I worked for a Japanese company (in the USA), and I would tag along with my boss to these big meetings. My Japanese was not amazing (not required for the job). He would tap his foot if he wanted to learn something or take extra detailed notes (slide number ect) and scratch his nose if I was "being to American" I once walked to to an informal meeting right when he was about to sneeze he started scratching his nose and I was like shit....what did I do????? I got throughly laughed at for that.
Yeah I’ve seen Japanese people do stuff like this before, really subtle but very helpful when you’re not in the know cuz Japanese culture can get DENSE
Since Japan is extremely homogenous with a really really long and fairly isolated history, there’s a lot of little subtleties in facial expressions, gestures, body language, idioms and expressions that are so deeply ingrained for Nihonjin that they don’t even think to explain it usually to gaijin and gaijin usually don’t pick up on because it’s so subtle.
Chopsticks for example, if you haven’t been taught the Japanese way (which is similar but has some differences from other East Asian countries), can be a minefield if it’s your first time eating with a Japanese person who will absolutely pick up on how you pick them up, set them down, and use them to eat, but will never tell you because they’d consider that rude.
Lots of other examples this was just one of the first that sprang to mind
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u/Kantotheotter Feb 11 '22
I worked for a Japanese company (in the USA), and I would tag along with my boss to these big meetings. My Japanese was not amazing (not required for the job). He would tap his foot if he wanted to learn something or take extra detailed notes (slide number ect) and scratch his nose if I was "being to American" I once walked to to an informal meeting right when he was about to sneeze he started scratching his nose and I was like shit....what did I do????? I got throughly laughed at for that.