This is part of a culture shock series that I’m doing for Japan and Malaysia. Please expect to see posts like these being posted whenever exams are approaching because apparently, I’m bad at time management.
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This one was a bit difficult for me to come up with a list for. Surprising, I know, because usually people can come up with a million and one things that they find shocking about Japan, but I just can’t. I pin this largely on the fact that I’ve been consuming Japanese content since I was a child. Not just the usual anime and manga, but music, movies, books (albeit translated), and articles about the culture and country itself as well.
And of course, the food, for the actual consuming. Hehehe.
Still, even with the amount of Japanese content I’ve exposed myself to over the years, I couldn’t escape culture shock entirely when I first visited it. Here are a couple that I can think of right off the top of my head as a Malaysian:
How quiet it is
Photo by melissakartini
Granted, Japan can be pretty noisy if you count stuff like train announcements and election time, but when it comes to the people themselves? Not so much. For a major city, Tokyo can be pretty quiet. When my mom and I first visited it in March 2018, we were surprised that there was barely a sound when we walked past blocks of buildings during the day. There wasn’t even any noise coming from the vehicles, which is in contrast with Malaysia where we can always hear drivers blaring their car horns.
Seriously, in some cases, one Malaysian person would have made more noise than an entire block of Japanese people.
That said, come 9 or even 8 PM, you’ll suddenly see Japanese people come to life because that is when they start drinking. My mom and I have joked that Japanese people pretty much only make noise once they’ve gotten some liquor in themselves.
A little extra note: Even the animals in Japan are quiet. I barely hear the cats and dogs here make any noises. This was really interesting to note!
Seeing Japanese people sleep while standing up
This one still weirds me out. Thanks to the culture of overworking and how precious time is in Japan, it is not uncommon to see Japanese people catch some Zzzs on the train. What weirds me out, though, is seeing them do that while standing up.
To this day, I still don’t understand how they’re able to do that without falling over.
What is almost as fascinating is that despite being asleep, standing or otherwise, they are almost always able to tell which one is their stop. They just somehow jerk themselves awake at their stop, magically refreshed from their few minutes of sleep, and shuffle out of the train as though nothing had happened.
If I had done that, I’m pretty sure I would’ve ended up sleeping till the very last stop.
How long it takes to create a bank account
For foreigners, that is. I’ve mentioned this one before in another post, but it is worth mentioning again. When I studied abroad in Australia, setting up a bank account was a simple task that could be done in just a day.
The same cannot be said for Japan. It took an agonizing month to get my bank account set up, and before that, I had to wait a month or so before I could set up a bank account. Luckily, I had brought enough money to tide me over while waiting. Of course, you can always withdraw money from an ATM machine, but that would’ve incurred extra costs.
Extra note: Apparently, waiting times are different for each individual, so really, you can get your Japanese bank account anywhere between a week or a month or so.
The lack of staring
In Malaysia, it is perfectly normal for people to stare at you. This is true even more so if you look as mixed as I do. Just about wherever I go back home, blatant stares would follow, and quite often, this curiosity would prompt these people to approach me with questions regarding my race. This was pretty much an average day in Malaysia for me.
But in Japan, not really. If anything, people tend to avoid eye contact in general. While Malaysians aren’t scared of eye contact, the Japanese are the polar opposite wherein they avoid it almost entirely.
They are still human, though, so of course they would stare sometimes if something catches their attention, but not to the degree that we’re used to.
There are many lights
Photo by melissakartini
Tokyo is bright. The major cities are so so bright. Once night descends upon Tokyo, it is really a treat for the senses because of all the lights that light up the city. The streetlights, the shop signs, advertisements, building panels and massive digital screens on certain buildings showing off the latest product. Hardly a corner is spared, and I guess this in turn heightens the feeling of safety that one usually feels in Japan. No one lurking in dark shadows, you know?
Coming from Malaysia, where it is not uncommon for some streets or areas to be unlit, this came as a surprise.
It really is a wonder at times. I often look at the night sight of Tokyo in awe, wondering how much energy is used to keep the city so bright. Honestly, you have to come here to believe it because just me describing and posting pictures of the neon lights and displays in Japan just isn’t enough to get the message across. It’s incredible.
