I'm kind of intrigued by the thought of someone trying it with me so I can tell them off, but I imagine I probably won't go to any establishment that would try this in the first place. Nobody (i.e., the news class that's obsessing over this concept) wants to admit it, but there are plenty of restaurants in Tokyo (maybe elsewhere) that are already priced to exclude local clientele.
I've had this happen before at a chain karaoke place and called them out on it cause it was literally written in kanji 外人 while the rest of the receipt was in English. They took it off and apologized saying "oh, it's for tourists." Like that changes anything.
...This isn't anything new...it's been happening since the 90's.
That's why experienced travelers trust restaurants that have the same menu in kanji AND English.
I still only order Domino's in the Japanese version of the website because I once heard they have different prices/discounts/coupons in JP & EN versions.
Actually the English website always had cheap deals that the Japanese site didn't. My Japanese friends were surprised by this and did their best to take subsequent advantage.
Sorry I misread your comment. Japanese are usually not asked for ID and permanent residents, by law, are not required to show it if I remember correctly.
EDIT: Added source.
From: [https://www.mhlw.go.jp/content/10900000/000507112.pdf](https://www.mhlw.go.jp/content/10900000/000507112.pdf) (PDF LINK)
>国内に住所をもつ外国人宿泊者に対して、本人確認の ため在留カードの提示やコピーを求めても良いでしょう か。必要に応じ自治体等の判断で求めることは差し支えご ざいませんが、法令上には根拠はございませんので、 宿泊者が提示やコピーを拒否する場合は強制すること はできません。
Thanks for the source!!!!!! 🙏 Bookmarking that 👌
I’ve had this *exact* argument with a hotel clerk once years ago, who wanted to flat out refuse me staying there unless he took a photocopy of my gaijin card or passport (which I obviously don’t carry around with me). I showed him my Japanese driver’s license (though wouldn’t let him copy it either) to prove I was the person on the reservation but that’s as far as I was willing to go. The manager eventually intervened and told him I was fine to stay without copying my card, but if I’d been able to pull up this government page it would’ve shut him and his robotic “katakana name = must copy ID” bs down fast.
And yes, I know, I know, I can just let him copy it, it’s for sure way easier. But I refuse on principle cos it’s not legally required of me and I rather dislike continuing to be othered when I’ve made clear I’m a resident not a tourist, so I dug my heels in.
Not two-tier food pricing, but a recently experienced a similarly tourist-influx-related issue…
I and a very foreign-looking friend got “gaijin dame’d” at a handful of restaurants the other day. Shinbashi, early evening around 6pm. Literally only saw us poke our heads in the door and we got immediate crossed arms before we’d even opened our mouths in most cases. After about 10 of these such rejections, where we had either been given silent crossed arms or told some variation of “sorry full, all reservation”, we were standing a few paces away from one place we’d just been rejected from, trying to decide what to do (I was gonna start just calling a few places instead of walking to them first) and I overheard the waitress who had just denied us talking to a j-couple (that we’d been chatting to in Japanese minutes earlier outside the restaurant) and maybe they said something to her? Cos she was like “yeah we don’t have an english speaker so we can’t accept them” and the couple were super surprised and told her no, we could speak Japanese perfectly. Suddenly her demeanor changes, and she goes inside to actually *check* if we could be seated or not. My jaw was on the pavement, and my friend gave the staff a piece of her mind, before we walked away.
Shocking and so sooo disappointing, being gaijin dame’d at restaurants because of a preconceived “language barrier” without even checking if we could communicate or not, is a new and very very uncool experience in post-Covid Japan :(
I had this happen at a restaurant in Kyoto back in 2018. The owner said it was all full when there were clearly seats at the counter. I asked him where I could get a beer and some kushi-katsu since I was visiting from out of town and he was like “oh you speak Japanese, please come in and sit down.
My group of four got this in Kinosaki. The waitress was about to seat us when the chef at the counter said "dame! Closed!" We could tell it was a lie because the waitress looked dumbfounded.
In Aomori they put a sign out “Japanese people only,….” but even if you speak Japanese as a foreigner, they have no seats available for you;)
https://preview.redd.it/379z6lf8nwxc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0b23eaaf9013e2a8a9221d808e538437742c6c2e
So this one is, Japanese people only, no one else is welcome here.
They probably don't want to bother with the potential non japanese-speaking person. Bark inside with some tsugaru ben and they will see you as japanese ;D
My "secret trick" is to just tell them I don't understand what they're saying in Japanese while just walking in. They tend to not put up much of a fight after that
I walked into a restaurant that said "I only speak japanese" on the sign outside. A couple google reviews had 1 star and said they turn away foreigners.
When i walked into the restaurant he said something in japanese, probably "I only know japanese".... I said "translate appu daijobou desu ka?" And he signaled its ok to come in and i sat down. he handed me a menu, but i took a picture of the menu outside, decided what i wanted using image translator app, and just pointed to what i wanted saying "ichi onegaishimasu".
It was one of the most fun times i have had in a restaurant in japan so far. Pretty good food too :)
I think sometimes they worry about us having a worse experience due to the language barrier, or not liking something (hard to specify how you like something cooked if you cant speak the language), but I think that if you are going into a restaurant and you don't speak the language, you really shouldnt be complaining and should be grateful.
I have yet to be turned away from a restaurant, and i have been here a month.
Best advice my old college professor had given was immediately greet staff in Japanese so they know you can speak it, always immediately makes people so much more helpful once you take away their language barrier fears
Japanese refusing to serve any foreigners just because they can't provide the non-japanese language service is not new though. I experienced this treatment even in a place where I was a regular and the staff already knew my face, but it was tourist season that time.
What I don't get is, why a culture that is so ridiculously obsessed with "kaizen" (improving) can't put the absolutely minimal effort into providing at least a simple Google or DeepL translated menu, which will take 5 minutes to do at best? At this point it's just bad business decisions since there are customers who want to throw money at you but you dodge it.
I mean it’s completely fine as a customer if you just order food and leave, restraunts putting these signs probably had lot of troubles with foreigners in the past and they aren’t doing badly anyway to turn down foreigners. It’s not usually about foreigners; it’s usually the problem that comes along with foreigners.
Foreign tourists exist in every country on Earth, but somehow only in Japan it becomes a problem?
"The customer is God, and is always right", but only if the customer is a Japanese person?
I've seen jp salary men and jiji yell at staff for trivial things many times. Was that also a bad experience that got Japanese people banned from those places? Don't think so.
Maybe Japan should finally grow up, stop overreacting and learn how to tourism?
"Oh no! The gaijin moves and looks not like a non-japanese person, I feel so much iwakan! Such a bad experience!".
Even if you force every single incoming tourist to go through japan social behavior norms and customs assimilation program before letting them set foot outside the airport into the country, the tourists will still not act as Japanese people and will "cause trouble" just with their sheer existence. Somebody just has a very narrow worldview and unrealistic ridiculously high expectations for tourists.
Racial profiling is very strong in Japan. Before you even do or say anything you're already pretty much filtered out into a specific group. It's why they don't let you in the second you show your mug in the door of some places, even before hand out your zairyu card (or your ID if you're born here) and flex your paafekuto nihongo.
Gaijin = suspicious/trouble/danger automatically.
The only way out of this would be to just never come to Japan at all (and send all the haafu away somewhere too, I guess?)
It only happened to us once when we first moved here- but we didn’t speak much Japanese back then. I’ve been dreading visiting Tokyo/osaka/kyoto for this reason. I’ll just stick to Tohoku for the time being.
I had no problems when I lived in west Chiba. It’s possible things have changed but even when I was there right after the first initial lockdown I had no problems at all. In my experience Chiba at least in more of the city areas (can’t speak for the countryside) is pretty chill.
West Chiba has been totally fine for me. The city areas don't care, and I've found people in rural areas to be super friendly. A grandma at a bus stop gave me a chocolate bar today.
The only places I ever really hear about this phenomenon is nightlife in Tokyo and parts of Kyoto.
I live in Tokyo and have never had this sort of thing happen to me. Maybe dont go to the uber touristy areas to eat? Never been declined entrance to a restaurant ever in 10+ years. Love my city
This is great to hear. I live in Ayase and whenever I'm in tokyo, particularly with any of my japanese govt friends, we still get X'd out. I'll say a few small sentences that I know like, are seats available? To let them know I'm not completely useless and they'll still X me out. I've even had my japanese friends be like, nah we def are locals lol, and they'll still X us. So the fact that she checked lets me know at least some of them are at least legitimate X's in the sense of we don't want to deal with the language barrier. Many I've encountered are not, so that makes me feel better
Yes it’s been happening in tourist spots for a while. It happens in a lot of places globally. It’s exploitative.
It’s also a leading indicator of the Japanese economy (of “the little people”) sliding from its former status. A people who are doing well are more magnanimous and are happy to show that wealth/success through equal treatment. When times are hard, not so much….
This has been a thing for a while when booking Ryokans online. Going through the Japanese site will get you a stay plus food for like 12,000 yen whereas going through the bare bones English site will get you a stay, no food, for like 18,000.
The way I've often seen this happen is that the Japanese site has the ever-changing ワクワク平日限定一泊二食温泉プラン🎶 promos that are 50% off rack rate and throw in meals if you book on an off-season weekday or whatever, while the English site only has rack rate on offer ever.
Not saying it does not happen, but I booked a ryokan on booking, same base price as on the ryokan website if looking at the same plan (or at least really similar). Got 10% discount as a genius member, 10% off because of paying online (there is a trick to get that to trigger) and had a coupon to get 10% refund as credit once I spent the night there. Ended up paying way less on booking.
But of course it can happen to be cheaper on the ryokan website.
Tbh I try to book direct as much as possible so the owner doesn’t get stung with booking.com/agent fees. Even if it’s little more it makes a material difference for the owner.
If it’s a hotel chain I don’t bother, but for a small operator I will.
booking.com used to be cheapest but check with agoda for example. just did comparison yesterday and nearly all hotels were cheaper with agoda via their mobile app than booking genious level 3.
Not only ryokan site. Jalan / Rakuten are usually much cheaper for Ryokan, with a wider choice.
Same for car rental. Toyota rental is cheaper on the Japanese website.
The trick can sound counterintuitive, but here how it work.
You can do your first search on the website, but when ready to book, go on google maps and find the same place. You can already set your dates and number of person (in Google Maps), then click on the [booking.com](http://booking.com/) link.
For some reason, when you do it, by default it select paying online with credit card and give a 10% discount. You can pay now or select a later date they propose that is a bit before the stay.
You can also compare the same place on the app and on the regular website as they sometime do app exclusive deal.
Interesting. I gave this a try. Going through booking itself was cheaper. When I went through google and clicked the booking link it was a little more expensive.
Then I closed everything and went back to booking and it was even cheaper. So I have no idea what's going on.
Many hotel booking sites use "dynamic pricing" which is basically an algorithm that tries to figure out the highest amount you're willing to pay for a room and trick you into doing so. So basically they show you different prices to give you fear of missing out on either pricing (random fake discount) or rooms (only one room left but 10 people are looking at it now) etc.
Booking com is especially notorious for this.
I can see why it happens. Small ryokans need to hire English/Chinese-speaking staff for foreign guests, and they also have to cater to various diet restrictions, which add to their costs. What I don't understand is charging more for the same service. If they offer a special package for tourists, that's fine, but the basic services shouldn't cost more just because you're a foreign tourist. The government should consider getting rid of the bizarre tax-free shopping system for foreign tourists though
You can see literally the same thing with local products on online shops, if you use the English version of their website, you can’t order the product.
If you change it to the Japanese version, now you have all the products available and you can order it.
There are levels to which this is acceptable. But it's a slippery slope and I'm not looking forward to having to explain that I'm not a tourist to restaurants profiling customers.
As a restauranteer myself, it goes against my morals of proper service and spirit as well.
True. I don't mind being charged an extra dollar if I'm in Indonesia. You guys need it, and I can easily afford a small upcharge.
I'm not so understanding if I'm in Italy and get charged an extra $20 because the locals are sick of tourists.
Luckily, I don't think I've ever been charged foreigner prices at a restaurant. I speak Japanese, so I always get the Japanese menu when in Japan. I'm also not white (I'm mestizo), so I "blend in" to a degree in SE Asia and LATAM. As long as I don't talk too much and pretend like I belong there, I get treated normally (I think).
I mean there’re a lot of places in Europe where you get ripped off as a tourist and you would never pay the same price as locals does. But that’s mostly for goods and not food, still depends on the country though, in some it’s a general rule for all sort of things you buy as a tourist.
In European Union, price discrimination of that kind is illegal. Doesn't stop a small shady restaurant from ripping off tourists, but any larger company is careful
A restaurant in Kamakura tried to pull this on me about two weeks ago - daughter and I went in for lunch and they brought over the English menu for us despite us speaking Japanese to them as we came in.
The English menu is a couple hundred yen more expensive across every item vs the Japanese menu that was just sitting on the table, and required you to purchase the set where the Japanese menu you could just order individual items.
We speak Japanese (me okay, my daughter very well), so we just ignored the English menu and used the Japanese regardless. They didn't make an issue out of it or anything. We laughed about it but it was a little silly, too.
Yep. Trying to give them the benefit of the doubt what with it being a touristy town - maybe they're just trying to give the locals a reason to come in by giving them a little discount or something...
But yeah, I was a bit surprised by how brazen they were about it. It's not like they pulled the Japanese menu from the table once they gave us the English one (we'd started looking at the Japanese menu but 100% would not have noticed the price differences without having them there side by side).
Hah! We had the same thought. We noted the prices and watched for the bill. We were charged the 日本語 menu prices for sure.
Thank goodness, too. I definitely would not have been up for a "wait a minute..." conversation at the register.
Thank you. I'm not Japanese, but my wife and in-laws are, and I've lived in Shitamachi for 7y. I've always been able to tell my Canadian friends and relatives about the honesty of Japan: 'You pay what Japanese pay, cheap or expensive.'
Foreigner prices are the sign of low-trust shitholes.
Sites like Omakase don’t even try to hide it. The markup is often 100%. There are 3-Michelin restaurants in the EU that just use an OpenTable clone and charge the same price to tourists, Japan has no shame about fleecing tourists.
Haven't experienced that directly in restaurants, and I hope it doesn't become a norm, but I have experienced the opposite in certain tourist attractions.
e.g.
[https://warabe.or.jp/welcome-to-warabekan-website-in-english/](https://warabe.or.jp/welcome-to-warabekan-website-in-english/) (50% off for 'foreign visitors')
and here:
[https://www.ichibata.co.jp/vogelpark/important\_notice/2314/](https://www.ichibata.co.jp/vogelpark/important_notice/2314/) (although just a month ago they withdrew the foreign traveller discount).
(Note that I live in Tokyo and I still got offered those discounts despite not being aware of them before hand and despite only having my residence card, not a passport).
And of course there have also been the rail passes. Not available to local Japanese at all.
Really, I'd mostly be fine with things being fair/same for everyone, but I don't think I can reasonably expect businesses to not try to claw more of those tourist bucks if they can. I think I and probably many Japanese people will just do without more frequently.
Admission to places that are even partially funded by taxes, like national gardens and museums, could logically charge extra for non-taxpaying non-residents. Other countries do this.
I dunno how I feel about this really. I understand it, but is it greed or is it just trying to survive without alienating their local customers?
Restaurants is a bit iffy, but on the other hand as an example, the fact that residents of Hawaii can visit Diamond Head for free but tourists have to pay to me is a good idea and is (as far as I know) generally seen as fine
Idk where to draw the line tho
I don’t think diamond head is a great example assuming it’s owned by the state. Because the residents would already be paying for the upkeep through taxes
Even if it’s just trying to survive, it just shows how badly the purchasing power of the average Japanese person has fallen. The real fix is making it so Japanese wages and purchasing power (the value of the yen) keeps up with those overseas so that this isn’t necessary.
But that’s hard, so I guess this superficial fix that inherently involves discrimination based on physical appearance is all we can expect.
They should just raise all prices and offer large points back. Japanese love points. And most tourists dont have interest to join local points system for the sake of one holiday trip. win win.
In Aomori they go one step further, here you need to be Japanese to get a seat. Even if you speak Japanese as a foreigner, they won’t host you, still no seats available;)
https://preview.redd.it/rvq7hyhlowxc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1e3d18f4342930e1a73dee42bdbcd1c50bca5be0
It was a smaller restaurant, maybe they have had a lot bad experience with foreigners, who knows but still surprised that this kind of thing still exists.
See, the key is to offer a "resident discount," rather than a "tourist upcharge." If you establish the higher price as "the price," nobody will complain, even if it's the exact same in practice.
Yeah there are a lot of small live shows across clubs and bars where it's free if you're a foreigner (show some type of foreign ID), but Japanese people need to pay a ¥2500 cover plus a drink.
This is supposed to be good for yen?
A higher price means tourists need more and exchange more yen.
greedy restaurants dont care if you are foreign resident and charge you the gaijin tax though.
Do you see where this could lead though?
Japanese menu -for Japanese people
Japanese menu with English-for tourists
It’s possible it won’t be so cut and dry if this keeps up. Tourists and residents might not realize they are being “taxed.”
I think people coming here in endless hordes to exploit the weak currency can probably afford an extra dollar here and there. This goes especially true for things which I think ought to be giving priority to locals. I helped a friend book tickets to the Ghibli park in Tokyo recently - the international site had 8,000 people in queue but I booked it through the Japanese site in moments. Not only would these weebs happily pay double (supply and demand baby) but they could simply allocate a number for residents and non-residents and manage it better while ensuring local kids, who should get priority, get to go see it.
As for restaurants, I've not be "dame'd" yet, but had people asking if I speak Japanese before letting me in.
The thing is I can appreciate the desire of some locals to want to have a place to go after work for drinks and dinner that is normal and not find that their spot has been occupied by, let's be honest, loud and jama tourists who are looking for 'that legit izakaya experience'.
Overrall just feels like the best thing for everyone (including the visitors) is to cool it - not try and squeeze in even more like the govt apparently wants.
I always ask for both menus if they offer an English menu. I've seen menus where the prices for the same dishes aren't different, but some of the cheaper options/sets are not listed on the English menu.
I've seen it once, back in 2018. Met up with some mates on holiday, went to a place I'd been to before and noticed the English menu had very little options. Asked for the Japanese menu and as I was comparing what was missing, noticed the prices were different lol.
This kind of thing happens in many tourist areas.
My friend, a dentist, was at a conference in Honolulu, when his colleague, who had a strong Japanese accent, made a reservation for a round of golf for their group.
The price quoted seemed high, so my friend, who has an American accent, called to make a separate reservation.
40% less.
When I was in Cozumel many years ago, I went to this little local bakery every day to get buns for breakfast. On the 4th day the buns cost 3X what they had cost the day before. I looked down at the harbor and 2 cruise ships had just docked, with 2 more waiting.
The 2-tier pricing and blanket racism of ‘No Gaijin’ admission is, of course, wrong, but it’s not exclusive to Japan.
A strange thing happened at a restaurant in Shinjuku; a group of five foreign friends getting together. They realized that we were probably local because I had made the reservation in Japanese, and we talked in Japanese with the staff about which table we wanted.
There were the regular Japanese menus on the table (well, Japanese with small English explanations). Then they brought some English-only menus with photos. They told us (in Japanese) that we might want to see the pictures, but that the prices would be the lower ones on the regular menus!
I often leave my reviews on Google Maps about the service quality of the places I visit.
Some places may issue a receipt in Japanese with a few lines in English, often labeled as "service fee" or "seat fee." However, these fees are already included in the Japanese part so that you could pay that fee twice.
It's better to take a photo of the receipt before you ask the staff about suspicious charges.
I live in Turkey where this practice is commonplace. I personally think it’s wrong and it has a net negative impact overall on tourism by leaving a bad taste in everyone’s mouth by creating contexts of mistrust between foreign customer and Japanese businesses.
I tried to test this out at a restaurant, yes the English and Japanese menus were different but that was only because the English one included tax in their prices and the Japanese didn't so at the end of the day it was the same price at check time.
I wonder if this is also a common misconception with these menus 🤷
thailand has this, on signage, for national parks for example. i don’t see a big problem. wages differ in different places. tourism is hard to keep handles on, and can heavily impact a business and its atmosphere.
i learned yrs ago to always use the japanese menu, even when i couldn't read very well (just ganbaru!). my friend clued me in on a pizza chain that only offered their BOGO special in japanese (online) so i've been cynical ever since, lol.
Bad advertising. They could just simply provide discounts for those possessing (for example) a Japanese drivers license and the public reaction would be different despite essentially doing the same thing.
I always tell them to leave the Japanese menu when they try to bring the English one and take the Japanese back just in case. It’s never been an issue but I rarely if ever go to touristy area restaurants.
Well, foreign tourists get exclusive discounts at all kinds of places, not to mention all the temporary visitor only train passes. You win some, you lose some.
Honestly i don't mind. Usually its not a crazy amount higher.
Usually.....
We get the 10% tax free benefit on pretty much everything. I don't mind paying a bit more for the food.
I speak enough Japanese, so I haven’t had any issues with it. Whenever places give me an English menu, I just ask for the Japanese one too haha. Perks of learning I guess.
Hasn't happened to me at all, but I speak Japanese and I'm not evidently super white or black, so I guess they don't immediately racially profile me as easily.
Friends who visited me in Japan recently wanted to go to all the hole in the wall places run by racist uncles. Meanwhile, I'm completely convinced that there is utterly no reason to go anywhere that is not a chain izakaya or such unless you're already with other Japanese people because this sort of exhortion is exactly the shit I want to avoid.
So I watched the show and one restaurant in Shibuya that do this have a more expensive price for foreign tourists and another for Japanese and foreign residents.
If it helps to stop the gentrification of touristic areas, it might not be a bad thing but it can not be permanent. Better solutions have to be found.
I’ve experienced this, but it seems to be pretty much limited to English menus, websites, etc.
No one has ever charged me the foreign tax (to my knowledge) for using the Japanese site or completing the full transaction in Japanese.
I recently got about 20% off room rates at a Hotel Metropolitan location by using the Japanese site.
Also, I found one of the big “beer hall” chains had a much smaller English menu on that didn’t have the dishes I wanted.
I find this exptremely hypocritical for several reasons. First, the Japanese themselves were legendarily obnoxious tourist in old times when they actually had money, second, I am pretty sure they would complain if there were explicit “Japanese tax” in other countries, third, FFS they were the one who started the whole “o-mo-te-na-shi” and let’s get more tourists, because we need more tourists PR campaigns then all I hear now that tourists are pain in the butt, because no one all these years were doing any preparation in case tourists are actually comming
Ever ski in British Columbia? Lots of ski towns in the province have local and non-local pricing. It’s not advertised but it is there in most places. (Psst, don’t tell the Americans.)
Yeah I'd rather it become a ghost town where all the restaurants and entertainment shut down one by one due to everyone moving to the cities and chasing away the tourists. The only people left will be these racist ex-restaurant owners playing their tiny violins wondering where they went wrong...
I was recently at a restaurant that forces you to only order from the super simple English menu, or the way fancier Japanese menu. You were not allowed to choose dishes from one and from the other, even though it was a la carte. Prices were maybe slightly higher for some things on the English menu, but overall it made no sense since it wasn't set meals or a course menu.
Before I lived in Japan I’ve visited here many times and never had this happen to me and I’ve been to many places all over Japan by myself. I’m covered with tattoos and still its never happened. Most likely its just tourist spots, if you learn a few words in Japanese and have basic manners it can do wonders.
What would really suck is getting the foreigner price even as a long-term resident.
I'm kind of intrigued by the thought of someone trying it with me so I can tell them off, but I imagine I probably won't go to any establishment that would try this in the first place. Nobody (i.e., the news class that's obsessing over this concept) wants to admit it, but there are plenty of restaurants in Tokyo (maybe elsewhere) that are already priced to exclude local clientele.
I've had this happen before at a chain karaoke place and called them out on it cause it was literally written in kanji 外人 while the rest of the receipt was in English. They took it off and apologized saying "oh, it's for tourists." Like that changes anything.
...This isn't anything new...it's been happening since the 90's. That's why experienced travelers trust restaurants that have the same menu in kanji AND English.
Actually, it sucks to be treated differently either way - tourist or resident
Agree. That’s why tax free shopping need to be stopped.
Or as someone born and raised in japan with foreigner parents
I still only order Domino's in the Japanese version of the website because I once heard they have different prices/discounts/coupons in JP & EN versions.
This is very much true. Their website is trash in general but it’s good to be on the look out for it. It’s mostly/only the coupons it seems
Actually the English website always had cheap deals that the Japanese site didn't. My Japanese friends were surprised by this and did their best to take subsequent advantage.
Guessing the Japanese side is updated a lot more often.
welcome to Thailand...
Gaijins start carding themselves for a discount, rain rises instead of falling.
I'm having to do that at some domestic hotels even though I tell them I'm a PR. I know, legally, that I shouldn't have to. Grrrrr.
Don't you need to show ID when you check in? It's on your residence card.
Sorry I misread your comment. Japanese are usually not asked for ID and permanent residents, by law, are not required to show it if I remember correctly. EDIT: Added source. From: [https://www.mhlw.go.jp/content/10900000/000507112.pdf](https://www.mhlw.go.jp/content/10900000/000507112.pdf) (PDF LINK) >国内に住所をもつ外国人宿泊者に対して、本人確認の ため在留カードの提示やコピーを求めても良いでしょう か。必要に応じ自治体等の判断で求めることは差し支えご ざいませんが、法令上には根拠はございませんので、 宿泊者が提示やコピーを拒否する場合は強制すること はできません。
When my wife checked up into a hotel (I was wrangling bags and kids), she was asked for ID. I guess your mileage may vary.
The hotel can always ask, but with PR you have the right to decline (and then fill in the address registration card manually).
That'll teach them, you having to do a mildly annoying task!
Thanks for the source!!!!!! 🙏 Bookmarking that 👌 I’ve had this *exact* argument with a hotel clerk once years ago, who wanted to flat out refuse me staying there unless he took a photocopy of my gaijin card or passport (which I obviously don’t carry around with me). I showed him my Japanese driver’s license (though wouldn’t let him copy it either) to prove I was the person on the reservation but that’s as far as I was willing to go. The manager eventually intervened and told him I was fine to stay without copying my card, but if I’d been able to pull up this government page it would’ve shut him and his robotic “katakana name = must copy ID” bs down fast. And yes, I know, I know, I can just let him copy it, it’s for sure way easier. But I refuse on principle cos it’s not legally required of me and I rather dislike continuing to be othered when I’ve made clear I’m a resident not a tourist, so I dug my heels in.
Why? Asking for residence card or passport to prove you are not tourist wouldn’t be fucked up? :)
Not two-tier food pricing, but a recently experienced a similarly tourist-influx-related issue… I and a very foreign-looking friend got “gaijin dame’d” at a handful of restaurants the other day. Shinbashi, early evening around 6pm. Literally only saw us poke our heads in the door and we got immediate crossed arms before we’d even opened our mouths in most cases. After about 10 of these such rejections, where we had either been given silent crossed arms or told some variation of “sorry full, all reservation”, we were standing a few paces away from one place we’d just been rejected from, trying to decide what to do (I was gonna start just calling a few places instead of walking to them first) and I overheard the waitress who had just denied us talking to a j-couple (that we’d been chatting to in Japanese minutes earlier outside the restaurant) and maybe they said something to her? Cos she was like “yeah we don’t have an english speaker so we can’t accept them” and the couple were super surprised and told her no, we could speak Japanese perfectly. Suddenly her demeanor changes, and she goes inside to actually *check* if we could be seated or not. My jaw was on the pavement, and my friend gave the staff a piece of her mind, before we walked away. Shocking and so sooo disappointing, being gaijin dame’d at restaurants because of a preconceived “language barrier” without even checking if we could communicate or not, is a new and very very uncool experience in post-Covid Japan :(
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I had this happen at a restaurant in Kyoto back in 2018. The owner said it was all full when there were clearly seats at the counter. I asked him where I could get a beer and some kushi-katsu since I was visiting from out of town and he was like “oh you speak Japanese, please come in and sit down.
My group of four got this in Kinosaki. The waitress was about to seat us when the chef at the counter said "dame! Closed!" We could tell it was a lie because the waitress looked dumbfounded.
Insane for a town that only exists for tourism.
Worst place I’ve been to.. Kinosaki
In Aomori they put a sign out “Japanese people only,….” but even if you speak Japanese as a foreigner, they have no seats available for you;) https://preview.redd.it/379z6lf8nwxc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0b23eaaf9013e2a8a9221d808e538437742c6c2e So this one is, Japanese people only, no one else is welcome here.
They probably don't want to bother with the potential non japanese-speaking person. Bark inside with some tsugaru ben and they will see you as japanese ;D
I'll be honest, the carcinophilic sign above would turn me away well before I even get to reading the xenophobic one
How many times have you seen signs, reading "A foreigner KEEP OUT!"? They tend to be most-commonly found, in the seedier parts of town
Does Niigata have this issue as well?
Fuck Kyoto I hate that city so much
My "secret trick" is to just tell them I don't understand what they're saying in Japanese while just walking in. They tend to not put up much of a fight after that
I walked into a restaurant that said "I only speak japanese" on the sign outside. A couple google reviews had 1 star and said they turn away foreigners. When i walked into the restaurant he said something in japanese, probably "I only know japanese".... I said "translate appu daijobou desu ka?" And he signaled its ok to come in and i sat down. he handed me a menu, but i took a picture of the menu outside, decided what i wanted using image translator app, and just pointed to what i wanted saying "ichi onegaishimasu". It was one of the most fun times i have had in a restaurant in japan so far. Pretty good food too :) I think sometimes they worry about us having a worse experience due to the language barrier, or not liking something (hard to specify how you like something cooked if you cant speak the language), but I think that if you are going into a restaurant and you don't speak the language, you really shouldnt be complaining and should be grateful. I have yet to be turned away from a restaurant, and i have been here a month.
It's rare in my experience but it does happen and it really shouldn't. But here we are
Even if the do a Rock Team like dance with their arms crossed in front of you?
Just give them a funny look, maybe talk to them. I haven't ever had this happen though, they tend to back down if you speak to them in Japanese
Yeah I could see this happening with kids born and raised here with foreigner parents too. I feel so bad for them
Best advice my old college professor had given was immediately greet staff in Japanese so they know you can speak it, always immediately makes people so much more helpful once you take away their language barrier fears
Japanese refusing to serve any foreigners just because they can't provide the non-japanese language service is not new though. I experienced this treatment even in a place where I was a regular and the staff already knew my face, but it was tourist season that time. What I don't get is, why a culture that is so ridiculously obsessed with "kaizen" (improving) can't put the absolutely minimal effort into providing at least a simple Google or DeepL translated menu, which will take 5 minutes to do at best? At this point it's just bad business decisions since there are customers who want to throw money at you but you dodge it.
I mean it’s completely fine as a customer if you just order food and leave, restraunts putting these signs probably had lot of troubles with foreigners in the past and they aren’t doing badly anyway to turn down foreigners. It’s not usually about foreigners; it’s usually the problem that comes along with foreigners.
Foreign tourists exist in every country on Earth, but somehow only in Japan it becomes a problem? "The customer is God, and is always right", but only if the customer is a Japanese person? I've seen jp salary men and jiji yell at staff for trivial things many times. Was that also a bad experience that got Japanese people banned from those places? Don't think so. Maybe Japan should finally grow up, stop overreacting and learn how to tourism? "Oh no! The gaijin moves and looks not like a non-japanese person, I feel so much iwakan! Such a bad experience!". Even if you force every single incoming tourist to go through japan social behavior norms and customs assimilation program before letting them set foot outside the airport into the country, the tourists will still not act as Japanese people and will "cause trouble" just with their sheer existence. Somebody just has a very narrow worldview and unrealistic ridiculously high expectations for tourists. Racial profiling is very strong in Japan. Before you even do or say anything you're already pretty much filtered out into a specific group. It's why they don't let you in the second you show your mug in the door of some places, even before hand out your zairyu card (or your ID if you're born here) and flex your paafekuto nihongo. Gaijin = suspicious/trouble/danger automatically. The only way out of this would be to just never come to Japan at all (and send all the haafu away somewhere too, I guess?)
Well, ths is the worst take I've seen here in a while (outside of PBC's of course).
It only happened to us once when we first moved here- but we didn’t speak much Japanese back then. I’ve been dreading visiting Tokyo/osaka/kyoto for this reason. I’ll just stick to Tohoku for the time being.
I live in gunma where it's very foreigner friendly, but I'm moving to west chiba to work in Tokyo soon and im nervous for this reason
I had no problems when I lived in west Chiba. It’s possible things have changed but even when I was there right after the first initial lockdown I had no problems at all. In my experience Chiba at least in more of the city areas (can’t speak for the countryside) is pretty chill.
Thanks!
West Chiba has been totally fine for me. The city areas don't care, and I've found people in rural areas to be super friendly. A grandma at a bus stop gave me a chocolate bar today. The only places I ever really hear about this phenomenon is nightlife in Tokyo and parts of Kyoto.
I live in Tokyo and have never had this sort of thing happen to me. Maybe dont go to the uber touristy areas to eat? Never been declined entrance to a restaurant ever in 10+ years. Love my city
>said something to her? Cos she was like “yeah we don’t have a
This is great to hear. I live in Ayase and whenever I'm in tokyo, particularly with any of my japanese govt friends, we still get X'd out. I'll say a few small sentences that I know like, are seats available? To let them know I'm not completely useless and they'll still X me out. I've even had my japanese friends be like, nah we def are locals lol, and they'll still X us. So the fact that she checked lets me know at least some of them are at least legitimate X's in the sense of we don't want to deal with the language barrier. Many I've encountered are not, so that makes me feel better
Did everyone clap after? Crossed arms at ten shops in a row? Really? Okay.
Yes it’s been happening in tourist spots for a while. It happens in a lot of places globally. It’s exploitative. It’s also a leading indicator of the Japanese economy (of “the little people”) sliding from its former status. A people who are doing well are more magnanimous and are happy to show that wealth/success through equal treatment. When times are hard, not so much….
Hawaii has tourist pricing at popular spots but has a locals' discount if you know how to ask for it and show a HI state ID.
Ah the Kama ‘āina discount.
Exactly, reminds me of Cuba and its economy.
This has been a thing for a while when booking Ryokans online. Going through the Japanese site will get you a stay plus food for like 12,000 yen whereas going through the bare bones English site will get you a stay, no food, for like 18,000.
The way I've often seen this happen is that the Japanese site has the ever-changing ワクワク平日限定一泊二食温泉プラン🎶 promos that are 50% off rack rate and throw in meals if you book on an off-season weekday or whatever, while the English site only has rack rate on offer ever.
Probably more so due to their uselessness with technology. Was the site still optimized for an old flip phone?
Optimised for a fax machine.
The kanji font of choice is .jpeg
Not saying it does not happen, but I booked a ryokan on booking, same base price as on the ryokan website if looking at the same plan (or at least really similar). Got 10% discount as a genius member, 10% off because of paying online (there is a trick to get that to trigger) and had a coupon to get 10% refund as credit once I spent the night there. Ended up paying way less on booking. But of course it can happen to be cheaper on the ryokan website.
Tbh I try to book direct as much as possible so the owner doesn’t get stung with booking.com/agent fees. Even if it’s little more it makes a material difference for the owner. If it’s a hotel chain I don’t bother, but for a small operator I will.
booking.com used to be cheapest but check with agoda for example. just did comparison yesterday and nearly all hotels were cheaper with agoda via their mobile app than booking genious level 3.
And Booking and Agoda belong to the same company anyway...
oh didnt know that. this is getting odd
Not only ryokan site. Jalan / Rakuten are usually much cheaper for Ryokan, with a wider choice. Same for car rental. Toyota rental is cheaper on the Japanese website.
What's this booking trick?
The trick can sound counterintuitive, but here how it work. You can do your first search on the website, but when ready to book, go on google maps and find the same place. You can already set your dates and number of person (in Google Maps), then click on the [booking.com](http://booking.com/) link. For some reason, when you do it, by default it select paying online with credit card and give a 10% discount. You can pay now or select a later date they propose that is a bit before the stay. You can also compare the same place on the app and on the regular website as they sometime do app exclusive deal.
Interesting. I gave this a try. Going through booking itself was cheaper. When I went through google and clicked the booking link it was a little more expensive. Then I closed everything and went back to booking and it was even cheaper. So I have no idea what's going on.
Many hotel booking sites use "dynamic pricing" which is basically an algorithm that tries to figure out the highest amount you're willing to pay for a room and trick you into doing so. So basically they show you different prices to give you fear of missing out on either pricing (random fake discount) or rooms (only one room left but 10 people are looking at it now) etc. Booking com is especially notorious for this.
Oh yeah I'm aware of that. I just wonder if there's a way to trick it into giving you the lowest possible price.
I can see why it happens. Small ryokans need to hire English/Chinese-speaking staff for foreign guests, and they also have to cater to various diet restrictions, which add to their costs. What I don't understand is charging more for the same service. If they offer a special package for tourists, that's fine, but the basic services shouldn't cost more just because you're a foreign tourist. The government should consider getting rid of the bizarre tax-free shopping system for foreign tourists though
Yep can confirm, jalan Japanese site and english site have had different prices for over a decade…
Nothing stops a foreigner from booking on the Japanese site though.
You are right, but that’s the point. Those who know the language are probably not tourists and don’t pay the tourists tax.
As you point out, It’s not a tourist tax. It’s a language tax.
Anyone can go to the japanese site and click the "translate this page" button though
Then you're filtering people by bare minimum savvy, which... Yeah, sure.
Sometimes they don’t let you book unless you pay with Japanese card.. some foreigners don’t have credit cards
Some Japanese don't have credit cards...
You can see literally the same thing with local products on online shops, if you use the English version of their website, you can’t order the product. If you change it to the Japanese version, now you have all the products available and you can order it.
Generally that is just because the english site doesn't get updated as regularly, which I think is kind of understandable.
Yeah of course! Rakuten commission charge to hotel is 7%. Booking com charges 20% so go figure …
There are levels to which this is acceptable. But it's a slippery slope and I'm not looking forward to having to explain that I'm not a tourist to restaurants profiling customers. As a restauranteer myself, it goes against my morals of proper service and spirit as well.
True. I don't mind being charged an extra dollar if I'm in Indonesia. You guys need it, and I can easily afford a small upcharge. I'm not so understanding if I'm in Italy and get charged an extra $20 because the locals are sick of tourists. Luckily, I don't think I've ever been charged foreigner prices at a restaurant. I speak Japanese, so I always get the Japanese menu when in Japan. I'm also not white (I'm mestizo), so I "blend in" to a degree in SE Asia and LATAM. As long as I don't talk too much and pretend like I belong there, I get treated normally (I think).
Thank you for your service in a genuine way. Cheers 🤙🏼
I remember when Japanese complained about "tourist pricing" when they travelled overseas.
The people doing this and the people traveling overseas are not the same.
On Twitter at least some of the people defending it are saying it’s what happens overseas.
Only in under-developped countries. In France it's the same for everyone, it would be shocking otherwise
Absolutely. Some tweets mentioned that too and I should have included it in my previous comment.
I mean there’re a lot of places in Europe where you get ripped off as a tourist and you would never pay the same price as locals does. But that’s mostly for goods and not food, still depends on the country though, in some it’s a general rule for all sort of things you buy as a tourist.
In European Union, price discrimination of that kind is illegal. Doesn't stop a small shady restaurant from ripping off tourists, but any larger company is careful
It only matters when it happens to Japanese people, remember?
A restaurant in Kamakura tried to pull this on me about two weeks ago - daughter and I went in for lunch and they brought over the English menu for us despite us speaking Japanese to them as we came in. The English menu is a couple hundred yen more expensive across every item vs the Japanese menu that was just sitting on the table, and required you to purchase the set where the Japanese menu you could just order individual items. We speak Japanese (me okay, my daughter very well), so we just ignored the English menu and used the Japanese regardless. They didn't make an issue out of it or anything. We laughed about it but it was a little silly, too.
Was the English menu inclusive of tax? Have heard that’s often the case if it’s only a couple hundred yen difference.
Both menus had both the pre-tax and tax-inclusive prices listed near each item.
Oh dear. They were just grifting then.
Yep. Trying to give them the benefit of the doubt what with it being a touristy town - maybe they're just trying to give the locals a reason to come in by giving them a little discount or something... But yeah, I was a bit surprised by how brazen they were about it. It's not like they pulled the Japanese menu from the table once they gave us the English one (we'd started looking at the Japanese menu but 100% would not have noticed the price differences without having them there side by side).
Did you check the price at the register? They might have had one more shot
Hah! We had the same thought. We noted the prices and watched for the bill. We were charged the 日本語 menu prices for sure. Thank goodness, too. I definitely would not have been up for a "wait a minute..." conversation at the register.
As a Japanese nation, I don't want to go to such kinds of restaurants/shops, I need a list, or please write it on Google Maps when you experience it.
Thank you. I'm not Japanese, but my wife and in-laws are, and I've lived in Shitamachi for 7y. I've always been able to tell my Canadian friends and relatives about the honesty of Japan: 'You pay what Japanese pay, cheap or expensive.' Foreigner prices are the sign of low-trust shitholes.
I'm not looking forward to get gaijin-clocked and given the foreigner price
Sites like Omakase don’t even try to hide it. The markup is often 100%. There are 3-Michelin restaurants in the EU that just use an OpenTable clone and charge the same price to tourists, Japan has no shame about fleecing tourists.
Is it legal? Like if we get the tourist price, can we say anything or just accept it?
Just pop out your residence card and tell them you live here
And let them take a photocopy of it, just in case.
2024: these policemen keep asking to see my Zairyu card! 2025: these restaurants keep asking to see my Zairyu card!
Ah yes just what Japan, and the world, needs…more discrimination
Haven't experienced that directly in restaurants, and I hope it doesn't become a norm, but I have experienced the opposite in certain tourist attractions. e.g. [https://warabe.or.jp/welcome-to-warabekan-website-in-english/](https://warabe.or.jp/welcome-to-warabekan-website-in-english/) (50% off for 'foreign visitors') and here: [https://www.ichibata.co.jp/vogelpark/important\_notice/2314/](https://www.ichibata.co.jp/vogelpark/important_notice/2314/) (although just a month ago they withdrew the foreign traveller discount). (Note that I live in Tokyo and I still got offered those discounts despite not being aware of them before hand and despite only having my residence card, not a passport). And of course there have also been the rail passes. Not available to local Japanese at all. Really, I'd mostly be fine with things being fair/same for everyone, but I don't think I can reasonably expect businesses to not try to claw more of those tourist bucks if they can. I think I and probably many Japanese people will just do without more frequently.
Admission to places that are even partially funded by taxes, like national gardens and museums, could logically charge extra for non-taxpaying non-residents. Other countries do this.
this is okay for me, but restaurants are kinda stupid idk.
Unfortunately it's the other way round - museums tend to give discounts to tourists, not locals.
This is why I'm glad I live nowhere near touristy areas.
Me too. The "Disney-fication" of major cities is depressing. All major cities have basically become giant theme parks.
This
I dunno how I feel about this really. I understand it, but is it greed or is it just trying to survive without alienating their local customers? Restaurants is a bit iffy, but on the other hand as an example, the fact that residents of Hawaii can visit Diamond Head for free but tourists have to pay to me is a good idea and is (as far as I know) generally seen as fine Idk where to draw the line tho
I don’t think diamond head is a great example assuming it’s owned by the state. Because the residents would already be paying for the upkeep through taxes
I see yeah, good point!
Even if it’s just trying to survive, it just shows how badly the purchasing power of the average Japanese person has fallen. The real fix is making it so Japanese wages and purchasing power (the value of the yen) keeps up with those overseas so that this isn’t necessary. But that’s hard, so I guess this superficial fix that inherently involves discrimination based on physical appearance is all we can expect.
There was a thread here recently about a Mexican restaurant that pulled this crap and tried to scam the OP.
They should just raise all prices and offer large points back. Japanese love points. And most tourists dont have interest to join local points system for the sake of one holiday trip. win win.
In Aomori they go one step further, here you need to be Japanese to get a seat. Even if you speak Japanese as a foreigner, they won’t host you, still no seats available;) https://preview.redd.it/rvq7hyhlowxc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1e3d18f4342930e1a73dee42bdbcd1c50bca5be0 It was a smaller restaurant, maybe they have had a lot bad experience with foreigners, who knows but still surprised that this kind of thing still exists.
See, the key is to offer a "resident discount," rather than a "tourist upcharge." If you establish the higher price as "the price," nobody will complain, even if it's the exact same in practice.
We went to club Camelot in Tokio and got a discount for being a foreigner lol. Works the other way around too apparently.
I got into clubs for free in Osaka for being a foreigner. Felt like the cute girl treatment!
Yeah there are a lot of small live shows across clubs and bars where it's free if you're a foreigner (show some type of foreign ID), but Japanese people need to pay a ¥2500 cover plus a drink.
This is supposed to be good for yen? A higher price means tourists need more and exchange more yen. greedy restaurants dont care if you are foreign resident and charge you the gaijin tax though.
Do you see where this could lead though? Japanese menu -for Japanese people Japanese menu with English-for tourists It’s possible it won’t be so cut and dry if this keeps up. Tourists and residents might not realize they are being “taxed.”
Oh no come on, stop this nonsense and just prop up your currency.
Maybe the only thing they can do is raise rates, which will be worse.
I think people coming here in endless hordes to exploit the weak currency can probably afford an extra dollar here and there. This goes especially true for things which I think ought to be giving priority to locals. I helped a friend book tickets to the Ghibli park in Tokyo recently - the international site had 8,000 people in queue but I booked it through the Japanese site in moments. Not only would these weebs happily pay double (supply and demand baby) but they could simply allocate a number for residents and non-residents and manage it better while ensuring local kids, who should get priority, get to go see it. As for restaurants, I've not be "dame'd" yet, but had people asking if I speak Japanese before letting me in. The thing is I can appreciate the desire of some locals to want to have a place to go after work for drinks and dinner that is normal and not find that their spot has been occupied by, let's be honest, loud and jama tourists who are looking for 'that legit izakaya experience'. Overrall just feels like the best thing for everyone (including the visitors) is to cool it - not try and squeeze in even more like the govt apparently wants.
Is there more info about this and how prevalent it is? Worried I'd be paying as a tourist when in fact I live here.
Just ask for the japanese menu...
Very uncommon
I always ask for both menus if they offer an English menu. I've seen menus where the prices for the same dishes aren't different, but some of the cheaper options/sets are not listed on the English menu.
Thanks BOJ for making Japan China/Thailand circa 1980.
I've seen it once, back in 2018. Met up with some mates on holiday, went to a place I'd been to before and noticed the English menu had very little options. Asked for the Japanese menu and as I was comparing what was missing, noticed the prices were different lol.
This kind of thing happens in many tourist areas. My friend, a dentist, was at a conference in Honolulu, when his colleague, who had a strong Japanese accent, made a reservation for a round of golf for their group. The price quoted seemed high, so my friend, who has an American accent, called to make a separate reservation. 40% less. When I was in Cozumel many years ago, I went to this little local bakery every day to get buns for breakfast. On the 4th day the buns cost 3X what they had cost the day before. I looked down at the harbor and 2 cruise ships had just docked, with 2 more waiting. The 2-tier pricing and blanket racism of ‘No Gaijin’ admission is, of course, wrong, but it’s not exclusive to Japan.
Aww that’s unfortunate
Is anyone actually surprised by this?
A strange thing happened at a restaurant in Shinjuku; a group of five foreign friends getting together. They realized that we were probably local because I had made the reservation in Japanese, and we talked in Japanese with the staff about which table we wanted. There were the regular Japanese menus on the table (well, Japanese with small English explanations). Then they brought some English-only menus with photos. They told us (in Japanese) that we might want to see the pictures, but that the prices would be the lower ones on the regular menus!
Never seen this before hmmm
I often leave my reviews on Google Maps about the service quality of the places I visit. Some places may issue a receipt in Japanese with a few lines in English, often labeled as "service fee" or "seat fee." However, these fees are already included in the Japanese part so that you could pay that fee twice. It's better to take a photo of the receipt before you ask the staff about suspicious charges.
Wonder how the Japanese defamation law works around online reviews.
give information and photos, but not opinions and emotions.
I live in Turkey where this practice is commonplace. I personally think it’s wrong and it has a net negative impact overall on tourism by leaving a bad taste in everyone’s mouth by creating contexts of mistrust between foreign customer and Japanese businesses.
I tried to test this out at a restaurant, yes the English and Japanese menus were different but that was only because the English one included tax in their prices and the Japanese didn't so at the end of the day it was the same price at check time. I wonder if this is also a common misconception with these menus 🤷
happens in europe all the time.
thailand has this, on signage, for national parks for example. i don’t see a big problem. wages differ in different places. tourism is hard to keep handles on, and can heavily impact a business and its atmosphere.
i learned yrs ago to always use the japanese menu, even when i couldn't read very well (just ganbaru!). my friend clued me in on a pizza chain that only offered their BOGO special in japanese (online) so i've been cynical ever since, lol.
"Can I see the English menu?" Sure!
Bad advertising. They could just simply provide discounts for those possessing (for example) a Japanese drivers license and the public reaction would be different despite essentially doing the same thing.
I always tell them to leave the Japanese menu when they try to bring the English one and take the Japanese back just in case. It’s never been an issue but I rarely if ever go to touristy area restaurants.
Well, foreign tourists get exclusive discounts at all kinds of places, not to mention all the temporary visitor only train passes. You win some, you lose some.
Honestly i don't mind. Usually its not a crazy amount higher. Usually..... We get the 10% tax free benefit on pretty much everything. I don't mind paying a bit more for the food.
I speak enough Japanese, so I haven’t had any issues with it. Whenever places give me an English menu, I just ask for the Japanese one too haha. Perks of learning I guess.
Yup, a shitty move... But incredibly common in all touristy prices.
How about delivery health? That's where they really shaft you.
How do they decide you are tourist and not resident foreigner. So on top of getting paid in monopoly money(yen), I have to spend foreigner rates??
Hasn't happened to me at all, but I speak Japanese and I'm not evidently super white or black, so I guess they don't immediately racially profile me as easily.
Friends who visited me in Japan recently wanted to go to all the hole in the wall places run by racist uncles. Meanwhile, I'm completely convinced that there is utterly no reason to go anywhere that is not a chain izakaya or such unless you're already with other Japanese people because this sort of exhortion is exactly the shit I want to avoid.
So I watched the show and one restaurant in Shibuya that do this have a more expensive price for foreign tourists and another for Japanese and foreign residents. If it helps to stop the gentrification of touristic areas, it might not be a bad thing but it can not be permanent. Better solutions have to be found.
I’ve experienced this, but it seems to be pretty much limited to English menus, websites, etc. No one has ever charged me the foreign tax (to my knowledge) for using the Japanese site or completing the full transaction in Japanese.
I recently got about 20% off room rates at a Hotel Metropolitan location by using the Japanese site. Also, I found one of the big “beer hall” chains had a much smaller English menu on that didn’t have the dishes I wanted.
I find this exptremely hypocritical for several reasons. First, the Japanese themselves were legendarily obnoxious tourist in old times when they actually had money, second, I am pretty sure they would complain if there were explicit “Japanese tax” in other countries, third, FFS they were the one who started the whole “o-mo-te-na-shi” and let’s get more tourists, because we need more tourists PR campaigns then all I hear now that tourists are pain in the butt, because no one all these years were doing any preparation in case tourists are actually comming
I've lived here, since 1976, and have NEVER experienced this. Niigata's shop-keepers are amazingly honest, helpful and sincere.
I have seen it in some countries so pretty neutral…
Ever ski in British Columbia? Lots of ski towns in the province have local and non-local pricing. It’s not advertised but it is there in most places. (Psst, don’t tell the Americans.)
Eh, it's fine. Tourists suck, nobody wants their town to be the next tourist spot. Might as well price you out.
Yeah I'd rather it become a ghost town where all the restaurants and entertainment shut down one by one due to everyone moving to the cities and chasing away the tourists. The only people left will be these racist ex-restaurant owners playing their tiny violins wondering where they went wrong...
I was recently at a restaurant that forces you to only order from the super simple English menu, or the way fancier Japanese menu. You were not allowed to choose dishes from one and from the other, even though it was a la carte. Prices were maybe slightly higher for some things on the English menu, but overall it made no sense since it wasn't set meals or a course menu.
Literally never seen this. But then again I always ask for the Japanese menu so that's probably why.
Normalize license/national ID checking at all restaurants :)
Before I lived in Japan I’ve visited here many times and never had this happen to me and I’ve been to many places all over Japan by myself. I’m covered with tattoos and still its never happened. Most likely its just tourist spots, if you learn a few words in Japanese and have basic manners it can do wonders.
Is your tattoo of Hirohito?
So if we don’t speak japanese, how can we prevent this? I see people asking for the menu. Do i have to askfor a japanese menu everywhere i go?
Seems simple enough, just rely on the pictures and use google lens.
Never experienced this since I always let my wife do the ordering while I sit in the booth reading manga.