Hey J.J., I am from Germany and from interviews I learned that a lot of Japanese people see us as their closest cultural equivalent. Which I always thought was pretty weird and maybe a bit too heavy on conventional wisdom and stereotypes. But in this video I learned that there is way more to this comparison than meets the eye at first. Germany is outside of the big cities also a society that’s pretty heavily monoethnic and the middle class seems to follow the same trends as japanese middle class does today to a frightening extend. Especially the Showa (Also a very heavily sentimentalized period in Germany) coffee shops, the style was pretty much a carbon copy of old german cafés where I come from and a lot of retirement homes are purposely built and decorated in that almost exact style. Sameness is also something that’s very heavily embraced in Germany, change is often seen as something that infringes on culture and is heavily rejected by a lot of people sometimes to a comical extend. Thank you J.J. for this video, this was a very eye opening experience and a good insight.
I also thought that these signs from train stations, roads etc. also exist in Germany. For example the typical Sign at the entrance to a town is often used for humorous signs for rooms etc. I would love to hear if you have other examples.
I was very surprised when J.J. didn't mention this while explaining "Showa Nostalgia", it was the first thing that came to mind as an American. Of course, maybe he did it on purpose to highlight stuff that isn't as well-known to Westerners, who knows?
Thats for the western world. For "Showa Nostalgia" in the Japanese music scene, it is mostly the old idol scene such as Yamaguchi Momoe, Nakamori Akina or Matsuda Seiko songs that are becoming popular with the youth. It mostly derives from growing up with parents music, similar to old popular songs in the west.
As a member of the monoculture, it never really occurred to me that other cultures wouldn't have a universally recognizable help wanted sign. Quite eye-opening.
The opposite never occurred to me! Here in America it is usually a standard sheet of paper with "HELP WANTED" bolded and in capital letters with the default Arial font. There is always some specific flare!
I can't say we have a standard format for 'Help Wanted' in the UK - seems quite niche. The most ubiquitous home made poster is for 'lost cat'. The cat's name in block capitals then a picture of the cat below, and contact details below that. Seen attached to lampposts everywhere from Penzance to Peterhead.
Well, we do and don't - there IS a 'standard' Help Wanted sign you can buy with is red with white letters, usually with some empty space to write something pertinent about the job itself or maybe just a phone number. But it's not nearly as standard as JJ here made the Japanese version out to be - it can come in yellow and black, it can be hand written on a sheet of paper, it can be flamboyant or very plain. I think that most USers would recognize that style - not sure about our cousins to the north.
I don’t think it’s necessarily that western / North American culture doesn’t have some recognizable or typical “templates” for things like a Help Wanted sign. It’s just that Japanese culture takes mundane cultural templates like that, and spins them into society-wide “memes” on a grander scale. I thought right away of KitKat… something almost every American would at least recognize as a mundane, tasty candy bar, usually found in Halloween candy buckets or something. But most Americans wouldn’t see the need to create 47 different flavors of KitKat bars, and an entire ecosystem of related merchandise, the way Japanese have!
In Brazil, We don't have a standard, but a popular one it's a plastic or metal plaque write on the top Contrata-se (now hiring) with spaces you can insert smaller plaques with the positions which are vacant. It's more common in industries and logistical places near the cities. Sometimes in construction sites too. I think is pretty recognizable across the country.
While it was an unpleasant time for you, there's something satisfying for me thinking about a bunch of Japanese people now speaking English with a heavy (and cool) Canadian accent. All your efforts weren't for naught, JJ!
I'm imagining a Japanese person trying to speak English as best as he can, and then saying "arooond" and the people they're speaking to just think it's some quirky Japanese thing.
I know you're mostly joking, but it sadly probably was completely for naught at least as far as the students are concerned. The return on investment for pre-university level English teaching is pretty much non-existent, and the young 'Japanese culture enthusiasts' they find to fill these roles are often simultaneously put in exploitative situations and lacking the tools necessary to actually teach their language to Japanese students. They probably left JJ's class barely being able to string a real sentence together, and unless any of them went on to serious study, they are undoubtedly still about as fluent at English as your average American is fluent in Spanish (or your average English-speaking Canadian is fluent in French).
@@fleasy4393 yeah, the whole industry is a giant scam. Getting your kid taught English in special after school tutoring sessions by a white guy is just a status signal for upper middle class Japanese parents. I think I was a better teacher than most, but I was completely unqualified, and I don’t doubt that the kids learned very little.
american and canadian english are in higher demand than australian and kiwi english, even though the latter two are much closer geographically. im not sure where british english falls in that
@@wakingcharade British is more elite than Aus/NZ but worse than American. It’s a total prestige hierarchy. I think even being Canadian isn’t considered that impressive since your average Japanese person doesn’t really know what Canada is. The sort of parents who enroll their kids want to say their kid’s teacher is from California or New York, not Edmonton or something.
I went to Japan for the first time in 2015 and I hated every moment of it. In retrospect, I realise now it was all coming from me and the problem wasn't Japan at all. I've been fortunate enough to visit again since then in 2018 and 2023 and I loved it and I love Japan and I will do anything to get back there asap.
@@JD.......... I was severely depressed before I went, and I thought new horizons might make it better. Instead, Tokyo made me feel so small and insignificant that I convinced myself that no one would miss me if I dropped off the face of the earth and I came very close to making it so. I still find it a very oppressive place in some ways, but I'm in a better frame of mind these days and was able to sort of ...mentally prepare myself for the onslaught of noise and advertising and crowds when I visited more recently. Being able to get out of Tokyo and see other parts of Japan helped a lot too.
@@KateOBrienCreativeI just got back from my fourth trip to 東京, and I brought my girlfriend with me. I love every trip to Tokyo, every time. But my girlfriend found it so oppressive: can’t read or understand anything, crowded trains, noise everywhere…. But for myself I really love it.
Hey JJ. I had a similar rediscovery/reconnection of my youth when I studied abroad for a year in France from 06 to 07, and I returned for the first time last year after 16 years. It really both takes you back ("Oh I remember this/that!") and strikes you as so different
I thought it was interesting how much of the stuff JJ remembered was still there -- even the oddball bunny sign, which looked like some safety campaign poster that would have been replaced with something else by now. Did JJ remember to turn off the light when he left his old apartment? Maybe it's just been on all this time.
I think "Showa era nostalgia" is acutally a very useful way to explain a lot of feelings, especially among older people or certain kinds of people on the internet who basically say "New thing bad, Old thing good". That despite its primitiveness or simply being corny, you can feel a certain "heart" or soul to things much more than newer things that might be on the surface better. I think one of this decade's cultural trends is the mass media consumers/general public moving away from "Bigger and Better" and towards "I can feel its soul more". Think of the success of the Barbie movie as an example or the rise of Indie/"AA" gaming.
Hi JJ. Great video. I used to have a flatmate who taught English in Japan for a year and she kinda had similar views to you about the place. And then I subsequently went to teach in Madrid for a few months - and although less "exotic" I found that I struggled quite a lot there. Living somewhere where you don't know the language or culture very well makes every interaction much more exhausting, and it gave me a new found respect for people who do move to a new country on a permanent basis and leave behind the familiar things that perhaps we don't think about on a daily basis. I recently went to Japan this October, also quite spontaneously, and I absolutely loved it, although the first three days in Tokyo where quite overwhelming. Even for a Londoner like me it seemed incomprehensibly busy. I went down to Osaka (which is still much bigger than London) and finally felt like I was starting to get the place. This meant that by the time I got back to Tokyo at the end of my stay I could finally get into the flow of it. You've talked about liminal spaces on your channel before and it reminded me of this creepy faux Italianate park that was above Kobe at the top of a cable car. I walked around the place by myself at night - it was so strange. Japan seems to be full of places like that. Empty shopping centres in basements. Subways that connect different Metro stations to each other for miles on end. I was constantly and semi-deliberately lost all the time
The intro really spoke to me, I am a mexican student living in France, but I spent my senior year of high school in Moncton, new Brunswick, and I've been wanting to go back for a while now, I feel I would get the same feeling you expressed at the beginning of the video and you just motivated me to go to Canada again. Thank you JJ
I am so intrigued by the video of JJ walking around at night. I didn’t see any people in the background. It’s quiet. Even in the wee morning hours, most large cities in my state (CA)would be noisy, you’d hear cars, and you’d see or hear people. Tokyo must be a very safe place indeed.
The red triangle is a sticker indicating Fire Brigade Entrance (消防隊進入口), where fire brigade breaks the window and enters the building in a state of fire disaster and such emergencies.
It’s interesting how you view the idea of nostagia for a location. I studied at Loughborough Uni during covid and I had hard times there with societies, friendships and flatmates but when I went back there after two years I had this happy feeling that I was home. That I was back in a community that I belonged in. That I missed the place despite all the lonely nights and tired days. I wouldn’t live in Loughborough but I would revisit it again or even study there again. The people are lovely, the community hasn’t changed that much but yet has at the same time, and it’s still a town full of students wanting to learn and experience life at that transitional stage into your early adulthood. Do I wish things went differently- sure - yeah- I wish I went on more academic trips or study exchanges like to Canada, Australia, New Zealand or Japan but yet I wouldn’t want to change things because sometimes I think things were meant to be that way. My experiences have shaped me to who I am today and I’ll always remember Loughborough as part of a stage in life that made me who I am. My nostalgia for my uni days will always be there in a positive and constructive way to help build my life forwards
Interestingly, the new driver symbol made its way into JDM communities outside of Japan, and many people put them on their cars to fit a certain aesthetic.
@@JJMcCullough A subset of car culture that idolizes Japanese cars. Particularly cars made for the "Japanese Domestic Market" that were either unavailable in or heavily modified for export markets.
I know it shows up in some video games, but that makes more sense. I like how in Splatoon, they made it a squid shape facing downards, but still the same colours. I'd only seen it in games or emoji, and I knew it had something to do with being a beginner, but I hadn't heard much about the context until this video.
I've always equated overseas contract work with something akin to indentured servitude. So it makes perfect sense to me that the situation couldo dampen such an experience. Going someplace on one's own terms would certainly seem to be a much more pleasant experience.
I just want to tell you JJ, from your little intermittent clips of you walking around Japan on different days, I never realized how incredibly stylish your outfits are! I am jealous.
This was a great video and I really like the nostalgic theme. It's really timely since I just returned from my first trip to Japan, where I stayed for two weeks while working on a project for my American employer. It's really a fascinating place and a fascinating culture. I became addicted to the 'gachapon' capsule toys because they were so weird! I brought home most of the means to make my own commercial parking lot, a bunch of ANA Airline food toys, and a couple mini Minidisc keychains, among many, many other things from those machines. Culturally, it's very insular. I stood on a train with people figuratively but almost literally packed into my armpits, but had never really felt so alone. Many Japanese people don't know English (or feel confident enough with it to speak it), and Japanese is a very difficult and nuanced language to learn. So, other than some pleasantries I didn't really get to engage in conversation with anyone other than my Western coworkers. People seem to largely ignore foreigners and even their fellow Japanese folks. I learned some cultural insight from a French national coworker living there for eight years. It seems no matter how long you are there, it never gets easier. You can communicate better as you learn, but you're always a 'foreigner' and don't seem to make many deep personal connections. I found my trip there to be the epitome of "It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there" much as you described. That said, I really enjoyed my time there and I already miss it (it's been two weeks!). I'd like to return as a tourist soon and not need to worry about work, and maybe with more notice, work to learn a bit more Japanese language before going.
Have you ever considered making a video about why treehouses are so popular for children in America? I was just watching a movie which had the trope and I wrote it off at first, but then I started to question why treehouses were just considered commonplace backyard fixtures in America specifically. Idk, seems like the kinda thing you'd cover.
Haha, I’m going back to Japan too, but likely permanently. Maybe. I can’t take it anymore. My story is a lot different though. I lived there for nearly 20 years and learned to speak the language fluently. I went to university there, worked at a media company, dated, got married, had kids, paid taxes, basically everything you would do as a teen/adult there. I’ve been away for 3 years now and I just need to go back.
@@JD.......... long story, but basically things didn’t work out with the wife. There’s a lot more to it than that, but that’s the gist. I was actually just there for a few weeks last month though, and that pretty much convinced me that I need to go back. My story is much different than JJ’s, I loved it there. Still do.
Fantastic work! One of your best! I had NEVER cared about Japan until a couple of years ago. Now that I am a HUGE fan of Sumo, we are traveling to Japan in the Spring. After 6 months of studying for our trip, your words ring true on another level for me.
I had a similar experience. I spent a year abroad in Utah (I'm from Germany) with a Mormon family. Last summer I went back. First I visited my brother who lives in NYC, then I flew over to "deseret". It was only two years after my year abroad, but the nostalgia was still very strong.
thank you for sharing your personal experience in japan jj! i think we got to see a side of japan we normally do not see presented to us here in "the west"
JJ you actually managed to make the perfect video for me! I also love the mundane Japanese suburbs, I spent a lot of my last trip in places like Saitama and Chiba to go retro game hunting, and I was struck at how much they end up being my favorite parts of the country. You still get so much culture to immerse yourself in without the noise and chaos of the city, and the language barrier doesn't stop people from being even nicer to you than in the cities! Speaking of Shōwa sentimalism, a good Saitama example of that are the Seibu Lions, the prefecture's professional baseball team. They were basically the Michael Jordan Bulls of the late Shōwa Era so I think NPB fans still have reverence for them even now when they're more average.
in some ways Japan is or maybe was a bit like the UK, with those kind of in jokes stickers reflecting a sort of similarity to UK national road signage culture or the old BR logo as it appeared on trains and stations. Even the uptight formalism is still evident a little in the UK, though it's a lot less than how it would have been. And again the culture of British nostalgia for a time when all those aforementioned things were normal certainly still holds here
I was thinking the same. We British have quite a lot of monocultural ephemera and objects that would be understood nationally. I think, as you suggest, connected to our history of nationalisation...and probably because we are a smaller country.
I visited Japan for a week this May and had an absolute blast. The shot you showed at 18:00 is actually my phone background right now. And look at that, the sign design you talked about!
It's interesting to hear your thoughts about living in Japan. I lived there for about 18 months myself, and really want to go back. However, I'm currently living in Taiwan and my experience has been pretty much the same as your experience in Japan. The thing that gives me the most joy is the light at the end of the tunnel - leaving Taiwan. But I've also met loads of foreigners here who love Taiwan and want to stay as long as possible. In conclusion, it really is a matter of to each their own.
It's interesting to hear about your experience in Japan. When I was in my 3rd year of college studying engineering I did an exchange at McGill University in Montreal and I think about it similarly. I struggled with studying there which meant I was spending a lot of time on school and found it hard to make friends (by 3rd year I think most friend groups are already set and people aren't as open to newcomers) or get time to do fun things outside of that, so I was pretty lonely then and not happy. That said, I still thought Montreal was a nice city and I'd like to go back at some point as a visitor which I would expect to be a very different experience.
This was an excellent video J.J. As a Canadian who’s lived here for going on 20 years now, I appreciate the optimism you have for the country because I share it as well. I think Japanese youth are much more “westernized” (I don’t like using that term though) than when I came here the first time. They seem more active and interested in what’s going on politically, which is wonderful. I don’t generally post on videos but this one hit close to home for me. So I just wanted to say thank you and keep up the stellar work. I’ll keep watching your award winning videos as long as you keep making them. Cheers from Japan. おつかれさまでした。
kissaten or japanese post war coffee shops were important places for contact with western habits, political radicalism, jazz and blues music and new trends.
I love that you did this. I was in Japan with the US Navy 2011-2014 and, like you, really did not enjoy my time there. Fast forward ten years and I speak and read Japanese, I frequently make Japanese pork cutlet curry or gyudon for dinner, and I watch Japanese dramas and anime. I've also been thinking about taking a trip back to yokosuka, just to walk down memory lane and see my old haunts.
I grew up in Brazil but now live in Canada. During COVID, I got into anime and Japanese stuff in general, and I saw a lot of stuff that reminded me of my childhood in Brazil. I often wonder why there is such an overlap and how that formed.
Brazil and Japan have a long history of trade and immigration with each other going all the way back to the 1500s when the Portuguese explorers who founded the first Portugese colonies in Brazil would also do trade in Japan and would do trade between the 3 countries. For a while Nagasaki was actually under Brazilian control. There are now millions of Brazilians of Japanese descent and vice-versa. There's an interesting Wikipedia article called Brazil-Japan Relations where you can learn more about it
@@JoelMatton oh yeah. I forgot that the Portuguese missionaries were one of the first Westerners that established relations with the Japanese and, just like JJ mentioned in his video about "food imperialism", various Japanese dishes have Portuguese origins, like tempura, kompeito and castella cake. There're even some Japanese loan words from Portuguese origin I also find it very interesting that one of the most beloved foreign celebrities in Japan is the late Fomula 1 racer Ayrton Senna
Thanks for the video! I am kind of living the same experience (of loneliness and mixed feelings about everything) in Madrid right now (it's been a year last week). I don't know how much longer I'll stay here, but I definitely look forward to visiting some time in the future with a different perspective.
Great video! I grew up (23 year old gay man) watching anime and videos about Japan. It was always my dream to do the JET Program and I applied when I graduated college in 2021 and didn't get in. I was super super bummed but looking back I am really glad it didn't happen. Now that I am older I think I would be even lonelier than I am currently in my home town and while I live somewhere without a "gay scene" right now I am at least close enough while I've heard pretty negative things about that experience in Japan. I also learned through a trip to Florida that humidity is not for me and I would have been absolutely miserable haha during their summers. I am hoping to visit Japan next year though!
I taught English in Spain with the North American Language Assistants program. I hated it. I had studied abroad in Madrid before and loved the city. I hated it when I lived there for a year. I spent the following summer in Madrid and had to re-fall in love with the city. Not in the charming sense of noticing the small things, but just overcoming the negative associations
The changes in Tokyo are definitely a mixed blessing. There are more enjoyable things, perhaps, but a lot of it is the same as you’d see in any major city and we don’t want to go to Japan to experience the same thing as London, Paris, San Francisco, Montreal, Helsinki or wherever… Starbucks on every corner with people on their laptops..
As I'm currently living in Toronto, where I grew up, I lived in Vancouver for 4 years in the later 90's. I'm booked for a trip there again this May. Looking forward to seeing the changes from when I lived there. I'm sure I'll see the Cherry blossom Trees bloom.
I had a similar nostalgia trip to exotic “Vancouver” recently (joking of course). It was not a culture shock, I’m from Alberta, and also my years living there as a kid were very happy ones .. but after so much time it was shocking to see certain key locations of my life almost totally unchanged like I had stepped back in time. Went to my fathers’ work (he has long since passed), and he could have been coming down the escalator there right then and there as if no time had passed. Uncanny is a good word..
As a western Kamen Rider fan, I've definitely heard the distinction made, by both fans and official media, between Showa Kamen Rider and Heisei Kamen Rider (and now Reiwa Kamen Rider). And I had also heard similar terminology used in other tokusatsu circles, like Godzilla. But I had no idea there was so much deeper cultural context behind that!
I feel like sorting stuff into “Heisei” and “Reiwa” categories feels a bit silly and literal. “Showa” is a useful concept, because it describes a critical era of postwar history that overlapped with a lot of broad cultural development across the world. But beyond that you’re just trying to link cultural development to the arbitrary reigns of emperors. It would be like attempting to distinguish Bush era technology from Obama era technology. You could try to make it work, but you’d be making the culture fit the timeline rather than using the timeline to explain the culture.
@@JJMcCullough Very true. Even in Kamen Rider, where Bandai really tried to push the Reiwa era as a new era for Kamen Rider... it's pretty much just continuing the trends of the Heisei era shows. There's nowhere near the drastic shift in overall style from Showa to Heisei.
showa nostalgia is such a perfect fit for jj's brand, in retrospect. middle class mundanity made collectable. wonder if you'll hit up the showa museum while you're there. now that we're in reiwa you're starting to see the first bits of heisei nostalgia in japan just as you are with 00s nostalgia in the west. the wheel keeps churning and the youths think transparent glittery plastic is cool again. I look forward to for when heisei era street fashion gets its weird revival. There's a lot of heisei nostalgia to be had. i mean the 'vintage anime accounts' run in the west have already started seeing if they can get away with naruto.
Love it. Never have been to Japan and don’t have a desire to go but I’m glad you decided to go back for a visit. Also, I think you touch on a common theme that it’s cool to visit a lot of places but to live there is a whole different ballgame. I’m sure it’s the same anywhere but a place like Japan would be tough, especially at that time.
One of my favorite video's of yours! It was very personal yet also showed a lot about Japan that I didn't know. Hope your doing great J.J., nearly at a million subs!
One of my most memorable trips was to Japan in 1998, for two weeks. I enjoyed every minute and learned a great deal. One thing I learned, however, like you, is that I wouldn’t want to live there. Things may have changed a lot since then, but you’ve reinforced my feeling.
Another great, award-winning video! As a guy who has lived in Japan since high school, I think I heartily agree with your statements about Japan. School sucks here, and I assume work is the same, but the food and culture I get to enjoy in my free time is pretty damn fantastic and, in my opinion, better than any other place I've lived in. You mentioned Showa nostalgia in the video, but I've been seeing some Heisei nostalgia (1989-2019) ever since the Reiwa era started, which makes me feel quite old even though I'm not even 20 yet, lol. I would like to just point out that Japanese National Railways got privatized back in 1987 and was split into six different companies to join Japan's 50 or so additional private passenger railway companies, so railway signs vary quite significantly depending on your region, or even within the same station here. Some interesting trends relating to those station name signs-officially called running in boards it seems-I've noticed are the change from hiragana (Japanese phonograms) based signs to ones with Chinese characters written big, as shown in the video, and the addition of Chinese and Korean on them, presumably for tourists. There's been some backlash against the latter though, of course, in classic Japanese fashion......
This is how it will feel if I ever get back to Fukuoka and walk around the neighborhood of Takasago. Left in 2017. I spent 5 years in Japan 2012-2017, best timeframe of my life to date.
I relate to how he feels, when I graduated from a University in the US I was so happy to go back home to The Bahamas. Living in the US was hard for me for many reasons, despite all the advantages of the US I missed my regular life back home.
@JJ you should look up the disabled symbol in Japan. They have a specialized symbol for disabilities unique to Japan... Although they do use the international wheelchair symbol, they also have a separate "physically disabled" symbol that looks like a clover with a cane. It's quite endearing and in many ways, superior to the wheelchair symbol (so many disabled people don't need a wheelchair). They also have specific symbols for hard of hearing and pregnant. You're right that they do have a standard lexicon and a love of symbology. In fact, the toilet symbols universally used today was invented in Japan for one of the Olympics they held.
i lived in japan around the same time you were there for some years, and i also had a really difficult time in some ways. my situation was different from yours in a couple important ways (i was older than you were, i had pre-existing social and familial ties to the country), but i also had not the best work experience and i never really found work life there to be happy either. looking back, i kind of wish i'd stayed even a little longer, because i was making a lot of progress in the language, but i'm also glad to be back
I feel fond of Leicester where I studied for 4 years. Not a foreign country to me but still a foreign city with a lot of formative experiences and memories.
As a South Korean I can totally relate to living in a monoculture country. Here we have our own cultural reference to almost everything including very trivial things. And even things that come from outside world, mostly western ofc, get coded with our own interpretation and stored into our part of culture.
Hey, we were almost there at the same time - we went to Kyoto and Tokyo on our honeymoon after getting married in October of '09. I'm guessing you were gone by then, though. It would be neat to go back, but we also want to explore other places in the world. Thanks for (sort of) taking us along! (And sort of unrelated, a good friend taught English for a year in China after graduating college. I know it was difficult for her, too, but I think she enjoyed it overall.)
In Australia, states technically run drivers licenses programs, but practically they are all pretty similar, and as such you sometimes see the Australian L symbol used to signify a beginner. Not nearly as much as in Japan though, and I think partially because the symbol connects to adolescence in a way that many businesses would hope to avoid when appealing to the general public.
Great video! I've visited Japan 18 times so far and I obviously love the country. But as a tourist. Living and working there, I can totally see how that can be a different story. More than once I have considered making that step, but because of the limited options (I just didn't see myself teaching English....) and later some family related stuff, I never got serious about it. And while I know of enough people for who it all worked out fine and wouldn't want to leave the country, it sure isn't for everyone. Not all companies are equal, and especially if you don't speak much Japanese, it will be very hard to connect to the locals. And then being there for a year is something very different than a three week vacation....
Fascinating. I’m an American who has lived in Japan for more than 40 years, and I’m sorry you had such a bad experience lining here. I think that was partly due to your particular job and whatever made it difficult for you to make friends. I live in Kyoto, and I know a lot of Westerners who have also lived in Japan for decades. Some came to Japan for a year and somehow just never left. There are a lot of factors that can contribute to how well a foreigner adjusts to living in Japan. While some people don’t have good experiences, I don’t think it’s true to say that Japan is not a good place for foreigners to live. Many of us have built very satisfying lives here.
@@JJMcCullough A Japanese husband, actually, and obviously that can help make some things easier, particularly at the beginning. However, I've continued to live in Japan in the ten years since my husband's death, and I know a lot of foreigners who don't have Japanese spouses who have also made satisfying lives in Japan. Having a satifying job, being in a position to make friends, and enjoying Japanese culture also have a lot to do with adjusting to Japan.
I recently visited America and had a similar thought to the one you shared in this video. Wonderful place to visit, but I don't know how well I would feel about living there long-term. Even though I sometimes struggle with long periods of freezing cold back home, I do recognize that I am very much at home in my own country.
yeah the genre of Future Funk is pure showa nostalgia, remixing city pop tunes that reminds us of better times. hope you can make a video about that, it´s fascinating!!
I think those JJ type kids in their 20s are here! I currently live in Tokyo, recognizing the neighborhoods you posted in this video, and I enjoy it here. I do think that in the 2020s, and in a city as globally tuned in as present day Tokyo, I have had a rather pleasant time making friends, foreigner and Japanese. The younger generations are very accommodating and interested in you as a foreigner. I also do see a lot more foreigners than expected here. People (just like me) are moving to this city in droves. From my experience, I want to say that I think I can recommend living here for a year or two given that it’s on your own terms
@@JJMcCulloughI'm american, living as a foreign exchange student! As such I'm noticing what you said about the city being very cosmopolitan. I wanted to say that *as a foreigner living in tokyo* I am enjoying the experience because of how the city seems to have changed over the past few decades or so
I lived in Okinawa for a year. That was about 10 years ago. I'd love to go back someday, and my friend and I have talked about someday when we have money to burn, we're going to go. I hope we do.
I didn't see, apologies if someone else covered it; the red triangles indicate for fire rescue that the space in front of the window is clear so if they need to enter via a ladder, they can do so where there is a red triangle.
10:00 - in Brazil we use this emoji as symbol of something national. Its ironic to know that a symbol we use to "Brazil" means "begginer stuff", because one of the frases we use a lot to describe brazil is "Brazil is not for begginers" (famous frase from the bossa nova musician Tom Jobim)
I was wondering, why were you feeling so miserable in Japan? Was it the overworking? Maybe homesickness? You just didn't want to be a teacher anymore? I feel like you've vaguely gestured to the reason being one of these, but I don't remember you actually being specific
I can't speak for JJ but for some it's not really specific and just the monotony of everyday life. Pay is usually quite low while hours are more than usual for those teaching roles, which means you have limited income and time to do the things you want to do. It makes you feel like you only exist for that contract you signed. To make it worse, it comes with a severe lack of friends/family to communicate with, and making friends there can be difficult for foreigners. So when you do manage to go out, it's usually just you alone. Think back to the worst possible job you may have ever had, then imagine it with everyone around you expecting you to give your 200% to it, even though it gives nothing back to you: and nobody at home to come home to. It can be very draining. Plenty of working class Japanese deal with this everyday, and it's part of how their culture thinks about work in general. Visiting Japan as a tourist is 1000% different than living there. Although these days, there are slowly emerging more meaningful professions for foreigners there. As JJ says, it will eventually change for the better.
Oh, good. You’re back. I get the nostalgia connected to boring consumer goods. Anyone who’s ever watched someone go all sappy over a greenish glass coke bottle gets it. Hell, just the other day I got moon faced about a Nintendo DS.
Visiting Japan is much more fun than living there, at least as a foreigner. Should be easy to get around with the current state of the yen. I hope you enjoyed it. 2009 was the first time I went to Japan, although it wasn't for work. The country has changed a lot, at least in some ways. Even I find going into a showa era izakaya to be really nostalgic, even though I myself wasn't alive at that time. It reminds me of american 60s and 70s aesthetics.
Although it features a robot cat from the future other fantastical things, I think a strong element of the manga/anime "Doraemon" is how authentic a depiction of contemporary Japanese middle class life it can be. The main boy is an only child, he has a mom who is more involved and has a stronger personality than his dad, the neighborhood he lives in is a bang-on representation of Japanese middle class residential areas. What I love about it is how the start of each crazy adventure of the week is often the result of the boy having some very petty or believable middle class kid grievance (his rich friend has a cool toy and he wants it, he is frustrated by his homework, etc.) so he recruits Doraemon to 'help' him and things get out of hand. Appreciated this video and your thoughts on Japan. As someone who has been here 10 years and likes living here I know too well it is not for everyone. It's good you recognized that. Far too many foreigners here feel the way you did but stay anyway.
I’d love to know if any of the children (or adults I’m not sure) you helped teach English have ever reached out to you! I suppose it may help to know, that in a complex point in your life, that you may have impacted an individual enough that they excelled or got a glimmer of something off your enthusiasm and respect for life.
One interesting thing is that while the Showa era was an era of dynamism in terms of industry, the years that followed it, despite the bursting of the economic bubble, has probably been the height of Japanese soft power, with large parts of the wider world being exposed to manga, anime, Japanese video games and various other bits of Japanese popular culture. Also, regarding the shared symbology, sometimes they adopt Western symbols to mean something specific to Japan. For example, there’s widespread use of the Roman letter “W” to mean “double”. Like, a pastry with double cream filling might have “W” and then the Japanese word for cream on the packaging.
I had a bad experience in a foreign country I said in for awhile, mostly because of the people (from my country) I was with. There was bullying. It was a positive experience but also negative. I'd go back now that I'm not 25, but with the right people.
As you upload this, I'm preparing for my flight back to America today after living in Japan for just over a year. It was also difficult for me but full of good experiences as well. I wonder what it might feel like to return here and reminisce 15 years or so from now
Hey can you please break down Bill C-63 and explain to your followers how they can voice their opinions to their local mps and hearings. I’d love to participate because from what I see it’s another bill like C-11 but in some sense worse.
It's funny you mention the new driver sign/symbol. I recently bought the other Japanese one that symbolises an eldery driver, which is a bit wasted on the people of France where I live, but I think it's kind of funny.
15:10 - so when Prince Hisahito becomes Emperor and nostalgia kicks in for the Reiwa era, will they sell full sized versions of the miniatures or miniatures of the miniatures? 😁
I'm currently sjopping for an instrument (specifically a professional clarinet) and noticed that almost all of the sellers who were selling legit instruments were in Japan, do they just have a huge music culture? Like serious there were about 20 Japanese sellers of the model I was mostly looking at, 1 french seller, and 2 or 3 american sellers. There were a handful of Chinese sellers as well but they seemed shady.
