The Quiz of Japan

So here we go with a poor effort of a thread. The idea is to post questions about things Japan does and why. I'll start off.

QUESTION - Why do most doors in Japan open outwards?

Yakumo

 

To stop them swinging open everytime a typhoon hits?

Also, if they opened inwards, there'd be less room to remove one's shoes, before getting the tatami all messy.

 

hmmmm perhaps it is seen upon as impolite if it went inwards ?

 

Easier to push than pull when you have a handful of sex dolls and comic books you just bought.

 

Confucius say: One room's outwards is another room's inwards.

 

I'd say it's to save space. If the door opens inward, then everything needs to be cleared around it so it can open and close. That isn't the case if it opens outward. Japanese apartments/houses/etc. are generally pretty small, anyway.

 

I thought it was because in most homes the floor is raised above the ground with the space just after the door being where you took your shoes off and if the door opened inwards then it would be fairly easy for a person to accidently step on the floor with shoes to avoid the door opening.

 

Agreed

 

Well, I like GaijinPunch's answer but the true answer according to Daiwa House (pretty big building company) is that it saves space for the genkan (Place to put your shoes before heading in to the house) and , get this... gives the impression of a warm welcome :lol: Personally I agree with the space part but the warm welcome???

QUESTION 2 - Why do the Japanese call a green apple a blue apple but when you ask them what colour it is they'll actually say it's green. And why do they say the colour of traffic lights are red, yellow, blue when in fact they are red, yellow (Amber for the perfectionist) and green?

Yakumo

 

Answer: because "aoi" in Japanese is really cyan (blue-green) in English.

So, anything darker or more towards blue than yellow-green or bright green is called "aoi".

 

Japan originally only has 6 basic colours.

Akai - Red
Kiiroi - Yellow
Chairoi - Brown (Literally Tea Colour)
Shiroi - White
Kuroi - Black
Aoi - Blue

A lot of languages in the world do not have a seperate word for Green and Blue is generally Blue or Green. Hence why the Green is called Aoi (or blue). Midori - Green didn't come into effective use until after World War 2.

 

Answer: Because they are all like me, who knows what colours things are but always get them mixed up and end up saying the wrong colour (mainly blue/yellow)

Or that they don't have a particular word for green

 

Hmm.... I always thought it was one a likening to the word "ripe" (grass was most likely blue before traffic lights).

 

Jamtex is 100% correct ! Yep, years ago there was no green in Japanese which must have made life a right pain in the arse ! To be honest I find it quite dumb to call two obviously different colours the same name. Imagine looking at the sky and saying it's blue then looking at the grass and saying that's also blue

Something I used to find so funny was that the word for grey is Fly Colour (Hae iro) :lol: It gets better though, the word for pink is Peach Colour (momo iro). Of course kids and young people now say Pinku based on the English word Pink but they don't use grey.

Yakumo

 

Is it because the number 4 is considered unlucky? I know there's some number like that.

 

Yeah, the number 4 can be expressed as 'shi' in japanese, which can also mean 'death'. I was told it was better to say 4 as 'yon' for this reason.

 

I don't get how you can have brown, but not green which is, if I'm not mistaken, in the rainbow.

Well, don't tell any Japanese people that, since it's actually hai iro (ash color).

Another gift one:

What are the famous "nono" gifts. I can actually only think of one right now as I just woke up... I know there's 2 or 3 though.