Growing up in a Muslim dominated community where Mosques abounded, ‘noise’ was the everyday norm that characterised my day beside the ‘Hijabs’ and ‘Jalabias’.
Should there be a miracle and all other voices were silenced in the ‘Zongo’, such that no sound penetrated my eardrum, there was a sound that my pinna couldn’t ‘escape’ and that is the call of the ‘Azan’. As such, I can safely say that in my Ghana especially in the Zongo where I lived, everyday was freely a ‘noise’ day.
Everyday in the Nima, Maamobi or Mallata markets in Accra, you could hear the fourth person calling the second human to the hearing of the first and third beings. In Ghana, most people do not murmur because conversations in the office, market, ‘trotro’, hospitals, cinemas, banking halls and even church auditoriums are diffused and spread to anyone whose ears are not guarded.
This characteristic is what in this article I compare to the Japan I came to where everyone seems to be murmuring. If one talked too loud to exceed the ‘gossip’ tone, you are seen as probably ‘crazy’ or uncouth, hence the title of my writing, ” their Japan where everyone murmurs and my Ghana where we all seem crazy due to how loud we talk”.
If I have succeeded in whetting your appetite to read further, then let me introduce the bigger theme for this writing and it is the contrast between ‘acceptable’ behaviours in Ghana and Japan. Collectively Japan puts those behaviours under the umbrella of etiquette, so I say this write up is about the “bizarre” but reverred etiquettes in Japan that has made the country what it is, and probably persuade my Ghana to consider enforcing hers, as strict as Japan does.
1. As a lady or a gentleman growing up in a civilised home in Ghana, I guess you have been told several times to eat silently and that if you slurp or ‘drink’ your soup too loudly you are considered to be absent of table manners?
Well if after rebukes you still can’t eat without slurping to emphasize how sumptuous the food is, please a visa to Japan is the best to do. Ha! Sounds interestingly weird if you are a Ghanaian right? Yes, but in Japan aside their many ‘bizarre don’ts’, slurping when eating is not prohibited. It is even encouraged so your guest is settled at heart you are enjoying the food served. Next time you are in Japan don’t forget to do ‘fluuuuuu’ when ‘drinking’ your delicious soup.
If you seemed comfortable with that, brace up then. Ever heard in Ghana, ‘grease my palms or put load on the envelope so the contract can be facilitated’? Before you will be embarrassed, dear let me advise you that in Japan, palms are not metals undergoing rusting to be greased and envelopes don’t need load because they won’t fly away.
2. If you tip someone for a service in Japan, the hurriedness with which they will return your money to you, other than pocketing it, you may feel like you just dropped a bomb on them. (Remember monies are not taken with palms directly – kindly refer to my article on THE SIGNIFICANT MONEY TRAY). Even if you rounded up a fare for a taxi driver, be sure to get your 1 yen back if you thought 99 yen sounds the same as 100 yen. If you tipped a waiter in Japan, she will feel insulted and ‘leniently’ leave your money for you.
Also note that unlike Ghana, you don’t pay the waiter on your meal table, you get up, walk to the counter and pay the cashier yourself.
The teaching of Science in basic schools has not changed with acts considered voluntary and involuntary. Well after visiting Japan, I think that topic should be taught more clearly.
3. If you thought that sneezing and blowing your nose was a reflex action and so you could do it in public under the guise that you couldn’t control it, it must be a lie in Japan. You must find a washroom or be in a private place before you can blow your nose. If you had a cold and you are likely to sneeze, then welcome to the world of nose masks. If you are new in Japan, you may feel everyone is a surgeon, looking at how common nose masks are. It is so because in Japan, it is considered improper to sneeze without the nose masks. However if you were like me who may not wear nose masks because you feel your breathing will be obstructed, please don’t sneeze! Period!
Are you used to giving and receiving objects with one hand because you thought they weren’t heavy objects?
4. Well, you may not have the pleasure of doing that because here in Japan, objects as little or light as business call cards or receipts are received with both hands. It shows respect and so if you did otherwise, you hadn’t ‘matured in giving respect’.
5. Remember one “logologo” line from primary school? Then welcome to Japan where we queue for everything and no one jumps the queue. There are single-file lines everywhere as far as you have a common purpose; eg Using the ATM, waiting for the train, entering the elevator etc. There are actually markings on the ground indicating where to stand to wait for the bus, and as the first person stands on the mark, all others go behind him or her in a single file irrespective of age.
6. If you read my article on THE JAPANESE TATAMI MATS, you might be conversant with the outside shoes remain outside culture. That’s fine, but do you know that even your indoor shoes cannot enter your toilet? Washrooms have different shoes arranged beautifully at the entrance; so one changes into those before entering the washroom. One then slips back into the indoor shoes before leaving the washroom and leaves the washroom shoes in the same manner it was met. What a meticulous attitude!
If I were in Japan in the year 2014, while looking for accommodation, I probably might not have found one in the same manner I did find in Ghana. One morning while in a Kaneshie bound ‘trotro’, I overheard a gentleman’s conversation on the phone telling another, “I don’t want that house, find me another one”. Desperate for accommodation then, I apologized for eavesdropping and asked him about the house he said he didn’t want on the phone.
7. In Japan, phone conversations are discreetly done and only brief talks. People text often because everyone here is literate. (Kindly refer to my article on WHEN THE HOSPITAL WAS A LIBRARY AND THE SICK READ!). You will hardly see people speaking longer on the phone and even if you saw one by chance, you wouldn’t hear what they were saying. Remember my title, everyone murmurs as if they are planning a coup d’etat. No one talks to the hearing of the other not related to the conversation as was the case in the Ghanaian markets. Raising your voice in anger or a misunderstanding is a major taboo in Japan. (Kindly refer to my article on THE JAPANESE “San” SUFFIX, THE TITLE THAT EJACULATES POLITENESS).
8. Finally, pointing at people or things is considered rude in Japan. Instead of pointing at something in reference, the Japanese rather uses a hand to gently wave at it. When referring to themselves, the Japanese will use their finger to touch their nose instead of pointing to themselves.
Well, as I mentioned in my earlier paragraph, it is “their” Japan and whether you call these etiquettes bizarre or not, it is what had made the nation what it is.
Ghana my home country also had some great etiquettes such as:
1. We don’t greet the elderly with our hats on if we are wearing any.
2. We don’t point at anything or even talk to our peers with our left hand.
3. We don’t sit while the elderly stand among others.
Yet we have allowed urbanisation and comfort to sweep some of these manners away.
By this write-up, I plead with our stakeholders so that if possible, we awaken all our “bizarre” rules that made the Gold Coast great before modernisation “changed them to Ghana”.
I call this stance of the Japanese, “you either abide or leave”, shall my Ghana also stand strong on our reverred manners too?
(I am the GHANAIAN villager that came to Japan officially known as Afiba Anyanzua Boavo Twum)
#Manners matter in development
#Civilisation is not older than societal belts
#Etiquettes are the soul of a nation.