Another Day another Blog

Another time of being late with it.

You all should just click on the RSS feed instead of expecting this to have anywhere close to an appropriate update schedule.

Let's do some more "Japanese etiquette" lessons.

- It is always appreciable for someone to alert you that you have been slacking off in the hygiene department. This is why a Japanese person may tell you directly that you have gotten fatter, you don't smell very good today, or that it has become obvious that you are balding and you might want to look into that.

- If you don't go drinking with someone when asked, that means you don't like them. You should generally accompany them even if you don't get anything as a show of good friendship. They may also be shocked if you tell them that you don't smoke, because everyone smokes in Japan. I mean, it's cool, right?

- If somebody takes the opportunity to bring you an English menu or attempt to respond to you in English, it's good manners to respond in kind to their accommodations, as responding in Japanese might make it seem as though they aren't doing well enough. Be prepared to understand what they say in English less than what they'd say in Japanese.

- Eat all the food that is given to you. Just do it.

- Being foreign you are at a weird impass. You sound like a girl if you speak in polite form, but if you speak in a more casual form then you are a rude foreigner that doesn't know their place.

- Trains are not made for talking on. Neither are buses. If you must speak, you must do it quietly. Also, turn off your cell phones. This rule is able to be ignored by punk kids that sit there flicking their lighters open and closed behind me repeatedly until I turn and glare at them with my foreign superpowers.