Japanese Travel Guide Offers Interesting Advice on Visiting Scotland

While travelling abroad, especially on different continents and in different hemispheres, it helps to be prepared for the potentially massive cultural differences so you don’t find yourself in an awkward situation or committing an embarrassing faux pas.

A travel guide has dedicated a section to offer some tips to Japanese tourists visiting Scotland. While some of them could prove to be reasonably helpful, others should take the travel tips “with a pinch of salt”, as VisitScotland aptly put.

The guide offers a good amount of strong advice, urging Japanese tourists to embrace the Scottish culture, giving tips on the best local marmalade and sausage, and how to properly order a drink in a bustling Scottish pub.

Cultural differences are also highlighted in the guide that gives some insights to the differences between the two nations. Tourists are warned that they must be patient and not expect to receive the same “quick, polite and accurate service” from restaurants and taverns that they would in their home land, which leads one to wonder if what type of bad experiences the travel guide has had with the service industry in Scotland.

Amusingly, the guide offers some quirky tips. In addition to warning them to avoid Scots in football garb, they are told never to call Scottish kilts “skirts” and never to call a Scottish person “English”. While that could help you avoid an embarrassing situation, others tips are meant to be a bit silly.

The guide mentions that, even though it rains quite often in Scotland, very few people carry umbrellas. This is said to “puzzle” Japanese tourists, as many of the Japanese always carry an umbrella in case of sudden showers.

The variety of guidelines that the Japanese guide book offers proves to be an interesting read, running the gamut of helpful hints to fun idiosyncrasies between the two cultures.

POTHOS can personally vouch that Scotland is a hospitable country with a rich and interesting history. One of our employees is a native of Scotland, and we’re quite sure she’d forgive you if you accidentally called her English!

Book cover can be found here: http://www.eturbonews.com/files/imagecache/fullpage/0a12_261.jpg