12 Things I HATE about Living in Japan

might miss the angry Ranch does he love everything about Japan now oh I'm sorry Chris is too happy and nice now if you want a rant you get around this is going to be the angriest video I've ever made truth is though I like Japan a lot and I'm still discovering things about the culture case in point just yesterday I discovered a Japanese hip-hop band called creepy nuts yeah creepy nuts and to be honest that's one of the better Japanese English band names creepy nuts are up there alongside other bands including Mrs wiener asparagus rhythmic toy world yeah and of course knockout monkey which sounds less like a rock band I'm more like a great way of getting kicked out of London Zoo anyway I didn't come here to reel off questionable band names even though I definitely should that could be a great video I came here to be angry very angry indeed so here's 12 Things I Hate About Japan and why I hate them some of them potentially controversial but feel free to keep a running score out of 12 and see if you're as twisted and as bitter as I am so for my first three years living in Japan I lived in a pretty rural place and out in the Japanese Countryside there's basically three things you could do number one is play Pachinko Japan's most popular game and one so horrific it'll absolutely be appearing on this list later on number two was go to a hostess club or snack bar and number three was look at a rice field now my preference was to always do number three but unfortunately every week a work colleague or a friend would drag me Kicking and Screaming to a hostess club where over the course of a single evening I would eradicate my entire paycheck now if you don't know what a hostess club or kabakura as it's known in Japanese is it's basically a bar where you come in sit down Sit amongst some girls who pour your drinks light your cigarettes flirt with you and massage your fragile ego and it's a genius idea in many ways because every single guy that walks in through that door and blows a few hundred bucks can delude themselves into thinking that they are popular the moment you walk in and sit down the girl always asks if they can drink too if they can join you and naturally you have to say yes so you end up paying for their drink and yours at the same time and from that point on their only role is to keep you there as long as possible applying you with alcohol and turning your wallet into a supermassive black hole in many ways it kind of sounds exciting right and the first few times it is you know flirting with someone singing karaoke having a drink being plied with alcohol is fun and you kind of made to feel special and even when you leave the venue it still carries on the illusion continues because they'll take your phone number and message you throughout the day asking oh you know when are you coming back let's carry on this is all well and good until you realize you're paying hundreds of dollars for a date that can never ever lead anywhere you could almost recreate the same experience sitting alone in a room drinking a bottle of vodka and burning a small pile of money in fact that would probably be better once you've been to a hostess club 10 times and have the same conversations you basically realize it's like a very expensive version of Groundhog Day the only upside is even though your bank balance is gone you do get some complimentary nuts and snacks and no creepy nuts though unfortunately I'll have that one 10 shekel rule worse still you're doing this while surrounded by other drunken customers having their cash shoveled from their wallets like coal being stuffed into a [ __ ] furnace and to keep the customers there longer they basically force you into doing karaoke in front of everyone which leads me to point number two on my list of things I hate in Japan [Music] oh just as you think a house desk Club can't get any worse they hand out the microphone to the drunk guy and under a mixture of alcohol and peer pressure he butchers your favorite 80s song and they always pick the same [ __ ] artist it's always Taylor Swift Bon Jovi Disney songs being massacred over and over the one person that can sing voice of an Angel never gets anywhere near the microphone the only thing that helps is the Normie hordai or you can drink menu but the food isn't up to scratch unfortunately avoid the food at the karaoke booth and there comes a point in the evening where you wish both music and ears had never been invented when you finally crack and who sees the microphone and take your moment straight [Music] oh oh God the only problem with karaoke is too much or you can drink but you've got to do it you've got a drink to get through it fortunately Japanese toilets though aren't the best in the world I love walking in and being greeted by a toilet opening up as if it desperately wants my custom the seats are heated and when you sit down on it it plays music like Beethoven's Fifth Symphony It's [ __ ] amazing it's a game changer but there is one thing about Japanese toilets that I hate that is this the some people live and die by these damn things but it's any reasonable person using a bidet can only feel like an invasive surgical procedure using a [ __ ] Super Soaker when I sit down on a toilet I don't want it to be a 4D experience right and once you've had one unexpectedly hit you automatically at full pressure with scolding hot water you'll hate the damn things just as much as I do truthfully the only thing I hate more than these damn things the people that Rave about them so relentlessly as if they're the second coming of Christ I'm not gonna I'm not gonna name any names right now bro [Music] oh feeling rather peckish now unfortunately the next thing on this involves food and for this one we're going undercover mic test test one two three audio good camera good okay it's tough we're about to go in somewhere I've actively dreaded for a long time and somewhere I don't go often it's somewhere no one deserves to go we're about to go inside Japan's blandest burger restaurant wish me luck here we are the Toby Kitty cheeseburger a burger with a sort of sloppy cheesy oniony mess rather anemic capacity and then the bread's not too bad I think I probably lost Burger is that sort of overnight nature people always say oh my God Moss Burger it's like this amazing it's Japan's native Burger brand it's amazing it's not because Japan has its own Burger brand doesn't mean it's good right everyone comes to Moss Burger the first time they're like oh my God it comes in a basket it's the best thing to come out of a basket since Moses and yes look at this cardboard chips look at this sloppy messy Burger in here right instead of using a cheese slice they use like a pasty sauce that you'd use put wallpaper on your [ __ ] bedroom wall unbelievable I'm gonna really struggle to eat these new most of the times I've been driving in Japan in the middle of nowhere I mean literally anything and the only thing I see is a Mossberg and I say oh I'll carry on another 40 kilometers I'll hedge my bets it's not to say Japan can't do good burgers they can freshness Burger a far better chain if I was trying to say something good about moss Burger today I discovered the name Moss right it means mountains ocean and sea and it's supposed to be about embracing life but why can they Embrace a better Patty that doesn't look this anemic look at the color look at that color it doesn't look like a burger and the first time I've had a moss Burger in two years and I'm someone who eats out every day so that's telling you something our push they've got a nice interior and the staff are always nice so tick there I don't want to eat any of this but I'm going to out of respect for food but I'm not coming here again take my business to freshness Burger so should you Mountain Ocean Sea why Mountain oceans given Japan is the country that gave us wonders such as Nintendo Sega PlayStation you might think what the biggest game maybe it's one of those maybe it's arcade games or crane game machines but no Japan's biggest game is none of these things it involves ball bearings going around in a circle through a machine and it is called pachinke not only do I despise Pachinko but I have the biggest video about Pachinko on the entire YouTube platform with 10 million views and despite that despite making a video on the subject and going there and watching natsuki winners various prizes not only do I still not really understand the game I absolutely don't understand the motivation behind people playing it and yeah one in 10 people in Japan play Pachinko and it's worth 200 billion dollars to the Japanese economy for many it's not so much a recreational activity as a gambling addiction right it is gambling even though gambling in Japan is technically banned it's not allowed they have found ways around it so when you go into Pachinko you win your ball bearings you get your literal crate of ball bearings take them to a person who turns it into a coupon you take the coupon you go to a building that's quite literally round the back of the Pachinko parlor and someone there will buy your ticket for money and off you go with your winnings the only problem of course is as it's gambling people are losing their money the only real winner are the Pachinko parlors now you might be wondering why do I hate you what is it about the Chinko that I despise so much and there's two things really number one when you're out in the countryside you'll be driving through a decrepit town everything looks run down unfortunately population dropping in rural areas around the country and all of a sudden you'll see like a beam of light this sort of big building shining glimmering like a ray of Hope in this decrepit town and then you'll get closer and you'll think is it a shopping mall is it some sort of great business no it's a Pachinko parlor filled with cars filled with people blowing their salary wasting their time it's usually unfortunately the brightest spot in many towns that you'll find around in rural Japan and I used to find that so depressing when I was out there driving around I'd see these buildings I'd think well that must be something good and then I discover it was a Pachinko parlor and people were wasting their time blowing their money and it's wasting time that's the second thing I hate about pachinke right I've watched people play Pachinko right you can see it in the video natsuki's sitting there he twists this little handle the balls get launched around they go in a circle and somehow he wins every now and then there's really not that much to it it is for lack of a better phrase phenomenally [ __ ] boring and I've met people that have blown their entire salary on it and lost so much of their time right there is a real Sinister side to it as there is with any gambling but for being the most boring game in Japan and for exploiting people out there in those rural areas people that aren't that well off hopefully most people agree that my decision to put Pachinko on this list was completely and utterly Justified picture the scene you're wandering through Tokyo wind in your hair on your way to the creepy nuts concert [Music] around the corner comes a Mario Kart craze Maniac at the wheel ruining the atmosphere and hopefully not mounting the pavement and crashing into a fish and chip shop has happened several years ago but no this isn't Mario Kart this is go-karting in Tokyo now it used to be called Mary Carr which didn't go down very well with Nintendo as you can imagine uh given the reference to Mario especially given that someone did in the go-kart Mount the curb and crash into a fish and chip shop not just any fish and chip shop my favorite one mallons in rapongi not only that but there was another crash the year before as well understandably Nintendo weren't happy they did see the company for 50 million yens quite a lot of money but 500 000 and the company went under but go-karting is back and it's no longer called Marika for legal reasons but there's a company called streetcar with a very good disclaimer saying there's nothing nothing to do in Nintendo here this time and they're wisely not selling this as a Mario Kart kind of experience as they were before now what am I against this what do I hate so much about go-karts well first off I have nothing against go-karts I like Mario Kart I like go-karts what I don't like is foreign tourists coming over jet lagged into Tokyo getting behind the wheel of a go-kart and driving through the biggest city on earth now driving through Tokyo is not fun it's very scary even in a car let alone in a go-kart of course things are going to go wrong and if you ask most people most local Japanese people they hate this idea of foreign times driving around on a go-kart causing chaos they're very loud they're very annoying I just don't think it's a good idea to let people drive around on go-karts in Tokyo and as we've seen with the crash into the fish and chip shop you know probably a good reason why I mean maybe I'm just biased because I was sad that the fish and chip shop got hit that'll do it could have been a hamburger restaurant I wouldn't have cared but now it's personal now it's very personal indeed often the only people you see riding the go-karts are foreign tourists and actually it propagates this sort of bad image that foreign tourists equals bad and I think that is part of the reason I hate it and many foreign residents in Japan do as well as a result if you come to Tokyo don't use them get some bicycles go karting the countryside call me Mr boring [ __ ] rubbish fun killing [ __ ] guy but I stand by this I hate Mary go-kart in real life and you should too God I love cameras even old school Polaroid cameras pretty damn cool and it kind of helps doing this right to have a love of the very thing you use every day to make videos and yet there's something in Japan something truly unspeakable that makes me wish cameras had never been invented now you might be thinking well look pretty good is clearly not aimed at you a grumpy 32 year old man and you'd be right about that but the thing is I didn't really understand why anyone likes pretty Cura the act of taking your face and making it look like an alien trying to transform into a human sort of gave up along the way and did this purikura literally means print club and uh sounds harmless enough but when it came out in 1995 it was basically the front runner to the modern day filter you'd go inside a booth take some photos process them looking a bit weird edit them print them out and have fun and back in the 90s I could kind of see the appeal of that with photo manipulation today it's very outdated I don't get why it's popular anymore look at this I had to go down to the arcade and demean myself for this stupid photo I don't know what I'm gonna do with it maybe burn it later I don't see the appeal I hate putikuna I don't know why it's still a thing please don't take me there if you ever meet me in person and that is the end of this section stupid [ __ ] should have stayed in the 90s I've often said in videos that it feels like there's a barrier between you and Japanese people right living here and in many ways that is because of the phrases they use in everyday life here's five phrases you hear every single day without fail if you have small talk with someone number one can you use chopsticks yes yes of course I can use [ __ ] chopsticks not again no two your Japanese is good new Hunger Jersey which has become a meme unto itself number three can you eat Japanese food can you do it can you eat it can you eat the bowl of ramen yes I can eat the ramen I can eat all the ramen just can't eat Nutter number four when are you leaving Japan when are you going home and number five in Japan we have four seasons yes we have four seasons in the UK as well there might be rain in every single season literally every day but there's still four seasons in the UK Japan isn't special now when you come here early on it's really not a problem people saying oh can you use chopsticks wow your Japanese is good you feel good about yourself like yeah Japanese is good even though it's [ __ ] it's good you feel great and then after six months or a year or three years or ten years when people are still saying the same [ __ ] sentences in every small talk in every conversation it'll really piss you off and if you speak to any Foreigner who's lived in Japan over a year or two who's enjoyed this and had these sort of same conversations over and over you'll find that these microaggressions these phrases are one of the greatest sources of frustration one of the most important things with microaggressions though is the speaker isn't actually trying to piss you off it's just a bit of unconscious bias they have it's not like they're inherently trying to piss you off in everyday life for those of us living here it can be very very annoying indeed it would be like a Japanese person coming to London and being like wow do you want do you want Chopsticks every dinner do you want to eat your fish and chips with chopsticks is that okay do you want Chopstick it would be a bit like that but maybe not as not as extreme and in your face but going back to the hostess club earlier that small talk that boring menial talk that is the sort of conversation it would be why are you here can you use chopsticks we have four seasons yes I know I've had that conversation very frustrating everyone who's lived in Japan will hopefully backed me up there but it's not going anywhere anytime soon and what it means is in my case I try and avoid Small Talk altogether I just sort of go hey I'm going over here now and it's led me to be really just not good at small talk in Japan and whilst for me it's only a daily annoyance for people who actually born and raised in Japan but don't necessarily look Japanese for example a Japanese national who is raised by two American parents it can make life very difficult for them right when people are constantly like wow new Honda Jersey you can speak Japanese like yes I've lived here my whole life I'm fluent I am Japanese I just don't look it so if I ever had kids in Japan I don't think I'd put them into a Japanese school for that reason they would constantly feel like an outsider microaggressions not so much aggression as a [ __ ] annoyance and one of the things I hate about living in Japan foreign [Music] I'll never forget the first time I arrived in Tokyo I drove down a highway and this was the first building I saw the iconic Tokyo Tower it stood here since 1958 overshadowing the Georgie Temple down below and my first memories of Tokyo altogether are just these incredibly unique buildings like the nakagin capsule Tower or the Fuji telabi building over in odaiba now something's been going on over the last decade something unspeakably disappointing and that is Tokyo Skyline is starting to all look the same go to maranochi over by Tokyo Station all shiny new glass skyscrapers that could be copied and pasted from any other place on Earth then you've got behind me in azerbaijuba all just boring generic skyscrapers except maybe that green one over there which looks like a Lego block building I like that one all culminating in the tallest skyscraper in all of Tokyo and Japan just over here it's actually dwarfs Tokyo Tower which I never thought would happen in my lifetime and with that in mind the next thing on my list is I hate modern Japanese architecture now you might be thinking well you're just bitter Chris you're bitter because they tore down your beloved Knack again capsule Tower and they did last year we went in had a look around this iconic building this year it's finally gone they dismantled the capsules and where once stood the iconic neck again capsule Tower is now just a hole of nothing soon to be filled with another generic apartment building like the many ones that surround it now and while I get that Tokyo is always about modernizing changing adapting the dichotomy between old and new I think if you're going to tear down an amazing building replace it with something good don't just build another boring building and that's been the case with places like Harajuku station Harajuku station has an iconic design built in the Meiji era and it was never fun going through Harajuku station it was always an absolute [ __ ] shape it was small it was crowded it wasn't fun so they replaced it and built a brand new building and yet it's just another shiny glass boring building that could be any station in Japan utilitarian characterless and boring I don't understand why they didn't think well why did we borrow something from that Old design why don't we take something and make something new now let's just build a brand new train station it could have been in any other place in Japan and I worry we're going to see more of these dreary glass buildings going up making Tokyo Skyline look like it could be anywhere else on Earth and look I get it you know architecture is completely subjective I understand that many people didn't like the neck again capsule Tower they thought it was hideous but I think we can all agree that to destroy and demolish a building that was iconic original different and then replace it with just nothing just another boring copy paste building that is a tragedy and I worry that a lot of Tokyo Skyline is going to look like that in the not too distant future I mean it already is right now that is why I hate modern Japanese architecture in cities and I think it's a real shame percent in it yeah put your hands up if you like train stations yes oh my God I love a train but I'm not going to shut down excellent now put your hands up if you like bentos yes oh my God I like food in a box what are we waiting for eki Ben train station Bento put it together what do you get disappointment on a scale of one to overrated thing equiben are just everywhere people rant and Rave about how much they love the damn things and I'm not gonna deny there are some good eki Ben I ride the bullet train uh once every week twice a week and I get an accuben every time and there are some fantastic options with sushi tempura tonkatsu excitement I love it but for every good eki Ben there are three very bad EK events where the rice is like Excavating a bit of gravel out of a box where the food is cold and dry and [ __ ] and even though Connor and I disagree on pretty much everything the one thing we agree on is that ekiben are overrated and we hate them and that is almost certainly because once upon a time we were in a rush to get a bullet train from okayama to Tokyo and often when you're running through a Japanese train station it's chaotic it's rushed you've got to get the train you pick up the first Bento you see and we picked up I think this beef wagyu bentos like beef it's very expensive passive 2000 unit box and we needed that Bento it's a four hour train ride we needed some good food and we cracked the bentos open on the train distraught hungry Fed Up put the Chopsticks in and they got stuck in the [ __ ] rice because the rice was so cold and hard and horrible we took a bite of the beef and it was stringy and tough and for that price point 2 000 Yen when you're on a train for four hours with no other food at your disposal we were very angry and we swore that day never to sing the Praises of eki Ben ever again [Music] in the 18th century the British Aristocrat the Earl of Sandwich came up with a groundbreaking Idea Place some salted beef between two slices of toasted bread and all of a sudden you have a delicious dish in a convenient form factor the sandwich was born British engineering at its finest and today in America alone 300 million sandwiches are consumed every single day an astonishing figure given the American population is 331 million people simply put Britain branded it America ate it and Japan completely utterly [ __ ] it what is this fruit sandwich atrocity who does this who does this to a sandwich strawberries and cream and some bread why why I not only hate fruit sandwiches I hate what they've become people associate the fruit sandwich with Japanese culture as if it's a unique creation to be proud of there's a reason we don't do this outside of Japan because it tastes awful sandwiches should be Savory they shouldn't taste and look like this the only thing in Japan's defense is the sandwiches that aren't riddled with straw strawberries oranges and cream are actually pretty damn good egg sandwiches Perfection pork cutlet Count Me In ham and cheese not so much they use cheap cuts of ham it doesn't it doesn't work but fruit sandwiches look at this sloppy creamy mess honestly the cruel irony is there's no food in the studio today and I haven't eaten lunch so I'm gonna have to eat it but suffice to say I hate it and the Earl of Sandwich is turning in his grave all right this one's not that bad because it's more cream than sandwich look at it honestly God oh um the last thing on this list is an amalgamation of all 11 points we've seen and heard until now all presented into one convenient format that I killed Japanese television I remember before I went on Japanese TV it was something I always wanted to do you know it was kind of like the dream and many foreigners have it they're like oh yeah my dream go Japan be on TV have fun I went on TV maybe three or four times and each and every time was absolutely [ __ ] weather is asking me to hold a camera in my hand in every shot to prove that I was a YouTuber are you a YouTuber I am or whether it was propagating the myth that foreigners spread the virus more because they announced the P sound as you might remember Korea pendes this is a pen this was an actual thing on Japanese TV and it still blows my mind but I've made a whole video on why I hate Japanese TV and to talk about it here would be to do it a disservice go and check out the whole video and I think I explain myself rather well one of the most frustrating things on this list I talked about today was microaggressions and I feel like Japanese TV propagates it more than anything else they make foreigners seem like these exotic beings From Another Dimension and I think that mindset has sort of permeated the culture and I think Japanese TV is responsible for that but anyway go and check out the video why I hate Japanese TV I explain things a bit more succinctly over there and before I go I have to say while it's easy to pinpoint 12 Things I Hate About Japan I could quite easily reel off a list of a thousand things that I love about Japan just because I've been critical of these 12 things just because I've had opinions it doesn't overall the fact that I love Japan I love living here the people the culture the food it is a fantastic country and I feel very lucky to be here and I look forward to the folks who are like oh my God if you don't like it just leave I can't wait for that to happen because it always does and it's part of the fun of doing YouTube but for now guys as always many thanks for watching abroad in Japan if there's something on this list that I I've missed or something you feel strongly about that you don't particularly like about Japanese culture let me know in the comments below and what was your score out of 12 how many of these points do you agree with me on as for me though I'm off to see rhythmic toyweld I'll see you later that's rhythmic toy world the band not the shot the power would love is a Curious Thing [Music] More [Music] Than A Feeling That's The Power of Love top further than diamonds bricks like Craig stronger and harder than the bad girls [Music] at night you don't need money don't leave those credit cards right as strong there you go how's that

Channel: Abroad in Japan

Views: 2,868,461

Keywords: japan, japan travel, japanese culture, japanese travel, abroad in japan, chris abroad, trash taste

Id: qgYZrPf5kgY

Length: 27min 6sec (1626 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 30 2022