{"id":34492,"date":"2014-04-03T14:01:50","date_gmt":"2014-04-03T18:01:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=34492"},"modified":"2014-04-03T14:01:50","modified_gmt":"2014-04-03T18:01:50","slug":"%e3%80%90rocketnews24%e3%80%91you-know-youve-been-in-japan-too-long-when","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2014\/04\/03\/%e3%80%90rocketnews24%e3%80%91you-know-youve-been-in-japan-too-long-when\/","title":{"rendered":"\u3010RocketNews24\u3011You know you\u2019ve been in Japan too long when\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Posted by\u00a0Michelle Lynn Dinh<\/a>\u00a0(Shimane<\/a>-ken,\u00a0Chibu-mura,\u00a0<\/strong>2010\u201313),<\/strong>\u00a0editor and writer for\u00a0RocketNews24<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>The following article was written by\u00a0Philip Kendall<\/a>\u00a0(Fukushima-ken,\u00a0Shirakawa-shi,\u00a02006\u201311), senior editor and writer for\u00a0RocketNews24<\/a>,\u00a0a Japan-based site dedicated to bringing fun and quirky news from Asia to English speaking audiences.<\/p>\n

\"You<\/p>\n

So you\u2019ve been living, lounging, working, or studying in Japan for a while now. The feelings\u00a0of homesickness you first experienced\u00a0are but a distant memory, and whenever you Skype with your family, you unconsciously use the word \u201chome\u201d to refer to your place in Japan rather than your home country. Not only that, you can finally navigate the\u00a0Tokyo Metro<\/a>\u00a0without getting flustered, barely even notice\u00a0when a girl dressed in kimono passes you in the street, and you think nothing of visiting a convenience store two or three times a day, sometimes just to flick through the magazines.<\/p>\n

But what about\u00a0all of the\u00a0things you do unconsciously<\/strong>\u00a0or that seem so normal to you now but would make you stop and stare\u00a0back home? Today, we bring you a list of\u00a010\u00a0moments<\/strong>\u00a0that, if and when they happen to you, you can safely say,\u00a0\u201cWow, I\u2019ve been in Japan too long.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

1. The very thought of taking a bath without showing first makes you\u00a0feel dirty<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"YouPhoto:\u00a0Naver Matome<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

In Japan, baths are for relaxing and warming up in, not getting clean. Part of the reason why whole families have no qualms about sharing the same bath water, and in many households the water is piped to the washing machine to do laundry with once everyone has taken a dip, is because it remains almost completely clean the entire time it\u2019s in use. People always shower and wash their entire body before stepping into the tub, being careful to rinse off completely and ensure that not a single soap-bubble should enter the bath, so the water\u00a0stays clean. It\u2019s actually a really nice custom, and kind of makes you realise how gross sitting in bath water you just used to wash the dirt off your body with is.<\/p>\n

2. You ask for a non-smoking table in a restaurant when you visit your home country<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"smoking-e1396492289865\"Photo:\u00a0American Heart Association<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

In some parts of the world, it has been illegal to smoke in bars, cafes and restaurants for almost a decade. Customers are asked to take it outside or use special smoke rooms to get their nicotine\/tar fix if they really can\u2019t resist the urge, but everyone else gets to enjoy their food or drink without the accompaniment of cigarette smoke.<\/p>\n

In Japan,\u00a0an increasing number of cafes and restaurants are saying no to cigs, but visit pretty much any family restaurant and your greeter will immediately ask whether you want a smoking or non-smoking seat, and if it\u2019s a bar more often than not you can expect there to be smoke in the air. So when you fly back home or visit a country where smoking bans have been in place for years, you\u2019re bound to look a little odd insisting on a non-smoking seat since, well, they\u2019re\u00a0all<\/em>\u00a0non-smoking\u2026<\/p>\n

Check out the entire list at RocketNews24<\/a><\/strong>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Posted by\u00a0Michelle Lynn Dinh\u00a0(Shimane-ken,\u00a0Chibu-mura,\u00a02010\u201313),\u00a0editor and writer for\u00a0RocketNews24.\u00a0The following article was written by\u00a0Philip Kendall\u00a0(Fukushima-ken,\u00a0Shirakawa-shi,\u00a02006\u201311), senior editor and writer for\u00a0RocketNews24,\u00a0a Japan-based site dedicated to bringing fun and quirky news from Asia to English speaking audiences. So you\u2019ve been living, lounging, working, or studying in Japan for a while now. The feelings\u00a0of homesickness you first experienced\u00a0are but a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[1160,1137,1116],"class_list":["post-34492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articlejournalism","category-writers","tag-expat-life","tag-living-in-japan","tag-rocketnews24"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-8Yk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/112"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34492"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34500,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34492\/revisions\/34500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}