Cultural no no’s

Hello there. I'm 21 years old and my boyfriend (he's 26) and I are planning to move to Japan in about five years. I know Japanese culture is very different from the US and somethings we take for granted being accepted. (Like in an Islam country, showing the bottom of your foot)Any help for us would be great. Thanks!

Google is your friend. You have 5 years to research this topic.....

Use your five years and learn lots.

Just note, some "rules" are not actually followed. While some people may view you badly if you don't do everything strictly "by the book", there are a lot of Japanese that also don't follow some of those conventions. Things like eating on commuter trains - people do it, and no one cares, but other forums suggest it is a huge social crime - it's not.

Yeah, etiquette in most countries has a large portion that the average native person hasn�ft even heard of. The list can go on and on, right down to the proper way to snap your chopsticks apart. As a foreigner, you�fll also be forgiven for a lot.

There's no CULTURAL NO in this country because basically, we don't have fixed religions, but we have some strict taboo. You cannot go to a public bath with a tattoo (tattoo means mafia in Japan. Mafia is not thought as socially secured). You cannot bring guns or illegal drug, even a knife (depends on the size of the blade and the type of knife. Knives are thought as dangerous as guns). You need to take off your shoes off when you go into someone's house or shrine. And there's no need for a tip. But there's a lot of social/table manners (table manners are important because it shows your social rank) as many as most younger cannot follow. Please search on the internet about them.
Culture differs depending on the area. you need to know a little about them, but you can ask the people where you live (it's quite better to ask elders).
It's better to learn Japanese enough to have light conversations like telling about your family.
Most of Japanese can read or write English but they cannot speak. Some of them cannot even understand verbal language. And it depends on the area but our accent difference can be as large as French and Italian. Japanese used in Tokyo and around its prefecture is called standard Japanese.
Hope it helped.

And @KATALE demonstrates my point. Some people know some history of Japan and "rules", others don't. Please don't be offended, but that post has a mix of "apparently" false and true items. I've had vitriol on other forums for daring to point out Japanese history before.

For examples, pPicking on a topic I have researched a lot (and has been covered extensively in media and academic research), Japan has a long history of tattoo and body art, and there is a lot of bad information around, including among Japanese people.

So don't take what you read or research as being definitive. And I also see a lot of Japanese people in my neighborhood with tattoo that are not Japanese mafia/yakuza.

There is actually a lot of information about this topic to be found on the internet. Don't forget to search youtube! I actually also wrote a blogpost about everything you need to know before going to Japan, you can find it here: https://alovingladytravels.com/2018/08/15/never-been-to-japan-before-t... :)