How Socialization among Strangers is a Taboo in Japanese Public Spaces

Having joined many tours in the past, I come to see certain patterns on how they are organized.  That is especially true for shorter tours, where the ability of the guide to make the trip entertaining seems to be one of the primary criteria to evaluate whether the tour is worthwhile.  The sights might be great, but without proper presentation of them, it is hard to say that people who paid good money to be on the tour actually gained much from being on the tour as compared to just going around and looking at the same sights by themselves.

Among the many tours that I have joined, a common strategy to make the tour worthwhile is to be more than just a walk-around to introduce all the sights in quick succession.  The value added of the tours, instead, have more to do with the people: the interesting tales of the tour guide, the camaraderie of the group members, and the interactions both during and after the tours are what really help the tours justifiable of their high costs.  Tours have become social activities where people meet other like-minded people, at least for a short while, rather than simply staring at the same mountains, coasts, and buildings with a bunch of strangers.

As with many other things in life, such attitudes toward tours have yet to reach Japan.  Pretty much all tours that I have joined in other countries have featured a conspicuous attempt to get tour members to know each other.  Self-introduction session at the beginning where everyone talks is a norm.  Members crossing over to other groups for quick chats during the tour is frequent.  The Japanese-language tour that I joined last weekend was anything but.  The self-introduction session was of course absent.  People ate in complete silence when they were put on the same table for lunch.  And by end of the two-day tour, I knew the name of no one in the group.

Sometimes it feels like there was a deliberate attempt to make sure people do not interfere with one another.  Seats and lodging were assigned by groups by which reservations of the tour were made.  Materials were distributed one to the group and the groups never had to cross path for information (and they certainly did not).  Even during lunch, when certain condiments were communally shared, people timidly asked others to pass around the condiments and quickly went back to silence as they looked only at the lunch before them and ate quietly.

Of course, there are some elements of justification went it comes to people wanting their private space in such tours.  People can join tours for a variety of reasons other than meeting people.  The tour may be going to places where public transport is unavailable, or the costs of joining the tour may be more economical than arranging everything by oneself.  Catering to such people means that attempt by the tour provider to intentionally introduce activities to get people to socialize may, in the end, hurt the provider itself as people who are not interested feels compelled to do so.  The detrimental reputational damage to the tour provider may be much more costly than any benefits from the tourists getting to know each other better.

But it is also difficult to separate how socialization works in daily life in Japan with the dearth of socialization in such group tours.  To put simply, there is simply a lack of habit in Japan for strangers to speak to one another in a spontaneous fashion.  A friend spoke of the primary difference between the subways of Tokyo and New York in noting how one may start up friendly conversations with complete strangers in the New York subway, while the same would be seen uneqivocally as a social faux pas in Tokyo.  Worse, unnecessary eye contact among Tokyo commuters can even lead criminal charges of sexual harassment.

The resulting silence of Tokyo's subways cars is replicated across all public spaces in Japan.  Groups of friends, coworkers, and family members may speak in eateries and drinking holes, for instance, but rarely would one find unconnected social groups talking to one another, except in instances where drunk people or foreigners are involved.  The group tour, being one such public space, of course, follow the same social norms.  There is nothing that connects the different members of the tour; they just happen to be in the same group because of logistic reasons.

The lack of socialization among strangers is ultimately what makes many people both love and hate Japan as a living environment.  Loners and introverts would certainly appreciate an abundance of dining and entertainment options for one, considering that many corners of this planet see solitary activities in public as a sign of social impotence of the individual.  For extroverts, the country can feel so alone and estranged, despite its densely populated cities full of people and public places where people from different walks of life theoretically mingle.  It is an idiosyncrasy of Japanese life that is hard to simply dismiss, for good or bad.