I call BS. A lot of small residential streets in Japan don’t even have sidewalks, and people just walk in the street as you should:
Sometimes they have sidewalk-ish areas, but they’re not physically separate from the road, just painted differently. Again, people just walk in the street, and as a result cars go slowly. Pedestrians make an effort to get out of the way of cars when there are cars on the street to be polite and not inconvenience the driver, and cars drive slowly and carefully because their drivers acknowledge the street as a shared space.
Now, if the OP meant a two-lane road with crosswalks, a yellow dividing line, street lights, etc. Then that would be different. I could imagine someone objecting to walking across that kind of road without using a crosswalk, even if it was empty. Those aren’t shared spaces, those are car spaces. It would be keeping with Japanese culture to obey the traffic laws there even if the road was empty.
I’m not saying they always drive slowly, but in my experience in Japan, they do in those small, one-lane residential streets where there’s no room for a sidewalk. Is that not what you’ve experienced? I never lived in Japan long-term, but I’ve visited a bunch of times, and whenever I was in areas like that the drivers were cautious.
I’m not sure what drivers are like where you live, so maybe our standards are different haha.
But pretty much everyone hates these streets. Drivers hate how narrow they are. Cyclists hate weaving between cars and pedestrians, and pedestrians hate being the least protected things on a street full of fast moving vehicles trying to kill them.
The fact that rich assholes in Tokyo are starting to buy huge American sizes SUVs as status symbols is making the problem worse too.
At the end of the day, the best thing for every city is to make it as inaccessible as possible for personal cars, and make sure pedestrians and cyclists have their own delineated spaces for transport.
Yeah, that was my first thought. Second is that, with the levels of English fluency (or lack thereof) around here, and especially that phrase, anyone saying that is very exceedingly unlikely.
Edit: the only time I’ve seen people scold one another is when ignoring a “don’t walk” signal at a crosswalk and, even then, usually only when kids/teens are present to not set a bad example.
I agree that most Japanese have pretty low English fluency. But, the part about that that rings true is that sometimes there’s a quiet Japanese person who could speak very good English, but chooses not to speak at all because they’re embarrassed that their English isn’t perfect. Compare that to something like Italy, where people are eager to try out their broken English on you, and don’t care that they forgot most of what they learned.
One memory I have of something like this was standing in front of a map in a Tokyo metro station, trying to figure out how to get from where I was to somewhere else in the city. This was in the days before Google Maps, etc. I’d probably been staring at the map for 5 minutes, and hundreds of people had walked past me, then suddenly out of nowhere a young woman appeared next to me and asked me in very clear (but accented) English if I needed any help.
Something about that situation made me think it wasn’t just someone walking by and casually saying “oh hey, need some help?” Instead, it felt like someone who had been watching me for a bit and had taken some time to practice the phrase she was going to use until she felt confident that she had it right, then she approached.
I had that happen once. I also have translated a couple of times for tourists with train and park staff when they looked lost.
The one thing I will say is that cults love to look for slightly lost looking tourists these days, so always watch out for that. They’re harmless, generally, but will hound you to meet, pray, etc. and join their cult.
I call BS. A lot of small residential streets in Japan don’t even have sidewalks, and people just walk in the street as you should:
Sometimes they have sidewalk-ish areas, but they’re not physically separate from the road, just painted differently. Again, people just walk in the street, and as a result cars go slowly. Pedestrians make an effort to get out of the way of cars when there are cars on the street to be polite and not inconvenience the driver, and cars drive slowly and carefully because their drivers acknowledge the street as a shared space.
Now, if the OP meant a two-lane road with crosswalks, a yellow dividing line, street lights, etc. Then that would be different. I could imagine someone objecting to walking across that kind of road without using a crosswalk, even if it was empty. Those aren’t shared spaces, those are car spaces. It would be keeping with Japanese culture to obey the traffic laws there even if the road was empty.
People regularly jaywalk in Japan as well. Not everyone, but it’s not a rare sight either. It might have been different back when mama moved to Japan.
Japanese cities are so lovely.
As someone who lives in Japan, I can assure you that this isn’t true.
My life is going to end under the wheels of a hi ace or a mamachari.
I’m not saying they always drive slowly, but in my experience in Japan, they do in those small, one-lane residential streets where there’s no room for a sidewalk. Is that not what you’ve experienced? I never lived in Japan long-term, but I’ve visited a bunch of times, and whenever I was in areas like that the drivers were cautious.
I’m not sure what drivers are like where you live, so maybe our standards are different haha.
But pretty much everyone hates these streets. Drivers hate how narrow they are. Cyclists hate weaving between cars and pedestrians, and pedestrians hate being the least protected things on a street full of fast moving vehicles trying to kill them.
The fact that rich assholes in Tokyo are starting to buy huge American sizes SUVs as status symbols is making the problem worse too.
At the end of the day, the best thing for every city is to make it as inaccessible as possible for personal cars, and make sure pedestrians and cyclists have their own delineated spaces for transport.
Yeah, that was my first thought. Second is that, with the levels of English fluency (or lack thereof) around here, and especially that phrase, anyone saying that is very exceedingly unlikely.
Edit: the only time I’ve seen people scold one another is when ignoring a “don’t walk” signal at a crosswalk and, even then, usually only when kids/teens are present to not set a bad example.
I agree that most Japanese have pretty low English fluency. But, the part about that that rings true is that sometimes there’s a quiet Japanese person who could speak very good English, but chooses not to speak at all because they’re embarrassed that their English isn’t perfect. Compare that to something like Italy, where people are eager to try out their broken English on you, and don’t care that they forgot most of what they learned.
One memory I have of something like this was standing in front of a map in a Tokyo metro station, trying to figure out how to get from where I was to somewhere else in the city. This was in the days before Google Maps, etc. I’d probably been staring at the map for 5 minutes, and hundreds of people had walked past me, then suddenly out of nowhere a young woman appeared next to me and asked me in very clear (but accented) English if I needed any help.
Something about that situation made me think it wasn’t just someone walking by and casually saying “oh hey, need some help?” Instead, it felt like someone who had been watching me for a bit and had taken some time to practice the phrase she was going to use until she felt confident that she had it right, then she approached.
I had that happen once. I also have translated a couple of times for tourists with train and park staff when they looked lost.
The one thing I will say is that cults love to look for slightly lost looking tourists these days, so always watch out for that. They’re harmless, generally, but will hound you to meet, pray, etc. and join their cult.