Yes! You can make noises when eating Japanese noodles!

Hi everyone! 

I'm sure almost all the foreigners who are not familiar with Japanese customs are shocked to see the Japanese eating noodles. Why? Because it is a norm here to slurp soba, udon and ramen noodles. (It is considered as a bad manner to make noises when eating spaghetti though.)

Do I make noises? Of course I do, although I'm trying not to slurp when I'm with foreigners. I don't want them to think of me as a barbarian who doesn't care about etiquette at the table. 

When I was living in Paris, I have eaten ramen at a Japanese restaurant only once. Half of the customers were Japanese and the other half were French or the tourists from other countries. When a Japanese man started eating his ramen in a "proper way",  a French mother and her child sitting at the next table looked at him totally in shock, and the mother whispered, "Look. That is such a bad bad manner. You can never eat like him." I felt really embarrassed, but there is nothing wrong with this guy. He just did what all the Japanese do. 

I have no courage to slurp noodles in foreign countries, especially in Europe. But I'm in Japan now. When there's no foreigners around, I slurp to my heart's content. Ah, what a joy! Sometimes I make my shirt dirty with the soup, but who cares!

If you have a chance to eat noodles in Japan,  why don't you try to slurp?  It is something you cannot do in your home country anyway. You might feel like being a bad guy (or a bad girl)! 

This is the ramen of Yokohama-ya, my favorite ramen chain. The tonkotsu (pork marrow bone) based broth makes the soup milky white. The black paper-like thing is nori seaweed.

Today's useful expressions you might use at ramen shops. If you prefer firm noodles, you can say,  めんは　かためで　おねがいします。 Men wa katame de onegaishimasu.
Meaning is " I want my noodles firm, please".  Katame (= a little firmer)  can be replaced with やわらかめ　yawarakame (= a little softer) if you like soft texture. 

Take off your shoes!

 

I had a home stay experience in the U.S. when I was a college student. (Long time ago, but not in the Stone Age.) One evening I was watching TV with my host family and suddenly smelled something awful like rotten eggs. It was from the bare feet of my host brother who had just taken off his shoes. He was such a sweet person, but I couldn't stand the odor. I said "I'm very sleepy. Good night" to everyone and rushed to my room.

Many Asians have smelly feet as well, but  we fortunately have more chances to take off shoes and dry our feet during the day than the Westerners. At least you  have to  remove your shoes before entering houses, including your own.   


Any Japanese houses, no matter how small,  have an entrance space called genkan (玄関　げんかん）, where you remove your shoes. The genkan area is often lower than the living space level to prevent the dirt on the shoes from sweeping into the houses.

Don't forget. It is extremely rude to get in someone's house with your shes on. 

At someone's home it is best to arrange your shoes neatly with the toes facing the door.  At some Japanese-style restaurants and izakaya (kind of bar) you are required to put them in the built-in shoe rack.

If you are offered slippers, change to them; however, you must take them off when entering the  tatami-mat rooms, because we sit directly on the tatami mats and sometimes even take a nap on them. To us, slippers are cleaner than shoes, but dirtier than socked feet.  We don't like the idea that our "sacred relaxing space" gets dirty with filthy slippers,  even if the room is covered with dust and dirtier than slippers. （Strange, huh?） 

Well, today's useful expression is :  おじゃまします　ojamashimasu. 

This literally means "I'll bother you. " We say when you get into someone's house.