The Biggest LIE about Japan 

NOTIFICATION SQUAD: Which of these FOUR do you think is the biggest lie about Japan?! And WHAT did I miss? Let me know below. Now if you don't mind me, I must get back to my flying car. Also, the video starts at 27:29.

Unequivocally the flying car set was worth building, Chris, that looked incredible.

That flying car effect was so cool! The fact that Chris was able to figure out to make that practical effect look so amazing just shows how great of a film maker he is.

I am Japanese. For those who want to come to Japan and make friends with Japanese people, or those who are lamenting that they can't make Japanese friends after living in Japan. In Japan, business connections rarely develop into friendships. Even among Japanese people, it is difficult to make friends once they become working adults. However, there is an easy way for those who want to get friends. It is to belong to a circle of hobbies. Surfing, motorcycle touring, diving, billiards, shogi, chess, fishing, cooking, tea ceremony, kimono, anything is ok. If you want to understand the essence of Japan, I think the fastest way is to make friends with Japanese people.

As a tourist the politeness is fantastic to experience. During one of our visits, my wife and I were wandering around a cold and wintery night in Hakone, trying to find a restaurant to eat. We had no idea where we were going. It was dark. Then suddenly a van pulled up beside us as we stood looking lost. The door opened and a kind mature man asked us if we were looking for food. to which we said yes!. He gestured us to get in the van and told us he would take us to a place to get food. We were desperately hungry and hesitantly got in the van. He took us to this very homely little restaurant and we had an incredible meal.

I once asked a train conductor whether I was about to board the right train, 5 minutes before the train was about to leave. It was not the right train, so to my horror the conductor got off the train, grabbed my hand and RAN a few platforms over to get me on the right train. I could have easily waited for the next train but no, I had now single handedly delayed a train in Japan. I truly hope the guy got to keep his job😅

I'm glad Natsuki is classified as "Not playing by the book". He is an absolute legend.

I got off a JR train at Shin-Yokohama. The train in the opposite direction was on fire with smoke and flames coming from underneath. All the doors were open, but no-one was getting off. Curious I stuck around. The fire service arrived and tackled the fire, all with the train completely full of people playing with their phones. No drama, completely cool with standing in a burning train. A few minutes later, the fire was out and the train carried on to the next station. Now that's some industrial grade stoicism.

"Politeness and friendliness are two differents things", "High uncertainty avoidance" You resume very well what my experience in Japan is, Chris. I spend the last 10 winters (5 months each time) in Hokkaido as a ski and snowboard guide/teacher. If I compare to the others 6 countries I've lived and worked in I must say my Japanese friends are nice and funny until I need them to help me with something a bit demanding or challenging. Then they are like: " I could but....." and you realize that you more one your own that you woud think

Now I understand why it took quite a while to see new content, not just your UK trip, but damn, that new episode looks good. But please Chris. Never forget that most watching you are fully happy with usual regular production too. I’ve seen many RU-vidrs just stopping entirely after they worked too damn hard. Don’t fall out of love with it! 🙂☺️

I asked an old man in Tokyo if he could help me find my way back to Yokosuka (very common question on the east coast where the Navy base is). I figured he'd point me on my way, but instead he got on the train with me and traveled the hour ride to make sure I got back safe. I'll never be able to thank him enough! It was definitely a shock finding out how ridiculously polite people could be. (Not to say I didn't also experience, anti gaijin sentiment/ general rudeness.)

I was in Japan back in 1999. It was cool to see tiny cell phones, mini CD's, and Dance Dance Revolution. Now it's like, what happened?

I think westerners think Japanese are very robotic and cold, which is a huge misconception from what I noticed. While work hours are very focused on order and efficiency in the streets, most shops close early and the locals let loose and enjoy themselves. I especially noticed this in Kyoto

The first time I got paid in Japan freaked me out-- I got a giant envelope full of cash, as though I'd just assissinated someone instead of... repeating English phrases to junior high students.

My Dad, actually DID lose a lot of weight over there. He just didn’t want to eat any of the food because most of it was too exotic for him. The family he stayed with, praised him for “eating like a Japanese”, as in not eating all that much.

Chris, I have an impression that this difficulty of making friends in Japan is also closely related to their club/circle culture. Most of my wife's friends are just people she met in her musical circle during her college years.

Yeah I experienced the politeness vs. friendliness thing myself. In larger cities everyone was very nice to me, at least on surface level. (Maybe aside for a few "Oh sorry I don't speak English" responses, when I tried to speak, admittedly broken, but still Japanese) But in a smaller town I went to for sight seeing purposes, when I tried to enter a restaurant I was politely stopped and a sign saying something "come back in 30 minutes" has been put right in front of me. I thought it was kinda strange, and I peeked inside and it didn't seem like they were full or anything. But I also wasn't in a rush so I just took the 30 minutes to shop and stroll around and came back to this same restaurant. Sign was gone, I saw other people come in, but the moment I tried to enter they, again, apologized and put the sign up. That was the "Oh" moment when I realized the sign was specifically for me, because I was a gaijin. It stung a little because I was really trying my best to follow all the customs I knew, be polite and speak Japanese to the best of my ability. Anyway, I just went to another restaurant in the same town and they were super nice to me, and they complimented my shitty Japanese a lot haha.

When Chris brought out the sushi board, I thought it was fake food like his other fake food items in the studio, so when he popped the nori roll in his mouth...I almost had a heart attack.

As a Brit the trains do make me incredibly jealous of Japan, here you're lucky if it arrives at all nevermind on time

I remember being stunned by seeing all the old technology still used in Japan the first time i visited in 2015. Was indeed expecting super hi tech all round. Yet it’s a wonderful country!

I'm reminded of the time we asked a shop lady in Nakagawa up in Hokkaido for directions to a camp site we were looking for. She was so aghast at the idea that we would walk so far, and made her son drive us there in their pickup truck (it was almost a 15 minute drive). But you're right about the difference between being nice and being polite/hospitable, and I only had maybe 2 Japanese people I really felt I was close to, at all, when living there.

Glad to have Chris back. You can really tell how refresh he is since his trip to UK.

I've lived in Japan for almost three years, and can confirm the issue with obtaining real Japanese friends. I have two, and I think the only reason we are friends, is because both of them studied overseas and embraced Western relationship culture. They both get really excited when they tell you their actual opinion, and not hold anything back.

There are some similarities between Japan and Sweden, like the shyness, keeping to yourself, avoiding conflict and the overall conformism. Countries with a history of ethnic and cultural homogenity might display this. I can easily see how difficult it is as an outsider to get close to the locals because of cultural barriers.

Chris’s videos really have become so fantastic in terms of quality. Have been for a while. Nice job, as always.

In my opinion, Natsuki is the biggest gift Japan has ever given to Chris. He's like that eccentric character in every anime show that's used for comedic relief, and in Chris' vlogs, he makes every episode a hell of a lot better. If every foreigner had a Japanese friend like that, nobody would ever feel lonely in Japan.

Regarding the "finding friends in Japan" I've always wondered if Chris just attracts weird people but with this explanation it might be that the only ones willing to open up to a foreigner in japan is someone offbeat and unusual.

I come back to this, channel every few weeks, and each time, you continue to impress with your set designs, storytelling skills, and generally entertaining demeanor

Honestly, the way you've been utilizing your set is amazing. You've come up with such unique ways to use the space. I feel like it's a different place in each video. Well done.

Chris can you believe how far you’ve come? I remember watching you all the way back when you made that McDonalds fries video (Something about chocolate on fries) and now you’re in a flying car with a robot! How time flies. (But seriously, you really deserve all your success Chris, your videos never cease to keep on improving. Thanks for all the great videos over the years. I wish you even more success!)

These are all such good points to bring up, I always find myself thinking this all the time especially the food and the technology points. People sometimes really have no idea. What I'm almost more interested in though is that flying car set. I actually couldn't believe that was practical and not CGI. It honestly looked like a professionally rendered scene put onto a greenscreen. It's almost confusing how good it was.

I love that you clearly haven't lost your British sense of humour

I had been working at a shipyard in Kyushu for over two months. The guys I had worked with invited me to a dinner and I paid for the dinner as a thank you for a kind and productive cooperation. One of them brought a square watermelon, and the guys all thought it as much of a novelty as I did. It was a fun night out, and well no one will ever say no to watermelon to square off a meal.. It was fun to see that no one there had really bought one of those before, and all thought it more of a novelty thing than anything else.

Another misconception I had before going to Japan is how busy the big cities actually are: in Western media they keep showing over and over the same clips of Shibuya, Akibahara, Shinjuku or a few other hotspots like that overflowing with people, but in reality I realized after having walked around a lot, the vast majority of Tokyo and Osaka are actually very quiet.

"it's essential to differentiate between politeness and friendliness". I wish more people would understand the difference.

I lived in Japan for 18 months in '95-96 and what struck me was it was both really advanced, and not at all at the same time. For example, many people in rural Japan didn't have flush toilets, but the toilets in urban homes were heated and cleaned themselves and played music. I did make some good Japanese friends, but all of them had lived abroad, and while I was really interested in learning about Japan, they were often unable to answer my questions because they were really into other cultures.

I was always curious about japan and its culture, and being on the other side of the world (Brazil) makes it difficult to travel and visit. Your videos are what quench my curiosity, thanks for your hard and great work.

When we were hiking in kyoto area there was a small section of the hike that went past a small group of houses. One local scowled at us and in japanese grumbled about foreigners in their area in japanes, but then on our way back a different small group of women in the neighborhood waved to us and said hello as we passed. I think all countries have both stark groups. We also had a business man in a reserved seat train get up and move and scowl at us. Then explained to the conductor that he changed seats because he didn't want to be next to us. On that same train ride an older women chatted with us in japanese about her grandson that was our age. You get both very polite and grumpy people.

Chris really outdid himself with the production value huh? What some imagination, projectors and editing can do, magical!

MY NEW FAVORITE CHANNEL! Pardon the all caps but I can't help it! This dude makes me laugh every time. And his videos are so informative. I just got back from a three week trip to Japan and have been enjoying these videos ever since.

You can't help but love how totally honest you were about the food your own place serves. Bravo. And it looked properly delicious btw too 💪🏼👌🏼

Talking about “old” technology; Japan is one of the few countries where CD and DVD sales are still higher than streaming revenues. All to protect the income of their artists. That is actually not a bad thing. Streaming killed the income for many artists elsewhere, who are now dependent on touring and merchandise.

I met a guy in the JET program when I was visiting a few years back and he said "Japan is the land of contridictions", as we walked in to a 1300 year old Shrine, with a giant electronic billboard out the front. It's probably the best description of Japan I've ever heard, and only gets more true they more I learn about Japan. Here's my list of contridictions: - Heaps of shines and temples, most people practicing traditions - majority identify irreligous (or "mushūkyō"). - Fancy heated robot toilets - but also traditional squat toilets, and no way to dry your hands in most bathrooms. - Super beautiful villages, lots of nature everywhere - Huge mega metropolises - Lots of vegetarian food - but basically nothing vegan. - Gambling is illegal - Pachinko and Gacha is everywhere. - Famous electronics brands - heaps old phones and consoles, and terrible websites. - High international demand for Japanese products - Businesses prefer to operate domestically. - Innovative assembly line practices - incredibly bureaucratic paper filled offices. - Culture of working hard encourages excessive working hours - leading to low productivity. - Problems dealing with waste due to limited space - Everything has excessive amounts of packaging. - Super polite and helpful - Judgemental of differences. Difficult to find a job or house without being Japanese. - Children independant from a very young age - pressured to study constantly, and participate in after school activities. - Convenient vending machines, konbini, restaurants, public transport - Inconvenient anything government related, lots of paperwork, personal seals.

Your content is really awesome and fun to watch! I've been thinking a lot about visiting Japan. I can't wait to go one day.

Good video! High quality! Thank you for making these! Happy New Years 🎉

Sometimes when I watch Abroad in Japan I forget that I’m watching RU-vid and think I’m watching the travel channel or something just because it’s so good. Editing, sound, picture quality, and the content itself is great.

Taking production quality to another level, yet again

Just read your book and found your channel this way, loved your writing and greatly enjoy your observations about Japan. It's clear you put a lot of work into your videos and it shows!

Always wanted to visit japan ever since i was a child, now im older i have a massive issue with agoraphobia. Watching your videos gives me some awesome insights into what its really like there. Thank you

I'm from Finland, the promised land of black sense of humour and (sometimes brutally) honest culture, yet somehow I've made some really good Japanese friends. I must say it was difficult at times. I felt very frustrated because I couldn't understand their little nuances or honne/tatemae culture, and they probably thought I was a barbaric caveman for not following the "etiquette". Now that we've been buddies for a while I'm shocked how roasty little villains they can be lol

The last point is so true! Politeness/hospitality is NOT the same as friendliness! People can be superficially nice to you and smile but if you try to know them on a personal level, you quickly realize they don't really care. Korean society has the same thing. Yes, Korean people are very polite and hospitable, but they don't care about having any meaningful relationships outside of their close-knit group.

Awesome videos planning a trip, love your content keep it up!

i’ve been here for 15 years. you nailed it. especially the whole “Japan is so futuristic!”yes, there is plenty of cool and “futuristic “ stuff here but also a lot, unfortunately mostly in business , that is so old and out of date it takes forever to do anything.

Chris, I think this may be your magnum opus. The storytelling, the editing, the jokes... Very well made!

And no Chris, you are not the only one who struggled to create relationships (I have been here 10 years and my Japanese friends can be counted on one hand). And is it me, or do they (especially elderlies) also have this cultural habit of laughing whenever they are unsure what to say or feel out of place? Example: Last week my cat died and when the temple dude came to pick up the body, the old lady living nearby came to say hi to him (she is the one that introduced me to this temple and knows the dude). She smiled and almost laughed all the time while the dude and I were very seriously filling in the papers and putting the body in the car... it was so so awkward...

This is 100x better than travel channels and Netflix together. Thank you Chris!

The observations about politeness and friendliness was spot-on. I've been in Japan for about 4 years and haven't made a single real Japanese friend. It can be very frustrating.

Politeness vs friendly, such a good observation. I've noticed the social hierarchy seems so ingrained in the culture that many "other-world" anime tend to keep it or make it even stronger. It's another world and still the authors can't imagine a society without the politeness and hierarchy.

JUST SUBSCRIBED ON THIS VIDEO ALONE. Your description of Tempura made me giggle and was spot on! Also, you "eating for illustration purposes" equally cracked me up. Very informative and funny. 5 stars! Can't wait to check out your other vids.

I know this sounds crazy but an unfortunate amount of financial businesses in Canada, USA, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK still use fax. Often for incredibly important things like the transfer of shares and account balances.

I read a story of someone who wrote a 30 line python code that automated employee check-ins, which they used to do manually. Naturally everyone loved it, except for the higher ups who approached the employee and criticized his attitude about 'not respecting the rules and attitudes that the elders set,' 'trying to stand out beyond his position' and 'placing too much trust on machines' and fired him, and reverted back to the old manual system where they had someone whose job during that time was literally to check people in. What a nightmare.

I think this is the best "Lies about Japan" video I've ever seen. And, these food chains really need to hire you to write their ads Chris. I was really hankering for some Japanese food after hearing about all the "healthy" Japanese food.

Because the meals are heavy in carbs, they don't get hungry in between meals? That's not how it works mate..

I am always impressed with the production value of the videos when still being simple. You have great editing skills and eye for visual language!

I’d be interested in a documentary about life in Japan, how people of different ages deal with life’s challenges. Most of the videos I’ve seen on RU-vid are about anime/manga, cuisine and travel.

I just love so much the quality of this channel. I can't think of many other channels that continue to surprise me with crazy skits and quality. You can tell how Chris and his crew love doing their job and don't slack off. I genuinely think it was Chris's calling to become a youtuber/filmmaker and I wish him plenty of success. Channels like these make me love the platform despite it's flaws. I may sound like an old person here but I just can't help being sentimental with AiJ lol

Hi Chris, I’ve been following your channel for years, this is a particularly good one! Really well summarized! I liked all 4🎃

The polite vs friendly concept was such a great illustration! I never thought about it that way. Amazing insight

The truth is, Natsuki is a needle in a goddamn haystack without a doubt. It's exciting to see someone who's personality transcends his culture's introverted nature. Sometimes I feel like hanging with Natsuki would be a lot like watching an episode of FLCL 😆

This production quality is actually insane. You have come so far my man. Always enjoy your content.

Been away from your videos for too long. Always so well made and interesting 😄🌟

As a Canadian, I take umbrage with your "slow news day" quip. In fact - a new stoplight was just installed and it's running on the national news as we speak. We also got a bowling alley last month. 😉

Considering the history of Japan overall, this really doesn't strike me as a weird list, especially when you look at the histories of all other cultures. Japan is one of the few, if not the only, cultures that has literally cut itself off from the outside at one point in time and they really cling to that. I find it fascinating how that manifests, even if sometimes it does so in bad ways.

chris i like how you pointed out the flaws of the "futuristic" set and immediately went back to being really immersive

Man RU-vid videos are getting REALLY advanced with editing. I love it

The crazy thing about fax machines is that it actually helped me and my dad out one time. Insurance company tried emailing info on our work insurance so we could do contruction in the hotel and it would never send and we asked if they had a fax machine and they did. Told them to fax it and it took less than a minute. So sometimes old ways still work lol

I'm actually surprised there's not a similar Paris Syndrome for Westerners after going to Japan. I found the interesting mix of old and new all around was cool, so I wasn't super shocked. It was fascinating. But I feel like a lot of anime fans are expecting just a densely packed place of oddities. I ended up liking it a lot more because it was more than the oddities everyone showed me. I learned a lot more from visiting than I did from videos.

In fact, some Japanese do not consider ramen as Japanese original food...they say it's from China like Chuka Ryori.

This is a really cool, well researched and creative video! Very impressive 😮

Having lived in Japan for 22 years and now living in my western home country; I miss the food and I miss the onsen (hot spring) culture, And one thing Japan still does better than any country is service. You can see the service mentality in everything they do.

This is what I've been trying to tell my friends. I worked with Japanese companies selling them spare parts. Took them 3 days to re-issue their PO due to price change. Reason? Because their company must approve each purchase with physical signature (from dept head downwards). And this is just one example from one company.

Excellent video, Gezza. I live in Thailand (for 8 years) and some of what you mentioned about "polite chatter" is true here too. Sometimes Thai people are too polite and don't express their true feelings perhaps because of culture or shyness similar to your Japanese experiences. This is problematic in all relationships at work, socially and in personal relations. But we continue to crack the code! Best wishes from Bangkok.

This was so cool! You're so much more than a click-baity channel with a few fun facts about Japan. I enjoyed watching this, and I hope you're doing well.

I gotta add to the misconception of japanese friendliness: bullying and humiliation are an uncomfortably common occurence in many places. You ever do something wrong, and you can bet your ass your neighbors and coworkers will never, ever let you live it down. And by wrong, I mean something THEY take offense to, not something that is inhenretly the wrong thing to do. Also, japanese politeness is deeply rooted in the hierachry of respect, which grants anyone who's been around for longer a certain superior "Senior" role. And if you talk back to or disagree with these seniors, you're pretty much on their shit list forever. Even in entertainment (particularly "slice of life" animé/manga), there are many of these "gags" where the new guy in the office is pestered by his seniors to get them stuff, and to take over parts of their workload. And while it certainly doesn't get that playful and cheery in office jobs, the pressuring and exploitation of new employees is far more real than people might think. Additionally, working extra hours, while not explicitly required, is expected of you as a show of loyalty to the company. Now, this isn't the case everywhere, obviously, but it's still very much a problem Japan as a whole refuses to acknowledge, just like many mental issues running rampant (depression, burnout, social anxieties, hikkikomori, excessive escapism/otaku culture, gambling addiction).

The friendliness point I've heard about Swedish people too that people are quick to help people in need but extremely difficult to make friends with and if Japanese people has the same reason as Swedish people do then maybe this might help shed light to why that is. Swedes tend to take friendships with extreme loyalty and the friends we do have we usually met in school and as we become adults it's difficult enough to have the time to maintain the existing friendships that we aren't quick to make new ones if we can't see ourselves getting along for the next 30+ years since friendships end up being kinda like mini marriages. For that reason you better click on a meaningful level through some kind of common interest or something, like gamers are probably the fastest "make new friends" examples I can think of but the common interest can be anything. You can't just small talk your way into the friend circle, unless you are language exchange partners with equal interest in language learning or something. Oh, and be thoughtful af.

after watching this video I think it'd be really interesting to see you go around exploring the healthiest staple foods/cuisines of Japan. sort of the antithesis of the first lie in this video

Preparing to move to Japan for a few years for work, just finding your channel, very helpful!

I've recently moved back to Japan and I've had the experience of having someone draw me a map for directions, and boy it was an awkward one. One time, out of the blue, I got pinkeye and after going to the eye clinic I went to find a pharmacy to get my prescribed medicine. I tried one store that I thought could provide me my medicine, but it turned out I was wrong (ironically, it was a store called "American Drug"). The staff member I talked to called for another staff member. With a panicking voice that sounded like she was about to cry (because she probably have never dealt with a foreigner before), this other staff member drew me a map and even took me outside to point me in the right direction. The whole exchange was awkward. The language barrier really made communication tough (my Japanese still isn't the best). I tired asking yes or no questions and she couldn't even answer those properly. In the end, I tried to say sorry for being a bother and went my way. I tried another store where I eventually got my medicine. Japanese people are generally nice. At first, it can be awkward, but being nice yourself and speaking Japanese will make things a lot better.

I find it interesting that the futuristic image of Japan exists, almost as a leftover from the economic boom of the 70s and 80s.

Brilliant editing… great channel!

Just found your channel. LOVE the humor, sarcasm you are crazy funny. But you also do understand the culture quite well, which for me, being married to a Japanese national, makes it all the more funny. (Most experts on here don't know what the hell they are talking about.)

Can we all appreciate that "ramen shop next door" editing?? That was clean, looked great!

20:12 The cash thing is so true... I was pretty shocked to learn that many hotels outside of Tokyo don't even accept Visa/Mastercard. Adding to the experience, I had just gone to Japan from China where even the food hawkers on the street use QR codes and look at you weird if you offer cash.

Absolutely correct. I especially love the "food is so healthy" thing. Especially when I'd read about it while eating a box of kombini karaage.

The part about phones is part of a larger aversion to software development as opposed to hardware development in Japan.

So, I've been to Japan a LOT and the way I always explain it to people is. "It's like the most advanced country in the world, from the 1980s." Everything is still that NES plastic grey that browns over time and push button instead of LCD etc.

The weirdest moment in Japan for me was when I gave a 2000 yen note to a 7/11 store clerk and he started to shake like it was a demon I have given him. He then went to his colleagues and started wondering is this real, what is this and then the senior team told him, yes it is. Then I was told in Osaka the note is extremely rare and I had like 10 notes on me. No wonder I had people look at me in amazement every time I gave them this note from Okinawa.

In Turkey, only time you'd need a fax machine is when you want to cancel your contract with ISPs. They require clients to send a written request over fax to deter them from cancelling their service.

Good content as always, Chris. Keep it up.

As a German, I find it interesting that there are quite a few similarities between both nations. While no one in their right minds would call German food healthy, we too are usually seen as a technological sophisticated country…when in reality, people overwhelmingly still pay cash and fax machines still rule the office.