Oh noes!! He’s eating on a train AND putting his bag on the seat next to him! Shocking!

Eating in public. Eating on the train. I recently saw a guy eating a hamburger on the subway her in Tokyo. You know, I think in NYC, it is illegal to eat on the subways.

If the answer is not eating on the train, could it be:
1) Eating without covering his mouth with one hand?
2) Something about the chocolate cake?
3) His coat is buttoned?
4) No keitai, no ipod??

When I first arrived in this fair land, there were exactly zero fast food establishments where I was living (Fukuoka).

When I asked my Japanese friends why, they all said that eating a hamburger or hot dog requires one to open the mouth very wide. . . Something they claimed no self-respecting Japanese person would ever do in public.

These same people earnestly claimed that Western-style toilets, rice planting machines and combines, beef, big cars, and a host of other things are so totally against the nature of the Japanese that they would never catch on.

I think the claim that Japanese don’t open their mouths wide because it’s rude or bad manners or whatever and that’s why hamburgers and hotdogs weren’t going to catch on is an incredible crock. I’ve seen Japanese people cram more food in their mouths at once and in bigger pieces than I ever witnessed back home, especially on television where people shove in entire pieces of sushi then proceed to try and chew it like a chipmunk with its cheeks stuffed to the exploding point. I’ve also seen plenty of people shovel rice and noodles in huge quantity into their mouths (and it required plenty of opening wide). This is one of those things people have selective vision about. They don’t even see themselves doing things like this because they don’t want to spoil an imaginary self-image of utter refinement.

As for the picture, you’re not supposed to eat on the trains or while walking though I have been here for 18 years and have always seen it happen on occasion. It’s just becoming more common now.

Old habits die hard.

I spend most of my time just a 100 miles outside of Tokyo in Tochigi. When I read Marie’s post I was in a Tully’s that is run by a guy I know. Thought the place has a really comfortable interior (see the photo below) and is the only really nice coffee shop in town, my friend told me that takeouts account for 65% of sales.

I remember traveling often on the Shinkansen and expresss trains in 1989/90 in Kantou, and it was quite common for the average salary man to pull out his “One Cup” and snacks and munch away in his own little world.

“why anyone thinks that insulting your country within 2 minutes of meeting you is remotely polite/interesting/acceptable is beyond me, but I digress”

It’s called “breaking the ice” ahaha

Thanks much to all who commented–particularly those with dissenting views. It helps to give a more full picture of Japan.