Sumimasen

I noticed today while on the Seoul subway that in Japan, people say "excuse me" as often or almost as often as Americans do when they accidentally bump into somebody.

Some guy came in the subway car today and basically rolled around me to get to the seat. I turned around (naturally) to see what was going on and looked at the guy, but he leaned over and sat down, never looking at me once. That's when I remembered that in Japan, whenever you accidentally hit somebody, you say "Sumimasen", which means excuse me. I hadn't noticed it while I was there but now that it's missing again, I notice the difference.