Weird World Cultural differences Japan
The replies to this ‘Moved to Japan, met my neighbour’ are an object lesson in cultural differences
Anyone who did a Business Studies GCSE knows, because Mr Porter told them repeatedly, in no uncertain terms, that in Japan – say it with me now – it’s important to build relationships before doing business.
Well, there are other differences too, obviously.
Clean streets…
Polite discourse…
Trains that are officially late if they arrive 0.1 seconds past their scheduled time and automatically print slips of paper explaining why you’re two shakes of a lamb’s tail late for work.
Smart loos that sing your bowels into action…
Need we go on? Oh, all right then. Here’s a classic of the genre that’s just gone viral again after it was shared by @weirddalle on Twitter.
In case Yamashita-san’s handwriting is a bit tricky to get your head around, here’s the note’s text in full:
(I can’t speak English)
Thank you for the present.My name is Hiroshi Yamashita.
I’m fifty two years old.
The divorce and I live alone.
You can use it if you like.
I’m stuffed and toilet paper.
Do you have navy? Yes no.
Please tell me your child’s name.
Thank you for your friend operation.
One X user is sceptical about Yamashita-san’s motives.
“He’s asking if he has a navy,” they write. “Seems like all the neighbourly politeness is a ruse to gather intelligence regarding a possible naval invasion.”
Gosh, I hope they’re not onto something.
“Yeah,” replies another user. “The letter is carefully crafted so you lower your guard and confess that you actually have a navy, only to realise too late that you F’ed up.”
Oh, darn.
Others have called positive attention to the phrase “friend operation”.
“If I had friends,” one says, “I would totally start saying ‘friend operation’.”
You and me both, friend!
“It sounds like you need to initiate more friend operations.”
Ouch.
What does ‘I’m stuffed and toilet paper’ mean?
Others have more burning questions. Such as: What does “I’m stuffed and toilet paper” mean? Sense or nonsense? Method in the madness?
“These characters are literally ‘hand paper’,” one user responds. At last, some sense!
In Chinese, this word means toilet paper but in Japanese it means letter. So I assume it’s something like ‘I sent this letter’ or that he can reply by letter.
However: “If this letter was written in Kanji rather than English, and it was addressed from a Japanese person to a Chinese person, then this might be the case.
“In this case, the Japanese are writing in English, so it is impossible to write ‘letter’ as ‘toilet paper.'”
And here comes the wizened foll0w-up, if you can follow it.
This is because it is generally called ‘トイレットペーパー’, which is the literal translation of the English word in katakana. Judging from the situation, the letter must have included a bag of toilet paper.
If, upon reading this, you’re as lost as you were when we started, if not more, don’t worry.
Someone else reckons he was trying to say he has plenty of toilet paper, and wants to know if his new neighbour – our protagonist – needs to use any.
Which begs the question:
Who the hell offers toilet paper as a first neighbourly introduction? So weird.