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Hello,
it seems I'll get my wish, in less than a month I'm going to Japan. I'll be doing an internship with a certain company in Osaka for a few months.
While my Japanese is far from perfect, I have solid basics and it's actually better than what the company is expecting from me. But I'm not sure I can say the same about my knowledge of Japanese customs and etiquette. I managed to catch a few odd bits from watching anime, Japanese movies and being generally nerdy about Japanese culture. Stuff like "you have to take off your shoes when entering a Japanese house", "Never transfer food directly from chopsticks to chopsticks", "never stick your chopsticks vertically in a bowl of rice" and so on. But I've never studied the topic systematically, and I'd say it's about time I did.
Could you recommend me a good handbook on the subject? Something detailed and comprehensive?
I have a pretty good idea about when to say stuff like "shitsureishimasu", "ojamashimasu", "itadakimasu" and so on. But if the book covered this topic as well, that would be nice.
Also, the custom of bowing. I know how to bow the way Japanese do, but I don't know exactly when to bow, to whom and to what extent in which situation.
Any recommendations? :-)
Joined: Oct 2008
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I don't think it's important for foreigners to learn proper bowing.
I'd actually say that Japanese people might find the act of meeting foreigners who bow perfectly to be more awkward than meeting foreigners who do not bow.
That's just my personal opinion.
Anyway, proper chopstick etiquette is important. Also with an internship in a Japanese company it will be extremely important for you to learn *where* to sit in any given business situation. it can get very complicated depending on the situation but the general rule is that you as an intern, the lowest of the low, will be sitting closest to the exit. I'd ask some of your coworkers to explain this to you when you start your job. You'd actually be surprised in situations like where to stand in the elevator or what seat to take in a train or taxi.
Edited: 2012-01-22, 8:36 am
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It's good etiquette to bow to people, even when talking to them on the phone. Why? Your voice will modulate during the movement, in a subtle but nevertheless perceptible way. The person you're speaking to will appreciate the gesture.
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A bit problem with handbooks is that they don't really distinguish between etiquette that is actually followed and etiquette that is technically correct but not commonly followed.
For example, technically you're not supposed to rest your chopsticks on top of a bowl or dish or something, but it's not actually very important etiquette. If you put your chopsticks on top of a bowl, it's not a big deal. It is however, very important that you don't stick your chopsticks standing up in your rice. This is just an example, but there are tons of etiquette rules that you should technically follow but most people don't, as well as etiquette rules that you must follow. I find that these books don't teach you to distinguish between the two.
I also think that the harder part of the etiquette game cannot be taught to you in a book. Take my example: I've been an English teacher for four years and I usually teach alongside a Japanese person that I have to work with to decide the lesson.
Nowadays when I propose a lesson idea I can instantly tell what my Japanese coworkers think of the lesson, and I can decide to discard my idea or change it according to what they think of it. But in the beginning I couldn't do this at all. I couldn't even tell of a teacher didn't like my idea, because Japanese people do it in a completely different way than people in America do. I literally just didn't pick up on the messages they sent to me.
These days when I present an idea I do it in a very non-committed way, as if I'm not so attached to it myself. I don't even present it as if I think it's a good idea. That way if my co-worker doesn't like the idea he can express that to me to some extent without feeling like he's shooting me down. It's very awkward for a Japanese person to have to criticize another person's idea straightforwardly, so I learned in a variety of ways to help them avoid that kind of a situation while still giving input. The way I present an idea is just one of many strategies.
I think people are very forgiving about silly etiquette things like how your use your chopsticks, because they know you're a foreigner and that it's not your culture. And it's obviously labeled as an etiquette thing. But the hard part of etiquette is actually dealing with people, and in those situations it's harder for a person to keep reminding themselves that you don't know the culture that well. It's also the kind of thing that you can't really learn from a book.
Edited: 2012-01-22, 9:26 am
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Thank you all for your replies. I forgot to mention, it would be best if the material was online and free. By free I don't mean stolen, I mean something somebody compiled and put up for free.
Sebastian: Thank you, but so far my Japanese is not good enough to read that. Sure, I can read parts of it, and with rikaichan I can read the rest. So it's a good reading practise for me, but not an effective learning tool.
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Bowing is important, but perhaps the last thing to worry about. It will just come naturally after a short while.
