Japanese courtesy flushed down the toilet

Japanese courtesy flushed down the toilet
Sanitymeter

Don’t get us wrong, we’re the last ones who want to give bad press to an Asian bar establishment, but in this case, it’s got to be done. We were thinking about naming and shaming them on here, but what the hell… That’s not even the point of this story, so let’s spare them this time. Basically some staff members of a pretty decent late night bar have turned into a bunch of real lemons that appear to have acquiered the ‘western ways’, or so they think.

For years this has been one of our hang outs. Even during the week you could chill and more than once be the only soul in there with an over-staffing of three bartenders ready to serve you. The owners of this 100% Japanese run place may not even realise what their recipe for success was when they started out. It gave you a little taste of what you can expect when visiting Japan yourself – a relaxed atmosphere with super courteous people and not a worry in the world. They simply wouldn’t dare to throw you out and neither there was any need to. By the end you’d be chatting your head off with the guys and occasionally girls behind the bar, who hardly speak any English and paid you utmost respect.

Anyway, things started to get a little weird recently. Admittedly one night saw us in there a little boozed up with a bit of a spillage incident, but that was about it. However, since then their head of bar started giving us the cold shoulder. Fair enough, he was always a tad on the weird side, but also seemed to be the talkative type. Anyway, we’re grown ups for god sake, so when confronted about it he would awkwardly brush it off as if everything was in order. On top of that it appears that he didn’t just train up his staff on how to mix a drink together, but gave them a little cultural lesson too.

How to proof yourself in the Western World

In fact we came face to face with one of his culturally adapted cross overs. Imagine a Japaneser with a somewhat puffy bowl hairdo all of the sudden giving you this shit: “You have to leave now”. We just about managed to say not to worry; we were just finishing our drinks when he put on his bad boy facade and then shouting: “LEAVE THE BAR NOW!” By then we already had another dude standing next to us giving his best shot of a confident conflict look. Rather than feeling the heat we couldn’t help, but think, what the fuck are they on? Now we’re really struggling to take you guys serious here. Basically they were putting on a behaviour that is not worthy and untypical for their own culture. Of course, we gave them a piece of our mind too, fierce but calm. It almost felt like we have to safe them from themselves. If they hit the streets with this attitude, they may be risking a good beating. It obviously didn’t help that there was a ridiculously hot Japanese bird sitting at the bar too. Mind, she was in the same boat as the bad boys and had arrogance engraved all over her pretty face.

This sort of incident was the first of its kind when hitting up this joint, so we’re thinking that their team lead must have given his colleagues’ naive brains some kind of a ‘Westernizing Lecture’ on how to deal with and behave in their new surroundings while away from home. It truly turned some of them into right lemons. In retrospect they seem to understand zip about gastronomy, as in Japan chances of this happening are practically zero. All the Japanese courtesy has been flushed down the toilet, we even dare say they’d probably risk loosing their job, if they treated their clientele in that manner back in Japan. But then hey, we’re in London and this is not the most famous place for great customer experience, nor do we give much of a damn about that. But it certainly doesn’t help their cause to interpret the western culture wrongly and downgrade themselves to a bunch of dipsticks that no one will take serious in return.

We can’t wait to place foot in there again just to see, if they forgot about the incident or are in fact playing the selection game as to who is at their grace.

Some Asian Harlem Shake to round it off

While we’re at it… It’s got nothing to do with this story, but now that the whole planet is going berserk with the Harlem Shake, check out the video below. Suppose, Gangnam Style has been rendered obsolete…

Yes, in the meantime the video has been removed, made private, or simply censored. It’s 2020 after all: Censorship is all around us, and something we need to rise up against.

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