In public in Japan, particularly on trains and in restaurants, it seems it is considered bad manners to wipe or blow your nose, if you must you have to head off to the toilet to do it. In Japan, as in most of the Asian countries I have visited, it seems the socially acceptable way to clear your nose is a loud snort or sniff. Even women do it. Somehow sitting in a restaurant full of sniffers and feeling guilty because I dabbed my nose with a tissue felt a bit wrong.
