Table Manners

The first time that I sat down to eat dinner with my host family in Osaka, Japan. I thought about being at my grandmaś house and the manners that I use there, since I wanted to be extra polite.So placed my hands very properly under the table and kept them there the whole time, Until my host family began to look at me as if I was strange. I just kept my hands there and tried to sit up as straight as I could and finally they asked what was I doing. They said, Deibido why are your hands under the table? What are you doing down there? I said that I was tyring to be polite. They did not understand at first, so I had to explain to them why I was doing it. After that they explained to me that it was rude and unpolite to have your hands underneath the dinner table since, people did not know what you were doing down there. After words we all laughed at the first encounter of one of our many differences in culture and etiquette.