Going to Tokyo first time

[JazzSinatra]

I travel to Tokyo and Japan for first time in my life today. Do any of you have recommendations what I should do or see there?

This was pretty much an extempore idea. I was one day configuring my new FreeBSD server and it hit me. "For this years annual leave, I'll travel to Japan". This happened about week ago.

 

[SirDice]

I travel to Tokyo and Japan for first time in my life today.

Nice, I've been there in 2007. Awesome city.

Do any of you have recommendations what I should do or see there?

As a nerd/geek you have to visit Akihabara of course. Also go to Shibuya to see that famous crossover.

Few tips, on escalators, stand on the left, walk on the right side.
Do NOT talk on your phone in public transport, you can use your phone to internet or text but NO conversations. Phone conversations are considered rude and you will get scolded for it.
If somebody gives you a business card, accept it with both hands.
Visit Rappongi, but do not go with any of those guys that invite you to a "club", no matter what kind of "free" drinks they'll offer. You will end up paying a LOT of money and cannot leave until you do.

 

[JazzSinatra]

Nice, I've been there in 2007. Awesome city.


As a nerd/geek you have to visit Akihabara of course. Also go to Shibuya to see that famous crossover.

Few tips, on escalators, stand on the left, walk on the right side.
Do NOT talk on your phone in public transport, you can use your phone to internet or text but NO conversations. Phone conversations are considered rude and you will get scolded for it.

Thanks for the tips. I definitely have to go some arcade places. They are not common here in Finland (population of only 5 million people), I know that there is one in our capital city Helsinki.

One funny coincidence is that there are simultaneously three of my friends in Japan. I'll meet two of them in separated days. World is tiny.

 

[SirDice]

I definitely have to go some arcade places.

I've been to a few but I can't remember where. I do remember playing an awesome multiplayer Gundam game. The arcade had 6 fully enclosed pods, all linked together and they appeared to be linked to other arcades as well. Massive battles.

You'll also find lots of Pachinko places. You can hear them from far away, most of them play J-Pop at an incredible loud level and rows upon rows of Pachinka machines are ridiculously noisy too. Definitely worth a visit but you might want bring some earplugs.

 

[Crivens]

Also no eating while walking and I'll not go into the chopsticks etiquette. Ask a local about that. Avoid bringing presents with 4 somewhere. So no tea set with 4 cups, plates, spoons and 4 forks with 4 pins. That is bad mojo. When attending a tea ceremony, plan for a sleepless night. That stuff is pure wakeness.

SirDice Speaking from experience?

Well, visiting Japan is still on my bucket list.

 

[JazzSinatra]

Also no eating while walking and I'll not go into the chopsticks etiquette. Ask a local about that. Avoid bringing presents with 4 somewhere. So no tea set with 4 cups, plates, spoons and 4 forks with 4 pins. That is bad mojo. When attending a tea ceremony, plan for a sleepless night. That stuff is pure wakeness.

Thanks. I have heard that you shouldn't stick chopstick to food to stand because this is a funeral ritual. Also, I have heard that you shouldn't pass food directly to another's chopsticks with your chopsticks. And no rolling chopsticks together, because that signals that chopsticks are cheap.

 

[SirDice]

@SirDice Speaking from experience?

No, we were smart enough not to fall for them. Years later I did see a documentary how it worked, I was glad we already had the sense not to fall for it.

I have heard that you shouldn't stick chopstick to food to stand because this is a funeral ritual. Also, I have heard that you shouldn't pass food directly to another's chopsticks with your chopsticks. And no rolling chopsticks together, because that signals that chopsticks are cheap.

Yep. Speaking of food etiquette, don't pour your own drinks, like many things in Japan, it's rude to do so. You pour your drinking buddy's drink and they'll return the favor. If you're at a gathering, wait until everybody has a drink and a collective "Kampai" (cheers) has been done. Then you can drink.

 

[Crivens]

Most people are forgiving when a foreigner does not know each detail of etiquette. So better not look like a native.

And when you plan on visiting someone local, bring your own pair of slippers. Even the ambulance medics take off their shoes before entering living quarters.

 

[Crivens]

If you ask someone for help and he can't help you, he might want to not waste your time with useless excuses. He may simply walk on.

 

[SirDice]

If you ask someone for help and he can't help you, he might want to not waste your time with useless excuses. He may simply walk on.

They much rather send you the wrong way than admitting they don't know. But this seems to be quite common in Asia, not just Japan.

That said, I've found the Japanese to be quite helpful. I remember when we first arrived from the airport and took the train. When we got into Tokyo we had to take a metro. We just stood there staring at this massive colored diagram of metro lines and routes not knowing which metro to take. After a minute or so a Japanese lady came up to us and told us to go to the station manager's office and ask for an English language plan. This helped immensely. The metro is actually quite easy, all lines have specific colors and all stations are numbered. So even if you don't know the actual name you can tell by the numbers where you need to get off.

 

[toorski]

I'd recommend "shinkansen" ride to Kyoto's "eki." The only thing that impressed me there. Because, Kyoto's tourist row was too crowded for me. If money is no object and you are into sushi, then Tokyo's "uoichiba" is a must

 

[JazzSinatra]

Most people are forgiving when a foreigner does not know each detail of etiquette. So better not look like a native.

With Nordic blue eyes and blonde hair that probably is not a problem.

 

[SirDice]

With Nordic blue eyes and blonde hair that probably is not a problem.

If you're also taller than 1.70m (that seemed to be the average height of the Japanese) you're going to stick out like a sore thumb

 

[SirDice]

Avoid bringing presents with 4 somewhere.

The Japanese word for "four" looks and sounds very similar to the Japanese word for "death".

 

[scottro]

I'd say (I don't know where you're from) that they tend to be reserved and polite. In Tokyo, if I remember correctly, there are usually a few foreigners around--in the past 10 years I've only been to the Osaka area, and hardly see any non-Japanese there.
I would say (though this could depend upon your age and every thing else) it's better to be too polite. I'm not quite typical because I speak the language, and once people realize that they expect me to understand the etiquette Generally, in my experience people are helpful, and Tokyo sort of seems to me to be a cleaner, safer, Manhattan though more spread out. While things are, of course, different and all the advice given is good, mainly, simple politeness should get you through most situations. Walking and eating, sticking your chopstick in rice, have been covered, but they will be more forgiving of a foreigner, especially if they see you mean well. Enjoy yourself, don't be a jerk. and all should be fine.

 

[Crivens]

I just can't stop suspecting the japanese folks we surely have around to hold back here and let us buutenlanders make fools of ourselves...

 

[Crivens]

scottro How did you learn that? My attempts at russian, and japaneese, failed on the writing side so I never got close to speaking it.

 

[scottro]

Crivens it was before the Internet and I had a broken heart and nothing to do. Basically, in NYC, it was easy to wind up spending weekends speaking no English, save, ironically at a karate doujou.
Also ironically perhaps, in the end, I married a Japanese woman whose English was (and is) better than my Japanese and my Japanese has gone way downhill. But the short answer is, I wound up, after the broken heart, making a lot of Japanese friends who wanted to learn English and also, having the time to sit there at night going through the boring repetitive exercise like is this a book. Yes it's a book. Is this a book. No it's a house you moron, can't you tell the difference between a house and a book? (I may be remembering the sentences incorrectly).
A great deal of it was being able to make a lot of Japanese friends at the time. I would take classes as well, but most of my classmates were just learning it for business, whereas being able to sort of use it in everyday situations and of course, the incentive of trying to fix the broken heart by finding another girlfriend helped too. I was never great at writing--at best, I may have known 500 characters, but did know all the phonetics.

Doing karate at the time, and trying to impress the Japanese instructors also gave me incentive. For writing, I started with the phonetics and was also taking classes at the Japan Society and they were pretty good about integrating the reading and writing with the speaking. Don't want to take this too far off topic, but if you have other questions, feel free to PM me.

 

[loveydovey]

Where's T-Aoki in all of this? T-Aoki seems so nice, helpful, and knowledgeable. What is his view of Japan? I think he lives in Japan? Japan is such an unusual place. Some things I see/hear are nice, some - not so much. What are people's perceptions of Japan from outside too? I know scottro married a Japanese girl from his posts...has your Japanese language ability improved since then, scottro?

Japanese writing - to me - looks like drunken Chinese characters (they do share the same characters, but then Japanese writing has really wonky looking scribbly things that look like something maybe someone drunk would write haha).

Then you are literally constantly living in fear in Japan - of major earthquakes and tsunamis. Wouldn't that affect you a lot? People in California can relate, but it's not nearly as scary as constant and major shaking in Japan.

Then you have this major, major urban centers like Tokyo that look absolutely unbelievable from above, giant sprawling concrete buildings wherever you look. Kinda scary! And people are in prison of these cityscapes. Then there's beautiful countryside that you can easily get to - oh my god, Japanese transportation system is so amazing from what I see online (and yes, I played that simple freeware Japanese train sim BVE trainsim many, many years ago).

And the only good browser for cellphones is a Japanese-made Sleipnir - because it has finger gestures that make browsing user experience amazing.

And of course, sushi. Sashimi....mmmm, San Francisco has authentic sushi places in Japantown, so we don't have to ever go to Japan?

 

[T-Aoki]

Never noticed this thread until I'm mentioned.

First of all, don't be surprized when Japanese person orders lice at restaulants. It means rice. Historically, pronounces of L and R are not distinguished in Japanese (language) for centuries, so often pronounced whichever the person feel comfortable. And this is one of the reason Japanese people (especially olds) hesitate to speak / can't hear well foreign languages. This would also make Japanese hard to learn for foreigners, as there are many cases that words having exactly same pronounce have different meanings as already noted by SirDice as below.

The Japanese word for "four" looks and sounds very similar to the Japanese word for "death".

This should be 四 (four, U+56DB) and 死(death, U+6B7B) respectively, both pronounced as "shi". Another example would be 九(nine, U+4E5D) and 苦(suffer, U+82E6), both pronounced as "ku".
Fortunately, 四 (four, U+56DB) has another pronounce "yon" (oy "yo" as seen in 四ツ谷,pronounced as "yotsuya") and 九(nine, U+4E5D) has "kyuu" as seen in 九州, pronounced as "kyuushuu".

And even for Japanese person who speaks English, wait for the person if the person says "I'll go!". This often means "I'll come!". This is because of cultural differences. In English, the direction is "from the point of view from hearer", while "from the point of view from speaker" in Japanese.
And this is because my writings are quite often redundant to indicate directions not to be mis-understood.

I think he lives in Japan?

Yes, in Nagoya (almost geographically at the center of Japan, Pacific ocean side).

Japanese writing - to me - looks like drunken Chinese characters (they do share the same characters, but then Japanese writing has really wonky looking scribbly things that look like something maybe someone drunk would write haha).

It would be because of Hiragana and/or Katakana that are used with Kanji.
Both Hiragana and Katakana are phonograms, while Kanji are logograms.
Hiragana and Katakana were created in ancient Japan, based on Kanji (came from ancient China directly or via Korean Peninsula) that sounds like Japanese pronounces at the era and significantly modified.

Wouldn't that affect you a lot?

Thankfully, not until now for me.

Then you have this major, major urban centers like Tokyo that look absolutely unbelievable from above, giant sprawling concrete buildings wherever you look. Kinda scary! And people are in prison of these cityscapes. Then there's beautiful countryside that you can easily get to - oh my god, Japanese transportation system is so amazing from what I see online (and yes, I played that simple freeware Japanese train sim BVE trainsim many, many years ago).

In my humble opinion, Japan is too much centralized to Tokyo.
And Japan is a country of mountains. Plains are quite limited here in Japan.
And do you mean this? I've never played, though.
You may also interested in simulators in the Raylway Museum at Omiya, Saitama city relatively near Tokyo.
Here in Nagoya, you can find Shinkansen simulator at SCMAGLEV Railway Park.

And of course, sushi. Sashimi....mmmm, San Francisco has authentic sushi places in Japantown, so we don't have to ever go to Japan?

It strongly depends on how the fishes are treated to keep qualities.

 

[Emrion]

I went once in Japan, in 2024. A very touristic trip. Even if Tokyo is impressive, that's not what I preferred. Landed in Osaka, then Nara, Kyoto (of course), Hakone and finally Tokyo.

I liked the Japanese cooking, especially sashimi.

We were hosted in a ryokan at Hakone, it was in a natural place with private onsen where water comes from the thermal sources. That's my best memory of the trip.

But, there are so many things to tell... For the European I'm, it's another world, a beautiful one.

 

[scottro]

loveydovey, my Japanese has gotten rather poor. My wife always spoke better English than I spoke Japanese, when we're alone, we usually speak some hybrid version, Japlish? For example during a fight she'll say you are really baka no hito. (Idiot). So my Japanese has gotten much worse. As I said in a post above, at one point I had a lot of Japanese friends and sometimes spoke no English over the weekend, save at the karate school. But now, I speak very little Japanese. My wife calls her parents, who are in their 90's, frequently, and I speak to them in Japanese, but's it's mainly, How are you, is everything OK?
As T-Aoki said, it seems that there's more emphasis on Tokyo. My wife is from Hiroshima, which seems more like a suburb, though her parents are now in an assisted living place in Kobe and her sister is in Osaka. My wife recently opened a Gyrotonic studio in Osaka. To add to what T-Aoki said hiragana is sort of basic phonetics, and katakana is often used when you would use Italics in English. For example the certificates I would get at the karate school when promoted. It's also used for for foreign words. Like if I wrote my name in Japanese, I would use katakana. At one point, I chose some kanji for my first name too, but it was sort of silly, Su-ko-tto, the su meaning lucky, the ko meaning pride and the to meaning person. (There were other possible definitions)
素誇人, the katakana is スコット.

A long winded answer to a short question, the short answer is no, my ability hasn't improved. Actually I used to amuse my friends, because I would know kanji for various karate terms, and they wouldn't know how to write them, for example keru, kick. Although nowadays, most people I speak to say that with computers and smart phones, the number of kanji they can write has drastically decreased. When I began learning, it was the early 90's, and then everyone could write. (Though even though folks can't write as many kanji as they used to, they can still read them--for example, that keru kanji is something they'd be able to read, but might have forgotten hoiw to write it). In the same way, many of us have forgotten how to write a particular letter in script, though we can easily read it.

 

[loveydovey]

This should be 四 (four, U+56DB) and 死(death, U+6B7B) respectively, both pronounced as "shi".

I think that's the same in Chinese, too, right? Both are characters for four and death...? So I wonder how much easier will it be for someone who learned Chinese to learn Japanese on top? It's super confusing to learn at the same time, but one after another maybe? Duolingo is free too!

Thankfully, not until now for me.

Oh, good, but do you have a plan if it happens? As in an emergency preparedness plan? I saw a youtube video during the earthquakes just a couple of weeks ago in Japan where you get a notification in your car over the radio or something? It feels like Japan is much better prepared for earthquakes than most places.

Thank you for your reply.

Never noticed this thread until I'm mentioned.

Yes, you have been summoned.

Yes, in Nagoya (almost geographically at the center of Japan, Pacific ocean side).

How different is it from Tokyo, I wonder? Everything in Japan seems so clean and well organized and safe. But I hear Japanese culture is relatively unfriendly to most immigrants, I watched some youtube videos, it's quite peculiar. Safety though is definitely relatively attractive to people from all over the world to raise a family, you know?

Also, there's anecdotally rivalry or worse between Japanese and Chinese, historically too, no? The Chinese-Japanese wars or something? I can say with certainty though that Japanese laptops are much better than Chinese laptops - I am sporting a Toshiba laptop for the past 12 years (so sad they went out of business!)...

And Japan is a country of mountains.

...and of islands?

 

[scottro]

loveydovey, for what it's worth, when I took Japanese classes at the Japan Society, there was one Chinese man in it. At some point we were discussing kanji, and the teacher asked him how many did he know. He said around 5,000. The teacher laughed, saying, that's more than I do. My wife has mentioned that to be considered literate, the average Japanese should know about 2,000. Japanese has those phonetic alphabets, Chinese doesn't, which, I'd guess, is why they need more kanji to write. For example in Japanese you have verb, say tabemasu, to eat. Then you use the phonetics for verb tenses, such at tabemashita, have eaten, and so on. Another martial art I studied had some fairly esoteric names for some techniques. A very literate Japanese friend, couldn't read the kanji for one of these, but a Chinese friend said, Oh, that's undefeatable. As for the speaking, most Japanese kanji have a Chinese reading and Japanese reading. But the Chinese reading will often be slightly different than native Chinese pronunciation. For example, a word (and kanji) for person is pronounced, in Japanese, as "jin". In Chinese, it's pronounced "jen".
That kanji has the Japanese reading of hito, sounds like shto to American ears.

Also, many kanji are simpllified from a Chinese kanji. For example, ki, energy. It's pronounced Chi in Chinese.. Japanese write it as

気.​

​

In Chinese 氣​

(I copied and pasted there, fonts might be weird.)

 

[T-Aoki]

To add to what T-Aoki said hiragana is sort of basic phonetics, and katakana is often used when you would use Italics in English.

And words from foreign languages are usually described with Katakana in recent several decades after WW2. Beforehands, as far as I've heared, Hiragana was almost never used for official documents including laws.
And Katakana was started using by mostly males, while Hiragana was started using by mostly females in quite early days both were created at, if I recall correctly, around Heian era. Both are derived from Man'yo-Gana which used Kanji itself to describe.

for example keru, kick

It should be 蹴(U+8E74)。　Quite complexed gryph.
Anyway, deskutils/gucharmap would be helpful if you have full (or almost full) Unicode font like x11-fonts/noto installed and configured (at runtime) to use any of them.

When I began learning, it was the early 90's, and then everyone could write. (Though even though folks can't write as many kanji as they used to, they can still read them--for example, that keru kanji is something they'd be able to read, but might have forgotten hoiw to write it). In the same way, many of us have forgotten how to write a particular letter in script, though we can easily read it.

It started far before 90's. Even on my age (approaching to 60), most person can read 薔薇 (pronounced "bara" and means rose), but many of us wouldn't be able to write it.

I think that's the same in Chinese, too, right?

Maybe no (I've never learned Chinese). They'll pronounce it differently.
There's a joke "Chinese can read (pronounce) old Chinese poems correctly but cannot understand what it means, while Japanese cannot read (pronounce) the same but understand what it means".
This would be because ancient Japanese tried hard to understand, and invented the method to read Chinese Kanji documents (laws, technical docs, sutras and so on) as Kanbun Kundoku (漢文訓読).

Both are characters for four and death...?

No. 四 is for four, while 死 is for death.

Oh, good, but do you have a plan if it happens? As in an emergency preparedness plan?

Ah, not sure I'm still living when it happenes (said that 70-80% possibilities in 30 years, and I'll be around 90 if it happenes around 30 years later).
Nagoya cityhall discloses hazard maps per wards (so should be in Tokyo and other prefs, cities, ...) and I would be safe at least for Tsunami.

...and of islands?

Yes. Japan exists near the edge of Eurasia plate that multiple plate meets together.
So there are multiple types of mountains, volcanic, folded and fault-block.
And become islands as Sea of Japan was born (sunk). And many volcanic islands exists, too.