The culture shock that I would like to discuss is about the Japanese manners in eating. One of my friends visited a Japanese restaurant once and he told me he was shocked by the way Japanese eat. He said that, unlike Western and Middle Eastern countries, the Japanese eat noisily. Japanese are noisy in two ways. First, they tend to talk a lot while eating. Usually Middle Eastern and Western people eat silently and if they would talk, the words would have to be uttered mildly. But the Japanese are the complete opposite. They would even laugh and talk loud. The second way they are noisy is that they make funny sounds when they eat. The sound is similar to chewing or slurping your food loudly so that everyone one in a room could here you.
At first, my friend and I were laughing because I thought the Japanese were uncivilized when it comes to eating – that they do not give respect to others by being noisy. Nevertheless, I have met many Japanese and they seem to be disciplined and very smart. I became more interested to learn about them therefore especially why they are noisy when eating. To my surprise, I learned that being noisy while eating is the Japanese way of appreciating the food served to them (JAPANREFERENCE, 2016). I learned that while westerners and Arabs show respect to food by eating reverently, Japanese show the same respect by their enthusiasm to eat by eating noisily (Atlas, 2016)..
This story from my friend and my experience in learning more about the Japanese challenged my views about ethical standards and culture. I realized that while almost all people believe in being ethical and moral, we show it in different ways (Cotter, 2011). Sometimes, we might become bias about other people and judge them inappropriately – like my friend laughing at the way Japanese eat – because we tend to base everything from our own culture. We, therefore, need to be considerate in judging other people – what this world need is more understanding rather than hasty judgments.
References
Atlas (2016). Why do the Japanese slurp when eating? Retrieved from http://atlasp.net/questions/23.html
Cotter, A.M. (2011). Culture clash: an international legal perspective on ethnic discrimination. US: Ashgate Publishing.
JAPANREFRENCE (2016). Ramen eating noisy. Retrieved from http://www.jref.com/forum/threads/ramen-eating-noise.23475/
