Everyday Life in Japan: 10 Essential Questions Answered

another fine morning another fine morning indeed because it closed one high abroad in a pan abroad in a pan I can't tell if that's a thinly veiled insult or a lucrative branding opportunity hmm your videos aren't bad but they need more special effects to level up in my opinion more special effects to level up well I don't see any other vloggers in Japan featuring a highly elaborate and unnecessary CGI plane crash once you've had a CGI plane crash you don't need to put the effort in again like ever so now take your special effects and get out oh and thank you for that branding idea you might yeah you might be onto something welcome to ask abroad the show answering questions sent in by you the viewer about Japan this week's topic is everyday life in Japan so most of the questions in this video will be about that topic with a few random ones thrown in including comment of the week and most annoying comment of the week before that though I realize there's been a noticeable lack of videos the past few weeks and I think it's time to offer some kind of explanation however to make things a bit more ambiguous and fun I thought I would present three reasons as to why that would be and you can guess which one it is reason number one after growing impatient waiting for Star Wars The Force awakens I cryogenically froze myself in order to jump ahead to the third week of December reason number two after growing impatient the Star Wars The Force awakens to release so I cryogenically froze myself in order to jump ahead to the third week of December but after my tents were met with failure I sat and cried for four weeks instead why isn't it working it's so [ __ ] cold reason number three in the run-up to doing abroad in Japan full-time when I moved to the beautiful city of Sendai in the second week of January I've been sorting out my visa planning your videos buying the equipment that I can't afford and testing out some groundbreaking chat-up lines now check out my shirt now that's made out of boyfriend material good luck guessing which one but the answer will be revealed in the next few weeks unless you look at the questionnaire in the description box below have you ever been asked to leave a place for being a gaijin no and I honestly think this is another myth about Japan that got out of hand online these bars where foreigners aren't allowed in I talked about quite a lot on the Internet though I'm not denying they exist in my three years of living in Japan I think I've seen a bar saying no foreigners maybe once and that was in a really touristy area the fact that I rarely see them should be reassuring considering I visit maybe 10,000 bars or restaurants every month if it does happen it will likely be in a small bar where the owner probably can't speak English and gets anxious or uncomfortable being surrounded by customers I can't communicate with rather than some kind of racist crusade against all foreigners still if it has happened to you let us know in the comment section below I'll be keen to hear of any experiences but I haven't come across it and it's not something you should really worry about have you gotten accustomed to the squat toilets no but I don't know many foreigners you have admittedly after three years I'm still not even sure how to really use the damn thing it's ridiculous given the contrast to the other half of Japanese toilets which look like they've been sent from the future to make toilets fun there are a few things worse than desperately needing the toilet rushing into the nearest one or discovering it's your only option no honestly I've seen a listen to a pitbull song and use this cropped toilet actually no I think I would how difficult was it to feel integrated into Japanese society in my first year it's true I did feel like a glorified tourist I wasn't confident as a teacher I couldn't speak any Japanese so there was a constant language barrier in my way more importantly I spent most of my time with other foreign English teachers so I didn't really socialize with my local community my area I also made a conscious decision that I was going to lock myself away for most of the first year and study Japanese in order to set myself up for the next few years it sounds like a stupid thing to do but in hindsight I don't really have any regrets because after that first year things really did get amazing in my second year I stopped studying Japanese as much and started using it I went out more and made friends in the local community I got a Japanese tutor I started volunteer during at the local international centre and running Conte English conversation classes I just kept saying yes to things and meeting more and more people by the third year I had befriended loads of local businessman in my area and even beatboxed in front of the local politicians so I felt very much integrated the most important component to feeling integrated into Japanese society is relationships just having good relationships with colleagues with people in your local area and just getting involved with more and more things meeting more and more people on the way what's the most awkward situation you've encountered whilst living in Japan it was probably during my time as an English teacher I was running an English lesson with a Japanese teacher of English one time and the subject of the lesson was occupations and jobs so he wanted the students to talk about what their dream job was and what they wanted to become and my colleague asked if I could talk a bit about what I wanted to be when I was growing up and what my dream had always been and I said well growing up as a child I always wanted to be a pirate I love that sense of adventure and discovery and the promise of treasure and she looked at me suddenly and said in a serious voice but Christiansen why would you be a pirate why would you want to kill and rape people and I just stood there in front of the class in awkward silence not quite knowing what to say thankfully I also remembered I wanted to be a pilot so I use that instead but that was pretty awkward I mean pirates killing and raping people that's ridiculous I don't know what version of Muppets Treasure Island she's been watching you damn if you were to put on a pair of shades you would look exactly like dr. octopus from spider-man to laugh out loud exactly like dr. octopus are there certain things that make everyday life difficult in Japan language barrier aside as it's two of this there is another cultural aspect that can complicate things somewhat and that is ambiguity or I might as it's known in Japanese in Japan it's very polite to be indirect and ambiguous on your opinion and often this community could be difficult to work out if someone means yes or no or what they actually think for example as an English teacher if I made a lesson plan and then took it to my colleague to have them check it over if they disagree with it they might say hmm it's difficult whereas in the UK we would say this is awful so the Japanese way of doing it is certainly more polite but it can be really frustrating when you just want it clear yes or no answer and instead for 10 minutes you get difficult I've even been to a hotel where the staff were too polite too ambiguous to even tell me the hotel was full instead they sort of keops their head like this and looked at the screen going mmm for ten minutes waiting for me to acknowledge that the hotel was full and say ah okay sorry I understand instead of giving a clear directive a colleague may indirectly hint at something and you have to try and work out if it's an off-the-cuff remark or they're telling you to do something for example outside of summer if I had my top button I'm done at work colleagues would come over and say wall he must be cold and I had to work out if that was just a general remark or if they were actually telling me do you button up that's not appropriate but it's a huge part of the culture and I must admit although it can be frustrating for a blunt direct straight-talking foreigner to deal with it's still quite an interesting and fun part of the cultural experience once you've got your head around it is Japan seriously as far forward in technology as the country is made out to be making a mistake Japan is up there as one of the world's most innovative technologically advanced countries and it probably has the greatest transport infrastructure in the world by it's not this magical futuristic robot Wonderland that everyone seems to think he is quite the opposite in many ways personal computers are rare many of my students and colleagues don't even have a computer at home and equally disturbing is the everyday usage of something called a fax machine a device which can be found in nearly every office perhaps one of the most frustrating things is ATMs many of which close off a p.m. Japan is still very much a cash based society and most people walk around with the wallet filled with tens of thousands of yen and I find most foreigners who've lived in Japan tend to express similar surprise that the reality is somewhat different from the image conveyed overseas what is your favorite time of year in Japan winter summer etc and why my favorite time of year is autumn so from September to early November the temperature is just right it's neither too hot nor too cold and the autumn colors look spectacular also there aren't many big national holidays so students are at school people at work meaning if you travel around places aren't too crowded the cherry blossom season is nice if not slightly slightly slightly overrated truthfully the autumn colors are far more impressive how to defeat the final boss of Japan two glasses of red wine consumed in quick succession go [ __ ] it sir god I hate the English he literally has his nose in the air and is looking down it at the camera can his eyelids be any more lazy yes they can be considerably more lazy go [ __ ] yourself d random people stare at you because you're foreign yes particularly in rural areas but it's to be expected living in a town with a hundred thousand people being one of a dozen Western foreigners even if I see another foreigner I'm surprised and I stare probably more than anyone and even if people do stare it's not it's not annoying with one notable exception that I wrote an article about a few months ago you can check the article out in the description box below it can be a bit weird standing out at first but you get used to it after a few weeks what is the best English you've ever seen printed on a Japanese product I think my favorite would have to be the t-shirt I bought that sense are you enjoy spring not just because I always read it in my mind in that unnecessarily aggressive tone but because I wonder at what point someone thought yes this is the question of people one on the front of their shirt and I so badly longed for the day I walk down the street and see someone else wearing it other than myself what was your favorite moment in the entirety of your time you spent in Japan I think it was the first time I realized I was having a conversation in Japanese with my friend netsky without consciously being aware that I was using it it was during my second year of living in Japan and I've been learning Japanese for about a year at that point and during my first year of learning and using Japanese I was always very consciously aware that I was using it because I had to think really carefully about what I was saying especially as the grammar between Japanese and English is incomparable it's completely alien and you have to always change your way of thinking by remember sitting in this pub and talking to my friend ASCII for hours on end and then getting home and realizing wait a minute I've just been speaking and listening in Japanese for hours on end without even noticing it and for me that was a real breakthrough moment to sit with your friend eat and drink and talk in this whole new language was a completely amazing experience I felt like I'd overcome a major hurdle and my quest for learning Japanese so that was a really big moment in my time in Japan so far so we find ourselves at the end once again the next ask abroad video will be about learning Japanese so please leave your questions in the comment section also there's a questionnaire in the description box below if you filled it out earlier in the year through Facebook or Twitter thank you for doing that it really helped give a sense of direction going forward into next year your efforts were not in vain this questionnaire is about what kind of videos people want to see next year as well as allowing people to decide their top five favorite videos on this channel of which the results will be announced in the next few weeks if you enjoyed this video please don't forget to hit the like button if you want more and I wish you all a Merry Christmas and for the record the force awakens I would give it an 8.5 out of 10 it was pretty good definitely worth watching see you all soon take a look how fun it is look at fun is look at fun alright fine Japan is the country that popularized the cat cafe a place where you can sit and enjoy dozens of cats and overpriced coffee but what if it isn't enough what if you want even more cats

Channel: Abroad in Japan

Views: 757,673

Rating: 4.9766164 out of 5

Keywords: japan, japanese, travel, Q&A, life in japan, gaijin, technology, living, ญี่ปุ่น, คำถามยอดฮิต, เทคโนโลยี, เที่ยวญี่ปุ่น, ท่องเที่ยว, ต่างประเทศ, ฝรั่ง

Id: dJ7OLTaAOf8

Length: 12min 59sec (779 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 23 2015