Yesterday I was at work (Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse) and I had an interesting experience with a Japanese customer. At our restaurant, we serve our steaks on 500 degree plates so we always remind the customers not to touch the plates. So as I was the dropping the plate down for this Japanese customer, I reminded him that the plates were extremely hot and not to touch them. But then right when I dropped it, he accidentally touched the plate. The interesting thing was his first reaction. Right after he touched the plate, he grabbed his earlobes. I apologized and got him some medicine for his fingers but I left very confused. Why did he grab his earlobes? Later I asked Michiko Sensei why he did that and she said that it is because Japanese believe that the coldest part of the body are the earlobes. I  never heard of that before but I thought that was very interesting. Guess you learn something new everyday.