Blocking the way
It's what i call Japanese people’s 'jama habit'. Though this is a small scale mundane thing, it seems to me that it may connect to various interesting aspects of Japanese relationship to the environment, cognitive processing habits, and sociology.
An interesting thing about Japanese people is their habit of standing right in the most obstructive place at road crossings. I mean that if they are waiting to cross the road they very often wait in a place right in the middle of the pavement/sidewalk – so that people crossing the other way cannot get through. Especially if they are on the bicycles then it means they take up almost all of the space on the narrow Japanese pavements.
I often wonder why they do this. In the UK there would be 2 easy answers, either:
1. They are a bit stupid and don’t realize they are getting in people’s way.
2. They are deliberately being aggressive and causing trouble.
But with Japanese people neither of these seems to explain it. Firstly, it’s not just a few stupid people who did this, but many people, a lot of the time, both young and old, men and women. Secondly, Japanese people are rarely aggressive in such public places, and if you ask them to move over they almost always move over right away and often apologise for the trouble - so the 2nd reason doesn’t hold either.
Also it is very obvious that they are in the way, since they know the narrow spaces of Japanese streets and sidewalks – they use them everyday. So, what stops them from realizing that they are in the way when it's so clear? Because the genuinely appear not to realise it. This is not a criticism of those people that do it (although, it’s a bad habit, of course). My aim here is to try to understand WHY, out of sociological interest.
It's what i call Japanese people’s 'jama habit'. Though this is a small scale mundane thing, it seems to me that it may connect to various interesting aspects of Japanese relationship to the environment, cognitive processing habits, and sociology.
An interesting thing about Japanese people is their habit of standing right in the most obstructive place at road crossings. I mean that if they are waiting to cross the road they very often wait in a place right in the middle of the pavement/sidewalk – so that people crossing the other way cannot get through. Especially if they are on the bicycles then it means they take up almost all of the space on the narrow Japanese pavements.
I often wonder why they do this. In the UK there would be 2 easy answers, either:
1. They are a bit stupid and don’t realize they are getting in people’s way.
2. They are deliberately being aggressive and causing trouble.
But with Japanese people neither of these seems to explain it. Firstly, it’s not just a few stupid people who did this, but many people, a lot of the time, both young and old, men and women. Secondly, Japanese people are rarely aggressive in such public places, and if you ask them to move over they almost always move over right away and often apologise for the trouble - so the 2nd reason doesn’t hold either.
Also it is very obvious that they are in the way, since they know the narrow spaces of Japanese streets and sidewalks – they use them everyday. So, what stops them from realizing that they are in the way when it's so clear? Because the genuinely appear not to realise it. This is not a criticism of those people that do it (although, it’s a bad habit, of course). My aim here is to try to understand WHY, out of sociological interest.