so I made my first Japan stories video like way back in December I think you know it might have actually been like the fourth animation I ever made come to think of it but to give us some rate to all you new people out there I've been living in and around Tokyo since I was about 18 and now I'm almost 30 so I'll let you do the math on that one needless to say but you know I'm gonna say it anyway I've been around the block a few times after over ten years you know the
honeymoon is over the sort of childlike wonder of like wow it's Japan longa nothing I don't like it here it's just you know I mean Japan's just a regular place for the most part now whether these things are Japan things or just like I'm not the majority anymore things I mean it's probably a little bit of both to be honest but anyway over the years I've seen and experienced a lot of things that just make me kind of go what no obviously it's not everyone all the time 100% no question everyone's different and special in
their own way a rest in peace mr. Rogers but there are definitely some trends that are hard not to notice one thing that happens a lot is that Japanese people love to compare themselves to foreigners but at the same time there seems to be a lack of self awareness around these alleged differences for example Japanese people in general love to advertise themselves as like shy quiet humble people but like if you walk into any shop or restaurant or just move like two inches in any direction the first thing they do is yell at you excuse
me you're not shiny much hey we Japanese are very shy and quiet not like you loud boisterous Western barbarians hey welcome to the store time sale time sale buy 12 things get one 10% off so that's why Japanese people all feel a little uncomfortable being around big loud foreigners because you see actually hey come on it buy something did you get a bag of tissues outside whatever have some are you know something I hear a lot or at least a lot more than I think I should it's like Japanese people who meet me for the
first time they usually say something like wow you sure don't act very American you're almost a Japanese like what does that even mean all I was doing was sitting down not talking what exactly is you think Americans and of course by extension all foreigners cuz you know that's how things work apparently what do you think we do we all just bounce around with a backpack full of McDonald's Big Macs yelling random elementary English phrases to each other this is a bad how are you I'm fine thank you and you or there's this pretty common stereotype
that like foreigners are smelly which I mean sure after sitting on an airplane for 14 hours let's see how you smell okay I think we're all a little bit right but whatever but if you've ever written the morning or evening train in Tokyo which you know I assume most of you have it let me just fill you in on what it's like first no matter what train you take everyone in the entire city is riding in your train car and it's just bathed in a Philharmonic of sensations coffee cigarettes whiskey old dudes who haven't brushed
their teeth a day in their life it's magical but one foreign guy forgets to put on deodorant one time and haha see foreigners I'll smell so bad Luke 16 I hate sharing trains with them yeah okay fine you and your three remaining teeth all of which are brown for some reason you can take a different train no complaints here my dude what you know to be fair the stereotypes and general lack of common sense or just plain like wrong information that I see from Western people about Japan is perhaps even more bizarre I mean just
to be honest here like some of you people out there have the most ridiculous ideas about what Japan is like let's take one I see on the internet all the time Japanese game shows okay first thing there is no such thing as a Japanese game show at least not in the way that you're thinking of it all those like funny weird videos you see online like slippy steps they're like whatever people said it was all that stuff that's basically just the Japanese equivalent of whose line is it anyway okay it's professional comedians or just like
general celebrities doing a comedy bit on a variety show like imagine if someone who didn't understand English at all watched whose line is it anyway and thought wow Americans sure have weird game shows cuz that's basically what's happening here you know honestly I don't know why this stuff and always be so much but like here we are okay having a lack of detailed knowledge about another country it's not really anyone's fault I guess but still like air imagine if someone went to San Francisco during a pride parade and they just assumed that it was like
that all the time okay actually this is a really bad example because like San Francisco kind of a is a pride parade all the time but see what I'm saying so many people think of Japan is this like anime manga alternative fashion Mecca but like all that stuff is regulated to one specific part of one section of one district in Tokyo like for real you try that stuff anywhere else you're getting eye rolls and cold shoulders I mean you think weaves have it tough in the West Japanese people dis like otaku nerds even more like
somehow at some point in time the West just embraced this like anime manga video game nerd culture movement and it's way more accepted over there than it is here honestly you want to live out your otaku cosplay dreams or like whatever it is you do trust me just stay where you are now I could go on forever because I mean I got like an endless number of stories and thoughts and feelings but living outside the US geographically and outside Japan socially it gives you an interesting perspective on two countries that both kind of just live
in their own bubbles more or less but I'll say this and I say this pretty much every time I talk about living abroad or leaving Japan or like whatever but you know I'll say it every time the world is a big place go out and have an adventure now speaking of going abroad or like whatever this video is brought to you by hi native hi Native is a language and culture Q&A platform where you can ask questions to native speakers about their language their culture anything like that hi Native supports over a hundred and ten
languages so whatever country or culture you're interested in they probably got it for you I mean seriously just look at this list of languages it goes on forever look at this you can ask questions about like the meaning of words help with grammar you can even record yourself saying like a phrase or whatever and have the native speaker help you with pronunciation like here I decided to ask how do you say this is a pen in Italian and literally within like two minutes I got answers okay it's that simple that quick and get this the
core set of features is completely free to use you can just sign up with Android iOS right from your browser and start learning a new language or culture within minutes so if that sounds interesting to you click the links down below download the hi native app and start broadening your horizons today hey everybody thanks so much for watching so like I said in the last video I'm still working a full-time job for now it was pretty busy for the last couple months and that project thing ended so I had more time than usual or more
time than I've had so with this video I wanted to try some new stuff the the energy explosion thing you saw in this video that was actually what I wanted to do in the last Riverdale video what he said are you serious and then things come out of his eyes that like I didn't have enough time to do I wanted so I was like well I'll just make some energy some light and come out of his eyes or whatever and with this video I wanted to go back and like make the sort of energy explosion
the way I wanted it to which took way longer than I thought it would so last year in October now it's going I went to LA for a month well before my channel took off so most of you probably don't even know or remember about that or anything so we went to LA we drove around like Las Vegas and San Diego and stuff and one thing that struck me a lot of big American cities have a lot of like a vibrance or a lot of like character and sort of like artistic like vibe or whatever
and like Tokyo is so boring compared to a lot of these days like we went to like somewhere like Santa Monica I'm obviously Las Vegas but like somewhere like Santa Monica and it's just it's built so like it's just like a really cool kind of like artsy atmosphere like Tokyo has like no place like that and so that's kind of the things I notice is how like Tokyo as far as like architectural speaking is really boring anyway thanks so much watching don't forget to subscribe follow my dog Charlie on Instagram charlie meets pumpkin my life
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