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.
These days it isn't common that strangers say something to the other and because of this, when someone pay attention to younger people, many of them think it's annoy. (I feel so too.) I think this makes relationship gap between generations.
ReplyDeleteIt's difficult to change the custom that once created. Also this custom may cause kidnaps or murders. So if the custom that greet each other restart again in this society, it's not our problem but also social problem.
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I see your point Reiko. Thank you. A good way to make people behave better is for us to talk to each other. A simple thing like a greeting to your neighbors will make everyone more careful in their neighborhood. I don't think greeting people is a problem, but having to chastise or caution people can lead to problems. However, social problems get worse when they are ignored.
ReplyDeleteI meet a high school student every day on my way to station. She rides bicycle almost every day and even it's rainy day. She doesn't notice she is dangerous and many people put an umbrella with their riding bicycles recently. I wish someday everyone do things by the rules!
ReplyDeleteWe don't need rules. We need to use our common sense. Can you lend me some of your common sense please Mizuka? ;-)
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