Quote:

Well I was just talking about my personal experiences and people I know in japan. My girlfriend always has rice in the rice cooker, waiting to be eaten... And my main reason for saying that was so that their mindset was right. Some people come to foreign countries and expect it to be america with different people. A lot of people do not realize it is a different culture and cuisine. I had a friend who went to china and said they ate too much rice...WTF do you expect little girl, lol thats what I told her. So obviously that girl was not prepared for the different eatng habits. I didn't want the OP to fall into the same trap. Although I must admit the way I said it was kinda extreme. But I'm african america, rice is not really a big part of our cuisine. At least not like it is in japan. So its little things (information) like that, that can help with the culture shock.

I agree about the talking to people part. Depending on where you are, a lot of japanese will be very nice a actually listen to you struggle in japanese and try to help you. I had a guy help me with a map for like 15 minutes...but that was in hiroshima. I'm not sure they will be so nice in tokyo... I heard fukuoka and osaka had friendly people. But I've never been to any of those places. Also another tip for speaking to japanese. Bring a pen and paper so you can write to them. They may not be able to speak english well, but most can read okay. So if they can not understand your english or vice versa, whip out the pen and paper, it will be great!

@roscoe

I can ask my girlfriend about the tipping strippers thing. She goes to the strip club all the time with her friends (please don't ask me why...I have no idea why she would go, but it's free for women to get in). But she lives in okinawa and the american presence is big. So they do things in an american kind of way. They tip waitresses there.

But I remember I went to miajima (not sure of spelling) and we got there after the last bus ran. And this guy that worked at a hotel (drove a van) told us he would come back after his shift was over and take us 5 miles to the camp site. He saved our *ss big time. We tried our hardest to give him a tip (a big one) and he turned it down every time. Its just their culture...