How to avoid cultural mistakes

Recently with my son starting kindergarten, I have been put into a billion different embarrassing situations. Some of these could have easily been avoided just by thoroughly reading a piece of paper. 

1: Look around and pay attention

The best way to avoid doing something incorrectly is to look around you and see what other Japanese people are doing in these situations. Can't read the sign saying when to toss out your trash? Stake out the trash site until someone else tosses their trash out.  Don't know when your kids can wear hats instead of their helmets to school?  Watch the other kids in the morning.

Living in Japan, I am very aware of what others are doing around me. I follow by example, so if I am unfamiliar with something I watch and see what others are doing. It has allowed me to go smoothly through much of my life here in Japan.

2: Learn to ask - ask for help, ask for knowledge

Sometimes there aren't any examples to follow and you just have to go off your own Japanese reading skills. This is how things are progressing for my son's kindergarten, and I have realized that I can't read at a level proficient enough to get me through all of the papers coming home from school. So what do I do? Call the school and ask what something means. Ask my neighbor who has children at the same school. Ask my husband if my interpretation of something is correct. The kindergarten is great because before any major event they call me to make sure I am aware of it. This gives me the perfect opportunity to ask what to bring. For my son's class participation day, I knew to put him in his PE uniform only because I thought to ask about it during that phone call.

3: Over prepare

If you still can't figure out what you are supposed to do, then think of all the possibilities and prep for them. I went to a class participation day for my son, not taking my own advice of over-preparing, and was the only person running around the gym without shoes.  

Nearly any event at any school means indoor shoes, so I should have brought them for myself and my daughters even if I didn't think I needed them. Over-preparing would have solved this problem easily. 

4: Be OK with making mistakes

It is OK to be the odd one out. Make a note for next time and the only person who will care is yourself. Walking into the gym panic rose up knowing I would be the only person on the floor without shoes and sports clothes. But then I remembered I prefer to run barefoot and I can easily run in this dress. Who cares what I look like doing it. At least my son will have fun and now I have large pockets to hold my camera.

Living in a country where everyone already knows the details of events because they did them themselves as a kid makes it hard to know what to look out for and what to ask about. Just take a breath and let your foreignness show through. It ain't gonna hurt nobody to be different!