How to surprise the Japanese

Any foreigner who has lived in Japan, or even just visited for a few days, cannot fail to have heard “You’re good with chopsticks” from their hosts. This survey from goo Ranking into what foreigner in Japan activity surprises the Japanese (in a good way) looked at what other things people were impressed with. Chopsticks did figure in the rankings!

Demographics

Between the 21st and 23th of May 2008 1,072 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. Exactly 50% of the sample were male, 5.7% in their teens, 12.9% in their twenties, 31.8% in their thirties, 27.5% in their forties, 11.3% in their fifties, and 10.8% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

I’d love to see number eight myself, so if any of my readers have suitable photos, please post them and I’ll feature them on the site!

Number eleven is a Japanese habit of sticking a hand out in front to break through a crowd, often seen as someone tries to pass down a train for instance. However, some foreigners have found that a bicycle bell works just as well.

I don’t understand number sixteen! Is this a popular image from manga comics?

Ranking results

Q: What behaviour by foreigners in Japan surprises you? (Sample size=1,072)

Rank	Action	Score
1	Writing difficult kanji	100
2	Bowing on the telephone	88.1
3	Using dialect	86.0
4	Speaking Japanese fluently	82.5
5	Using proverbs, idioms	77.1
6	Eating natto	74.1
7	Habitually using chopsticks	68.2
8	Getting drunk with tie tied around head	64.3
9	Using Japanese era dates, not Western calendar	62.9
10	Singing enka, folk songs	61.0
11	Passing through crowds with a “suimasen” and the one-handed chop	58.9
12	Sitting “seiza”	56.1
13	Slurping noodles	54.0
14	Dancing a bon dance	37.6
15	Using a toothpick	31.8
16	After a bath drinking fruity milk with one hand on hip	26.6
17	Sleeping on a futon on the floor	25.2
18	Taking off shoes before going indoors	24.3
19	Wearing a kimono, yukata	22.7
20	Queueing properly	20.1