I experienced a few small stresses when I started living in Milan.
One of them was that I never felt that my turn came, even when I was at a café or post office.

To be clear, I was definitely queuing up. But before I knew it, people who had clearly arrived after me were placing their orders before I did. It happened all the time.
But those people showed no signs of having done anything wrong—and the staff and counter clerks were taking their order as if everything were completely normal. It made me uncomfortable to the point that I would get irritated every time and wonder if I was being discriminated against for being Japanese.

In Japan, queues are not only clearly visible, but people formed orderly lines even in the days before numbered tickets became widespread. We’d just quietly wait our turn, confident that we had added ourselves to the end of the line. It’s a habit that’s rooted deeply in Japanese society.

But in Italy, there’s no such reassurance.
At first, I was indignant, thinking, “What a disorderly country,” as I waited in a line that may or may not have existed. But after the same thing happened over and over, I finally realized something.

People weren’t “not queueing”—they were queuing in a way you couldn’t see.

At a café, for example, the customers somehow keep track of who arrives when. They subtly check all around them and step forward when they feel it is their turn. The staff also read the room in order to determine who is next. In other words, if you don’t make your presence known, you’ll be treated as if you’re invisible.

Put simply, the secret to getting your turn is to act like you’re next. It reminds me of baby birds loudly chirping to their parents to catch their attention to be fed.

In other words, Italy is a country that tends to prioritize the person who claims their turn over the one who stands there quietly. It’s not just a difference in social manners; what I finally realized after many years is that it’s something deeply rooted in their value system.

In Japan, the rules protect individuals, and people derive a sense of security from following them.
In Italy, on the other hand, actions are more often prioritized in the moment based on how individuals are interacting than by some preexisting rule.

In fact, Italians who visit Japan often tell me how surprised they are to see Japanese people lining up neatly on painted train platforms and quietly waiting to board.

These days, I’m used to the invisible way of queuing up that Italians have—but those unspoken, ambiguous situations are gradually disappearing as numbered tickets have become more common in recent years.

Cultural differences can feel uncomfortable and cause us stress sometimes, but when we come to understand the thinking behind them, we begin to see the world a little differently.
National character can quietly reveal itself even in things as simple as lining up.