Let me begin with a reminder from a dear friend. If October is National LGBTQ+ History Month, it is also National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Domestic violence can occur in any kind of relationship, unfortunately, but people living on the rainbow, gay men in particular, are very reticent about reporting it. My friend asked me to remind my readers that the National Domestic Violence Hotline is an easy way to get help. #Every1KnowsSome1
Last week, I joined an interesting Facebook that makes advice about travel to Japan easy, no matter how elementary the question. Although many of the people there are indeed generous and helpful, there are more than a few snarky types who sneer at questions they deem as easily googleable or utterly obvious.
But the world is (thankfully) not yet the exclusive province of Internet nerds, and the amount of information available online sometimes hides behind electronic barriers. Assuming that everyone is as savvy as you makes, as the nuns who once taught me in parochial school said, an ass of you and me. (Irish nuns had zero qualms about using the A word.)
A lot of the questions I see online from first-time travelers to Japan center on etiquette. People worry about insulting the Japanese, just as I did when I first moved there. Thankfully there are a few simple suggestions that will help smooth your experiences in my favorite place, Japan.
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