Cross-cultural communication （58）　

58）The skills of foreign tourists
A small sushi bar opened in the underground shopping center in Umeda, Osaka in the summer of 2014. Every time I passed by the shop, I couldn't help but notice it. This was because there was a poster in front of the shop with pictures of raw oysters and wine. The shop had more of an atmosphere of an oyster bar in Paris or New York than a sushi bar.

I first visited this restaurant on a Saturday afternoon in September 2015. I started off with some raw oysters from Hokkaido, which I enjoyed with a glass of white wine. At a reasonable price of 200 yen per oyster and 500 yen per glass of wine, the oysters and wine were well worth the money. I also ordered some sushi, which was also not bad.

I visited there several times after that, enjoying the little happiness. It was another Saturday afternoon. After eating two raw oysters (from Mie Prefecture that day), as usual, I was munching on some sushi when an Asian foreign man and a woman who looked like his mother came in and sat down next to me. He spoke a reasonable amount of English, and the chef responded in halting English.

He managed to finish placing his order, but the man seemed a little dissatisfied, so I asked him if I could help him. He said that he had already eaten some sushi here, and that he wanted to order some take-out sushi as well. I translated this for him, and we had a little chat. He told me that he was on a five-day trip to the Kansai region from Hong Kong. He had found this sushi restaurant through an internet search. In fact, he had visited the restaurant in the morning and ordered only raw oysters, and he was so satisfied with the taste and price that he came back again in the afternoon. He said that he had also been to other sushi restaurants, but that this one had the best cost performance (taste and price). I myself try to keep my antennae out for good places to eat and had taken a year to find this place, but this Hong Kong man had stumbled across it in just a few days and was completely satisfied. It seems that foreign tourists to Japan these days are making full use of the internet to maximize their satisfaction in Japan. When I told the manager the summary of our conversation with the Hong Konger at the checkout, he smiled and said, “Raw oysters are popular with foreigners, whether they're from Europe or Asia.

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