Is Japanese hospitality great or annoying??

Japan is known for offering good customer service at shops etc. As a matter of fact, I often hear that foreign tourists are surprised to be offered good service free of charge. For example, in any restaurant, a glass of water and Japanese tea are always served free of charge. In many restaurants, a piece of wet tissue or towel to wipe your hands comes with the free drink. Since Japanese people don't consider these things as service, they are surprised to see some people from other countries are impressed by these things. They are also surprised to know that the free drink isn't common in other countries when they go there. According to the news, a statistic has shown that Chinese tourists--the number of them has been sharply increasing in the last few years -- are impressed most by the good customer service.

The service is our tradition and it's based on our hospitality, which is referred to as おもてなしの心 in Japanese. It's said that the good service based on Japanese hospitality is key for Japanese companies to expand their businesses in the global market. From this perspective, in China and Taiwan, some Japanese companies are fiercely trying to educate local people on the Japanese customer service ethic.

My story so far might make you feel like our service and hospitality are really good. I think that if you are a customer and are offered good service or hospitality at shops, restaurants and hotels, you will be satisfied with them. However, if you are offered our standard hospitality by your Japanese friends when spending time with them, you might find it difficult to deal with the hospitality. It's more likely to annoy you. In fact, my non-Japanese friends had a hard time dealing with our standard hospitality offered by their Japanese friends. I'll talk about why in the next post. I think that it's very difficult even for Japanese people to understand what Japanese hospitality is. Because of this, some people offer regular service without considering the situation that is necessary to offer real Japanese hospitality. As a result, they sometimes annoy others.