Society
The bow, the pause, and the art of reading the room.
Not a bar, not quite a restaurant: what exactly is an izakaya?
Small plates, a drink first, and a dish you never ordered. Why the izakaya works the way it does, and how it became a favourite after-work stop in Japan.
Why is a crowded Tokyo train so quiet?
Hundreds of people, shoulder to shoulder, and almost nobody talking. No law asks for it. The clues are in a station announcement, fifty years of posters and one old word.
Why People in Japan Bow to Someone Who Can't See Them
Guides list neat angles for the Japanese bow. Watch someone bow into a phone, though, and the angle starts to look like the least important part.
Japan has almost no public bins. So where does the rubbish go?
Visitors to Japan often end the day with a pocket full of wrappers and no bin in sight. The short answer is: home. The longer answer is how that became normal.
Why does everyday life in Japan run on so many small courtesies?
On a Japanese train, the top complaint is someone who will not shift over to share a seat. Where do so many small courtesies come from?
Japan's unwritten rules: a 2026 guide for first-time visitors
A dish you never ordered on the bill, a line on one side of the escalator: the small everyday rules in Japan, what people actually do, and why. Updated yearly.
The meeting where nobody said no
In many offices, silence means you have nothing to add. In Japan it often means the decision was made last week. A short guide to "reading the air".