How Does Living in Japan Change You?

[Music] coming up next on wonderlust tv is another generic poorly researched series about japan so grab your kimonos and chopsticks and let's go to the land of the rising sun [Music] tokyo japan blah blah blah 36 million people blah blah blah like a different planet blah blah blah shiny [Applause] what will you do today special life i bought this place mat today so every morning when i sit down to eat my burnt toast i can look at this bear and think yes what am i going to do today special life it's no secret that i love eccentric japanese english marketing whether it's an enthusiastic bear or intriguing branding choices on cans of beer like this one i bought today it's goodbye asahi superdry and kieran and hello to gentoff gent off the drink of real men gentoff it sounds like a dance-off held by aristocrats but while i was off doing my standard weekly shopping for placemats and gentoff i struck a goldmine in the world of japanese english marketing i found myself in the store's music section when i stumbled across some intriguing local punk rock bands now historically of course punk rock bands have pretty provocative names i'm thinking the sex pistols the clash the damned but it seems in japan punk rock bands go for a completely different angle as i came face to face with the punk rock band known only as the barbecue chickens the bbq chickens i was pretty delighted at first after all it's not every day you hear of a band named after your favorite dish but then i discovered that the bbq chickens were under a japanese punk rock label known as pizza of death records pizza of death it sounds like the last thing you order the domino's pizza anyway brilliant japanese punk rock bands have signed it is time for another q a where i answer your questions you guys have sent in about japan travel food culture as well as talking about my own awkward personal experiences and deepest darkest secrets we'll also have comment of the week and hate mail of the week because not everybody is nice now all good q and a's live and die on the opening questions hopefully we've got something good something profound and meaningful to to kick us off what do we got what does japan smell like what's your opinion on the japanese spider crab i am never going in the sea again ever if you could introduce one element of western culture to japan what would you choose the concept of a work-life balance many people are familiar with the word karashi which means death from overwork and any culture that has to invent a word that means that well that's never really a good sign is it essentially when you get a job in japan the line between work and life is not so much blurred as just rubbed out all together there was a study done in 2018 that showed that workers in japan take only half of their annual leave 10 days out of 20. typically if you do take holiday leave you'll be seen as letting down your employees you'll be passed over for that much needed promotion you wanted but honestly it's one of the most stupid practices i've ever seen because people are perpetually stressed and burnt out labor productivity in japan is the worst of any countries in the g7 being present in the workplace and looking like you're working hard is actually way more important than really being productive and certainly if you're coming here to live and work and you want to make a good impression at your company and you want to impress your colleagues just sit around and pretend to look busy long after your work's finished and you'll rise to the top in no time at all you'll be the ceo trust me what's the worst name you could give a child uh spider crab wow you're a thick boy now strawberry cheesecake got you good i don't even like strawberry cheesecake creme brulee that's where the action is what would be the one thing you didn't enjoy in the uk but did in japan i love knowing that every time i walk into a pub or a bar in japan and strike up a conversation with a stranger i don't have to pretend to know what football is in the uk if you don't like football like me you are a social outcast your life is effectively worthless because you can't have a conversation with 50 of the british population so you can probably imagine my horror when i moved six thousand miles away to a field in north japan to teach english to a school where nearly half the students supported manchester united football club oh chris sensei who's your favorite manchester united football player no one get out you failed the exam honestly you can run from football but you can't hide from it what is it about ryotaro that gives off a menacing aura his face what's something you really wish more people would know about japan i tend to find when most people think of japan they all have the same kind of image crowded trains lots of people crossing this road and everything being weird and alien and you'd be completely forgiven for thinking that because that's how it's portrayed in tv and film right nine out of ten times lazy tv shows featuring japan always start with the presenter walking over shibuya crossing saying the exact same things blah blah blah different planet i take my hat off to james may he did a really good series on amazon and the opening shot of that isn't shibuya crossing i was absolutely shocked it's him standing on a beach in the snow in hokkaido nothing even really interesting happening but it was something original it was something refreshing it was a really well researched series and i take my hat off to the producers on that show they deserve some well-earned strawberry cheesecake tokyo isn't japan in the same way that london isn't the uk or new york isn't the us it's in the countryside outside of the cities where you get a real sense of japan's identity and ultimately where you find the quality of life is undeniably better than tokyo not everybody in japan spends their day walking over shibuya crossing if a zombie apocalypse hit japan where in japan would be the safest and why that would have to be okonoshima also known as rabbit island the island is fairly isolated in japan's inland sea so secluded in fact that during world war ii they turned it into a chemical weapons facility but even if the zombies did get there somehow the thousands of rabbits that make up the island's population would certainly take care of them i mean they certainly gave me a run for my money the last time i was down there oh my god what is your most prized possession my most prized possession is actually a more recent purchase and it is this the original 1989 nintendo game boy when i was growing up this is my first console and i took it around with me everywhere and then about 15 years ago i think i sold it for money and i've regretted that decision ever since but fortunately in japan secondhand goods are phenomenally good condition and i bought this for about 8 000 yen about 80 at super potato the retro game store in akihabara depending on the condition you can actually get a cheaper one for example for two thousand yen less for about sixty dollars you could get another game boy that was stained yellow and looked like it had been dragged through a packet of cheetos one of the reasons i got it though nostalgia aside was because of this the original super mario land game that was accompanied with the game boy upon release in the 15 years that i played this game i was never ever able to beat it i was never able to succeed it's the sort of game where if you die or if you switch off the console you have to go all the way back to the start and do it from scratch and i remember at the age of 10 i spent two hours playing through it once and i was 80 of the way through when i stepped on a [ __ ] goomba i died and i went all the way back to the start and the subsequent anger distress and psychological damage that did to me as a 10 year old child the anger the resentment everything i am everything i became was because of this game and now finally 20 years later in my hands i'm gonna beat super mario land once and for all do it right now will you and natsuki please do a harry potter impression i'm snap i'll get you mr holly put what kind of hotel or accommodation would you recommend the most when visiting japan i can't think of many other countries that have as crazy as wonderful as diverse a range of accommodation options as japan in the uk you've got hotel rooms and tents in the rain in japan you've got capsule hotel where you get to sleep at a glorified coffee love hotels where you can arrive on your bed in style you've got robot hotels where a bilingual robot dinosaur will check you into your room and best of all perhaps you've got traditional winds you can dress up have the best meal of your life and then boil yourself alive in a hot spring land of the rising sun more like land of the rising fun i'd yeah i won't do that again sorry my almost three-year-old has been having trouble adjusting to his new sibling any advice uh bribe them bribe them with money bribe them with incredible gifts or for example why not buy them i have a [ __ ] sake t-shirt from the abroad japan merchandise range it's the perfect gift for any discerning two-year-old who feels left behind and forgotten at the birth of a new sibling no seriously do you get them a game boy though get them into retro video games early and they'll grow up to be the perfect son for one for my son in my imagination right this time let's do it [Music] go [ __ ] yourself chris seems to be fat again oh god here we go i watched several videos from his early days on youtube and found out he's already a chubby guy when he first landed in japan but he's so young at that time and looked quite cute with the boyish roundness of his face now he's slowly turned into a round middle-aged man of which type you can bump into a hundred times on the streets of london the contrast makes me feel sad welcome to aging [ __ ] it's true i look so young and boyish look at that handsome rugged youthful face it definitely doesn't look like i've eaten a bucket of ice cream and smeared butter all over my face if any of you watching this are planning to go into the exciting world of vlogging i'll give you some useful advice one piece of useful advice that is free free of charge whenever you hold the camera down here right at a low angle people say oh he looked fat you've been eating too much strawberry cheesecake again i hate you get out my face but if you have the camera up here and then wow it looks thin now it's magic all of a sudden 10 the comments wow you've lost weight you look good again i like you now and that's because it makes your jawline look slightly better right jawline looks better that's why people always take videos and photos up here but down here oh you're fat and awful now and that is the only thing you need to remember in the world of vlogging it's all about the camera angle it's not that my weight goes up and down every tuesday it's just the camera angle that and the love of barbecue chicken go [ __ ] yourself after eight years how has living in japan changed you as a person it's a good question i mean eight years in a completely different culture is inevitably going to change you in some ways and i've thought about this quite a bit because look i've made notes on a notepad i've come to about six points six key points on how i think i've changed through living in japan number one i'd say i'm more mindful of my behavior in public in all my years here i've never seen a fight or an argument or an altercation in public just because people are way more mindful of how they're affecting the people around them there's how loud you're being in public as well um you don't want to stand out in that way and certainly as a foreigner you do become a little bit hyper aware of what you're doing and you don't want people looking at you right because you already stand out a little bit and as well as being more mindful i'm also more polite i think i say excuse me something like that about 500 times a day so that's the first point i'm more mindful of what i'm doing and how i'm affecting the people around me and i'm more polite for it and i think generally it's a good thing but it can be quite stressful as well always having to be switched on and always having to think about how you're affecting people around you second point is i have a lot more faith in society as a whole which sounds weird but simple example i go for a walk every night about 10 11 p.m no matter what i've done during the day i'll go out for an hour's walk i'll do it for my mental and physical health but i'll do it because i have nothing to worry about out there on the streets when i lived in the london area i was a little bit reluctant to do that i felt like sure london's not overly dangerous but you still have to be looking over your shoulder affair but you still have to kind of be switched on if you go into a coffee shop here customers leave their laptops and equipment and wallets and phones on the table when they go to the bathroom i remember being in a starbucks in hiroshima the first time i was in hiroshima and i just left my macbook pro on the [ __ ] table when i went to the bathroom and it was there when i got back it was magic i just would not have had the confidence to do that anywhere else third point i prefer sleeping on a futon than i do sleeping on a bed which is ridiculous i never thought that would be a thing but there's something about sleeping on a futon it makes me sleep better it took me a while to get accustomed to that but for my first three years living here i did live in a tiny apartment where i had a futon and every evening i had to get out the cupboard and unroll it and every morning i had to pack it away and put it back in and i had to because if i didn't there was no living space to sit and eat or just relax but quite quickly i found that i fell asleep really well on a futon i think maybe it's the hard surface it's quite firm or maybe it's also because the whole floor feels like your bed when you're on a futon right you can kind of stretch out you don't have to worry about falling out so maybe that's another factor i don't know the science behind it all i know is futons equal sleep number four continuing the theme of living in japan i found that i can live quite comfortably in a very small space i grew up in quite a small house and i was always conscious of that and my aim for the longest time was to have somewhere big that i could live or rent in but then i moved here lived in that tiny space for three years and i actually found it had everything i wanted everything i needed sure you have times where you think i'd like a bigger kitchen i'd like not to have to use my ironing board as valuable kitchen space but now i've lived in three different apartments in japan all of them have been very small and aside from the fact you can sometimes hear your neighbors through the cardboard [ __ ] walls it's actually pretty satisfying and makes you a lot more mindful about the things you buy and what you put in your apartment so in that respect i buy less things because i simply can't fit them in my apartment so living in a small space never thought i'd enjoy it but surprisingly i actually do number five i do eat healthier i know my reputation basically revolves around me eating fried chicken and strawberry cheesecake apparently but in reality i live a relatively healthy lifestyle whenever i go back to the uk i'm always shocked at how much processed foods there are you know snacks biscuits crisps i'm sure japan has that but not anywhere near the scale of a british supermarket in a japanese supermarket you can find a lot more raw foods a lot more vegetables pickled things fish while ready meals are very popular in the uk like say a microwave lasagna which i pretty much survived on when i was a university student over here you have like pre-made bentos and things like the pre-made foods in japan are far healthier and far more balanced i think and there's been subtle changes to my diet instead of eating crisps only rice crackers and instead of eating meat i'll eat fish just because there's so much more choice when it comes to fish in japan but i would say my diet is a lot healthier contrary to popular belief strawberry cheeks okay number six i'd say i'm a lot more appreciative towards things foods people first off within the japanese language there's a lot of fixed phrases for example before you eat you always say italic and at the end of the meal you say gotcha sort of to the person that's prepared the meal even objects i'm a lot more careful about how i handle them i mean we talked about this earlier this secondhand nintendo game boy right this is potentially 25 years old it looks like it was made last tuesday just because it's been such good care whoever owned this kept it in such incredible condition and and that is pretty common in japan people take really good care of things when i spoke to rioter about this he told me that when parents are raising children in japan they teach them that every object kind of has a life force in it does sound a little bit like the jedi sounds a little bit like star wars but he said that if a child is kicking the table the mother would say don't hit mr table don't hit table stand and sort of teach kids that every object has some sort of life force or some sort of energy in it but given japanese culture's strong roots in buddhism and shintoism it wasn't a surprise to hear that and generally i find people take good care of things and that rubs off on you so those are six ways i think japan has changed me and i think most those points are largely positive clearly the best thing that's come out of me living in japan is i no longer kick tables for fun don't want to hurt table sam that is all for now though guys a huge thanks to everybody who sent in their questions for this video for more behind the scenes content check out the apron japan patreon but for now many thanks for watching i'll see you next time i am gonna do something i've been wanting to do the last hour does it live up to the hype there is no hype it's just gentle isn't it there we go moment of truth if you're wondering what that means apparently it means that there's less wheat in it um maybe there's less calories typically if they have off in the branding somewhere it means they've knocked off some calories smells like beer it smells like beer but it doesn't taste like beer it tastes like tonic water flavored like beer i won't be buying it again gent off more like flavour off

Channel: Abroad in Japan

Views: 855,709

Rating: 4.9774241 out of 5

Keywords: living in japan, working in japan, learning japanese, japan, japanese, abroad in japan, shibuya

Id: akNwdPrDtt0

Length: 17min 49sec (1069 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 15 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Priamosish]

Chris really gets me through this pandemic (new lockdown today in Prague, yey). He's always so hardworking and dedicated to his craft and his videos are honestly more interesting and on occasions better made than stuff you'd find on TV or on Netflix. It also helps he's naturally funny as fuck.

My only criticism is that he's way too hard on himself sometimes. Like his ambition to go on at the end of Journey across Japan despite being sick, or his lunacy to ride 50km a day and then still edit videos at night for hours.

Great guy, great channel. I watch it daily, and usually listen to like 2 podcast episodes a day.