China vs. Japan

well hey there guys and welcome to another video for those of you who have come here for politics I'm afraid you've come to the wrong place this is not a comparison to say which country is better than the other and it's got nothing to do with politics this is basically to give you guys an idea of what life is like in Japan and life is like in China mainly for people who are interested in visiting the two countries or perhaps thinking about moving to or settling down in either one or chance young boy would a don't open your life for Jewish European butcher eager now go gorgeous Abita how the shipping so the shipping should Reuben the Shang whore going don't go to shoot some poor y'all so much Ruby other shipping ha ba omen Kaiser for those of you wondering why I feel qualified to talk about China and Japan fairly simply I've been living here in mainland China for over 10 years I've well I actually was learning to speak Japanese before I even came to China I also ran a company in South Africa called Honami enterprises which was like a language training company teaching people Japanese as well as having run a magazine dedicated to Japanese pop culture way before I even came to China so I've always had an interest in Japan I've recently returned from an 11 day trip to Japan and it is exactly as I expected it to be so I'm coming from at least a position of a little bit of knowledge of both countries so like I said this video is about my impressions of daily life there and let's begin with my first impressions of Japan right my first impressions of Japan is that it is clean organized polite and convene and well you see that as soon as you step off the airplane there are vending machines everywhere and you can get just about any drink or something to eat that you like everything's clean you've got you know rubbish bins where they separate the trash into plastics and combustible non combustible zet cetera et cetera I'm not going to go into detail but you just look at the streets and the streets themselves are incredibly clean you don't see litter lying around people are incredibly polite shop you know assistants people you bump into on the street even when I was trying to take videos or photos even though it was you know a lot of pedestrian traffic people would stop and wait for me to finish taking my photo and apologize and then move past just things like that which is quite the polar opposite to life here in China however that being said Japan is also society that's reached its peak and it's very evident just by spending the time there and also my knowledge of Japan from years ago it has like I said reached a peak and there's not a lot of room for growth China on the other hand is the complete opposite and it's continually growing and although the economy is slowing down and you can see that the effects around you you still see new skyscrapers going up you still see business booming you still see the cities of vibrant and full of life and still on the up and up there's a big downside to this of course and that is that this constant construction and a lot of noise and it's always things always in turmoil as a result and of course if you come to China even in the big cities you'll see a lot of litter you'll see a lot of impolite rude behavior from local citizens however to be fair the majority of the rude behavior the spitting the talking loudly on public transport one tuition budget accompanied by you got it here more daddy the littering the general social faux pas I should say they are all more or less perpetrated by a single generation which is anybody that was born before the 1970s or even in the early 1970s you know there was a lot of turmoil in China during that time and as a result there are a lot of uneducated people of that age who just quite frankly don't have an education and they weren't ever taught any good manners so it's fairly evident when you see this bad behavior you can be guaranteed that it's someone who's in their 40s 50s or 60s however the generation before that is very polite and the younger generation is a lot more sophisticated and you can see that you know things are on the up-and-up however China is very far behind as far as social politeness and educators concern and it's going to take them a while to catch up to Japan all right that is out of the way let's get down to brass tacks here things like cost of living and food now before I get on to cost of living I would like to first address tap water anyone who's traveling in and around Asia is always wanting to know can I drink the tap water and the answer in Japan is yes you can drink the tap water although by force of habit I was still boiling the water before I drank it and you can buy bottled mineral water really cheap in the local convenience stores anyway so I was kind of doing that but yes you can drink tap water in Japan now cost of living Japan is a very expensive place by reputation however I would actually go as far to say that mmm Hong Kong may be a little bit more expensive in some aspects my experience in Japan was that you spend a lot of money if you go out to restaurants it's very it is very expensive to eat at whereas of course in China it's really cheap average rent prices in Japan are also a lot higher than here in China here in a first-tier City you can still get away with renting an apartment for somewhere around 4000 RMB you can go lower it depends on part of the city but you're going to be paying anywhere between I think the very low end bracket in the first tier city is about two and a half thousand RMB for a shared room or a small very small one-bedroom apartment and it goes all the way up depending if you want to live in for instance the downtown bar area you're going to be paying over 10,000 RMB a month for your rent that's how it works however in Japan just a normal room is going to set you back around about five and a half thousand RMB so you can see it's it's actually quite a lot more expensive to rent in Japan and of course if you want to live in Tokyo in a nice area well you know the prices go up and up so how much does food actually cost well I found myself paying for a meal for two people at a fairly nice restaurant anywhere between 300 to 600 sometimes even a thousand R&B a meal but of course I was there on holiday I was trying all sorts of special foods you can definitely get away with going to what they call a round sushi like a conveyor belt sushi place and pay equivalent prices to China in fact you pay about a hundred RMB a person maybe even less if you know where to go but in general restaurants in Japan are more expensive but you can see the quality of the food and the preparation is of course vastly superior to here in China now before anyone gets and jumps up and says what are you saying Chinese food is amazing it's great it is amazing it is great and that's what it like I'm not trying to doubt that in any way what I'm saying is in Japan what you see on the menu is what you get on your plate pretty much in fact I've got an example here it literally is a society where people take a lot of pride in their work so people put a lot of effort into presentation and also into choosing fresh ingredients etc here in China is a bit of a mix and match you can go out and you can have a wonderful meal that's well presented well cooked but majority of the time you go out you just get something that's just been fried up and thrown on a plate and that's just the the bill on the end all of it really that's China and that's part of the adventure over here is trying out new things and not knowing what you're going to get at the end of the day now talking about food I made mention of this in my Taiwan versus mainland video that Chinese people don't like to eat dairy now it's true a lot of Chinese people are lactose intolerant and I believe this is because they're brought up not eating dairy products in fact you can't go and buy dairy products anywhere here in China only in very posh supermarkets and things like that if you go to a street market or place with this street food you will not find dairy products there's no cheese people don't use butter it's just not part of the Chinese diet so of course it's a big delight for me to see so much dairy in all the food in Japan and of course Japan has a huge array of different kinds of foods that are very unique to Japan things like sushi of course and things like okonomiyaki and things like well I could go on and on but there's a lot eat a lot of good things China on the flip side of course has its own big array of absolutely amazing and delicious foods which you can only really sample the real thing in China so depending on what kind of food you like you're going to have to go to that country to get the authentic thing and trust me I've tried Japanese restaurants up the wazoo here in China and I've never had an authentic experience and when I was in Japan I took a look at the Chinese restaurants there and they were not up to scratch because you just can't beat real Chinese food in China let's move on from food and talk a little bit about drinking culture Chinese drinking culture as I've mentioned before is rather juvenile when you go out drinking it's more about proving who's the strongest person and there's a lot of forcing each other to drink in fact the Chinese word for Cheers is Gombe which means empty glass or empty cup so every time you say Cheers is kind of like finish your glass finish your cup you know so if you go out drinking it's usually hard liquors like by Jo and things like that and usually people drink to the point where they're passing out or you know someone gives up so drinking culture in China can be quite painful especially when you get a little older whereas in Japan drinking culture is a way to release tension after work people tend to work really hard in Japan or very long hours who knows if they're really working hard but they are working very long hours and a lot of the times they're not allowed to leave the office until their boss leaves the office it's kind of part of the culture and that's just the way it is but in order to support this culture you've got something called an izakaya and what this is is basically an after-work pub really it's kind of like a pub but they often have normally holiday and tabby holiday which means you go there and you've got a two or three hour time limit where you're allowed to eat as much as you want and drink as much as you want so you can have draft beer on tap basically for a set price and it's more or less a daily thing for most Japanese office workers and I got to experience these izakayas when I was in Japan and it was really a blast and a lot of fun people really just go let their hair down after work go drinking and laugh and have fun and chat and eat their fill and then go home really late that's kind of the culture so depending on what you prefer I know as a young man when I came to China I had a lot of fun because every time I got invited up for dinner it was a big drinking session and I always came out on top and you know just basically won a lot of respect from all my Chinese friends and colleagues so yeah it's up to you what kind of drinking culture you prefer something that I mentioned in my India vs. China video is that Wi-Fi is very difficult to find in India why I'm bringing this up is because Wi-Fi is incredibly easy to find in Japan in fact just about every shop advertises a big sign saying free Wi-Fi in-store and in fact the whole of Fukuoka City the first city I went to and of course I'm presuming in most other cities this is the case you have like a city wide free Wi-Fi which you can use so it's incredibly convenient and of course it's uncensored unblocked you get full access to the Internet unlike here in mainland China where in fact you cannot access anything you really can't the only things you can access nowadays are Chinese sites like Baidu search engine or yoku or Billy Billy or 2-door one of the Chinese streaming websites it's very very very very frustrating and they've clamped down on VPNs as well so VPNs are also very difficult to use here and for those of you who don't know I use VPNs to upload my videos and to access the outside world and of course it's becoming harder and harder and it's a big turn-off for any expat living here so just please bear that in mind if you're coming to China be prepared to not be able to access your Facebook your YouTube your Twitter your blogger your Google your Google Maps you Google Translate your Android phones are not going to work properly so please bear that in mind now at the beginning of the video I mentioned that Japan is a very developed society and this is true and as a result during my entire time spent in Japan not once did I try and have somebody scan me in other words I didn't have someone tried to sell me something at an inflated price or try to rip me off in any way shape or form of course I am NOT a fool and there are lots of scams in Japan in places like Roppongi in Tokyo if you go to those dodgy bars or you know you get invited into a you know hostess club or something like that then of course if you're going to go to places like that you're going to get scanned it doesn't matter where you go in the world you go to London it's the same go to Soho same deal but I'm talking about in general now in general unfortunately in China this is still a very big problem you always have to be on your guard and it doesn't matter if you're buying fruit or vegetables from a wet market or if you're just dealing with someone in a normal shop that looks like a legitimate shop very often you will get scammed ripped off for money don't take unmarked taxis in China even normal taxi sometimes they try to work a deal with you and don't put down the meter all the normal taxis will give you fake currency so yes unfortunately a big part of living in China is dealing with people constantly trying to scam you and rip you off whereas in Japan I'm quite sure as long as you're not trying to do dodgy things you can avoid any kind of scam altogether for those of you interested in temples and in particular Shinto Buddhism Japan is quite the place everywhere you walk you will see small to the temples even in the middle of Tokyo I came across temples and it's quite a delight it's very traditional they have shrines where you can go and you know hang your wishes on a tree or donate some money and you know pray for whatever it is you want to pray for so it's nice to see that tradition whereas here in mainland China you will be hard-pressed to find that kind of thing now before anyone goes and says you live in Schengen there's no tradition in Schengen what are you talking about I've been all around China I've been to pretty much every single province except for the western side you know I stay away from the politically sensitive areas like ching chong and those nonsense places because I'm first of all not interested in going to visit desert areas and second of all I'm not interested in politics and I'd rather stay away from them but I can say that no matter where you go in China yes there are temples of course there are in small villages you can watch my Churchill customs videos where we go and find temples in villages in fact I'm going to put a link right here where we found an old temple and in fact if you watch that video I don't even need to explain anymore but religion and tradition and that sort of thing was more or less wiped out at some points in the recent history here in China and it's never fully recovered so although you do find temples they all look very put on and you know very new very recently renovated they don't look authentic and people usually just go there to pray for their own wealth and health and money that kind of thing and it's not really as rich as the temples you will find in Taiwan or Hong Kong or in Japan so that's just a fair warning for anyone who's coming to China don't expect these sort of kung fu temples with dragons and stuff that you will find elsewhere let's touch on language for a bit now of course in Japan people speak Japanese and although Japan has been open to the Western world for a very very long time you'll be surprised at how few people can actually speak English well that's not to say that you can't get around with English in fact it's very easy you will always find someone who can speak English so for a foreigner if you are wanting Asia in beginner mode you can go to Japan and you can survive without speaking any Japanese although I'm going to be totally honest and say that it's a bit lazy that if you go move to another country don't at least attempt to learn the language and Japanese is quite an easy language to learn so let's move on from language and just sum this all up China is an adventure China is full of opportunity China has a lot of growth potential there's still things happening all the time but with any developing come three it comes with its pitfalls and that's something that you have to have to have to know you can't come to a country and expect it to be like your own country especially if you're coming from a first world country don't come to a developing country and complain that it's not up to scratch because it's a developing country Japan is a developed country it's fully developed fully and with it comes all its pitfalls like people are in debt on credit cards you know the economy is not growing very fast there isn't a lot of opportunity there in comparison to here so once again you have to make your choices and choose your battles I'd say personally if you were going on a holiday Japan is a fantastic place to visit especially during the time that I've just visited in the the hanami Sakura season it's beautiful Japan is everything that's written on the box China on the other hand is a bigger adventure okay it's going to present more challenges to you however I would wager that you'll have a more genuine experience coming to China meeting local people being invited into people's homes seeing things you've never ever seen before in your life because China is just so undiscovered still so choose whichever you prefer this is the end of this video no matter if you're Japanese Chinese Caucasian black Hispanic doesn't matter who you are where you're from as always stay Olsen

Channel: serpentza

Views: 1,001,365

Rating: 4.7946377 out of 5

Keywords: Japan versus China, Difference between China and Japan, china vs japan, japan vs china, china japan, china and japan, japan china, chinese vs japanese, Japan, SerpentZA, Culture, Litter, Polite, Bikes, Winston Sterzel, Sushi, Okonomiyaki, China, Beer, chinese army, patreon, Adventure, Food, Cost of Living, chinese, asia, china how it is, japanese, living in china, Drinking Culture, china japan war, japan vs china war, japan vs china ww2, war, army, Bento, chinese girls, japanese girls

Id: iVMbp5-bJAM

Length: 20min 21sec (1221 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 12 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/I_WASTE_MY_TIME]

Im confused