How to have better communication with Japanese people? 

I am enjoying learning about Japanese culture from your videos. Very intelligent culture❤

Yes. We have this. However, once again, it depends on which people. Also, because the U.S. includes so many immigrants/descendants, the cultures are all different. One family may continually try to get food into you to show consideration. One family may feel it's rude to offer food, as there can be a stigma attached to "taking charity." Historically, there are too many factors to discuss here. I can share that more recent events shaped some people. My grandparents were all Depression Era kids. Some had it better than others. They either needed food, or saw others who did. After being flung across the planet, and forced to fight wars, my grandfathers came home. All of the families were different. Some grandparents, and my parents, would give children smaller, appropriate food portions. One set of grandparents put too much food on the plates. (This is funny to me now, because my grandmother was the first to tell everyone she was an awful cook.) I don't know if you have these old sayings/philosophies in Japan. One is to "Clean your plate" (this means you're ordered to eat everything, and is one of many reasons I believe we have so many eating disorders in my country). Another is, "Children should be seen and not heard" (AKA: "Children should speak only when spoken to"). It was too much food for me, but I wanted to be a good girl. My grandma was always reminding us to be grateful because, "There are children starving in China" (I don't know why she fixated on China, as people were starving in our country and all over the planet). We were also involved with many charitable activities with those grandparents. I became continually so worried about these poor children, so far away, who had no food. I could not , of course, say anything about it. One day, I became so happy. I believed I'd solved a problem and could help the children. That night, my grandma made the China statement. I summoned all my courage and said, "Grandma, I have more than enough food. Can we please send this food to the China?" My family erupted in laughter. My grandma shushed me. I was so confused. I didn't understand until years later. There's so much more, but to condense: Some people see waste. Some people see abundance. Some people see prudence. Some people see frugality. It's a bit like the way one must never assume anything by a person's appearance, because you never know who actually possesses great wealth.

love your channel Santi san keep up the good work!

I have always found the study of communication to be interesting. Especially, the study of high and low context culture. While the definitions of high, including low context culture are accurate. Both high, including low context culture dynamic has more meaning to it than meets the eye. In western culture, if a sender sends a message and a receiver reads too much into the message. Including overreacts to inaccurate assumptions of the meaning of the message, then the receiver often has problems, within the work environment. Due to their misinterpretation of the sender's messages, including their overreactions. Receivers in the western world who are prone to doing so, often create conflict within their work environment and social circles. For example: Jim the boss goes to Lucy because, he has a task that she needs to complete a specific way. He sends Lucy a verbal message, Jim's message to Lucy sounds like this:" Lucy, finish the six remaining files today! Including making sure that the Donelly account is accurately completed and ready for presentation next week!" Lucy goes down ten different rabbit holes trying to interpret the verbal message that her boss sends her. Because Lucy misinterprets this message, she feels that her boss Jim doesn't value her work. Including that she feels her boss is micromanaging her work and is unhappy with her performance on the job. Due to her misperception of her bosses' message, Lucy begins to become resentful and neglects her work. Her boss only receives three completed files, and the presentation report is very inaccurately done. Unbenounced to Lucy her boss planned on giving her a promotion, after the presentation. Due to a misinterpretation of the message her boss sent her, Lucy spends most of her time focusing on the misinterpreted message and allowing it to fester in her mind. Lucy loses not only her promotion, but her raise and her job. But had Lucy clarified the message sent by her boss, she would have found out that all he wanted was to make sure that the six files where on his desk. Including that the presentation was accurately completed and ready for the meeting. Within the majority of the western world, receivers tend to clarify messages sent by sender. In order to avoid internal, including external conflict in workplace environments, social circles and peer to peer relationships. Receivers within the western world who tend to clarify the underlying context of the meaning, from the senders. Often are seen in western culture as focused, driven, intelligent and successful in the world. Due to having a better understanding; of the hidden context of the sender's message. Better understanding which allows the receiver to better problem solve, including better understanding the needs of the company. Not to mention employing better conflict resolution skills and better diplomacy. Including exceling in the workplace, in peer-to-peer interactions and in intrapersonal relationships. Since there is no imperial validation proving that high context culture is any more successful than low context culture in intrapersonal communications in work environments and peer to peer relationships. Including intrapersonal relationships, it can be surmised that both high, including low context cultures have the same advantages and disadvantages in intrapersonal communications overall.

Great video, in the Middle East there are some countries that order a lot to be "generous" to you and it's okay to leave food in the restaurant, but some including my country care about "mottainai" so whenever go to a restaurant if we can't continue eating just ask to make it take away, also it's same as Japan for electricity and papers..etc

Thank you for your videos. This is a beautiful concept, I think! Maybe other countries must to learn.

Thank you Santi!!! I didn’t know that about samurai spirit. You’re very accurate in that this becomes an issue when it comes to food and throwing things away. I believe in minimalism but motaiinai sometimes gets in the way when I want to throw something away. Especially food, if it’s been in the fridge too long and then I want to throw it away my husband doesn’t like it I’ll try to try harder to show I understand 😊( but these habits are hard to kill) thanks again!!!

Oh ya!!! My family does this alot too with food especially!

Very interesting! I’ll definitely make sure to only order what I can eat during my travels-and make sure it’s something that I like beforehand. The last thing I want to do is give the impression that the food was bad, along with being wasteful.

I think that japanese people are shy and it is very cute🤗🤗🤗

Santi, i'm a Chinese Canadian guy. good vids mate. Can you do more topics on Chinese? Thanks

Using only one side of a post it note is mottainai 😂😂😂

Hello, Santi!! This is kinda off-topic. I need some advice and I hope you could help me. So I have a language buddy and our connection has been great recently and we usually have videocall at least twice a week; however, it stopped after his surgery last month and we just talked again yesterday. He said that his mother just passed away last two weeks ago and he has been very occupied. It's seriously disheartening knowing that he just lost his very bestfriend a couple of months ago and now his mother. I could see in his face how tough and overwhelming it is for him but he kind of drifted off the topic. Is there any way I could do to ease the pain or somehow to comfort him as a friend? It's quite hard though knowing that I am miles away from him. What do you think I should do, Santi? I wanna make him happy even in the simplest way possible but it's hard to know how. I know that happiness is subjective and that it happens differently to everyone of us, not to mention the cultural diversity but if there is something you could share please please let me know, Santi! Thank you so so much! P.S. if ever you choose my comment, I'd appreciate it if you don't mention my name. Thanks a again, Santi! More power to your channel!

Hey Santi, In which situation's can you use とんでも無い ? Is it when somebody did something wrong or ask's for a favor? Maybe nice idea for a new video. Cheers!

Hi Santi-san. I'm curious about how mottainai was perceived in the period of high economic growth from 1955 to 1973. More goods were made and sold in this time, but eventually mass consumption declined. If people bought new shoes every 3 months (wasteful), then more shoes would be manufactured and sold. Not buying things you don't need is good, common sense but leads to a decline in GDP (sales of shoes drop). As I'm sure you've experienced, in America we are very wasteful and consume goods like crazy. Companies make products with planned obsolescence in mind to keep you buying the latest new gadget. I wonder if it was American influence (buy, buy, buy) that lead to this high economic growth in Japan but eventually people decided it was too wasteful?

Our version here in the Philippines is the word "Sayang" 😅

あなたのchanelがすごいね！

Are take-home boxes not a thing in Japanese restaurants? It seems more practical to save the food as a meal for another day rather than force yourself to eat it at that moment.

Can you imagine a japanese with strong mottainai mentality watching a single episode of Hell's Kitchen and seeing the chef throwing pans of pasta not welll done on the trash bin? We also have the same concept of mottainai and we call it "sayang" (now you know one more word aside from kababayan😊), especially about food too. Well maybe yeah not as extreme as mottainai. If you do not finish your food you'll hear your mom tell you " there are a lot of kids hungry kids out there, and here you are wasting your food." Well, now a lot of modern parents hate to say that because they think its not the kids fault that other kids are starving somewhere out there and that is unfair to guilt trip their kids like that. But come to think of it, each one of us counts as statistics of demand and consumption. So the farmers are driven to produce more, sell at a lower price ( to the point that the farmers' families themselves cannot afford the very same food they are producing) just to cater to the demand. Then us, consumers, are not even able to consume the products entirely and tons and tons of food are wasted daily. So if we look at the bigger picture, we sort of "take away" from someone something that we do not 100% consume. So mottainai is indeed a good thought when it comes to food. 😊

Is it ok to do take out for left overs? 😅or really must finish everything?i can’t eat a whole bowl of ramen because it is too big for me. True. Maybe others might think a person is cheap from being too mottainia😅It’s good to be wise spender and caring about not wasting anything.

I'm also a bit like minimalist person. Don't want to waste anything.

I need to de-mottainai a bit...

Now I understand why the Japanese ordered so little , I thought he was being cheap, now I understand better. No waste ! I’m a Chinese girl in New York City , wishing to date Japanese guys . Still learning Japanese. Can shanti introduce the differences of Japanese guys working in America from the ones in Japan ? How are they different or they are the same ? I find they are quite exclusive sometimes . Like speaking Japanese is big plus otherwise it’s hard to communicate within them.