Home Stay and Japanese Customs

Shoes

When you take off your shoes, make sure to put your shoe-less foot on to the wooden part of the "genkan" (the entrance section where you take your shoes off) and not put it on the stone or the concrete part of the genkan while you are taking the other shoe off. The Japanese clearly distinguish between clean inside and dirty outside areas of the house. The genkan is a place where you take off your shoes so as not to bring dirt from the street into the house. If you put your unshod foot onto the stone, the foot becomes dirty. Japanese people feel very uncomfortable when dirt is brought into their living areas.

Chopsticks

When you are served rice in a bowl, never stick your chopsticks straight up in the middle of it or pass food directly to another's set of chopsticks. This is similar to what is done at funerals and is associated with death. It is also not polite to lick or suck on the tips of your chopsticks or use chopsticks to move dishes. Please note that it is not appropriate to rub your chopsticks together. Do slurp your noodles, but do not eat or drink while walking.

Baths

Japanese baths are intended to be used as hot tubs for soaking rather than cleansing. When you take a bath, do not put soap or suds in the bathtub, and do not unplug it when you are finished. Tub water is intended to be reused. When you take a bath, the correct procedure is to wash yourself carefully outside the tub using soap and hot water bailed with a little bucket or drawn from the faucet if the bathroom is equipped in a basin. When you have carefully washed and rinsed yourself, you should ease into the hot tub to soak and relax. One side of the inside wall of the tub usually has a heating element, so make sure you stay away from that side. You should ask your host about this.

Bathrooms

In a Japanese house, the "bathroom" literally means the place where you take a bath, so it does not include a toilet. Toilets are usually located in separate rooms. While many places in Japan have Western-style toilets, others include the 'squat' variety. They are sanitary and sensible, although they do require some balancing. As long as you are able to keep your heels placed on the ground, you will find them fairly easy to use. Before going to Japan, you may want to practice squatting while trying to keep your heels on the ground.

On the other hand, toilets with heated seats are becoming quite common at regular homes, hotels and even in office buildings. These seats usually have a console of various controls and buttons which, when pushed, provide luxuries such as a continuous flushing noise for privacy and modesty, seat heating for cold days, and warm jet sprays (the temperature of which can be adjusted) and dryers for washing. Some former participants mistakenly pushed one of such buttons with a picture of sprays, thinking that it was to flush the toilet, but ended up spraying inside the washroom. Any buttons on the console are to be used when the person is on the seat. The button or handle to flush the toilet is usually located either at the rear of the toilet or on the sidewall. Sometimes at hotels or stations, it is simply a round or square metal screen that reacts and flushes the toilet when you put your hand near it.

In Japanese homes, the washroom is equipped with a pair of slippers, which are specifically designated for use in the "otearai" (pronounced "o-teh-ah-ra-i", literally the wash room). The "regular" house slippers should stay outside the otearai, and the otearai slippers should not come out of the washroom. The Japanese feel it is unsanitary to wear those slippers outside the otearai.