The first rule of behavior for foreigners in Japan is that you don’t even try to do the formal bow—to express greeting, gratitude, or whatever—unless you really know what you’re doing. They’ve been bowing for their whole life and if you try it you’re going to screw it up and make a fool of yourself. No one will actually take offense—not at you, a foreigner, who obviously has no clue as to the subtleties of status and attitude conveyed by the parameters of the bow—no, they’ll just think you’re very silly, which in fact you are.
Degrees of politeness and formality are built into the Japanese language: there are certain tenses and certain pronouns which are formal, certain which are casual, and certain others which are very casual indeed.
The conventional wisdom is that Japanese society is an elaborate facade of artificial niceness, and I suppose that’s true, but I’m not sure I see anything wrong with artifice, or with public niceness. I wasn’t in a position to determine if the facade extends to family or professional life, as I’ve heard it does; I suspect that would freak me out eventually. But in public, Japanese niceness worked for me. In a nation obsessed with gadgets, in public you are expected to keep your cell phone on vibrate. If you must have a phone conversation on a train, you’re supposed to move to the end of the car and talk softly. JR requests that you turn your phone off entirely while sitting next to an elderly or handicapped person, presumably out of respect and to avoid startling them. JR’s not got a bad idea there.
Some of the rules seem a little more arbitrary. Apparently, blowing your nose in public is one of the worst things you can do, much worse than, say, urinating in public (which is entirely acceptable if you’re drunk and in an appropriate place). If your nose is stuffy or runny, you sniffle a lot; you wear a surgical face mask if you really think there’s going to be a problem. (It was fun being able to tell at a glance everyone who had a cold.)
I think Ryan and I did a decent job of following the essential rules. I even avoided blowing my nose in public for two weeks, and I’m pretty allergic. I’m sure we screwed up some of the protocols, but the Japanese cut us a bit of slack because they understand that we’re ignorant white guys.