For example good luck getting mayonnaise with your fries at any of the fast food chains here. They have mayonnaise and they put it on burgers but they “CANNOT” give (or sell) it to you in a separate container for your fries.
This isn’t the reason you can’t get mayo with fries in Japan, though. It’s a cultural barrier against deviating from the “rules,” no matter how small. Mayo isn’t on the menu as a condiment; sorry!
Example: I once had to fill out a form (as a designated corporate representative) authorizing myself to access our racks in an NTT data center and then fax it to the DC manager (who I knew personally) before he would let me in. During this entire process we were standing in the same room.
It used to annoy me when I first moved to Tokyo, but you eventually learn to live with it.
