Want to be Friends? Ask for their Blood Type! | Guidable - Your Guide to a Sustainable, Wellbeing-centred Life in Japan

Want to be Friends? Ask for their Blood Type!

By Yae Apr 25, 2018

Have you ever been asked for your blood type by your Japanese friends?

“What’s your blood type, A, B, O or AB?”

Most Japanese are used to this question and know how to answer to it without any problem. However, many people who come from overseas don’t understand the purpose of this question, and some have never thought about his or her blood type.

“Why are you asking me for my blood type? What for?”

Exchanging information about peoples’ blood types is one method for getting along with people in Japan.

In this article, let’s see why blood type information is so relevant to Japanese people.

1. Blood diagnosis was created by the Japanese

In 1932 Mr. Takeji Furukawa was the first person in the world to publish research papers relating blood types and personality. Mr Furukawa found in his research that it is possible to determine one’s personality by checking their blood type. The title of this published research paper was “Blood Types and Personalities.”

Based on this research, another researcher, Mr. Masahiko Nomi, published the two books: “Understanding Affinity by Blood Type” and “Blood Type Humanics” based on the statistics.
These books gained enormous popularity, and gradually it has become popular to believe that blood types determine peoples’ personalities.

2. The Most Important Reason for Taking a Blood Test

The connection between blood types and personalities is a great way to warm up conversations at a bar, but there is another reason for knowing your blood type.
Many Japanese believe it’s important to know your blood type in advance in case of an accident. If you get hospitalized and need a blood transfusion, it could be fatal to have the wrong blood type of blood transfusion.

The truth is that it is not a big deal if you are not sure about your blood type. Anyone who needs a blood transfusion first takes a blood test as soon as arriving at the hospital.

3. Each Blood Types Have Different Personalities

 

It is believed in Japan that there are different characters for each blood types A, B, O and AB as follows:

What’s your blood type?
What kind of personality do you have?
Does anything come to mind?

1. General Characters for “Blood type A”

 

People who have blood type A has the following characteristics:

<Strength Points>
・Well-organized
・Love being tidy and neat
・Attentive
・Patient

<Weakness Points>
・Sensitive
・Care what others think too much
・Worries too much even about small things

When Japanese think about blood type A person, they imagine someone who is generous, earnest and sincere.

 

2. “Blood type B” Main Characteristics

People who have blood type B has the following characteristics:

<Strength Points>
・Do things at their own pace
・Curious about everything
・Good at handling pressure

<Weakness Points>
・Ged bored easily
・Selfish
・Hates group activities

When Japanese think about blood type B person, they imagine someone who is curious and follow their dreams even until the bitter end

3. “Blood type O” Main Characteristics

People who have blood type O has the following characteristics:

<Strength Points>
・Friendly
・Generous
・Passionate
・Careless about small things

<Weakness Points>
・Not detail oriented
・Gets carried away easily

When Japanese think about blood type O person, they imagine someone who is generous, kind and makes people peacefully happy.

4. General characters for “Blood type AB”

 

People who have blood type AB has the following characteristics:

<Strength Points>
・Genius
・Good at dealing with things
・Calm and logic

<Weakness Points>

・Double personality
・Naive
・Prefers shallow association with people

When Japanese think about blood type AB person, they imagine someone who is like a genius, mysterious, a good leader and smart.

4.World Map of Blood Types

 

Now you know what kind of personality each blood type has, are you curious about what the most common blood types in each country are?
Here is a list of countries who have the most extensive population of each blood type.

Blood type A
Switzerland (50%), Norway (50%), Sweden (47%), Denmark (44%)

Blood type B
India (41%), Korea (31%), Thailand (31%), Pakistan (31%)

Blood type O
Guatemala (95%), Columbia (61%), Brazil (47%), America (44%)

Blood type AB
Finland (7%), Germany (6%), France (4%), England (3%)

The ratio of blood types in Japanese according to the guide of the Japan Society of Transfusion Medicine and Cell Therapy is as follows:

Blood type A (38%)
Blood type O (31%)
Blood type B (22%)
Blood type AB (9%)

You can see that most Japanese have blood type A.

5. Knowing Blood Types Makes Japanese People Relaxed

Many Japanese people desire to know other peoples’ blood types comes from the Japanese “group consciousness” mind. Japanese people feel relieved to know in which group they are categorized.

When you’re chatting with your Japanese friends, don’t you ever experienced people saying as follows?

“I’m blood type A, oh, you’re also A as well? We’re the same!”

Japanese people love to have fellow-feelings.

Asking other peoples’ blood types is a way to break the ice at a party or nomikai (drinking party).

So why not ask for blood types as one of the questions to get to know each other?

Try asking your Japanese friends by telling them your blood type first. Sometimes this makes it faster to get friendly with Japanese people.

YAE
Japan