A common story about Kyoto describes a resident who finds the neighbor’s piano too loud. The resident does not say urusai, it is noisy. Instead, the resident says o-jōzu desu nā, how well you play. The magazine Gendai Business presents this as an example of Kyoto speech, along with the offer of bubuzuke, rice with tea, which means it is time to go home.
The same article admits that the image of Kyoto people as ikezu, spiteful, has become a fixed stereotype. A Kyoto shopkeeper describes real ikezu differently. In the shopkeeper’s view, it means saying what one wants to say while caring for the other person.