There are some things you say when you live in Japan that you’d certainly never utter back home. For example, when you give someone something it’s common to be self-effacing and say, “Please accept this boring gift” as you hand it to them, something you’d never do in English. When introducing yourself in Japan, most people specify their “hobby” (in Japanese, shumi), and statements like “My hobby is playing the piano” are common here even though it sounds a little weird. Asking a person’s blood type then having an in-depth conversation about it is odd, as is being reminded to “turn off the carpet” before going to bed, referring to the electric “hot carpet” heater some homes have in Japan. When a member of the J-List staff goes home for the day, I’ll usually tell them ki o tsukete, which literally means “be careful,” but this goodbye greeting would sound strange if translated into English. Then there’s, “At what age did you stop taking baths with your parents?” In Japan, baths are made extra large, and parents will generally take their baths with their kids up to a certain age. It’s a wholesome time for parent-child communication which the Japanese call “skinship,” and something I like a lot about Japan. A common joke in anime is a character who’s embarrassed when his friends find out that he was taking baths with his mother well into junior high school.
A “hot carpet” is an electric carpet that you sit on to keep warm.
