One word you learn pretty early when studying Japanese is gaman suru (gah-mahn suru) which means to endure or tolerate something. If a restaurant is too cold, for example, most Japanese will gaman or put up with unpleasant situation rather than asking the restaurant staff to turn the air conditioning down. This tendency to show extreme patience is considered a virtue in Japan, and it may be in some situations. But I refuse to join the rest of Japan in putting up with what needs to be changed: whether it’s speaking out about the lack of a non-smoking section at a restaurant, tactfully recommending that the soba noodle sauce might taste better if it were chilled rather than served at room temperature or politely mentioning that the bathroom in a restaurant wasn’t very clean, I do my best to speak my mind, something that can really take courage at times.
Don’t you get it when your udon or soba soup is room temperature?
