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Any foreigner who has been here long enough will undoubtedly be familiar with the “Here in Japan…” speech. The speech is a little lecture given to foreigners by people in some sort of authority, always in response to some violation of the rules or societal norms. I have two problems with the speech:

1) First of all, the pedant in me is bothered because the speech is just plain incorrect. “Here in Japan, people don’t jaywalk!” (Well, I’m here in Japan. I’m a person. And I’ve just been caught jaywalking.)

2) More seriously, there is the unspoken belief on the lecturer’s part that whoever has committed the transgression has done so because he is foreign (rather than simply because of human nature), and that a Japanese person would never commit the same act. I’ve heard “Here in Japan, people obey the speed limit!” (which is of course why every police motorcycle in the country is outfitted with radar) ; “Here in Japan, everyone returns their rental DVDs on time!” (which is why video stores have late return policies) , and even “Here in Japan, we make a reservation when we want to go to the data centre!”

Anyway, the reason I posted this was to write about the best “Here in Japan…” I have ever heard. What was even more surprising was that the recipient was Japanese. I was at the Fuchu License Centre Motorcycle Test Track waiting for my own motorcycle test, and I heard the examiner berating some poor fellow who had just failed his license test by getting too close to the edge of the S-Curve, a pylon-lined curvy path that you have to navigate without hitting a pylon. This fellow had apparently been licensed to ride in the States, and was testing to get a Japanese license. The examiner shouted at him.. “Oh. So they gave you a license in the States, did they? Well let me tell you something… Here in Japan, WE DON’T KNOCK OVER PYLONS WHEN WE DO THE S-CURVE ON OUR MOTORCYCLES!”.

Guess he got told!

This entry was posted on Monday, October 8th, 2007 at 7:41 pm and is filed under japan, rant. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.