Chorus of Sniffing

During my first few days of riding the trains in Tokyo, the weather was a bit on the cold side and a lot of people had runny noses. As I made my way to Sophia, I was holding onto the hand rails of one of the trains, just listening and observing, taking in the experience of the life of a commuter. Then my ears caught the sound of someone sniffing. I looked over at a man in a black suit with a white mask over his mouth. He must have been wearing the mask to keep everyone from getting his germs; how thoughtful of him. But then I heard more sniffing, and as I focused my hearing further, I realized that there was a consistent repetition of sniffs. Here and there, all over the train car people were sniffing. Yet the thing I didn't hear was anyone blowing their nose. They just kept sniffing, trying to keep everything in, while gravity kept frustrating their efforts. I remembered hearing from one of my International Relations T.A.s that in Korea it's rude to blow your nose in public. I wonder if the same is true in Japan? Although I have been in a ramen shop and the guy right next to me blew his nose rather loudly and no one else in the shop looked at him in offense. I have seen a few other instances where someone has done something that I heard was rude to do, but none of the other Japanese appeared to think it was. So my guess is that in Japan, it's all about context. They aren't narrow-mindedly following a cultural norm no matter where they go or what situation they're in; most of their customs originate in a desire to be thoughtful of others and to help society function more efficiently as a whole.