Little Darwin

Since most people commenting here are not from Japan (including myself) I would say we are guessing at best.

I have recently discussed some other societal norms with a friend, and in certain areas of India/Pakistan, it is not unheard of for a jeweler to not make a piece of jewelry for you one day because they aren't in the mood... but if you ask the next day, then there may not be a problem. The same is true for other retailers.

Where Japan's culture is heavily slanted toward the employees being very devoted to their employers (historically not changing jobs as frequently as in US society) I could envision it could be expected that customers show loyalty as well.

My point isn't that this is the case in Japan, since I don't know... just that it may be different than the US.

When I was on Okinawa for a year back in the early 80's, I bought some artistic items a few times from a local sales person who came to my door about once a month, and I asked him how much the piece was, he would tell me for example $50... and he insisted on payment in yen (which made sense) so I just asked him how much in yen... he asked what the exchange rate was that day... If he had simply said 12,000 which was a little higher than the exchange rate, I would have gladly paid it, but for some reason he was compelled to get paid $50 worth of yen at the current exchange rate, which varied day by day instead of getting a constant 12,000 yen. The same thing happened for many sales people selling to the US Military people... they insisted on selling at a fixed dollar amount based on the current exchange rate, in yen. Even though they often would trust us to give them the exchange rate... I bought a couple of custom tailored suits the same way.