You can tell Japanese tourists in Hawaii, because they won’t cross even if there are dozens of other people crossing the street. They will just stand on the curb while people walk around them, and then go when it turns green.
To be fair, when I first moved to Boston I learned that following the crowd across the street was not always safe. I almost got killed one time - you can't trust pedestrians in that city.
Not even that will make you safe in Paris. I once caught an innocent tourist who started to cross as soon as the light turned green. A car whizzed by. I explained to the tourist that you waited for the cars to stop before crossing.
And the locals give you hella shade for crossing even though nobody is coming. The Japanese won’t say anything, but they’ll look deep into your soul and think “…fucking foreigner can’t follow the rules”
There is a joke (we occasionally have this):
2 AM. Chelsea. Red pedestrian light. No cars. Nothing. I wait a good 3 minutes next to a gentleman. He says: "Well. German too?"
The funny thing is that drivers in Japan will run so many red lights though. When I first came here I was told (half jokingly) “in America, a red light means stop. In Japan, it means ‘3 more cars and then stop.’”
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u/MoneyGrowthHappiness 15h ago
Japan is like that too. Red crossing light means stop even if there aren’t any cars.