Do you know...?

Do you know that Japanese people have indoor and outdoor slippers or shoes? Yes, they do! I remember when I first came to Japan I made a mistake of carrying my outdoor shoes to the entrance of the castle my dorm mates and I visited, courtesy of the dorm manager. The old lady who was attending to the visitors hit my butt. LOL! Since I had no clue about the language at that time, I didn't understand a single bit of what she rambled.

Japanese people are socialized as early as toddlerhood to practice this habit. When parents leave their toddlers in day-care centers they provide both indoor and outdoor shoes. As soon as their babies enter the day-care facility, they immediately remove their kids' outdoor shoes and replace it with indoor ones. I think this practice has something to do with respect for the person who clean the room or house. It is only a bit inconvenient at first but once you get used to it, it becomes automatic that you also do it even outside of Japan. :) This is perhaps the reason why most Japanese houses or apartments are very clean.

Do you also know that Japanese people are very good when it comes to queuing? Yes, they seemed to have a Ph.D. in arranging themselves in an organized queue. If there are promos or sales in malls, for instance, you can see them lining up for that promo or sale in an orderly fashion. I haven't seen or heard people fight in a queue like what I usually see in the Philippines. LOL! Even if they put a wide gap in between, nobody's cutting anybody on the line. Do that in the Philippines and before you knew it you are pushed to the end of the line.

How to properly wait for your turn is also taught as early as infanthood. Yes, you've read it right! When I was volunteering in a day-care facility when I was a student here in Japan, I saw with my own eyes how babies were included in the queue. They were not excused just because they were babies. If the older kids were falling in line to go to the sink to wash their hands, babies also did the same. Since they were not able to stand up on their own, they were on all fours while waiting for their turn. Anybody who goes astray i.e. crawling to the beginning of the line, are picked up by the day-care staff and returned to their proper places. :) I actually laughed at this, but the Japanese owner told me that they need to do this in order to ingrain in the kids' minds that that is the proper way to do things. One time, because I was in a hurry and only babies and two to three-year olds were on the line, I went straight to the sink and washed my hands. The older kid immediately called the attention of the owner of the day-care and said, "Enchou-sensei, Maggie-sensei wa narandenakatta!" I was shocked. That is how serious they are about proper queuing. And they take that habit up to adulthood.

Below is an example of how orderly their line is. This is a photo courtesy of CNN taken after the March 11, 2011 earthquake in Tohoku region. See what I mean? Even in the midst of a disaster, everybody still acted as normal as possible. Nobody resorted to violence to get their basic supplies.