How do Japanese Kids React to Foreigners? 

WHERE'S OUR VIDEOS!? Well, this one took over 20 hours to make. I've just graduated with a master's degree in June and am hunting for an office job here in Japan. More videos to come once things settle down. The next video will be a day in the life at my old workplace.

I remember on my first trip to Japan. I came across a class of kids who were out practicing their English on foreign tourists, reading off scripts and giving out paper cranes. It was probably the most adorable thing I have ever seen

Kids have no "filter" - they say and do whatever pops into their head. Years ago, (after finishing my meal) a small kid came out of the restaurant to grab my hand and said "Hey Chinese man, come home with us." His mom came running out to stop him, and scolded him that you can't do that with a stranger. That's when I realized that small children are inhabiting a parallel universe in which ALL things are possible.

修学旅行で、外国人に英語で話しかける、というミッションのようなものがあったの思い出した しかも2組以上だったはず…！ 中学生には難易度高すぎだよ😢て思ったけど皆さん笑顔で気さくに応じてくれたし、中学生の拙い発音でも理解しようと耳を傾けたりしてくれてめっちゃ嬉しかったなあ🥰 動画で似たような子達出てきてて、微笑ましくなった

Japanese kids r so cute and respectful.they always have smile on their faces.they r so approachable and friendly.

"They're all bad. Nobody's feelings are hurt, they're just all bad" *ah yes, true equality*

Hahaha, died when the kid said your tummy is different from mine 😂

I remember when we were visiting the Silver Temple in Kyoto with our son who is fluent in Japanese. A bunch of kids got off a school bus to tour the shrine at around the same time. When they discovered that Dan could converse with them in Japanese, they were utterly delighted and flooded him with questions. They also tried to speak to my wife and I in English. It was great fun, and they were very sweet.

When I taught English in Japan, the best hour of my week was when I went to the local kindergarten. After a hiccup or two in the beginning, the kids chatted and played counting games and they were so friendly it was pure joy to go see them. The same could not be said of all of my junior high school students... 😉

"Are u with the Olympics" Lol

Best memory of kids in Japan was walking near an elementary school baseball field in Naha and the entire team surrounded me and asked me to make a muscle. Talk about making you feel like Arnold.

I lived in Japan for three years and I absolutely adore your videos. I hope I get to go back one day and appreciate and learn the language to converse because your videos are so inspiring.

日本人です。 日本語とてもお上手ですね。 素敵な動画をありがとうございます!

Reminds me of that video where an afican kid was scared of a guy because he "looked like a ghost" that was hilarious

Japanese kids are really polite and friendly

Japanese people are known for their courtesy and respect towards foreigners. It's a beautiful cultural exchange when kindness bridges any language barriers.

5～6歳ぐらいの頃かな、近所の公園で、金髪の子供たちと遊んだ記憶がかすかにある。 お互い何話しているかわからないけど、何かわからないけど、楽しく遊んだ。

“Your tummy is different from mine” That kid was going for it 💀

I’m a Japanese high school students who learning English. I have a strong feeling to want to create peace as many countries as possible, so I started studying English! and your voice is so beautiful✨ clear and easy to catch!! also your Japanese is so wonderful and perfect! I’m really happy you like Japanese! also the video was so much fun!! Thank you so much! 👍 And I love America! also all nations💫 I love you guys!!

I found my visit to Japan amazing, everyone was so warm and kind and helpful we had many people walk up to us just to say hello and practice their english with us. Even at the train stations we never wondered for too long people always came up and offered to help , amazing beautiful country! sugoi!

私は日本人です。 日本に来てこのように楽しんでいる姿を見てとても嬉しい！！

When I was in Japan a few years ago, absolutely no Japanese people paid attention to me, which, as a afro American, kinda surprised me. The Chinese tourists, however, wanted me to pose for pictures with them for no reason. One guy put his arm around me and said "Kobe!" Lmao I look like Kobe Bryant the same way Paul Rudd looks like Charlie Sheen. 😂

At <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="36">0:36</a> covered in sand running to the water: "No, I'm not with the Olympics, I just swam here from America and now I'm swimming back."

I remember my first time in Japan (Narita) almost 20 years ago… seeing the little school children walking to school in their uniforms and huge backpacks made me smile. So darn cute!

THIS IS SO AMAZING AND I REALLY ENJOYED THIS

Oh god, those boys at the beach probably thought: "just like the simulations"

Kids are very fascinated with foreigners for sure. Keep in mind, about 90% of the population is Japanese and the rest are foreigners. When kids or even elderly see foreigners, they are sometimes surprised. I've even had times where an old woman will start randomly speaking to me in Japanese, it's pretty interesting haha. (keep in mind, I said about 90%. You don't need to message me telling me it's more, I was just estimating lol.)

I taught young children in a private school in NYC for over 25 yrs . Many were from different foreign countries including Japan. Children in general are so pure in their reactions to everything and so innocent in their criticism . . It was cute to see their reactions If I ever said anything to them in their own language. Some would laugh and sometimes correct my pronunciation but mostly get a kick that I spoke their language. I often said I was going to write down all the things they said to me over the years because it would make a great book

I can really relate to your observations about the children in Japan i taught English to elementary and junior high school students for almost 5 years in Japan and enjoyed every moment of teaching children which was a lot more fun and rewarding then teaching adults ..

The best reaction me and my friends got EVERYTIME we came across schoolchildren in Japan, was about our height. We are all around 190cm, which meant we pretty much towered over everyone there. The kids would look up to us in awe and start saying 'Woah, se ga takai!!', which was the funniest thing.

My first time in Kyoto, I was standing next to a group of school kids and a few of them shouted "Hello" at me and asked where I was from. It was obvious how cool they felt, speaking to a foreigner in English.

"Go all in or just go home" Girl, you're so inspiring!

Pearl you are such a wonderful good will ambassador, thank you for setting such a good example, for Americans abroad. I live in Thailand and can speak some Thai and it goes such a long way, and people respect you for trying to learn. Sometimes westerners think the locals are saying something bad, they are not, most often they are only curious.

Kids are the cutest at that age. Savage and straightforward and you can’t be mad at them for being brutally honest😂

I remember when I traveled to Japan as part of a special credit system for a month and we visited a children’s elementary school and I got up in front of the class and introduced myself in Japanese, and they asked me about my favorite movie (I said it was The Lion King) and the teacher gave me a ball game - the one with the wooden post with multiple sides that are shaped to hold a ball, which is attached by a string, and the goal is to flip the ball up by force and land it on top without it falling off. I flipped it over [it was my first time playing with this toy] and it landed perfectly on top, and the entire class was a singular chorus of “OOOOOOHHHHH”. They asked me if I’d ever done that before and I said no, and they were amazed, lol. Then as I was leaving a group of kids ran out and asked me if I was coming back. They are such adorable beings.)

Priceless! I so enjoy the playfulness you exhibit with children and yes, adults. Thanks for the joy on a very cold Michigan morning. 👍

I worked in Japan for 4-1/2 years - my family accompanied me. It was a fantastic experience. An adjustment at first but we did not want to leave. In the populous areas, it is possible to 'survive' on just a very basic ability to speak the language but making an effort to learn helps you truly experience living in Japan - even without being fluent. My middle son was in preschool and went to a Japanese school - he became fluent amazingly fast (typical for kids). As we travelled the world, westerners were more amazed that he could speak the language.

When I was a kid, seeing and talking to a foreigner in my hometown was a reminder that there's a bigger world out there. It did not seem much, but Im very sure you just made their day 😊

The day of the entrance ceremony at the school I'm working at, a 1st grader came to me and asked "外国人ですか？" (which means "are you a foreigner?"). Didn't expect that one 😂😂 Also, because I'm overweighted, some 1st graders used to run to me to touch my tummy 🤣🤣🤣 But my funniest experience was about 1 year ago, when I was living in Otsu (a small city in Shiga prefectura, near Kyoto). It was raining, so I was using an umbrella. A kid (maybe 8 years old?) passed by while I was waiting to cross the street, and then he looked up and realized I looked different. His face suddenly changed and he opened his eyes wide, and he kept staring directly at me with that shocked expression while he walked away (yeah, he was walking backwards so he could keep looking at me) 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Love your channel, keep up the good work!

You motivate me to keep learning German! Thank you and keep it up! ❤

Kids. Are. SAVAGE. My favorite was a student of mine around 6 years old who pointed to a drawing of a queen with curly hair and her say “ew, she has weird hair like sensei ” 😅😅😅

Honestly, I'm glad that Japanese natives are getting exposed to foreigners at such an early age. There will come a time where seeing someone THAT different from you will not be a big deal and it would be a moment of coexistence that we should strive for.

I want to be a Exchange Student in Japan someday when I am old enough. I’m 13. And I’m still following my dream sense I was about 9. and if I end up moving to Japan, I want to be an English Teacher. I love your vids! You really inspired me to follow my future dreams!

I am loving your videos!

I love how kids often are basically like, you are fat or sometimes might even say you are ugly or something that might seem harsh, but they will still want to get to know you, they will still be your friend. They accept you the way you are unconditionally. They arent subjective yet, they see you as is AND take you as is. (Which ironically is how you develop your subjective views you have later in life)

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="201">3:21</a> OMG! I’m a foreigner living and studying in Japan and i was shocked to see my classmate posing,that was our little trip from 2019 in Asakusa!

I have to show my daughters your channel - my 13 year old really wants to learn Japanese and her nine year old sister wants to do everything she wants to do lol they’ll love you!

Love your attitude. I lived in several Asian countries from 2003-2009; Japan, China, India, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia, all of them vastly different cultures and yet I had a great time in each country, and you are 100% correct, learning a little bit of their language goes a very long way.

I think what the guy at the beginning was trying to say was, "I hate them all equally". Lol To a Japanese, that's probably more polite than just naming one. 🤣

When we visited Vietnam, we stayed mainly in rural areas. Everyday children would come up to us and practice their English. They were so polite and respectful

The aesthetic of Japanese and just Asian culture in general is so pretty, it just looks like such a cozy place, their restaurants, buildings, roads and streets, the way trees are placed between buildings, dunno something about it just really speaks to me, I feel like it’d be a cool place to visit someday.

Your laugh is infectious. Love your videos.

My favorite interaction with a kid in Japan was during a trip with some friends. We were talking to the 10-year-old daughter of the owner of the inn we were staying at. One of my friends, who is Slovenian, was pretending he was Japanese. The girl, of course, wasn't buying it. When he asked her why she thought he wasn't Japanese, she said, "because your nose is too big." That was apparently a bigger clue than his skin, or his hair, or anything else. 😂

Those kids don't seem any different than....well...any kids. They don't see the world through any political or socioeconomically inspired lens, they are just exploratory and honest. God bless them.

外国人が日本のことををよく思ってくれてるのは嬉しいです。また日本に来てください歓迎します

They’re so adorable and your Japanese is amazing

As a fat guy who has lives in Japan for a few years, I absolutely lost it when that kid patted the guy's stomach. I understand that pain. XD Also, yeah. My Japanese is like a preschool level and the kids are still SUPER psyched when I say something in Japanese. Blows their minds.

Enjoy your videos, I can't believe this was at least 2 years ago. You came a long way.

This is accurate to what I experienced as well, but I didn’t speak nearly as much when I went. Their English was impressive, especially at the middle school level. And some of the more academically confident ones are excited to test their language skills as well.

In I believe 1993 when I was about 20 years old I was walking through the parking lot at Tokyo Disneyland. I noticed far off in the distance a few girls coming towards me but they were pretty far away. As the gap closed I could tell they were probably high school age or possibly college age and they seemed oddly focused on me for some reason. As the distance began to close even more between us I kind of naturally and subconsciously shifted my path to avoid a head on collision between us but I noticed as I moved left or right they moved with me. After doing this for several minutes across the very long parking lot they were finally coming very close and I could see by the look on their faces that they were simply amazed to be seeing me up close. Why exactly I had no idea. I mean I was a fairly handsome 20 year old, sure, but it was Tokyo Disneyland not the middle of Saga Prefecture or something like that. Anyway as they apparently had a tractor beam locked on me we finally ended up literally face to face and so feeling a little awkward by the situation I said, "hello" in English and they literally started jumping up and down screaming like I was Tom Cruise or something. It's the only brief moment in my life that I experienced ever so slightly what it might feel like to be famous. lol PS. You ladies were rocking those bikinis. Yes, I'm old now but I'm not dead. :)

My son is a 6'8" American of European descent and when he went to Japan he was like a child magnet in the streets. They crowded around to get their photos taken with him!

1000万再生！！ おめでとう🎉❤

I love these videos ❤‍🔥

This was amazing ! that little kid patting on that big guy's stomach was so funny and cute lol ... glad to see you back Anming. Awaiting more awesome uploads.

Kids really know how to keep you humble with the reality check. I'm very glad to see another upload, I hope all is well. Best of luck with the job hunt as I know times are tricky right now.

Just saw one of your videos, I subbed!

@OrientalPearl Hey. Just wanted to say don't quit. You're videos are excellent, fun and informative. It reminds me of when my brothers and I visited Japan. Anyway, maybe I'll try to learn! Also, subscribification has commenced! (Echoes)

Kids are so pure that they're so brutally honest with everything no matter what nation or ethnicity they are.

We went to Japan 2019 and while we took photos from the Temple in Nara some kids popped up out of nowhere and asked my husband to take photos with them because he looks so cool (he is Vietnamese/Chinese but was born and raised in Germany) 🤣 that was so cute. He also got a little present from them 🤗 wonderful memories

Those children are too adorable for words!

We went to South Korea in July of this year and started our trip on Jeju. There, we didn't get a lot of interaction with adult locals but when exploring Jeju City we bumped into a couple of groups of middle schoolers who were very excited to say "Hello!" and practice some of their English while passing us by. A woman also scolded her son when he said hello to us as they got on the bus. He had his Tai Kwon Do Dobok on and I said "You do Tai Kwon Do? Taebak!" and he got all excited because I knew what he was wearing

“Old people are the easiest to talk to because they are lonely” -funniest words I have heard all day

I remember being in japan and we went to Hiroshima memorial park and there was a group of Japanese elementary kids and they were so excited to see us. They all waved hi and wanted to talk and speak with us, sadly we didn’t get to but it was very cute.

Awwww. Kids are the only ones I'm always happy to randomly interact with. So cute

Being buried in the sand reminds me of a trip to Ibusuki years ago with our daughter. She worked in Tokyo for several years, was fluent in Japanese and we visited her a total of five times. During one trip, we cycled across the islands of the Inland Sea and, during another, we stayed at a campsite part-way through a hike through the mountains somewhere near Nara. I recall bathing in a river with hot water bubbling up from the river bed. At the campsite, we were cooking using the communal facilities and the Japanese just couldn't resist coming up and looking over our shoulders to see what the gaijin were preparing. They were really startled when our daughter spoke to them in fluent Japanese.

I’m watching this at my friends house who learned Japanese years ago… I had no idea he knew Japanese and he was writing stuff down and he just laughed and went ‘yeah America’s pretty messed up’. And I looked up at him and was like ‘wa… how… what?’…. Umm so he’s gonna teach me Japanese now 😬 guess you learn something new everyday…

I’ve been working at a hotel in Okinawa and honestly the best part about this job is that I can meet and talk with the kids. At first they are a little bit reluctant, but after they notice that I can speak Japanese, they would be so excited about it and start talking with me. Whenever they would see me in the lobby, they would greet me and high-five me and it is just so motivating man.

It might be a good idea to ask elderly Japanese people about their hometowns and stories about their past. I'm Japanese and I always do it this way❤

You make wanting to learn this language much more exciting.

My experience when traveling in Japan was that kids they are very inquisitive, funny and I even got a free lunch when a group teenagers in Osaka asked if they could talk / have a conversation with me in English during their lunch break so they could practice.

it's hard to get straight answers from adults because they try their best to answer something which doesn't offend you, while kids just say whatever that pops in their head, because well, they're kids. 😂

I'm 13, and moving to japan(okayama) from Colorado soon... only for a few years, but it's going to be very different. I speak Japanese but am American, so I get it. I'm going to go to middle school there, which is fine, but I've only been to preschool and elementary school in japan, so I'm very nervous. This video helped? a lot. thank u 🙇‍♀️

Its been a while, but I love you and TkyoSam

The two dudes putting sand on her were enduring hard *They have my respect*

Beautiful video! I went to the Philippines for the first time in January 2020, and as always children are the best (anywhere in the world) especially in the province where not alot of foreigners visit. So many smiles and some confusion of a pasty white person was walking their streets. A beautiful people the Filipinos ❤

Lol, I posted in one of your other videos about my experience with kids in Japan XD I should have posted it here since it is WAY more appropriate here! TLDR version is that I spoke to some Japanese elementary kids in THE MOST broken Japanese you can imagine (i'd say less than elementary level). After my friends and I did our activity, those kids SWARMED me with questions like: Where you from? How do you know Japanese? What's your name? Maybe someone asked me the meaning of life, but I may have missed it because SO MANY questions were asked! By the time i finished processing ONE question, 3 more were being asked XD Lucky their teacher knew English and helped me appease the swarm, else i'd probably die XD This happened in Kagoshima some 3 years ago (before the world shut down)

こう、沢山の方々に興味を持っていただけることはとても嬉しいですね😊

Aaah it reminds me when I lived in Japan, I'm a tall Spanish girl and really stood out. I loved how people were always kinda reluctant to help me when I approached then but when I spoke Japanese, they would feel relived and talk to me asking me a lot of questions ahah

I asked a group of children for directions when I was in Suzhou, as soon as they understood where I wanted to go they grabbed my hands and pulled me along. They really seemed to enjoy meeting a westerner.

The way you just put your head on his shoulder and he put his head on your head that was so cute😍😍

I like this one. There’s virtually no videos of this genre with kids in them. It’s something new I can appreciate.

"your tummy is different then mine" so young yet so savage.

I went to Japan and managed to learn just enough to make sure I could be polite and respectful (I'm bad at languages so I did my best). And they praised me SO MUCH and I definitely didn't deserve it 😭

i used to voulnteer to teach english at school in rural japan as a side job when i lived there, the best time i had was all the teachers had to introduce themselves, but every one did what country they were from, but i did new york because thats where im from, and some kid in the back of the room, had to 6 or 7 years old shouted "ICHIRO". i was happy to have made that bond with him

I love the pure curiosity in children. I always get a laugh at some of the questions they come up with...lol

Love the intro. I can see how this took a long time to edit -- the quality is so good. We missed you!

When I lived in Nagoya, I actually loved the kids. They aren't shocked you speak Japanese, they take it as a given. The lack of a filter means they'll tell you anything (I had one kid tell me how much he loved the movie The Ring, even though the teacher didn't want him to say that). I love Japanese, the culture and the people, but sometimes getting into the "in group" is difficult to westerners...especially in a place like Nagoya, where westerners aren't as common. Kids, though, they just said anything and asked you anything. I even had a kid get surprised by me when he ran around the corner at the grocery and screamed for a second and then asked "what are you buying?". So yeah, I really enjoyed when I got to teach classes (as a part time job, I went to school, as well).

So so happy I found you from my hubby. I've been LOVING all your videos! So interesting

Agreed. I had a lot of great interactions when I visited.