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Comment by chrischen | Hacker News Reader

- People do shake hands in Japan. In Western countries hand-shaking is limited almost exclusively to business (I’d imagine the same goes for Japan).

- Washing hands is common, but not necessarily any more of a practice than in Western countries. But in many places like in subway station bathrooms they do not have soap.

Some of the cultural things like mask wearing (which was born out of the density and close proximity in public transit) are shared between Hong Kong, Taiwan, and other Asian countries, but a lot of things are also different culturally so I don’t think you can easily attribute these reasons as “not surprising” with regards to coronavirus growth.

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> In Western countries hand-shaking is limited almost exclusively to business

I can't speak for all Western countries, but in the US I shake hands with every new person I meet, whether in a professional or social settings. I'll also shake hands as a greeting for acquaintances I'm not close with. (As opposed to a hug for close acquaintances.)

Which city? This is not at all ordinary in my experience (at least in social settings - it’s normal in business settings).

Parent was probably referring to outgoing people who don't spend most of their time in the Internet.

It’s hugs or nothing, and hugs are only for family or good friends you haven’t seen in a while.

In my experience, the handshake-as-greeting between men in social situations is common in the Midwest US, at least.

Might be an age/generational thing. At least my generation (20s and 30s) it’s definitely not commonly done outside of formal business meetings.

Hot tip, if you’re in Japan and don’t want to shake hands right now. Bow first. I find people of Japan will shake hands to make you feel welcome if you don’t bow.

I just had a young doctor in a hospital shake my hand, I would say out if the important cultural need to be polite and pay respect to someone older. I don’t care or blame him even though I was surprised.

On a side note, I would say upwards of 75% of people in Tokyo are wearing masks

> On a side note, I would say upwards of 75% of people in Tokyo are wearing masks

I’d say more like 50%, but I think it used to be more, so now I wonder if everyone simply ran out...

Maybe it's not a big demographic on Hacker news (or non-US western countries either), but there's a lot of hand-shaking that goes in in churches. That was true in my church up until a few weeks ago.

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