Explore everyday life in Japan
There are many aspects of daily life in Japan that appear to be standardized.
In many ways, I think it is safe to say that they actually are. Best practices that govern behaviors ranging from how to best greet people in the morning to the preferred order for eating the various dishes of your lunch or dinner have been determined in Japan, and these habits are practice and rehearsed by people again and again beginning at a very young age.
One such behavior that often stands out to people visiting Japan is the way in which almost all drivers here, ninety percent of the time or more, back their cars into parking spaces when parking. Often, regardless of the rush they may be in, drivers pull past their desired parking spaces, swing the front ends of their cars out to the right or left, turn on the car’s hazard lights, and then start backing in.
If you are a foreigner in Japan and you are not accustomed to this behavior, you might see a car begin to roll past an available parking space, think that you are getting lucky, and start to pull in. Be careful, though, the majority of the time, the car in front of you is going to come to a stop, turn on its hazard lights, and start backing toward you. In this situation, it is you who should get out of the way.
In order to get their drivers’ licenses, drivers in Japan all pay thousands of dollars going to rigorous driving schools that teach them preferred practices for driving in Japan. While this doesn’t necessarily create the best and safest drivers in the world, it does seem to instill the habit of backing into parking spaces very well. And why not, when you think about it, it is much easier and safer to pull out of a parking space or a driveway headfirst than it is to back out, especially when dealing with roads and parking areas as narrow as those found in Japan.
This is an ongoing series that will explore various aspects of daily life in Japan. My hope is that this series will not only reveal to its followers, image by image, what Japan looks like, but that it will also inform its followers about unique Japanese items and various cultural and societal practices. If you are interested in getting regular updates about life in Japan, please consider following me at @boxcarblue. If you have any questions about life in Japan, please don’t hesitate to ask. I will do my best to answer all of your questions.