department store basements or arcades growling, "Hai, irasshai! Irasshai!" at passersby.

--Small children who always wear hats outside.

--Teenagers carrying briefcases to school and small children with those distinctive "randoseru" backpacks.

--Tiny old women in greyish kimono

--Houses that are right on the sidewalk but have potted plants outside and futons being aired out on the balcony.

--Those little clothes hanging devices that are just the right size to fit on a Japanese balcony

--Talk shows on which utterances that seem especially startling or witty are instantly repeated in subtitles

--Not needing a car!!!!

--Sitting at the kotatsu sipping tea in an otherwise unheated room

--Magazine ads hanging from the middle of the subway car

--TV dramas, even hard-boiled cop shows, in which someone always ends up crying in the last scene

--Enka, performed by singers whose voices are almost always totally shot

--Traffic lights that play the first two lines of "Tooryanse" when it's all right to cross the street

--The sentou

--Curry rice with a piece of paper napkin wrapped around the spoon handle

--The police making their rounds on squeaky bikes

--Deliverymen from noodle and sushi shops riding around on scooters equipped with spring-balanced racks

--The lines in the station platform indicating where you should wait if you want to board a specific car on a specific train--and having the arriving train line up exactly with those designated spaces

I could go on, but I do have other things to do.

LapLap

Seeing the price of those backpacks in a department store

Apparantly each school has its own particular back pack and the price of these can vary considerably. There are plenty of people paying ¥50,000 and upwards for those cute little backpack cases. I bet that's a real "feeling of being a parent in Japan" when someone is first confronted with cost of buying one.

Pickles

When you get on the Yamanote line and occupying two seats is a huge sumo wrestler, dressed in his yukata and sandals, topknot and all, listening to his iPod and surfing the web on his phone.

kcvt750

And nobody, repeat NOBODY, is messing with him....