How to Avoid Embarrassing Yourself in a Foreign Country

Short answer: you can’t. Embarrassing situations are inevitable whether you’re living in your home country or visiting one that you’ve never been to before. But as someone who has embarrassed herself a few times living abroad, there are a few things I’ve figured out that have helped me to avoid embarrassment – and, hopefully, my experiences will be able to help you too.

Like all articles, there is a story behind this one – namely, my own embarrassing encounter at a supermarket shortly after I first came to Japan. On this particular day, I was buying myself some lunch that amounted to just a few hundred yen (equivalent to about two US dollars) and as such, was going to pay for everything in change.

One thing to note about registers in Japan is that they are pretty high-tech compared to the registers I was used to in the U.S. It may be different now (it’s been 5 years since my last visit to the U.S.), but for most of my life, I’d gotten used to clerks having to count change and bills as they put them into the register. In Japan, they just feed the change and bills into the register and the machine does all the counting. The counting may take a few seconds, but there’s no question the machine’s faster than a human.

How to Not Avoid Embarrassment

On this particular occasion, I counted out the coins I needed to pay and handed them to the clerk. She fed the change into the register and I watched the “amount paid total” go up on the register screen. It seemed a bit slow that day and stopped short of 10 yen, but the register was still making noises, so I wasn’t sure whether it was done and I had miscounted, or if it just needed a couple more seconds.

I was leaning towards the former explanation and reached for my purse to scrounge for another ten yen coin. As I did, though, the register suddenly spat out the coins again – not the same ones that I put in, though, since I’d only put in only 100 and 10 yen coins, but the change that came out consisted of 100, 50, and 10 yen.

As I look back on it now, it seems obvious that the clerk must have pushed a button to make it regurgitate an equivalent amount of change. I suppose she thought that, being foreign, I couldn’t read numbers. Granted, I had just miscounted a small amount of change, so I can’t really blame her for thinking I was a math-illiterate moron.

The end result, though, is that since I hadn’t seen her push any buttons, I wondered if the machine was broken and asked her as much. What followed was her attempting to explain that, no, I just hadn’t put in enough money, and me not being able to follow what she was saying because my Japanese was very poor at that time. It was made worse because she was young, nervous, and speaking way too quickly, making comprehension on my side impossible.

She ended up having to call not one, but two of her coworkers over to try and explain to me what the issue was. The last one who came spoke slowly, using simple words, and comprehension finally dawned on me. I can only imagine how red I must have turned because I have the sort of complexion that gets extremely, noticeably red whenever I’m embarrassed. I hurried to pay the correct amount and got out of there as quickly as I could without actually sprinting my way through the doors.

TL;DR I am a moron but you don’t have to be!

As much of a fool as I made of myself that day, I feel even more sorry for that poor clerk who had to deal with my amazingly awful language (and math) skills, as well as any other native who has to put up with a bumbling foreigner who didn’t put it enough effort to learn the language of the place they intended to live for an extended amount of time.

Since then, I  resolved to work harder at my Japanese comprehension skills, as clearly I had a long way to go. I still fumbled sometimes (and still do to this day), but the important thing is to work at improving – not only for my own sake, but also so as not to unnecessarily burden those around me.

So, with all that backstory out of the way, what are some things you can do to avoid embarrassing yourself while living abroad?

1. Get Your Language Abilities up to a Conversational Level

My big mistake when I first started learning Japanese is that I focused primarily on reading and did not pay a lot of mind to speaking and listening. So, while the knowledge I acquired before coming to Japan wasn’t exactly useless, I struggled with even the most basic human interactions because I didn’t put enough focus into listening to natural Japanese conversations.

A great way to practice conversational speech (if you don’t know someone who speaks the language you’re hoping to learn) is to watch TV programs from that country. For Japan, this usually means anime and Japanese dramas. Pick something that actually interests you and watch without subtitles – or subtitles in Japanese only. If you’re like me, having English subtitles are just too distracting and you won’t be able to focus on the words being spoken.

If I had focused more of my studies in conversational Japanese, I probably would have avoided my aforementioned supermarket encounter. Oh well, live and learn.

2. Study Up on the Culture if you can; or, just Observe and Listen

The other main issue is simply not knowing enough about the culture. For this, there’s no easy fix; you can consume all the media you want and still never learn about little, everyday nuances that the people of that country don’t even think about because it’s so ingrained in their culture. That being said, there are two different approaches to take here.

First, study up on the culture as much as you can. Sure, you won’t be able to find out everything, but with how widespread communication is nowadays, you should be able to find some basic advice – things like table manners, etiquette on public transport, and so on. I never would have found any information about how Japanese registers work, but I did learn a lot of useful tips like speaking in a quiet voice while in public, how to use (and not use) chopsticks, not blowing your nose in public, and so on.

Second, once you’re actually in the country, don’t just go through the motions. Observe your surroundings and how natives interact with one another. Actively try to learn more about the culture while you’re there. Sure, some of it you might simply absorb through osmosis, but you’d be amazed at how much subtle body language and unspoken rules you’ll miss if you’re not paying attention.

In other words, be an attentive student of your surroundings. You’ll be amazed at how much you’ll pick up!

3. Don’t Take Everything to Heart

As I mentioned in the beginning, no matter how much you prepare, you’ll run into your fair share of foibles and embarrassments. At the end of the day, you can’t avoid it – it’s a part of life. So, rather than berate yourself for misunderstandings and mistakes, learn to let it go.

If it helps, keep in mind that nobody cares. That may sound callous, but in reality, it’s a blessing. Most people don’t really care if you make mistakes; to them, you’re just a random stranger. Don’t waste time or energy fretting over the little embarrassments you suffer and just focus on the people who matter – friends, family, and those you interact with on a regular basis.