Comment by sosborn
7 months ago
Those signs have nothing to do with protecting culture. Most of the time, they are simply a naive defense against dealing with a population often doesn't speak Japanese very well.
7 months ago
Those signs have nothing to do with protecting culture. Most of the time, they are simply a naive defense against dealing with a population often doesn't speak Japanese very well.
There's no prohibition against requiring customers to be able to speak Japanese, and this works very well as a tourist filter.
The signs say No Foreigners not No non Japanese speakers . A subtle but important difference.
Every time I've come across one of these signs and wanted to patronize the establishment, a friendly chat with the manager in Japanese was always enough to get them to let me in.
YMMV.