Somebody at AMPONTAN dug these gems out of 15+ years of forum posts. A few choice selections (mine observations in italics):
3 (of 1471) RRR June 12, 1993 at 13:11 JST (84 characters)
You find yourself asking all your foreign acquaintances what their blood types are.
Blood type is big here- supposedly tells you all sorts of stuff about yourself. I don't know mine, leading to a horribly crippled social life. Thanks, mom and dad!
14 (of 1471) LOG June 12, 1993 at 14:05 JST (66 characters)
You see a gaijin get on the train and think “Wow, it’s a gaijin”
I've definitely done this. It's not that you think you're Japanese, you just forget that you're not. They're not an odd sight in downtown Tokyo or at school, but I've definitely had the thought, "What the hell is a westerner doing way out by 鐘ケ淵 (the little east-Tokyo neighborhood my host family lives in)?" followed by a "Oh, he's probably thinking the same thing."
15 (of 1471) LOG June 12, 1993 at 16:08 JST (49 characters)
…you walk out of the bank counting your money.
I'd do this without thinking twice. The only dangerous thing on the sidewalk is old ladies on bikes.
48 (of 1471) VINCENTP June 17, 1993 at 9:34 JST (59 characters)
Your idea of a larger home is an extra 10 square meters…
They always advertise housing in tens of square meters, for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
180 (of 1471) JOJI July 8, 1993 at 23:21 JST (107 characters)
…you visit a home in the US and not only take off your shoes but also make sure they point toward the door.
I will probably do this when I get back. Think about the proportion of times you've rushed in the door versus out.
299 (of 1471) VINCENTP July 29, 1993 at 13:48 JST (64 characters)
… When you don’t blink at hostesses wearing high school uniforms.
Or cell-phone saleswomen looking like anime characters, or morning commuters with skirts and boots you would expect on a prostitute, or neo-victorian maids wandering around the shopping mall, etc. Standards of female dress are different here.
There are pages more, well worth a read. Thanks to AMPONTAN for the pointer.
