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"You Always Make Such A Neat Job Of Messing It Up": What Kyoto Locals Really Mean, And Where The Stereotype Breaks Down

「いつも綺麗に上手に汚さはりますよね」— 京都の本音と建前、日本人のコメント欄の総意

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"You Always Make Such A Neat Job Of Messing It Up": What Kyoto Locals Really Mean, And Where The Stereotype Breaks Down

The single most-liked comment on a Japanese TV segment about Kyoto's famous indirectness (1,430 likes) is one line an office worker got from the cleaner: greeted with a polite thank-you, she replied, "Not at all. Though you do always make such a neat job of messing it up." Across 972 comments, Japanese viewers agree the polite phrases travelers hear — "I'll think about it," "I'll come if I can" — usually mean no, but the comment section then argues about it: Osakans say they use the same line, a Shiga neighbour reads it literally, and a salesman of decades says Kyoto speech is nowhere near as simple as the internet makes it. The other thing residents want you to know is physical: what the cold there actually does to you.

“I greeted the lady who comes to clean our office with "thanks for your hard work, we really appreciate it," and she said: "Not at all. Though you do always make such a neat job of messing it up." I felt a very powerful sense of Kyoto.”

いつも職場に掃除に来てくれるおばちゃんに、「お疲れ様です。ありがとうございます」と挨拶すると「いえいえ。まあ、いつも綺麗に上手に汚さはりますよね。」と言われ、 すごい京都感を感じた。

— @moto8059
City guideWhat locals say about KyotoAll 13 local roundups for Kyoto
（YouTube · 【公式】秘密のケンミンSHOW極）

What locals said (excerpted from 972)

  • My impression is that plenty of Kyoto people are completely straightforward — you can talk with them at length with nothing hidden. But the moment they turn to irony, it's top-tier, and that has startled me more than once lol

    全然素直な性格の人で、割と話し込んでも裏表なく会話する京都の人も多いなという印象だけど、ふと皮肉言う場面になると一級品でびっくりしたことが何回もある（笑）

    — @ああああああ-w7s1z631 likes

  • "I'll think about it" and "I'll come if I can" are refusals in Osaka too.

    考えとくわ、行けたら行くわ、は 大阪でも断り文句

    — @あき-k6c8u359 likes

  • Surely "I'll think about it" just means "let me take this away and consider it"…? I was genuinely shocked that it gets read as an outright no. — from your neighbour in Shiga

    「考えとく」はまんま「持って帰ってちょっと検討させてもらいますわ」やろ…？ なのに「お断り」という超絶解釈にマジでビックリした。 byお隣の滋賀県民

    — @gomaandvanilla173 likes

  • Osakan here — we use "I'll think about it" at work and in private life too.

    大阪人やけど、 ｢考えておくわ｣は仕事でもプライベートでは使うで。

    — @jjman9196168 likes

  • I book appointments for a publishing house, and my boss tells me that if someone says "I'll think about it," call them again. On the phone you can sort of tell you're being turned down — honestly I'd rather they just said no.

    本の編集でアポ取りしてるけど、考えとくって言われたらもう一回電話してって上司に言われる。 電話口でなんとなく断られてるのは分かるんだけど、はっきり断ってくれるとありがたい。

    — @えりかえりか-i5g36 likes

  • The daughter saying "I understand both sides, and that's what makes it so frustrating" really tells the whole story.

    娘の「どっちもわかるからもどかしい」というのがやっぱり物語っている

    — @Mj-cj9wy198 likes

  • 4:20 — nobody knows the hell of Kyoto better than Kyoto people themselves.

    4:20 京都の地獄は 京都人が1番わかってる

    — @弓すずね202 likes

  • The funny thing I remember: someone who had lived in London, Paris and Kyoto said all three cities have the same temperament 😂

    面白いのが、ロンドン、パリ、京都に住んだことがある人が、この3都市は同じ気質って言ってたのが記憶に残ってる😂

    — @zikokyousinndakku7619302 likes

  • 7:43 — this grandmother speaks exactly the way the heroine of Kawabata's "The Old Capital" does. It moved me. An endangered species.

    7:43 このおばあちゃんの喋り方、川端康成『古都』の主人公と同じ喋り方で感動した。絶滅危惧種だな。

    — @つるちゃんねる-f9n634 likes

  • It's not the exaggerated Kyoto dialect people from other prefectures put on — the grandmother in the old row house is speaking the real thing, isn't she. Such a calm way of talking, it just slips straight in.

    他府県民の誇張された京都弁じゃなくて、長屋のお婆ちゃんが話してるのが 本物の京都弁なんでしょうね。なんかスッと入って来る穏やかな口調。

    — @Keisuke_Arimura94 likes

  • I'm from Osaka and I lived in Kyoto for about three years. The cold there really is from another dimension.

    大阪人やけど３年ほど京都に住みました。ホンマに異次元の寒さでした。

    — @池田和仁-c6d428 likes

  • Kyoto resident here. Every morning on my way to work it hurts so much I wonder if somebody is emitting a freezing aura. It isn't cold, it's frozen solid.

    京都府民です 毎朝出勤する時、だれか凍てつく波動出してるんちゃうかってくらい痛いです 寒いじゃなくて凍てついてる

    — @jchannel4552190 likes

  • I've heard there's groundwater under the city on the scale of Lake Biwa. In winter that's what chills you from the ground up, and in summer it steams you.

    地下に琵琶湖レベルの地下水があると聞いたことがある。冬はそれが底冷えし、夏は蒸せる。

    — @namazunamazu70268 likes

  • And in summer it's humidity hell — hot enough to kill you. I commuted to university from Shiga and it's completely different.

    夏は夏で湿気地獄で死ぬほど暑い 滋賀から大学通ってたけど全然違う

    — @miniverse..163 likes

  • In a Kyoto machiya, if you go to the toilet early on a winter morning, the corridor is so damp it's chilled like ice. I keep fluffy slippers by the bed and even those slippers are cold. Leather shoes are freezing in winter too — even in long boots, if they're leather your toes go cold.

    京町屋は冬の早朝にトイレ行くと廊下が湿気で氷みたいに冷えてる。モフモフしたスリッパをベッドの横に常備してるけどそのスリッパすらひんやりしてる。冬の革靴も冷える。ロングブーツでも皮だと足先が冷たくなる。

    — @junesunshine41792 likes

  • That bit about being amazed at how warm Umeda feels — I get it! When my mother was hanging washing outside in winter she said "it's so cold, it's hell," and I said "hell is hot, you know" — she was genuinely furious with me.

    梅田であったかいと感動するの、わかる！ 冬に外で洗濯干してた母が「寒くて地獄」と言った時、「地獄って暑いんやで」と言ったらまじギレされた思い出が、

    — @camrose-w2f192 likes

Where locals go instead

  • It's less a flat refusal than a nuance of "I'm not keen on it" — the vibe is "don't get your hopes up," and when someone pushes hard at you anyway, that's what puts us off. That's all it is.

    はっきりしたお断りと言うよりは、乗り気ではないと言うニュアンス あんまり期待せんとってな、と言うノリなのにぐいぐい来られると引くわー と言う話しです。

    — @あき-k6c8u54 likes

  • From my years on the road in sales, I don't think you can truly understand the language of Kyoto unless you've lived there for decades. It's nowhere near as simple as TV and the internet make it out to be for laughs. They do say it takes three generations to become a Kyotoite.

    営業で回ってた経験から、京都の言葉は数十年住まないと本当に理解する事は出来ないと思う。テレビやネットで面白ろおかしく言われてるほど単純な話じゃない。三代住んで京都人、とかいうしね。

    — @013pass5165 likes

FAQ

Does "I'll think about it" mean no in Kyoto?
Usually, yes — but the comments sharpen it. The clarification with the clearest support (54 likes) says it's less a flat refusal than "I'm not keen, don't get your hopes up," and that pushing hard after hearing it is what actually annoys people. Note the pushback: Osakans say they use the same line (359 likes), and a neighbour in Shiga reads it literally (173 likes).
Are Kyoto people rude or passive-aggressive to visitors?
The consensus says no. The most-supported description (631 likes) is that plenty of Kyoto people are completely straightforward, and the irony only surfaces occasionally — but when it does it's "top-tier." A commenter with decades in sales (165 likes) adds that Kyoto speech is nowhere near as simple as TV and the internet make it out for laughs.
Is Kyoto really that cold in winter?
Residents insist it is, and the explanation they give is the basin plus groundwater "on the scale of Lake Biwa" (68 likes) chilling the city from below. An Osakan who lived there three years calls it "cold from another dimension" (428 likes); a Kyoto resident says it "isn't cold, it's frozen" (190). If you're booking a machiya, note the commenter who keeps slippers by the bed.
What does real Kyoto dialect sound like?
Not the exaggerated version outsiders perform. The second most-liked comment (634 likes) says the elderly woman in the segment speaks exactly like the heroine of Kawabata's "The Old Capital" and calls that speech "an endangered species"; another (94 likes) describes the genuine thing as calm and gentle, the kind that "slips straight in."
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