> French culture is a rare culture where shop owners won't be afraid to tell off/talk back at customers that don't show a basic level of politeness.

My favorite French shop anecdote (I'm American): Went to a bakery in Paris. Tried to order "Un croissant, s'il vous plaît". Shopkeeper responded (in very lightly accented English) with "I'm sorry, I don't understand what you're saying". I wasn't mad or offended, in fact it's one of my favorite memories from the trip.

It's very similar in German stores, at least in Berlin.

It truly is, I recently read a great article about the coffee shops being run out of a room in people's homes- I would love to sell coffee out of my garage for a few hours before work.

Sure, but at that time, at that place, for a foreigner it was quite rare!

Source: I'm Japanese too ;]

While I’m not part of that community myself, I’ve lived in Japan and have known LGBTQ people who are. In the big metros at least, as long as you’re putting forth even a little effort to follow etiquette and you’re not causing problems for others or making a nuisance of yourself, nobody pays you any mind regardless of orientation. Everybody is too busy with their own lives to go poking their noses into the lives of others without due cause.

This is somewhat true of major US metros, but the effect is particularly strong in Tokyo, etc. It’s one of the things I love about living there… being just a number is liberating, even as someone quite boring and mild-mannered.

Ah I see. The thing is, I was on a work trip and the colleague I was with had been there a lot and he was constantly lecturing me about what not to do, what to wear, cover up tattoos etc. And what not to mention which was the LGBTQ topics in particular.

This kinda made me feel awkward because I couldn't be myself so I basically dissociated and just went through the motions while I was there. And didn't explore much. It was annoying because we weren't even there as businessmen but technical experts.

I think my colleague was overdoing the whole fitting in thing anyway but I was really on edge. I'm sure my impression was tainted by it now that I think of it.

> Notably, the lack of legalised marriage is not because the population is too conservative. Rather, it is because the US forced a constitution on Japan which enshrines heterosexual marriage as constitutional law, and changing the constitution is significantly more difficult than changing a normal law.

Beyond the fact that they could easily get around this with civil unions, this feels like a massive misrepresentation of the status quo inside the LDP politicians that ultimately get to decide whether progress is made on this.

The current prime minister, in her previous attempt to campaign to be the head of the party (back in ... 2022 I think?), declared her opposition to married couples opting out of sharing a last name[0]. In the 21st century, strong opposition to the idea that somebody might want to keep their own family name after marriage. Something so small and unimportant. Still very far away from civil unions for non-hetero couples.

The Japanese ruling class is so far away from acceptance of anything beyond a very specific notion of married couples, even if the general population thinks differently. These things can change quickly but just in terms of policy delta between Japan and most other members of the OECD the gap is quit huge. Legal rights for one's spouse starts is important, and right now there's really nothing.

(There are some logistical things around the family register that mean that such a change would require some changes to that format. This is not a good enough reason to prevent this!)

[0]: In Japan if two Japanese people get married then they have to unify on their last name. In practice this usually means the woman throwing away their last name. In a funny twist of fate you actually have more flexibiltiy in an international marriage. If a Japanese person marries a foreigner they _don't_ have to do this (and can even go with a hyphenated last name!).

I'm confused where the assertion about the constitution is coming from. There have been at least 5 years of lower court decisions in Japan stating that lack of same sex marriage is unconstitutional. See the below article noting that the current ban on same sex marriage is due to civil law, not the constitution.

https://apnews.com/article/japan-lgbtq-samesex-marriage-ruli...

I travelled there with my same sex partner. We had zero issues in a single bed hotel room, and there were plenty of gay bars. We did find the cover charge difference for gays vs straights amusing (where gay entry was cheaper).

I’m sure there are social issues, a local bartender told us they had linguistic limitations that acted as sort of barriers to expression, and I’m sure there are issues for gay youth, but as a whole it felt relatively similar to most western countries from a safety/friendliness perspective. Gay marriage is a slow turnaround, and given Japanese culture is socially conservative I imagine that might take a while, but marriage and social acceptance are not necessarily tightly coupled.

> I think LGBTQ acceptance in Japan is significantly better than any Western country.

Sorry, but I don't see your reasoning support this at all. The relative lack of Abrahamic religion would make an impact for sure, but Japan is more socially conservative by most relevant metrics. How does this one factor overcome that?

That is my understanding as well. And, honestly, even if it wasn't a matter of criminals necessarily (often tattoos were associated with ex-military), until relatively recently, tattoos were a pretty clear class differentiator in the US as well.

It’s worth pointing out that there are certainly establishments where tourists aren’t welcome. Ironically I’ve had some gay friends walked from a local only gay bar to the tourists welcome gay bar across the street :-)

Snack and Izakaya are very different things.

They basically deliver food--not necessarily complete meals. But, yes, a lot of restaurants use them for food delivery. Probably not at the highest end but they can be pretty decent given good food prep.

100k is a pay cut for me. Especially the risk and amount of work involved.

I program a w2 job and can make 1.5x that without difficulty. I program for my own company and make 2-20x more.

I don't think the average person could handle the risk, difficulty of labor, and knowledge to run a successful restaurant that makes 100k/yr.

These are widely known. The article is just using the standard annoying fetishism of Japan for clicks.

Except what is in the article is widely known. The article only did a surface level overview which implies that the secret is the existence or concept of them. The article even eludes to this in saying that one of them was in an unmarked building.

Same here in California. Zoning, permits, food inspections and handicap access requirements would make a small snack bar economically infeasible.