Being Social and Being Polite
A few weeks ago, somebody told me that I'm most polite to people I don't know. I was surprised to hear it. As you may know, in Japan people are usually polite to people they know and ignore almost everyone else.
Every morning, when I cycle to the train station near my house I try to say 'Good morning' to at least five people. Yesterday, I managed to greet five people. Unfortunately, today it was raining and I greeted no one. However, I did chastise three people - the umbrella cyclists. It's now illegal to ride a bicycle while holding an umbrella.
So, I wasn't polite to four people I didn't know. I simply said to them, "Abunai desu", which is "It's dangerous" in Japanese. One of the cyclists was riding down the middle of a one way street - the wrong way, holding an umbrella with his wife sitting on the rear (very small) parcel rack. Congratulations! If a policeman had been there, at 6:40 a.m., the man could have been fined up to 50,000 yen for using an umbrella. The good news is, having his wife on the parcel rack would only cost him another 20,000 yen.
So, I wasn't polite to those two people I didn't know. I simply was trying to help them save money.
