Uncomprehensive Japanese custom

Japan govenment hand-in-hand with private sectors is running international campaigns "Visit Japan" with the aim of promoting to let over 10 millions foreigners to visit Japan till 2010. On the other hand, there are still so many Japanese custom that it's very hard for foreigners to understand. Then a survey company announced that it conducted a survey to some foreigners.

The most marked custom is "year-end gift-giving (Oseibo)" and "mid-year gift-giving (Ochugen)". Lately lots of Japanese already regard them as unnecessarity, but these are still ones of Japanese traditional events in a year. "Reticence/Modesty", second ranked, "Wabi-Sabi", tenth ranked are also typical Japanese thinking and those are so outstanding in the list. In fact, I cannot explain the meaning of "Wabi-Sabi" in English to foreigners. If you want to know the detail, please click this to check the meaning.

Frequent usage "Sumimasen (excuse me, sorry)" among Japanese is so conveniet phrase for Japanese people. Talking religiously, 4th ranked "Mame-maki (bean-scattering ceremony celebrating the coming of spring)", 13th ranked "Hatsu Moude (new year's visit to a shrine)" and 28th ranked "celebrating Christmas Day with buying cake" must be looked on as queer customs refrecting flexible behaviour to various religions.

Ranking as following :

Rank	Item	Number of answering
1.	Oseibo, Ochugen	319
2.	Reticence/Modesty	189
3.	Keeling	186
4.	Setsubun	161
5.	Religious beliefs	159
6.	Bow	145
7.	Taking off shoes	141
8.	Eating Natto	138
9.	Taking a bath	92
10.	Wabi-Sabi	85
11.	Public bathhouse	75
12.	Tea celemony	70
13.	Hatsu-Moude	65
14.	Eating noodle with noise	62
15.	Ambiguity	62
16.	Saying "Here's a little something for you." on present	53
17.	Appearance and Reality	53
18.	New Year Events	47
19.	New Year's monetary gift	44
20.	Behind-the-scenes work	38