this is Japanese culture?

Im studying in university in Japan now.
sorry for my poor English. I have some questions about Japanese student. I want to know, the thing that I got here, is it normal or not?

-When I have group work with japanese student (master degree), they will come late about 30 mins - 2 hours .
since I have studied here already 3 semester. i have found this problem since the first time. sometime they forget and sometime they have some problem like, they need to go back to wash their cloth or sometime ,many students have part time jobs. so they cant join anything much. Especially if JOB HUNTING time, they take that class , but they dont join group work....

- when we post in LINE group, many japanese students read it (14 students) but no respond. like when teacher will come to school? (everybody have time table in Japanese but my friends dont have)

Do you think is it normal? or just only my lab?

Do you think is it normal?

Well, I think it is normal behavior depending on the gathering.

It very often happens among hobby groups and non-profit groups where you show up to a room almost any time you want during a certain few hours and do almost whatever you like there. A lot of people, young and old, don't seem to realize that someone is spending time for them to open the key for the room and waiting for a meeting to be done. Or maybe they think it's okay since everybody else is doing the same thing.

I've never worked/studied regularly in a lab, so I hope someone with experience can give you better advise.

I have found Japanese people to be surprisingly unhelpful unless they are in a situation where they think they are obligated to help you. Posting a question and getting no answer seems very usual to me. That doesn't mean it's not rude and/or annoying, but it doesn't seem strange. Sorry. This is one of the downsides of Japan.

Just so you're aware, I've also found Japanese people very reluctant to ask for help or advice. When I am in America, if I get lost or something, I just ask strangers. When I am out in Japan with Japanese friends, they always tell me not to ask about things when I don't know-- even don't ask the clerks in shops, etc. If you ask a lot of questions, people might develop a strange impression of you... I'm not sure, but I think so.

I don't agree with olcapshi, but it's off-topic anyway.

That sounds like students at any university, not just Japanese.

to olcapshi,
I answer you why.
I think you are asking too much meaningless questions, without making your desire or intention to be clear.
you always want to have the ANSWERS of the questions, and you expect the answers are convenient for you.
Japanese give you SOLUTIONS, sometimes not answering your questions directly, because we know the direct answer often does not help you, even thought the answer is true.

if you read posters in this forum, you will find many examples. foreigners irritated and showed angers, because of indirect answers, although sufficient information was already written.

I'm a Japanese college student. It depends but I think it's kinda normal...Unlike America, grades dont really matter when you get a job so many students just want credits. For example I even got A for one class by 2 papers and 1 exam and I only atended once. This case might be a little exaggerating but I don't think your case is rare either

College in Japan is notoriously laid back.

Hi moodevil,

I am from Malaysia and I studied Biotech, did log in quite a number of hours working in the lab.

On the issue of people not being punctual, I think it is pretty normal and it is a universal problem. From where I come, if you are invited to a Chinese wedding and it says that dinner starts at 7.00pm, you can be sure that it will actually start at least one to one half hours later. What my group of friends do when we plan for a meeting, �gHey lets meet up at 8pm. Not Chinese timing ok?�h and its understood that everyone needs to be punctual for the meeting.

Those who are punctual will be punctual and those who are not, well... They will always find excuses.

That Line group chat, is it a large group? People tend to abuse the intention of a large group, using it to chat away instead of PM-ing each other. Could it be one of the reasons the members in the group were reluctant to reply?

Dear olcapshi,
In my opinion, reluctance to ask for help is more of an Asian thing instead of a Japanese? Most probably due to the way the education is set up to be and how we were brought up. From what I see, Asians are more likely to be shy of asking questions as we are used to teacher-centered classes and for fear of looking silly, while Westerners were brought up to question and express opinions.

I am a Japanese. My opinion after talking with two Japanese professors teaching in graduate schools follows:
1. Some students could be unserious if the teacher of the class is too generously giving credits to those students. So it depends on the teacher's policy. If you want to study seriously, you should choose strict teacher. Those students' purpose in school is not studying itself but obtaining credits followed by eventual graduation.
2. Normally Japanese do not want to cause inconvenience to others. So if you are badly effected by other students' tardiness in the group, It is not normal. But if such wrong-doing is not effecting your obtaining credit, they may think they are not causing inconvenience to you.
3. Many Japanese do not want to voice their opinion in the group or public because they are overly afraid their opinion or attitude may break the atmosphere of the majority.
4. I suggest you should text LINE messages to ONE friend only but not whole group because their excuse could be "Oh, I did not think it was addressed to me. "
Hoping you have a great school life,

Being late is NOT part of Japanese culture. If anything, Japanese people are extremely punctual and usually turn up to an event early. In Japan it's considered rude to be even 5 minutes late. However you're studying with young people, and they're�@much�@more relaxed about these things, and sometimes fail to see how their actions can affect others. They probably don't realize that you've been waiting 2 hours for them to turn up. So the behaviour of your fellow students sounds normal to me. University in Japan is rumoured to be very relaxed, and very different to other parts of the world in which students are expected to take things seriously. If it bothers you that no one replies to your messages, I would ask one or two people in a private message and they'll be more likely to respond.

My experience as a foreigner in Japan has been positive...many times I got lost. For example, during a visit to Fushimi-Inari I ended up on the other side of the mountain, in a residential area.
One Japanese woman was about to enter her very nice house when she noticed me...
I asked her for the direction to the rail station, she told me which way to go --I scribbled it on paper--then we had a pleasant in English and French..(I only know a few dozen words in Japanese)..

It happened to me many times..
Ironically I was also asked by Japanese that were not familiar with Osaka or Tokyo how to go to here and there

In Japan, you're expected to show up at least 5 minutes earlier when meeting friends at a station. You're expected to show up 15 minutes earlier to a business appointment. If you're 1 second late for class in high school, that may affect your grades.

But unfortunately, that's a totally different story when there are no punishment, when there is nothing to loose, and when the responsibility is unclear. And that goes the same regardless of age. You can't expect much, and if you do want to expect much you need to hold a meeting for that and talk it over with all members.

Hi
I am Japanese.

Japan's young people is often that the goal of entering the university. They do not study so much since the beginning of the university. Japanese universities is easy for graduate difficult enter.

Elderly Japanese think young people are feeling as losing the advantages of Japanese.

Ken -
I answer you why.
I think you are asking too much meaningless questions, without making your desire or intention to be clear.
you always want to have the ANSWERS of the questions, and you expect the answers are convenient for you.
Japanese give you SOLUTIONS, sometimes not answering your questions directly, because we know the direct answer often does not help you, even thought the answer is true.

Ken, this is yet another example of you making HUGE assumptions in your forum responses. Please explain what part of his post caused you to believe that his questions were either too many or meaningless. Nothing he wrote gives that impression; you are just assuming that because it suits your purposes.

if you read posters in this forum, you will find many examples. foreigners irritated and showed angers, because of indirect answers, although sufficient information was already written.

This is not me being irritated Ken. This is not me showing anger, Ken. This is me asking why you seem to never properly read what people write but just jump to your own conclusions based on what you believe, not what was written.

It's very useful to have native Japanese respond to questions on this forum but Ken, I have seen a long term recurring pattern with your answers that seems to try to just be insulting to foreigners and pushing your own agenda.

Of course there are problems with language misunderstandings but I would ask you to think REALLY carefully before you reply to questions to make sure you do in fact understand what is said and not to just assume that all foreigners are bad and all Japanese are perfect because your posts suggest that is what you believe.

Well, it was off-topic anyway, but I thought what Ken wrote back there can be true, and you can say the same thing about the Japanese: If you read posts in other forums, you will find MANY examples. The Japanese irritated and showing angers, because of indirect answers, although sufficient information was already written. By the way, I think he was making assumptions (which, of course, is not a good thing to do) about olcapshi's daily life when he was talking about "too much meaningless questions". I'm Japanese, if it helps.

if you read posters in this forum, you will find many examples. foreigners irritated and showed angers, because of indirect answers, although sufficient information was already written.

This is a common problem on all forums. Frankly I find this a failure of the people giving the answers (although I'm guilty of this sometimes myself) as they need to explain WHY they are not directly answering the question. Otherwise it is an incomplete answer.

Hi All,
I think it is very common to student in university or college.
During my college time, whenever we have assignment or group work...it is difficult to get all people attend or involve...if the group work involve too many students... even in a large organization...this happen quite often...

it is not related to japanese cultures...it is young generation behavior... gen Z ...
gen x, gen y, gen z all are from different generation..different type of growing environment...

It is actually about discipline...