We have a individual culture when you drink nihonsyu.(I say "osake" here)
People pour the osake for the other drinkers.
he or she would be happy because he does not pour osake by himself.
It is kind of Japanese Kikubari(taking care of the other person).
Imagine there are two person. When you start to drink osake, each person
does this Osyaku with each other. This is a kind of communication when you
drink Osake. This behavior deepen the relationship between people.
And if you find the drinker's ochoko(see below) is empty, you should do osyaku for him.
Sometimes, he would say sorry(Sumimasen) because he did not pay attention to
the other person's ochoko.
There is interesting story when you do osyaku. I guess this behavior would be interesting.
When people get ready for pouring osake for other people, his oshoko is not always
empty. But he does not refuse the osyaku even he does not have intention of drinking
osake. He would drink the osake just a little bit so the other person can pour the osake.
He can say (Iya iya iya... I can't drink any more...) But he would drink just a little bit
so the other person can do osyaku.
This behavior shows Japanese people tend to think refusal harm the other person's
kindness, good intentions.
Japanese people behave even if he does not have intention of doing something.
I guess there is very very big cultural gap between the other cultures.
I know one foreign person who came from Europe. He was so confused to see this
sort of behavior. He said people told a lie. But I guess it is slightly different from telling a lie.
It is hard to explain...
2 comments:
I wouldn say a "lie"... But it's not really honest at all, isn't it... ^^;; I think for foreigners it might look like this.
f.e. if I don't want to drink anymore, I just put my hand over my glass to tell the others "I've had enough" and than it is okay. ^^ That's not German tradition or something, but I saw some people do this.
To Saku
I have heard that you can do that (put your hand over the glass) when you drink a wine.(if you don't want to drink any more.)
I think I don't see such behavior in Japan.But it doesn't look impolite. Nice!
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