Every culture has customs that look puzzling from the outside. Japan is a country famous for its unique traditions — some ancient, some modern, all deeply meaningful to the people who practice them. For Arab visitors and Arabic learners of Japanese, understanding these traditions isn't just interesting trivia. It's the key to building genuine connection with Japanese people.
Here are five Japanese traditions that often confuse or surprise Arab visitors — and the beautiful reasoning behind each one.
In Japan, the entrance of a home has a special area called the 玄関 (Genkan) — a small lowered step where you remove your shoes before stepping into the house. The floor inside is considered a clean, sacred space. Wearing street shoes inside is roughly equivalent to walking on someone's prayer mat with muddy boots.
For Arab visitors, this tradition actually resonates deeply — removing shoes before entering a mosque is a shared understanding of separating the sacred from the profane. What surprises Arabs is that in Japan, this principle extends to the home, not just places of worship. The home is itself a sanctuary.
When visiting a Japanese home or traditional ryokan (inn), wear easy-to-remove shoes and clean socks. Wearing socks with holes is considered embarrassing. This small detail shows your host that you prepared thoughtfully — and Japanese hosts notice everything.
In Japan, when you give or receive something — a business card, a gift, a cup of tea, even a document — you use both hands. Giving with one hand is considered careless or disrespectful, as if the thing you're offering doesn't deserve your full attention. Both hands signal: "I am fully present in this moment of exchange."
Arab culture has a similar instinct: in many Arab contexts, giving with the right hand is important, and a gift given with obvious care and attention communicates respect. The Japanese tradition goes one step further by requiring both hands, creating a physical symmetry that feels almost ceremonial. Once you know this, you will start noticing it everywhere in Japan.
Before every meal in Japan, people say いただきます (Itadakimasu) — a phrase that roughly means "I humbly receive." It is said with hands together, directed at the food, acknowledging the effort of the person who cooked it, the lives of the ingredients, and the act of nourishment itself.
For Muslims, this resonates with the practice of saying بسم الله (Bismillah) before eating — invoking God's name to acknowledge gratitude before a meal. The forms are different; the spirit of conscious gratitude is identical. In both traditions, eating is not a mechanical act. It is a moment of awareness.
Japanese people have a powerful gift-giving culture called お土産 (Omiyage). When you travel anywhere — even a two-hour train ride to another city — you are expected to bring back local specialty foods or sweets for your family and coworkers. Returning empty-handed after a trip is unusual. The gift says: "I thought of you while I was away."
Arab travelers will recognize this feeling immediately. Returning from Hajj or Umrah with زمزم water and dates for every family member is a beloved tradition. Bringing gifts from a trip abroad — perfume, sweets, local specialties — is an Arab custom that operates on the same frequency as Omiyage. Both say: my absence was not a forgetting. It was a thinking of you from a distance.
In Japan, gifts are often not opened immediately in front of the giver — this is to avoid putting pressure on the recipient to perform gratitude. The gift is accepted with both hands, placed aside, and opened later. Don't feel rejected if your Japanese host doesn't tear it open on the spot!
The bow (お辞儀 / Ojigi) is Japan's greeting, thank-you, apology, and farewell all in one gesture. The depth of the bow signals the level of respect: a small 15-degree nod for casual greetings, a 30-degree bow for standard respect, and a deep 45-degree bow for sincere apology or reverence. Elderly people and senior professionals receive deeper bows.
Arab culture expresses similar gradations through speech and physical proximity: the warmth of a handshake, the kiss on the cheek for close family and friends, the respectful distance kept with elders. Both cultures have sophisticated, nonverbal systems of showing where someone stands in your heart and your social world. The bow does wordlessly what Arabic does eloquently with titles, honorifics, and terms of endearment.
Japan's traditions are not arbitrary rituals — they are a visual language that expresses values the Japanese hold deeply. Once you learn to read that language, every bow, every two-handed gift, every removed shoe tells you something real about who Japanese people are and what they believe matters. And often, what they believe will feel remarkably close to home.