What do Japanese people wear?

[lottieandmia]

Dd (aged 9) came home from school with this question to answer. So I told her to write that Japanese people wear what we wear (a quick google to show this confirmed this to her)

However, it seems the teacher was after a different answer involving some elaborate costume. AIBU to think this is not a good approach?

Really? Tokyo five years- and travelled round.

It must have just been me!..but loads of public toilets were squat, right?

thisisaeuphemism squatting yes, filthy never!

CaterpillarCara, I can relate to that. My friends and students said my eyes were so big and scary and didn't I scare children? But I was so white and beautiful! And my nose was so big, the biggest they'd ever seen. They also said I looked like Cameron Diaz AND Celine Dion AND Lucy Blackman (very sadly the british girl who was murdered in Tokyo around the time I was in the country).

I can't imagine saying to a Japanese person that their eyes are SO small and scary and their noses SO shallow and petite and their skin SO yellow! Things are quite different there.

Maybe I've muddled the bad experiences- man, I hate a squat toilet.

Oh, and I would get:

"So, your father is white. And his parents? White? And his brothers and sisters? White? And his parents' parents? Were they white?"

It was as though they could conceive of one white person, but a whole family of them was a bit mind-blowing...

I quite like a squat toilet! Not sure why!

I did get told I looked nothing like princess diana - this is true.

thisisaeuphemism I agree - squatting yes, filthy never!

I didn't even know they had squat toilets in Japan until I went into the toilets in the underground there. Bit of a shock for me!

There can be some surprisingly basic things about Japan. Our high school only had one coal burning heater and that was in the staffroom.

The best was at the public baths when everyone would try to have a look at my bits. I lived in a very rural area and they generally thought that our western bits were very different (someone told me they thought they were sideways but I'm not sure I believe that)!

Disappointingly for them, I'm a 36 A and my bits are fairly unremarkable (at least they were until I had DS)!

My (head) hair is quite blonde. People wanted to know if my hair was, erm, "the same colour all over". Public baths did indeed provide them the opportunity to check...

Oh I don't think I could go in the public baths now. Too shy. I used to tho.

We were offered a surprise trip to a hot springs place and me and the only other British girl were rather "groomed" and everyone else in our group wasn't (American, Canadian and Japanese) and we felt pretty stupid because it felt like people were looking. With more notice I would have laid off the pruning for a while because it was so embarrassing. Sorry for the slight tmi.

OP: My 9 year old daughter has been asked what Japanese people wear.

MN: At the public baths? Not a lot!

(Is it only me smiling faintly at the direction the conversation has ended up going!)

How difficult is it to get around Japan if yo ucan't speak the l language?

When I lived in Berlin, I was in the cathedral one day with a Brasilien friend when a troop of Japanese boys came in. They were all wearing a kind of dress uniform like military cadets of some type. We tried asking a couple of them about it but none of them understood English , French or German. I realise now they must have been schoolboys in school uniform, about 16 or 17 years old I think. Wondering now whether western languages are taught there much. We also tried saying welcome. They were very shy and I think utterly mystified as to what we wanted

this is absolutely fascinating

it gives your dd sych an amazing insight into modern japan :)

print it off in a couple of days and she can use the information to make a really good project :)

It's a wonderful place to travel for an English speaker. The Japanese are very hospitable.

Thisisaeuphemism Mon 24-Jun-13 22:06:49
It's a wonderful place to travel for an English speaker. The Japanese are very hospitable.

Very true. But they do speak surprisingly less English than you would expect and trying to understand the signage at times can be difficult, particularly at first. That said lack of English does not stop hospitality or trying to help if you need it.

I agree red toothbrush, especially out of the cities, but I always found people very kind - until I wore their toilet slippers in their living rooms that is. ;)

It used to be that the Japanese studied loads of English at school - but only reading and writing - so faced with a live foreigner, they struggled. Not sure how it is nowadays. Ten/twenty years ago english conversation schools were everywhere.

I'd love to go to Japan. All of you who spent time there, what were you doing there? Did you go on the JET programme?

I spoke pretty much no Japanese when I went to live there and I found it rather hard going! That said, I was in a very very rural location. And my Japanese after 3 years was fantastic!

I'd say if you're going of outside of Tokyo, you'd best learn at least the courtesies and know how to order some food.

JET turned me down - bastards.

I went out there with the dominant language school at the time; nova. Then I got a thousand different jobs.

I went there to work for a private language school called GEOS. I think they've gone bust now. After my first year I switched schools to ECC. Much easier. Rote learning so shit for the students but an easier job!