Why does everyone like Japanese culture so much? 

I agree: my relationships with parents greatly improved since I moved out of their house.

I have more or less a similar view on culture. For example, I'm Asian but prefer Western culture largely because I grew up in Canada. With that being said, there are parts of Western culture I hate, parts of Asian culture I love and vice versa. To me, views on culture are subjective to put it simply.

@@1234canadianguy In The Mikado, a character is chastised for preferring every time but the present and every culture but his own.

This also makes me realize that it should not be seen as racist to dislike some aspects of other cultures. It obviously has nothing to do with race, yet in modern Western society, it would largely be viewed as racist or "xenophobic" to explicitly say you dislike another culture. There's a difference between disliking a culture and disliking a people

Agree. I'm mexican and I love a lot of stuff from my country (and latinoamerica ingeneral) but some things here are just simply awful. For example every single latin music gener is dancable, with ferw few to almost none chill & listenable generes in the region. Just frivolous fiesta.

whoa what do you mean literally get sick? like, get nauseous? LOL

@@maggyfrog yeah for most of them Paris is like the center of the outside word, peak of Western civilization and then they come here and see all this trash on the street, pissed walls, homeless people and etc and their image is crushing and they start to feel really uncomfortable

@@siratshi455 i suppose so. i mean, even the studio ghibli founders (particularly miyazaki) created this fantastical europe mixed with japanese culture that's the setting of some of his movies, like porco rosso and howl's moving castle. so i guess the average japanese would probably have this unrealistic idea of paris/europe.

Paris is overrated.

@@maggyfrog Fun fact, the same thing happens to Americans in Isreal, and sometimes they'll begin to have delusions that they are famous biblical characters as well. It's called Jerusalem syndrome. But unlike the Japanese shock that Paris is dirty, Americans are shocked at the lack of religiousness in Isrealis as Isreal has a similar rate of atheism to western Europe.

and watching Japanese stuff on youtube/anime is waaaayyyy different from real life.

@@SDZ675 Facts

Living here is WAAAAAAAAAY better than just visiting.

@@meatrace wait really?

@@bananajotaro9283 Living here is fucking dope.

i don't think i ever heard a better example of why i hate politeness. it's ridiculous it can even get to this... if yu got an issue, just say it, nobody will die for it(probably) and it'll only save the day of everyone in the end... as long as both parties understand each other, of course.

The hosts couldn't have expected the guests to know that and if they did then they're self centered morons. To be fair the guests should have just started leaving so they were stupid in that respect too.

@@iota-09 things like politeness, taboo, political correctness... they're all just substitutes for morality and communication.

@@KairuHakubi depends on who you ask

​@@sunnydsyoutube "the thing you said is only the thing you said when you're saying it" Jeepers never thought of it that way

the second you are not scheduled to be there you should leave.

@@kirbfruit You are the downfall of Western society. There's a difference between pretending to be busy for appearances, and doing your job well... which includes staying late if your task is not done. But since you've probably never done anything besides fast food or retail (i.e., you are basically replaceable by anyone of legal age), you wouldn't understand the distinction.

As a person on the autism spectrum, everything you just said describes everything I passionately DESPISE about human culture in general

Fucking wise person ^

Who sleeps with their crush?

It is similar too to western culture..

Even if you’re the realist in that situation, if you fall in love and marry the one who’s been romanticizing you they can end up causing you problems when their standards they’ve set aren’t met, and they abandon you. I can’t help but think your metaphor has room for an analogy to that to be worked in as well; a culture becoming a victim of its’ own material beauty.

i actually went to japan and they quite delivered what i expected. i suppose i wasn't that crushing that i had unrealistic expectation of them. though it's possibly because i came eyes wide open, knowing how deference Japanese are to order and collectivism.

Old comment but I wanna chime in. To be honest that's also partly that Asian countries in general, not just Japanese, tend to be very prideful. A lot of those Japanese people in private will complain about aspects of Japanese culture to close friends, especially the salary man culture, that they deem toxic, but they will not admit these things to foreigners.

@@yuushwo That's so true across Asia.

@@kabir3510 Yeah Americans take their willingness to criticize their own country for granted. Even in parts of the US you will find a similar attitude as what I described ("Amurrica is the best and if you don't like America you can get out!")

@@yuushwo hmm. Might just be people being defensive of their cultures in general.

@@yuushwo that’s interesting. Is this not common across many countries in the world, even in Europe?

i would die of hunger

Bland food is simply due to fact that ingredients and spices don't grow here. The soil is too acid and the weather is shit for most of the year + no light at all except during summers. Everything has to be grown in a greenhouse and even that is stupidly expensive if you want to grow things year around. It doesn't also help that the summers can be really shitty too with little sunny days. This year has been exceptionally hot but a couple years ago we had nothing but shit coming from the sky and chilly temps. Even birds died since it was so cold. You can't really take anything for granted when it comes to Finnish seasons, except maybe that there's a high change the weather is going to be shit.

@@Pyovali yeah, that’s what happens when you are higher up in latitude - the cuisine has its limitation - but as a south asian person originally from Bangladesh I love the bland cuisines as much as i love the flavourful ones - hey if the food is delicious i couldn’t care less if it has three ingredients or 40

@@Pyovali also, I just learned in my university environment course that acidic soils are more prevalent in the tropics, not in the higher latitudinal regions like the boreal areas of Finland. I live in Canada so our soils are similar to which they are more alkaline than acidic - I will double check my notes but I am pretty sure this is the case

@@thegreengatsby9803 Where I live we need to often do liming before anything grows. Acidity of the soil has always been the problem, not the alkalinity. The biggest reason why the soil is acid is that it rains a lot during spring times and on falls (sometimes the summer can be very rainy too) and rain washes away all the nutrients and lime.

Indeed. But I also think the wealth of Japanese society is a huge variable. If, say, Kenya was as rich as Japan, who knows if we'd be as fascinated by them.

@@JJMcCullough that's a good point. Japan is one of the only non western countries to have a life quality thats comparable or better to Europe and or the Americas

@@JJMcCullough I agree. This is why Korea is undergoing the exact same process now. Just within the past decade, Korea has begun culture exporting to a degree I never thought possible. Korean music, dramas, and food are now everywhere in the US. I think the close relationship with the US is another important factor, which Japan also shares. Something similar may have been possible for, say, the Philippines, if they had undergone the same economic boom that Korea and Japan did.

@@JJMcCullough Could it also be because they do not idolize western culture? I am Indian American(the country) And Indian culture is obsessed with western culture, like Bollywood.

@@JJMcCullough Maybe that's a good point, but very few people are as obsessed with Korean and Taiwanese cultures as much as with Japan. Both of these countries are equivalent to Japan with their material wealth, but you don't see cosplayers walking around immitating icons of Taiwanese (Chinese?) pop culture. Of course there are exceptions, like K-Pop, but I think it's hard to say it's close to the level most people are familiar at some level with Japan.

Japanese crave tourism & work visas, but abhor permanent immigration.

@@Yertle_Turtle Just like every other nation!

@@Yertle_Turtle that's literally every country I can think of

What do you expect from a homogeneous nation, if I were from one of those countries I wouldn't mind tourists and your occasional foreigner workers but I wouldn't want permanent stay from them because it slowly erodes everything that makes up that culture.

same as Korea. I've lived in both.

Living in one of the least interesting parts of Japan while forcing yourself to work a job you don't like is a bad experience? This guy: Surprised pikachu face

@@vialgyy Japan is not some dream utopia where everything is perfect. Far from it. Accept it.

Weaboos* but yes

Japanese hate foreigners, I'm surprised his experience wasn't much worse.

@@vialgyy "Least interesting parts of Japan"??? He was in the Tokyo Metro what are you talking about??

Exactly how I feel about Toronto

More like the “New York City” of Japan!

When I was there people would often say “just go to rural Japan,” but I imagine you’d have much stronger non-material values in a less cosmopolitan area, which would be, if anything, harder for a foreigner.

@@JJMcCullough there's an American RU-vidr with channel named Dogen who seems to have settled quite well in Oita, a small town in the south, but as with all things, your mileage may vary.

@@eunpyohong4788 In general, I dislike mass tourism to one area. I feel like when a place receives so much visitors that it has to adapt to them, it inevitably loses at least some of the appeal that made it enjoyable to visit, or even to live in. So in theory, if we could divert tourism to rural areas, it could solve the problem as long as it's not the same one rural spot that gets all the visitors.

What was the difference you saw when you went to Germany?

People who are citizens of other settler-colonial countries experience much the same thing. Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans and Canadians who move to Britain have more in common with one another and socialise with each other more than they do with the British, for instance. As time goes on and the former settler-colonies like Australia become more independent, the cultural gap between the former colonies and the mother country will only get bigger. I can only imagine that the cultural gap between Südwesters and native Germans would be quite large by now; Germany has had no role in administering what is now Namibia for over a hundred years.

Interesting point! I've once had the opportunity to visit beautiful Namibia, there I've met German Namibians who assumed that they and I (an Austrian) are basically the same. In the end it was only the shared language and some superficial similarities (Karneval, Spar, Fußball, etc), but everything else was different.

@@HumeHwy Indeed. This is also noticeable between Afrikaanders and the Dutch. They have a cultural time gap of over 300 years.

@@martinvandenbroek2532 The Dutch and Afrikaners are so culturally separated that they absolutely cannot be considered the same group of people anymore. It’s been around 400 years since the Dutch landed there, 200 years since when the British took over the cape, 150 years since when the Voortrekkers (Boers) went inland, and they’re (Dutch and Afrikaner) definitely two separate languages (it should be noted that they weren’t officially considered separate in South Africa up until 1976).

Don’t take his criticisms as truth about Japan. Foreigners experience life as an English teacher and don’t like it, when there is much better work available in Japan.

Then you'll like Taiwan more. It's like a China where CCP didn't exist.

@@thebestevertherewas its just better china tbh

Chinese culture is the most beautiful and significant in the world, really. Their influence stretches to Europe (historically I mean) and is apparent in every other Asian country. To be honest after the century of humiliation it's not surprising the way they been acting recently, it could be a lot worse.

@@Gewehr_3 Century of humiliation is the biggest lie of the century. If anything, it was a good thing that liberated them from their delusions and learned their place in the world.

@@faustianfellaheen I hardly think forced opium trade and brutal genocides can ever be called a good thing.

I think Sweden is a very good example, and they also have a tradition of isolationism that I think helps explain it.

@@JJMcCullough I think neutrality is a better word than isolationism but yeah

@Aman Lool Minecraft, Paradox games, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Volvo, Mount and Blade, Pippi Longstocking, the Nobel Prize, Biology was largely innovated by numerous Swedish researchers, death metal, The Seventh Seal which is where the modern idea of the grim reaper comes from

as a Swede I totally agree! Lots of people know about Sweden when I visit other countries yet they don’t know about everyday things that come from Sweden like Absolut Vodka, the Adjustable wrench, the zipper or Skype.

@@eee5448 Skype is Estonian

there was a huge orientalist fervor in France at that time. A lot of the french were obsessed with Japanese art and fine goods exported into the country. Many artists even drew inspiration from the Japanese art and hybridized styles/philosophies with that of their own. Pretty interesting stuff

@@andreja9425 Interesting how that went the other way with a lot of Japanese people idolizing french culture

@@_swesters_ they're not exactly wrong, france is basically america's fancy mom...and england is it's hard-nosed dad america: divorced parents since forever

Monet'swife-san!

@@andreja9425 le weebes

Guess what.. China also had a feudal system with an emperor and Japan basically copied China's system including even language, religion, philosophy, arts, culture, bureaucracy. Only during Meiji restoration after China fell behind Europe industrialisation and modernisation and got partially colonised did Japan then decide to copy eu instead of China, then invaded China multiple times and ganged up on China with eu fascists and colonialists. Westerners like Japan becauee its or longer a threat and it's completely subservient to USA and west, having been pacified since they lost ww2. Even then, remember when everyone hated them in the 80s since they were getting too economically strong? Yeah, they got out down again and have been stagnant until now. Now China is the "threat" again and Japan is also again the enemy of China and USA, eu japan going for 8 country alliance round 3. Or 4 or 5. Basicallt they all want to contain and suppress so china again as they've always done.

When my high school had female Japanese exchange students visit, they would all be crying that they had to leave. Never had they experienced that sort of individual freedom.

@@professordogwood8985 wow, thats quite fucked up

I dunno, but for me, the problems foreigners (mostly Westerners) have with living/working in Japan mostly boils down to them not being used to the culture (having come from vastly different environments). Maybe it’s easier for other Asians to adapt because of similar values (???) But that’s just me. I dunno if I have the right mindset in having this perspective. Please let me know your thoughts on this.

@@sakataginko9092 Yeah, I agree. I think people from other East Asian countries adapt to Japanese culture easier, because though there’s still lots of different non-material culture, the culture in general is more similar due to mutual learning between the countries over long period of time(hundreds and thousands of years). Also, the close geographic locations brings similar plants, animals and cultural artefacts which further foster non-material similarities in culture. In general, I guess there’s still lots of cultural things to get adapted to if you’re from East Asia, but it would be fairly easier due to those similarities.

The first year of teaching English in South Korea (in 2003) was one of the best years of my life. Somehow, I don't think South Korea is so vastly different from Japan so it's probably YOU that couldn't work there. Not that this is a bad thing. I've meet people who hated living in South Korea too.

When it comes to culinary aspects, I'm not too familiar with more profound aspects of Japanese cuisine; however, according to my taste in East Asian cuisine, I'd say nothing comes close to Chinese Hot Pot, followed closely by Vietnamese vegetable Pho with Tofu and in third place would be Korean Soon Dubu, which is Korean Spicy Tofu soup.

@@Lunatic4Bizcas Chinese cuisine is superior because of how rich and diverse it is. Japanese and Korean cultures are more folksy.

@@principetnomusic I presume that this is because Japan and Korea are the size of one or two Chinese provinces each, also because they had little place to take from beyond their rugged mountainous homelands. But I agree with Lunatic in that the Japanese cuisine the least 'spicy' one.

Slice of life animes tend to show japan not how it is, but the authors ideal.

@@user-nf9xc7ww7m : ¡ 맞아요 !

Nice ! Btw what's your original/native country ?

Crimson Ray The U.S.

What do you do for a living there, if you don’t mind me asking?

Ben Cravens Two jobs at the moment. Teaching in the morning, Izakaya pub in the evenings.

@@TheLostBoy1974 Sounds like a busy but cool life to live. Again, feel free not to respond if it’s too personal, but do you make wages you find fair/comfortable? Thanks for sharing your experience.

It's very hard to talk about culture as just one thing, or even one aspect of one thing.

@@JJMcCullough I liked your video on the differences between American and Canadian culture.

@@JJMcCullough I sometimes wonder if "culture" is even a useful abstraction. It feels so easy to oversimplify and erase detailed description of human interaction.

@@JJMcCullough I agree - reminds me of when I had to summarize U.S and Canadian cultures, all while listing the similarities and differences.

@@coasternerds5216 Thanks! No one really noticed what it was.

*flashbacks to muppet jj*

Funnily enough, Latin America and Japan have closer cultural elements than what it might seem at first, even if at face value they look diametral opposites. And, most amusingly, it's in Latin America where the world's largest Japanese diasporas are, namely in Brazil and Peru. Latin American culture also tends to be highly hierarchical because of its colonial past, and there's a disproportionate emphasis on keeping appearances over actually following fair principles in social interactions. These two social values are quite relatable to traditional Japanese culture.

Facts. It’s easy to fantasize about living anywhere if you fantasize that you’re rich too.

Another one is Rio de Janeiro. When I was 10 I went on a school trip to Brazil and I started reading up on it and everything like that and things that attracted me or like the music culture food, the beach obviously, and this sort of sense of Free willing good times for all to be had at carnival. Of course when I went there imagine my surprise when are tour guide took us to see the favelas. Basically slums if you're unaware, and I had never seen a place in my life where you had such abject poverty juxtaposed so readily with wealth. Anyway it was a truly a shock to see people living like rats in cans, searching garbage piles for any food that somebody may have left.

​@@Audiorevue Yep, so sad. That cold reality interrupts your fantasies like ice cubes down the spine.

Someone build some rock bands or something

Nuke 'em

TWO MORE COMIN UP

I mean originally they were going for domination, but.....

3 words: J.J McCullough destroys weebs.

Growing older does that, I think. The little bad things start to blur away, leaving you with vaguely remembered little good bits.

Lol I never went to Japan, but I hanged on a lot of social japanese websites like twitcast and i sort of feel that.

The Japanese girls they are so cute, but lets face it underneath that cuteness is some sort of "totalitarianism". You follow the rules because they are the rules, if anyone could choose which rules they could follow and not it would be chaos and chaos is bad. Japan is all about perfect execution, not about discovering new things and/or freedom.

I'm a Singaporean (Malaysia's neighbour!) and I'm a weaboo for Italy. Though my weaboo is more stemming from my interest in ancient Rome.

I find that much more respectable than the westerners who use Japan as an aesthetic, learning nothing about the culture or language or culture differences. It’s so freaking annoying when Japan does something that is on the same standards as western social standards and these WEEBS complain about it.

Hahah thats interesting! I’m Malaysian and I’ve rarely heard anyone “weeb” over us

I mean I like anime and Japanese food is amazing but I'm not really obsessed with their culture or anything I just like their shows food and music actually

I'm a weeb for Brazil lol

So the Filipino stereotype of being warm and hospitable is true after all. I also notice that they're xenophiles, they always enjoy chatting with foreigners and even though they're total strangers.

@@MisF1998 That was my experience. Very multicultural too. When I got there it was Ramadan, and they had made reasonable accommodations for them to fast during the day. I asked one person what would happen if Filipinos stopped smiling, she said something along the lines of 'oh no we must always otherwise the world will end'. The admin assistant we worked with was half my age and she called me Sir David. I told her we were peers and there was no reason for her to call me that. She said she must out of respect for her elders. We compromised and I said I would call her Miss ____. I think the amount of respect I showed them and their culture went a long way to endear myself to them. We had armed escorts and at the end of the day when they were taking us back to the accommodations they wanted to carry my bag, I was like no that is not your job, it was kind of a dilemma having a young man not carrying an older gentleman's bag from what I could figure.

Did you try pancit canton tho? my mom makes it all the time and i really like it...

Phillipines has very close ties with USA, and despite what their president says, Filipinos are one of the most pro-American people in the world. This is all thanks to history, stretching way back in the 1800s, where it was bought from Spain, to the end of World War 2, in the 1940s. It was essentially an American colony between those years, and in that span of time, Americans and Filipinos grew very close relations. Americans helped free it after the Japanese invaded the Philippines, so I wouldn't say it was undeserved.

@@siyacer here, here friend. I had grandparents who were very being with Americans and he told me many backed then even wanted to become an American state. The transition to independence went smoothly even after ww2. Most of us still have close ties with the US with many overseas Filipinos working in America.

It's also funny how "average" Japanese people could just walk in China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Etc. without being distinct, but you can immediately tell a Japanese pop-star from a South Korean pop-star and a Filipino pop-star. This probably also shows how different cultures really are, as people who look the same have different beauty standards that produce different idols. Like how Chinese and Thai members of k-pop bands look indistinguishable from their South Korean colleagues.

@@-haclong2366 i summarized your point -> all east asian and south-east asian people look the same

Completely agree

Growing up. I've always watched and read how great Japan is. 90s performance vehicles, affordable healthcare and housing, bullet trains, ancient history and low crime rate. But then I found this channel last year called Rare Earth that broke things down. How racist Japan can be, denying war crimes, how their justice system is very draconian. I'll visit. But no way would I want to live there. They have problems like other country's, that they need to address.

@@TrickiVicBB71 Yeah, though I think it's important to not completely buy into the bad aspects of a nation from media. Japanese people CAN be racist but it's not generally a massive problem, just as plenty of Americans CAN be racist but it's not as constant and big of a deal as media makes it out to be. Same goes for things like the ultranationalists denying the bad parts of their history, etc etc. Japan, just like every nation, is nuanced and has great aspects but also plenty of poor aspects.

I still Love Japan, but I agree. It's made me realize that, like people, no country is perfect. But I truly believe that which is exceptional about Japan is truly incredible. Having visited I became less preoccupied with their media and began to love their spiritual philosophy and outlook on nature. Would never live there, but I will definitely be visiting many times again in my life. Though imma steer clear of Tokyo.

Yeah, I do think that people "growing out" of thinking Japan is paradise when they get older is a more common phenomenon than they realize. For lack of better words, I see a lot of people on their 20s and 30s who like Japan (and aren't completely high on weaboo culture) who have reported going through very similar. Admittedly there is a lot of fetishization going on in the West's part that contributes to this, which contributes to why a lot of (generally somewhat younger) folk have this completely romantic view of the country, but once you start getting exposed to the more negative sides of the country (and hopefully have the maturity to actually mediate stuff) your expectations get brought right back down to Earth. Even I, who never loved Japan *that* much, went through a similar phase. Thing is, even if you're indifferent to the country, almost everything you're presented on your daily life about it either markets it as very comfy and straight laced or quirky and cool, so even if you don't care about Japan, you end up passing those notions down to others, which probably helps perpetuate these views.

Honestly, even as an American, I feel the same sentiment. I think a lot of the former and current Commonwealth Nations have a similar predicament, where we kind of Base our culture off of our parent cultures. I think in America, this actually tends to present itself much more along ethnic lines than as a national identity. You'll get a lot of people who will identify with a parent culture even though there are multiple Generations removed, or they'll say that certain groups of people "don't have a culture", or they'll lump larger ethnicities into one culture even if that's not necessarily accurate, etc. I think in most nations of the former British Empire, there is some kind of existing identity struggle where we simultaneously feel that we lack a distinct culture, but are also proud of things that we don't really think about being distinct.

as a Brit I can say I'd much rather live in Oz than UK given the choice. Aussies are laid-back, down-to-earth, well-educated and have ditched the snobbiness that still infests every facet of life in Britain. It's funny how some Brits look down on Oz for lacking culture, when in fact the quality of life there is so much better and the people much friendlier.

immaterial culture like walking upside down? jk. i spent one summer watching every single episode of Masterchef Australia, and the show is really different with Masterchef US and Canada. First of all there are more friendship between contestants, and the producers are not looking to build a toxic rivalry narrative like in US and Canada ones. I even saw one of the contestants coming to another contestants'' pantry to ask for extra egg because they ran out, and it wasn't seen as a big deal. the show was also much longer, with 6 shows a week. there were more coverage of the cooking process and I didn't feel rushed to the judgement at all. the dining culture also feels different though it's been a while that i can't write an example on top of my head. for me those differences show the immaterial culture difference between Australia with US and Canada

@@pennyforyourthots Yeah, some people seem to think race and culture are the same thing, which they're certainly not.

Yeah, it annoys me when people talk about countries having no culture. I suppose it's because we overemphasize superficial cultural objects and the anglophone countries have a tradition of doing a lot of adopting which makes it seem like we provide nothing original. All countries have culture, some are just more familiar so you don't notice as much.

Interesting. I have never lived in US, but I work with Americans frequently. You wrote: "A lot of people had really strong opinions about and wanted to discuss issues such as politics, religion and gender in situations which i was taught were inappropriate." I got kind of similar issue with them. I am from Finland and it is seen generally inappropriate to discuss religion or politics in casual conversation. This insistence about voicing out opinions, even though it is not the time and place for that, is really hard to deal with. Especially when I accidentally trigger it by being clumsy with English language.

Heh, that's us Americans alright. TBF our country only exists because some people were really loud and annoying about politics and taxes.

Huh. I'm from the area, and I have always been taught that it's a flashpoint to discuss those things in professional/family settings. We talk about those things with friends, but not co-workers or extended family.

Americans are way too friendly with the stranger and sometimes it's not a good thing (at least in my opinion)

@@Jess-737 these are not Croatians. Their parents grew up in the US, they've grown up in the US, their culture is almost fully Americanized. They might still eat Croatian food and fly the flags but really, those are Americans not Croatians.

Could you please go into detail as I am trying to learn more about Italy as seen from the eyes of foreign nationals? "..the way people lived, communicated, and built friendships that i just couldn't warm up to."

@@Joe-- I come from a culture where there is either a sense of genuineness or total apathy towards someone. People (majority of the time) will be friendly and super helpful, but it's very easy to tell if someone is not interested in you. With Italians on the other hand, in my experience, there seemed to be a level of surfaceness. No matter how much I tried to go beneath that to start good friendships it was either "too much" or nothing was there. So often times it was hard to tell if someone viewed our conversation as casual or actual friendship. I found that my Italian roommates were very easily able to bounce off these concepts with each other. Another aspect was if you were in trouble or genuinely needed help it was super difficult to ask for it. I often ended up feeling very guilty, whereas in my culture even the sight of someone struggling is enough for someone to come running to help, without asking. I guess there was just a sense of lightness and casualness overall. A sense of value and focus in oneself. A sense of "there's always tomorrow". I learned a lot and managed to incorporate it to my habits too, but it just was never enough to find connections/desire to remain. I also lived in Milan, I've heard the rest of Italy is different. P.s Not trying to be rude to Italians! The culture, friendships, habits was just different from what I was very used to. Hope this helps :)

@@Jess-737 know exactly what you mean! Most Italians I met actually liked American pop culture a lot. They were just picky and only fond of Italian food (which is great, but so many other cuisines are as well). It's interesting how culture (even the music, art, fashion and history you've mentioned) or national pride can bring a community forward to be so well known and identifiable, while also keeping it back and enclosed.

@@Jess-737 nah, it's just that we like our food so much and the values we put in the food that everytime we see people doing something we perceive as wrong with it we explode, this is mostly derived by how intertwined with our life and culture food is,kids always come back home to eat with their family and sometimes even help preparing lunch, our grandparents were always extremely fond and protective of their best recipes which were given only to their family(i actually remember my mother telling me that my godmother gave only her the "true" recipe to make our family's special pasta, where everyone else got only something half-assed lol) etc etc... basically, although we're not too explicit about it unlike with our more "classic" art, it is shown through our actions that we actually put our love of food as one of the most important aspects of our culture as it literally shapes the relationships we make our whole lives, hell, when i think of places in italy the first two things i think of are buildings and local food, everything else is secondary... as for things like understanding the levels of confidence needed to actually start a proper friendship as otherwise there's superficiality... i feel that, unlike the japanese italians tend to be clearer with their intentions but they also tend to dislike going into touchy subjects or showing weaknesses, this is something i definitely struggled with as somebody who's on the spectrum(even today i get told by my family that apparently people treat me like an idiot and i never even realize, so yeah... that pissed me off) as it can make quite difficult to talk about others about any problem i might have, even if am blunt, the response will usually be one that either misunderstands my words, flips me off, or just tries to help without understanding what the actual problem is simply because they can "perceive" i'm not normal. and yet... perhaps due to my parents recently breaking up i noticed something interesting that i always had doubts about, but it feels like people over here don't really understand the differences between being acquainted with someone, friends, or in love. they know the meanings of the words of course, but when you look at it, you'll usually see them be too cold or even straight up mean with strangers, but too tight-and-warm with acquaintances treating them as close friends, and end up marrying what aren't more than friends, to then follow with holding their relationships value over pre-set values of what friendship and married life mean without considering what they mean for their partner(and i've seen this literally everywhere with everyone from family to literal strangers and even influencers) so i feel aidan isn't wrong when saying that "it's always too little or too much" as there seems to be a missing step in relationships among people in italy... but, alas, i'm from south italy, so it might be very different, personally i found myself bonding way better with people from the north than i ever did with those from the south, so there's bound to be smaller differences that will shape people's experiences with either southern and northern italians much more differently.

That sounds borderline abusive oml.

That lunch sounds awesome. The highlights of my school lunches were mystery meat in gravy slopped over sliced bread or the surprisingly good baked hotdogs

Do you still speak French or did you forget?

@@yonatanbeer3475 how is telling people where they land in the class abusive? Isn’t competition the driver of growth and success?

I love Europe, but everywhere I've been, being "The American" has tended to be either a derogatory thing or a point of comparison to others. When people of authority spoke of me, it was not uncommon to be referred to as "The American". I was mistakenly arrested in the UK, and during the night I had to spend between the holding station and the local jail, they only referred to me as "The American". It wasn't until being released the next day that they finally used my name in any capacity beyond signing papers.

"if their rising nationalism" i don't see this is wrong, Japanese have right to be proud being Japanese aka nationalism, with having nationalism... Japanese will having reason to defending own nation from invaded or bashed of other countries (now China really want take Taiwan and next is Japan) every countries already having own nationalism, why Japanese not? sound hypocritical right?

Any country that isn’t nationalist (which is just a love for your country btw it’s nothing bad) are either communist as fuck or a major third world country. There is nothing wrong with putting your country first.

@@lonewolftech you can be nationalist and communist. in fact, i doubt theres one example of a communist nation that isnt very nationalistic. Permanent revolution is an ideology that is just a different smelling hyper nationalism. Nationalism is more a spectrum. Like you said, every nation has nationalistic ideas, its just a matter of how nationalistic they are.

They keep their country forested by exploiting the resources in other countries like Indonesia and manufacturing their stuff in China...this is why I don't take environmentalists and climate change activists seriously

This reply section is giving me brain cancer

That's such a fantastic insight, about commercial vs. authentic as like, the second layer of material culture. I could make a whole video on that topic. Christmas itself would be a great example, and how much we continue to fight over a very material tradition and the degree it should be "about" something more.

Which 4 languages? English, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean?

@@aoeu256 English, Portuguese, Spanish, and Mandarin. A little Japanese, but hoping to improve that and start Korean at some point.

Lots of interesting thoughts there. I think I would disagree, however, that the variety of material cultures arises directly out of the variety of cultural values. Cultural values are actually a lot more uniform than we like to think; the differences seem massive because we have no other sentient species to contrast ourselves against, but because people all need basically the same things--security, community, purpose--culture is really just how people with different geographic and social backgrounds go about trying to meet those same needs. I would also perhaps argue that the notion of individualist vs. collectivist cultures is myth; certainly western political forces engage in just as much collectivist rhetoric as in the rest of the world, and their caveat that the Great Nation is a Nation of Individuals doesn't amount to a very substantial difference from the "All for one, one for all" calls of open collectivists. So, collectivism is pretty much universal in a political sense, and culture tends to emerge from civil society as the product of the interactions between whatever brand of collectivism the state upholds, and whatever brand of latent individualism forms the private dreams of the people. In America we have a mix which results in us believing we are free individuals, but also that we're God's chosen people being lead to the promised land. In China they have a mix which results in them believing they are part of a great nation that acts as One, but also that wise, brave individuals are the only ones who ever reach the heart of life. I'm a young radical, so obviously it is my opinion that the kind of repressive collectivism practiced by all nation states is something we really ought to grow out of eventually, but I don't see a global monoculture emerging out of the global championing of the individual; rather I suspect that the differences in geography, spirituality, language, and social structure would only become more pronounced in their variety, as the pressure to affirm the existing culture for the sake of the nation's cohesion gives way to the freedom of a society to shape itself however it sees fit, which is of course the aggregate of individuals shaping their lives however they see fit. Again, this isn't me applying American cultural values to other societies; America's version of individualism is deeply underdeveloped and childish in my opinion, and a true individualist culture could adopt many of the strengths of more "Harmonious" societies without their repressive social and political pressure, through the understanding of how such social harmony benefits and empowers the individual. Which is always secretly the contract between the individual and the collectivist state anyway, the state just tends to renigg, which is why I don't believe in truly "Naturally forming" collectivist cultures. Everybody wants to have agency over their own lives, and everybody gets sold some version of the idea that rejecting any part of yourself that doesn't match the social hegemony is the only path towards claiming that agency. That's a bad deal and no society deserves it, even if the peaceful atmosphere afforded by an unchallenged social order is something valuable enough to some of us that we still allow that ideal to influence some of our social construction; the key is to treat it as an ideal to be strived for, not a rule to be enforced.

@@MagusMirificus It's a little much to call it a myth, though I would agree that from a political standpoint it is inevitable that government has collectivist ideals considering the kind of construct that it is. From a cultural one expected behaviors and mentalities are clearly different and I think individualist vs. collectivist is a perfectly apt way to describe them, even if, at the end of the day, yes, we are all humans and would like to have agency over our lives.

Wait are you a digital nomad (remote worker)? Hmm maybe we should hook up? Are there any jobs I can get other than English teacher that give me time to date & learn languages?

Your comment is very insightful! Thanks for posting.

@@aoeu256 is hook up a right word to use here? ╮(. ❛ ᴗ ❛.)╭

Your point about exoticization is valid, but to be fair: the Japanese have very deliberately "othered" themselves, and continue to do so. It's a culture with a notorious superiority complex and if it were Western country its immigration laws, as just one small example, would be considered openly racist. Japan has sold itself as mysterious and different - and every foreigner who has spent any time there can recount the endless times they were told "you can't understand because you're not Japanese" - you can't really complain, therefore, when everyone thinks your different and mysterious.

wait… I’ve seen you somewhere before… 🧐

As an italian, I am very happy that you liked my country, however I personally would like to go live somewhere else. I will agree that Italy's culture is exceptionally deep, but like Greece, it is now just a remnant (culturally) of what it once was. Cities are dirty, infrastructure sucks, school system is among the worst out there and the government is corrupt and disorganized (where I live, only half of the vaccines that we had in stock have been administered and my 80 year old grandma is scheduled to get the vaccine in MAY). So yeah, I'd rather go live somewhere else than stay here.

Sicilian/Neopolitan-American checkin in, the organized crime arose bc the police cannot be trusted. we had to create the mafia to protect our families and our livelihoods. my family over there still struggles w tensions between the two, and we are very firmly a "no cops allowed" family. vaffanculo gli sbirri. anyways, yes, except Southern Italy was also against fascism and Mussolini, so we sufferred even more as a result. they took our language away, forced us to speak the Tuscan/Roman/Florentine dialect (whats now known as "Italian") in both schools and every day life or else. in general, they supress our culture, call us Africans (nothing wrong w being African, but it is a mean to insinuate someone isnt youe fellow citizen bc of their skin color/origin), tell us to go back to Ethiopia (again, see previous statement), etc. Northern Italians are EXTREMELY different from Southern Italians, and ESPECIALLY from Sicilians. thats why so many of us immigrated to places like the USA, cause we were poor, mistreated, and always in danger. then we got treated like shit for awhile over here too, until a lotta us decided to take the assimilation bone, and become a form of oppressor too. my family was too dark skinned to do that though, and thank God we still have our culture. it disturbs me tho that so many of us took "whiteness", once we were "granted" it, and ran with it, like to the point of running others over. yes, we were often mistreated by Blacks as well as whites, but when you drop people who cant speak the language into a ghetto where the people have been marginalized their whole lives, and have a history of being forced to this country, building the country for free, being the USA's scapegoat, you can sympathize/empathize and understand why they would turn on us too, instead of us coming together and fighting the man, we turned on each other. kinda like a bully who is beat at home comes to school at beats up other kids, esp cause they cant take it out on the person(s) who are the REAL problem...it doesnt make it right, but you do understand it, and you should factor that in when giving consequences. like in this case, give the bully appropriate consequences, but also help them out w their own plight, perhaps remove them from the abusive house, take the parent away for counseling, get them all in therapy, etc. also, before someone misinterprets this, i am NOT saying all, or even most, Black people are bullies, nor am i tryna minimize serious crimes. im just saying we needa have compassion when we look back and think on it. because of course it pains me to think of my great grandparents getting hurt by Black and white people who didnt want them there, even though they were kind, gentle, loving people, who had nothing but good in their hearts, and would even save stray animals, abandoned animals, hurt animals, feed hungry kids, pray for their community in Church, etc., it still makes me cry to think about a lil old lady and lil old man having to deal with so much shit, all while living in poverty in the trenches of Baltimore (im from Philly tho, just fyi, 215 till i dizziiiee), n just tryna survive. n if i was less enlightened, it might even have caused me to stop right there, and become bitter n racist n hateful. but they didnt do that, so why should i? but also, that is what white supremacy does. and i thank God i have the resources and capacity and everything else needed to understand the insidious nature of a white, patriarchal power structure that seeks to dominate, squash, stamp out, etc. anything that threatens it, doesnt serve it, bothers it, seeks to dismantle it, etc. it turns people who should be working together, against one another. it turns literal neighbors into enemies. it encouraged Black people who are just tryna survive as well to view the immigrants in their neighborhood as the enemies, instead of the government and white power structure that forced us both there in the first place. cause heres the thing, like the bully in my previous example, fighting back against the Man is as near impossible as fighting back against your abusive parents is, so they went for what they could control, just like an abused kid turned bully hurts those that they can take their anger out on without getting hurt back. again, this is an example, not an excuse to say Black people are bullies, cause that is false. some people who are bullies may also be Black, but that happens in every race, so i just wanna make it clear that i am in no way insinuating all Black people are bullies, that all bullies are Black, that Black people are more likely to be bullies, etc., because that is racisr and inaccurate. i am just tryna make an example, so it is easier to digest. in fact, the bully in my minds eye was a chunky white boy, and his abuser was his redneck dad whos wife left him. anyways, yes, again, people need to be held accountable for their actions, but they also need help, understanding, and compassion. shit doesnt happen in vaccuum, everything effects everything. sadly, many Italian-Americans havent understood all this (a lotta times bc their ancestors who spoke no English just assumed Black people=bad bc they didnt know enough about the country/its history/the English language to understand WHY it was happening, nor to comprehend the nuances behind such phenomena, and their subesquent descendants were too lazy to do the work of unpacking these thoughts [ofc some families, like mines, always kinda got the jist, but not totally, so they still were confused, but much more willing to love their perceived enemies, n try to understand, n attempt to have relationships, n try to atone to one another], so years later, we unfortunately have racist af Italian-Americans, even though we literally werent even considered white when we got to this country. [btw, that doesnt mean our struggle was even close to as bad as the struggle for Black people in this country-and others-has been, like for one, we came here largely voluntarily, they were STOLEN.] it actually makes me really sad, cause im proud of my heritage, and i dont want people to think im a raging racist.) and now we havr even more strife between peoples. funny thing is though, Black people/BIPOC and Italian-Americans actually mesh very well (our cultures are actually incredddibly similar, n i personally tens to vibe better w Black people and Latinas/os and Natives than i do w people who match my skintone, bc tho i am much paler than the rest of my family...like by A LOT....and look whitebread white at first glance [minus the dark curly hair and brown eyes and bushy brows], on a deeper level, our cultures are verrrrryyyyy similar, and we tend to share lotsa the same values. values most white people dont have, esp the importance of blood, SEASONED food, music, dance, friendship, loudness, etc., like there are obviously still differences, but i cant think of many. like i actually am struggling to come up with an example. yeah, i really cant think of anything. i always felt so alien among whitebread whites [i call white ppl w no ethnic background this, cause it is better than referring to myself as "spicy white", cause i have heard that is offensive, although a Black man himself once called me that very enthusiastically while hitting on me...i did have to laugh, it was pretty cute....n so was he 😉], bc the white people n their families were sooo different than my family, n for awhile, i didnt really fully understand, cause society encourages whiteness as the default. but whenever i was with my Black friends, other BIPOC friends, i felt, and still feel, waaaayyy more at home, comfortable, easygoing, like i can be myself, etc., my parents used to, and still do, say i have "the UN of friend groups", which is kinda like wtf, but also kinda cute. i dont mean any disrespect by this, im just saying it like it is. i dont mean that white people are all awful people, just that i dont feel our cultures match up well. like think a native German vs a native Sicilian...as others in the comments have said, very different cultures. n the white ppl in this country are prolly at some point descended from British, German, Norweigan, Northern European, etc. type people, so it only makes sense that the eventual offspring that i meet will have very different cultural values to someone who literally still has dual citizenship with Italy and the USA.), we should work together. i apologize for the novel, the randomness of this comment, and the rambling, but i pray it comes across the right way, and that at least someone gleans value from it. God Bless, everyone, everything, everywhere!

As an Italian, I would like to inform you that your understanding of my countries history is incorrect and flawed. Italies economy has always been global facing, in fact, it more or less invented that concept outside of Greece and Egypt. The Romans (ancestral Italians) invented multiculturalism and globalist economies. Italy also invented many of the things other western nations used in order to start the industrial revolution. Japan was far more isolated and didnt shape the modern world in that ancient aspect, only later did Japan do that. Thus the idea that Italy was isolationist and none partaking in the western world like Japan is incorrect.

Germans can be quite cold and robotic, but that said I've always found them pretty easy to get along with, unpretentious and modest, and their directness is a welcome relief from the painful circumlocutions of the English

True. Maybe I just have to try harder!

Wow, that was quite an improvement hahaha

That really depends on the German

But yeah Germans are often like that

That is still material rather than non-material no? Baseball, sports, clothes, balls are material

don't forget basketball; some of there most popular anime and manga involve basketball.

You should definitely try to visit, it's a great experience. I loved the food and historical buildings especially.

Baseball is like the only thing, though.

In addition, another strong western influence on Japan includes the exploding popularity of football (soccer).

Italians have got to be the most annoying nationality in Europe, sorry!

@@sdrawkcabUK well, they are for sure louder :) But that which nationality is the worst is everyone's own subjective opinion and who am I to judge or question it.

Thank you for your insightful comment.

Asian culture is very harsh in general, it isn't very open to new ideas, and failure is NOT a option

And there is a respect for gurus(teachers), even bad ones

@@rollinghelicopter9001 thats actually very true, failure is not an option in the big 3.

Avoid China - the political situation has changed dramatically and very quickly. It's no exaggeration to say you will be at the whims of politically motivated arbitrary laws with no method of recourse or support.

@@earthenjadis8199 Changed since when?

I like him even though I disagree with him because he is not afraid to be confrontational.

The whole region has been doing that since '02

Sick people always wear masks in Japan. If they feel sick; they wear a mask.

And that’s why they don’t have to deal with a pandemic

I lived in Japan in the 80s and masks were everywhere.

@@danielmoreno-gama5973 They're in the third wave now and refuse to do testing.

Wow Saudi Arabia O_o? Why didn't you go to UAE, Kuwait, or Egypt? Hmm I wonder what living in Russia, Germany, Japan, Thailand, Korea, Vietnam... is like though.

@@aoeu256 $6000 a month tax free in country that costs $300 a month to live in and free housing, transport, flights, visa, healthcare etc. Saudi Arabia counter intuitively has some of the strongest and generous labor regulations in the world (granted for legal workers, obviously doesnt apply to the slave labor that builds stadiums like in QATAR)

I couldn't say because I'm not a foreigner but living in France since I was born I would say the bad people here are ruder than world average, but most people are normal and will be kind if you try to speak French ;)

When I was in Paris I had this exact same experience

Sinosphere can be used to refer to countries that are deeply influenced by ancient Chinese culture.

I'm from Shanghai and I have spent quite some time in Japan myself too. I would say even though deference to the elderly and non-verbal communication are rather common in Shanghai (I can't speak for all of China), it's way worse in Japan. I might consider revisiting Japan, but I would never work there ever again (not even in an overseas branch/subsidiary/office of a Japanese corporate).

That's very interesting feedback. Can you explain what you mean in more detail?

hmm.. wish i could put my finger on it more accurately, but maybe playfulness? not so stuffy? also not afraid to have unpopular opinions. that, for me, breeds trust (in this case, as an online educator/pundit). oh! and the real-life sort of trivia examples of what you're talking about. loving the mid-week trivia bonus videos, by the way!

I'm curious. What are their sleeping habits on weekends like and what do you dislike about them?

Yes in LatAm, the buenos aires elite are considered to be the snobbiest of the snob. Eurocentric people that drink tea, play polo, french kiss each other and only travel to Europe.

There is a reason why all of latam hates Argentina lmao. You wouldn’t have had this experience any where else in Latin America.

hah I popped over to Uruguay for the day and they were complaining about the pretentious snobby Argentines over the water 😂

@@francogiobbimontesanti3826 the rest of Spanish speaking America hates Argentina because Argentina is simply better at football than them and they are by far the best shit talkers, listen to their football chants, they beat anything Mexicans or Colombians can come up with, That's pretty much it. The problem that OP described is a massive problem in all of Spanish speaking America. The same Eurocentric middle and upper classes that inhabit Argentina live in all of Latin America and behave pretty much the same. They think very poorly of the lower classes and they are mostly walled off from the rest of society and live in their own little bubble. The rest of Latin America calls Argentines racist, which is completely true, but they always fail to see their own racism. In all of Latin America dark skin and indigenous ancestry are looked upon more negatively than European ancestry and lighter skin. Of course your typical Latin American won't admit this because your average Latin American is too prideful and fucking moronic to ever admit this.

That's quite how the US is perceived as a whole from my French perspective. They are super nice but it's mostly hypocritical. And southern food and music is what we would just call American.

@@augth how very strange. I wonder where that comes from.

Agreed. My mom is from Nashville, and pretty much the entire side of the family is like that. Take my grandmother, for example. She grew up in the suburbs of Nashville in the 50s, and to this day disapproves of my asian best friend. Butz whenever she sees him, she will act all nice to him, just displaying an aura of kindness, while in reality she moved out of my home state of arizona because (get this) she didnt like all the mexicans. But she makes a DAMN GOOD GRAVY. Also, about the music, i think its skrt of devolved from what it used to be (e. g. Appalachian folk music), into the flashy pop country we see now. I think the only good "new" country music star today is Hank Williams III, and thats partially because hes more country rock, and partially because his predecessors. Anyway, just my take from personal experience.

I think size is the very factor in which places Korea behind Japan by a mile. Korea is certainly doing everything correctly to attract foreign interests, but because we're talking about a country that by land size, population, and GDP wise isn't even half of what Japan is... their influence and output can only go so far. Maybe if they unite with their northern counterpart and make a bigger-sized version of South Korea then I'd say Korea and Japan could eventually develop to become prime, soft-power rivals. Since both countries are showing outputs to their maximum capabilities I believe the size factor is what'll depend in the end, unlike other bigger countries with lesser influence like Brazil, Turkey or Indonesia.

Korea is emerging for sure. if this video is made in 2030, it would have been about Korea.

@@xunqianbaidu6917 Korea actually made conscious and deliberate investments on their pop culture for decades, considering it as their best export.

@@f0292 Japan did the same too, btw. It doesn't invalidate either one's growth.

@@awijaya2116 not really..investment in industries sure but not really on cultural products.the product developed first then started promotion like in some international sporting events.