Category Archives: One Point Lesson

The most annoying five sentences to Japanese wives.

A Japanese newspaper conducted a survey targeting 6000 housewives in Japan. It selected five sentences which piss off Japanese wifes most. Probably you should be careful even your wife is not Japanese. #5. 疲れた (つかれた, I’m tired.) Housewives who’d been interviewed said that “I do housework every day at home and I’m very tired, but […]

Myth about Japanese cuisine

Is Japanese food really healthy food for foreigners? After chatting with foreigners who love Japanese food, this question appeared in my mind. A few years before, 和食(わしょく, Japanese cuisine), which was assessed as a world cultural heritage, have attracted worldwide attention. As a Japanese who can be recognized as the world’s health food by the […]

Business etiquette – #4

新年あけましておめでとうございます! Happy new year! みなさん! Wish you all the best in the new year! Let’s continue our topic of business etiquette, and hope you have a chance to take advantage of the information in 2018. 10. Complain about the work on drinking parties In other countries, people usually do not talk about their jobs on […]

Business etiquette – #3

I hope you all could have some opportunities to practice the etiquettes I have introduced before. This week, I will introduce more interesting things which will probably surprise you. 7. Call a waiter/waitress loudly in restaurants When ordering a meal in Japan, it is common to give a yell of “すみません!” to waiters/waitresses, while it […]

Business etiquette – #2

Following last week, I’ll introduce more common etiquettes in business occasions. 4. Always let your supervisors or customers get in the elevators or taxis first Japanese is considered to be the most polite people in the world, especially in the culture of priority. In Japan, priorities such as seating order and so on are all […]

Business etiquette – #1

We need to pay attention to the business etiquette in the workplace, in particular in Japan because there are a lot of unique etiquettes which is not common globally. It may become embarrassing if you don’t learn and practice properly. From this week, I will present a series of lessons to show you the most […]

How to correctly bow?

Bowing is a way of greeting, a way to show respect to others. Although the bowing as the representative of the Japanese way of greeting is mainly seen in East Asia, the West is also using it. 礼三息(れいさんそく) Bow includes “standing bow” and “seat bow”. According to the depth of the bow, it has 3 […]

5 inconceivable etiquettes in Japan

The etiquettes in countries around the world are quite different. There are a variety of etiquettes in Japan, however, some of them provoke foreigners to think “why is it the case”. Hence, I will introduce 5 typical inconceivable etiquettes summarized from the internet. 1. Eat when walking Many foreigners who have been living in Japan […]

Inappropriate ways for answering a phone

Keigo (敬語けいご) is difficult even for those who have been working in companies for a long time, in particular when answering a phone because it is not able to communicate by seeing each others’ face and body language. Undoubtedly, how people answer phone calls is very critical for the corporate image. Today, I will introduce […]

Since when did Japanese start emphasizing the punctuality?

Japanese is famous for their extremely strict punctuality because punctuality is regarded as a virtue in Japan. The most well-known example is the train (電車でんしゃ). The standard error of the train schedule is 1 minute. More amazingly, Shinkansen (新幹線しんかんせん), known as the bullet train, has the standard error of only 15 seconds. Japanese usually get […]