‘Manners Police’ hit Japan metros

To view this article please visit http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7312672.stm

Title – ‘Manners Police’ hit Japan metros
Source – www.bbc.co.uk
Date – 25th March 2008

Let’s set the scene; you are on the London Underground, grappling with one of the free papers thrust upon you as you try and avoid being swept along in the crowd onto the wrong platform. Fighting for a seat does not even cross you mind, after all when was the last time you actually managed to sit down on the tube?

Standing next to you on the platform, on one side is a young lady obviously several months pregnant, on the other is an old man who has braved the underground with the assistance of his trusty walking stick and just in front of you is a city worker, lost in his FT, desperate to get to his destination if only to regain his mobile phone signal. The tube stops in front of all four of you and remarkably there is one free seat. Who do you think is going to get it?

Survival of the fittest does sometimes seem to take precedent to respect in our society here in the UK. Anyone who takes the tube on a regular basis in London will be familiar with the feeling of surprise when someone does actually get up and offer their seat to another passenger, most hide behind a free newspaper or laptop and pretend they don’t notice anyone else. Many will have witnessed people who clearly need a seat being left standing and struggling in the crowd. Some will have witnessed the abhorrence of an offered seat being taken by someone else rather than the person it was originally offered to.

But we should never confuse what is ‘acceptable behaviour’ at home with what is acceptable when we visit new countries. What many people in the UK will frown on as rude behaviour other cultures will see as unacceptable, disrespectful and inexcusable.

Japan and the Japanese people have long been known for their respectful culture, by most they have been admired for it and visitors to Japan should familiarise themselves with the culture in order to avoid causing offence in their behaviour. By its very nature the respect they have means that they will often not demonstrate outwardly their displeasure at the actions of short sighted visitors who act in a manner they find distasteful, but at the same time those individuals will be frozen out and will not be afforded the protection that respect carries.

Japan is a very safe country, levels of crime are low and very few visitors face anything more than language problems. Visitors that gain an understanding of the Japanese culture will find the effort made by their hosts to make them feel welcome, easily compensates for the lack of common language and this alone enables a level of communication without the need for a common language.

Sadly even Japan is changing and the ‘Manners Police’ have their work cut out, requiring bodyguards to protect them in extreme cases, but these are unlikely to be what we expect by bodyguards and an outburst of violence against a respected older gentleman in Japan is about as likely as you being offered a seat on a busy tube train in London. Imagine if the Japanese ‘Manners Police’ were deployed on the London Underground…..

Gaining a Cultural Awareness of your destination should be a vital step of your travel planning. Our Gap Year and Independent Travel Safety & Awareness workshop will help you to gain this knowledge and avoid you being subject to ‘harassment’ from the ‘Manners Police’ on your arrival

Please visit our website at www.safegapyear.com or join us on Facebook. For a complete list of Blog entries visit our National Press Archive page.