You should probably include bicycles riding on the pathway and how people react to them ringing their bells.

I’d say the best advice is to just watch what’s going on and pay attention to what the locals are doing. Other than being the obvious white guy, I was able to blend in to the Tokyo foot traffic pretty easily. “Walk when they walk” is the pretty much the best thing to do when trying to cross a street. And then I went to New York City for the first time….that’s a totally different story. :P

“For instance: in the two different regions, you stand on different sides when you ride the escalator. If you’re in Osaka, you stand on the right and pass on the left; in Tokyo, it’s the opposite.”
What I’ve observed is that in Tokyou people stand on the left and pass on the right. In Osaka, people stand wherever they want and nobody passes. Sometimes I really love Osaka.

We did a whole article about bicycle riding a while ago: http://www.tofugu.com/2012/12/11/how-to-ride-a-bicycle-in-japan/

Are we running out of things to write about?

My experience is that people in Tokyo ALSO walk ridiculously slow, stop in the middle of the sidewalk wherever they like, travel in huge packs that block the entire sidewalk (high school girls), ride bikes on the sidewalk, whatever. You know, just like anywhere else in Japan. Or just like anywhere else in the world. Walking is not special just because it’s being done in Tokyo/Japan.

I live outside NYC right now and I can tell you that jaywalking is quite standard, especially on the smaller streets where cars don’t pass through that often. And frankly, while this might sound weird to people like me who come from places where you really do take your life in your hands when you jaywalk and the practice is generally frowned upon, in NYC it’s just sometimes safer to do it. You don’t want to keep walking on the same side of the street when you can see a group of guys harassing women who walk by up ahead, for instance.

In the countryside, the sidealks are specifically marked “bikes ok.” The problem (in my city, at least) is that people have atrocious manners on their bikes and move erratically – I’ve observed both children and adults kind of wobbling, not going in a straight line. It makes it hard to predict what they will do. Or when you have children, they ride three or four abreast, blocking the entire sidewalk. Even when they see me, they often ride straight at me.

In the countryside, we also have a lot of old ladies that kind of…hop out into traffic. It’s a well-known thing among people here, that when you’re on a tiny road among lush rice fields, taking in the scenery, THAT’S when you need to look out for an o-baa-chan hopping out onto the street in front of your car. No one really knows why.

It’s one of those things that sounds so obvious, but culture shock is a problem here. The Japanese use and move through space differently than we do. For one, they like smaller spaces than Americans do – I notice it all over my city, and my stepsons too. My kids absolutely love small, cluttered spaces.

This happens on sidewalks, too, when people move, ride bikes or do whatever. My interpretation is that: Japan is small. No matter WHERE you stand, you will be in someone’s way. So Japanese people may not be as aware of when they are in someone’s way. When are you NOT in someone’s way in this country? For a Hoosier like me, getting in someone’s way is a BIG deal, because we just don’t do that.

It’s culture shock, plain and simple. I once had a mini emotional breakdown on a sidewalk because EVERY. SINGLE. PERSON. was in my way. I had to sit down and just…breathe. It takes a LOT of energy to manage your own culture shock.

Someone here in Japan also took a bicycle bell and used it while walking.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7oGk-ozhKI

A lot of confusion and frustration can be avoided by acquiring “atmosphere reading” skills (空気を読む). Watch other people, blend in with your surroundings, and try not to look surprised. KY gaijin stick out like a sore thumb.

I live in Kyoto and use subway everyday to school. In 3 stations where I change trains, people behave differently when riding escalator. In Misasagi station people stand on the left side and walk on the right, the opposite of in Sanjo and Demachiyanagi station. But people tend to be quite flexible though. If there’s someone stop in the very front, regardless the side, the other will just follow him/her and walk on the other side.

Japanese people like to tout their “homogenous” culture, but Japan is anything BUT homogenous. The culture is fractured, each prefecture or region having a different dialect, and different cultural traditions. They have an entire TV show devoted to marveling at the diversity of Japanese culture, called Kenmin Show. On top of that, there are something like ten separate, distinct languages spoken natively in Japan (Okinawan and Ainu being two of the obvious ones, but there are others on some of the smaller islands). The way they use escalators is a very, very minor aspect of this.

It IS a fascinating part of Japan, and it means that any valley you venture into will have a wealth of new cultural traditions and unique linguistic tricks to learn (where I live, we even have an entirely unique grammatical structure not present anywhere else in Japan!).

Not when walking, but when driving, you know as well as I do how rude it is to cut people off. That’s standard driving technique in Japan. Do you ever see people in Indiana literally stopping on the road to use their cell phones? Not pulling over, just stopping in the road. No four-ways, or anything. That’s normal here, too. Being in people’s way is a way of life here.

I don’t know about Indianapolis (or NY or LA), but I’m from Indiana’s 2nd largest city, and we do NOT behave the way people do here in my part of Japan. So, it’s called culture “shock” for a reason – it’s shocking the first few times you come across a new pattern of movement that you can’t predict.

Some people are being negative, and I just want to point out that – yes, even tiny differences in culture are hard to deal with and can elicit a HUGE emotional response. I’ve had that happen too, but you need to just sit down and breathe and adapt.

ROFL Hashi! this made me laugh out loud.

I’m pretty good at doing what others are doing. As long as everyone is doing what THEY’RE supposed to be doing, I should be fine. xD I walk pretty fast, but I have short legs, so I don’t MOVE that fast. Hopefully Japanese people have short legs too and I won’t be TOO out of step when I go there. I will be stopping a lot to take pictures, but not into being an obstacle, I’ll step out of the line of traffic to do it.

Actually, in some parts of Japan, people speak dialects so divergent from “standard” Japanese that subtitles are required on TV shows for someone to understand them! This is especially true of the Satsuma dialect of Kagoshima and the Tsugaru dialect at the very north end of Honshu.

Indeed, using a “different” dialect for comedic effect is common on Japanese TV. In the current anime series “Namiuchigiwa no Muromi-san,” the main character speaks in the very distinctive Hakata dialect, the dialect of the city of Fukuoka.

That’s a good point. I think you’re right that Japanese people have, by necessity, developed a high ability to tune-out noise.

Still, that seems a bit too generous for all cases. Because the society is so hierarchical–even down to what month a person is born determining who the sempai is–people are very sensitive to who is allowed to do what, and when. Choosing to tune that out and ignore other people (and thus the rules of hierarchy, politeness, and even common sense) may be a necessary habit, but I’ve no doubt that sometimes it’s also done on purpose.

You’re certainly on the money there. This place can be awfully nice, and then suddenly turn mean. Everyone who’s been here for a long time seems to have a few stories.

Back on point, I’ve always attributed the way people walk and drive to 1) a generally safe and tolerant society, where if you cut someone off they probably wouldn’t curse you out or (in the case of America) shoot you, 2) The effect of culture, where, as you described, people have to tune others out, and 3) A fair bit of incompetence mixed with just a dash of dickishenss.

But we’ll probably never come up with a unified theory which explains all Japanese behavior. Although it would be cool.

But I have to veto your 1) there – it’s a very American thing to say that I hear people say from time to time. For one, as I understand it, yakuza scams are common when driving – they’ll cut you off and then demand money or something. The other is that, I don’t think violence is even something that enters their mind.

The honest truth, and one reason why I’m stressing Japanese ways of using space, is that I just don’t think they consider cutting you off as “rude.” It’s just “how things are,” and people adapt to it.

But you’re right, there are dozens and dozens of possibilities, and it’s hard to get the answer.