Mobile manners in Japan

Everybody should know in advance what you can do and what better to abstain from, when you are going on a trip to another country, especially to an exotic one. Japan has its own laws and moral standards, which are different from any other country.

Japan teaches us one thing: to live with a cell phone, which is always set to silent mode. There are many public places, where noise from an incoming call or an SMS is not welcomed. Therefore it's easier not to turn on the sound, in order to not to be thinking every time of whether you've switched on the silent mode of the phone.

In America and Western countries phones have a silent mode, which in Japan is called ma:na mo:do (マ ナ ー モ ー ド) from English “manner mode”. It means the Japanese consider mute primarily as a gesture of etiquette. There is the interesting fact that the phrase "manner mode" doesn't make any sense in English. If you ask Google about manner mode, there will pop up articles about Japan on the first page. The announcement on trains always asks to switch the phone to manner mode and refrain from talking on the phone.