There are a great number of differences between Australia and Japan in terms of eating meals and these differences mean people can have different reactions to other cultural norms. First of all, there is a big difference between Japanese and Australian greetings. In Japan, people often say “Itadakimasu” to appreciate people who cook the meal, those who cultivate the food and the food itself before eating every meal. However, a lot of Australian households do not have a similar greeting at meal time. Polite greetings before eating dinner is a big difference between Japan and Australia. In addition to the greeting when people eat dinner, eating habits in Australia are really different from eating habits in Japan. For example, Australians tend to eat steak, pasta and something like that in dinner. On the other hand, Japanese tend to eat rice, miso soup, roast fish for dinner. Although some people think that eating habits are a trivial difference, in my experience, this is a huge difference because eating habits are considered as a relatively huge difference between Japan and Australia in terms of food. Together with eating habits, the eating manners in Australia are regarded as one of the most significant differences from eating manners in Japan. For instance, in Australia, people use a knife and fork when eating and if they finish eating, they put the knife and fork orderly. Even though Japanese know that Australian eat with knife and fork, some Japanese do not know this manner.
