The Biggest LIE about Japan

what is the biggest lie about japan that everyone thinks is true a bold question but one i'm afraid i'm too busy to answer you see i'm on my way to a sumo match in my flying car with my robot best friend oh god we're running frighteningly late because somebody ate too much sushi didn't you hey yeah not quite truth is nobody actually watches sumo wrestling in real life and even if i wanted to go i can't print the tickets because i can't get the damn fax machine working and i certainly can't book the tickets on this outdated flip phone with a web browser from your nightmares meanwhile this so-called robot from the future there's nothing of conceivable value other than dance like a [ __ ] worst 4 000 yen i've ever spent god's sake you know i've often found there's a pretty big disconnect between how japan is perceived outside the country and what it's actually like living here certainly in the uk japan has always been portrayed as this exotic futuristic wonderland where nothing makes sense you know i'll never forget the first time i saw japan featured in a film as a kid in the james bond movie you only lived twice an entire bond movie set in japan in 1967 which spent the majority of its run time portraying the country is this alien cutting-edge land where people spend their days sumo wrestling and an army of women were constantly on hand to give you a backrub now in hindsight the movie doesn't hold up to a lot of scrutiny particularly in one scene when double 07 needs to become japanese quite literally which pretty much involves taping his eyes upwards and strapping on a dodgy wig and they do it all in a room that's a cross between an operating theater and a hooters and the transformation is well nothing short of astonishing but while bombed was turning japanese in the 1960s japan was at the forefront of global consumer electronics and with the bullet train going into service in 1964 between tokyo and osaka it's no wonder the country kind of seemed ahead of its time right you know i mean while the bullet train was rocketing to tokyo at 137 miles per hour over in the uk we were still riding around on a steam train up until 1968. as japan's economy sawed at breakneck speed through the 1970s and 1980s there was a sense of anxiety building in the west that japan would become the undisputed superpower of the future and perhaps unsurprising given that in 1989 of the world's biggest 50 companies by market capitalization 32 of them were japanese but then in 1991 the economic bubble burst and absolutely crushed the nation's confidence becoming known as the lost decades and today only one japanese company toyota is on that list of the world's biggest 50 companies in reality and in stark contrast to the futuristic image that the country has sort of fostered overseas if you were to shoot a movie set in a 1980s japanese office you'd barely need to change anything today if you were to go in and shoot right you'd remove some laptops for sure but you could leave the fax machines you could leave the mountains of paper and it wouldn't be uncommon to see staff using these flip phones literally uh canton careta simple phones in japan because seven percent of the country's population still use these now i've got nothing against using old technology i think it's kind of cool that japan is quite conservative and they still use things like this that we forgot about sort of 15 years ago but the truth about japan's relationship with technology is a little bit more complicated than that and so in this video let's peel back the lines and explore some of the biggest misconceptions about japan overall we'll cover everything from food and fax machines to cultural etiquette and hopefully by the end of this video we'll have a more accurate picture of what life in japan is really like compared to how it's perceived and viewed overseas particularly in the media yes hello is that 1987. i've got your fax machine [Music] i love japanese snacks so much so i've made short work of these tasty delicious rice crackers although to be fair the main reason i bought them was actually the kind english words on the front here which sound like the words of a concerned grandmother you look busy these days my dear take care of yourself i hope you live well with love peace and rice oh yes the big three love peace and rice yeah it's a relatively healthy snack relative to potato chips or crisps of course most japanese food is healthy nutritious and fantastic right japan has one of the longest life expectancies in the world and amongst the lowest rates of obesity to match and i think before i came to japan i just assumed i'd move here adopt the japanese diet and lifestyle and just sort of effortlessly lose weight yeah not quite if you read a guidebook about japan there's always a chapter on the japanese diet and how people here live forever because they eat a fish and to be fair if you look at what people eat at home it's a relatively well balanced meal comprised of fish rice miso soup and various pickled vegetables on the surface it's fairly nutritional but if you take a closer look there is an awful lot of sodium and carbohydrates that's something we'll get into in a little bit but while japan guidebooks brag about the healthy lifestyles of the japanese what they don't tell you is when you go out for lunch or dinner that well-balanced goodness quickly goes out the window so let's take a look at 10 of the most popular dishes in japan and try and work out if they're genuinely healthy or not and let's start with sushi perhaps the most famous i bought this here for illustrative purposes i wouldn't be eating it but i might eat this one like this no not so good illustrative purposes i think one of the biggest misconceptions about japan is that people actually eat sushi like every day or every week when in reality it's probably closer to once or twice a month and while it's undeniable that the fish itself is pretty healthy good source of protein and omega-3 each portion is essentially two-thirds rice rice that's infused with rice vinegar sugar and salt making it a deceptively carb heavy dish i mean if you have a full plate there's probably a lot more rice than you realize in my case if i were to eat this it would spike my blood sugar really bad and i'd probably be knocked out for the remainder of the video so i won't be eating any more of this today except maybe this piece here oh so bloody hell illustrative purposes but while sushi isn't eaten every day or every week fish absolutely is so it's not that sushi is the reason for japan's healthy diet it's the heavy consumption of fish in general in everyday life and now i've got to put this like down here and try not to eat it for the next 20 minutes wish me luck anyway what about our second dish ramen well ramen is really healthy that's an easy open and shut case you know it's a great source of nutrition and i know what you're thinking or he's biased he owns a ramen shop to which i say bollocks we also serve gyoza i think it's no secret that ramen isn't exactly good for you it is in effect the equivalent of just downing a bucket of salt water no matter how much you love it probably no japanese dish will inflict a greater sense of guilt upon you after you've eaten it unfortunately that's not the only thing it might inflict upon you a study in the nutritional journal in 2019 found that areas in japan with higher numbers of ramen shops recorded more deaths by strokes than other japanese prefectures the high levels of sodium in a bowl of ramen being the most likely culprit an undeniably unhealthy dish being in moderation once or twice a month at you know the right shock it's a must try number three tempura take the finest fish and freshest vegetables and then batter them batter them into submission drown them in oil and serve them with a pile of salt crunchy golden calorific mayhem i don't think we can call that healthy as much as i'd like to number four curry rice instantly turn a plate of bland forgettable rice into a mouth-watering treat effectively just one big puddle of tasty delicious sodium okonomiyaki pancakes well take a mountain of batter and submerge it in a river of mayonnaise and you've got yourself a celebration of carbohydrates although don't worry there's some lettuce in there if you look closely tonkatsu number six take a thick juicy cut of fatty pork drench it in breadcrumbs and sink it into a deep fat fryer and serve it with free refills of unlimited rice and cabbage enough calories to run a marathon probably not very healthy again number seven my favorite japanese dish yakitori skewered chicken grilled to perfection over a charcoal grill probably the dish i eat more than any other because i can delete myself that is healthy because it's grilled over a charcoal grill healthy right well not exactly because when you order yakitori it comes in two forms one you can order shio like salt or two tare sweet sticky sauce so not only is it either caked in sauce or salt but it's also a very oily dish the cuts of chicken they use are frighteningly oily at times and probably a key factor in the story of my disastrous cholesterol number eight udon noodles well the ultimate lunchtime dish is nothing more than wheat flour water and salt the thick noodles contain almost no protein it's simply a carbohydrate party in your mouth served in a rich salty broth and typically served with a pile of tempura to see you through as well number nine good on a big bowl of steaming hot rice topped off with slices of beef and onions because this dish is in effect just a pile of rice and disguise it's hard to class it as truly healthy i think number 10 we have gyoza tasty pan fried dough stuff full of sodium and pork delicious now you can get swee gilzer literally boiled gyoza but it doesn't disguise the fact this is just a delightfully curated piece of dough and in my opinion it's much better pan fried anyway and don't even get me started on kareyagi chicken and these are just some of the most common foods you'll eat when you go out in japan and look at this i've only eaten one more piece of sushi so i'm doing pretty well doing pretty well i'm not gonna eat any more but meals in japan are very carb heavy and often jammed full of sodium and it's someone who is both a salty palette and a salty personality that's probably why i love japanese food so much but one reason for the popularity of salt historically is to offset the hot humid summer months when people typically sweat profusely and lose a lot of body salt not only that but salt was essential in the pickling and preservation process and that high consumption of salt does come at a cost japan has four times the rate of stomach cancer than the uk and that is often attributed to the high consumption of sodium at this point you might be wondering well how do japanese people maintain such healthy weights how do they keep the obesity rate down so well and it more or less comes down to three or four lifestyle factors firstly people in japan are more active in daily life there's a lot of walking and cycling to and from school or work a study in 2008 found japanese people walked on average 2 000 steps a day more than americans secondly the portion sizes are smaller especially when compared to america although i think any country compared to america would lose but the average person in japan is said to consume 200 calories less per day than the average american thirdly people here don't typically snack that much between meals because they want to eat all the food in front of them it's really rude to leave food in japan and because the meals are heavy in carbs people don't get hungry in between lunch and dinner and finally number four as i've talked about in previous videos there's a lot of pressure to stay slim but there is a law called the metabo law and companies are fined if their employees are classed as overweight or obese typically people over 40 have to have their waistlines measured every year and if they're over the company gets fined that's quite a radical measure but it seems to be relatively popular in japan but all of these factors are what keep obesity rates down waistlines in check and cases of heart disease and cancer down as well so the reason japanese people are healthier isn't necessarily that the food is superior or more nutritionally brilliant it's that the lifestyle and the culture play a key role in moderating the japanese diet and unfortunately if you come to japan and end up dining out a lot or eating at convenience stores you don't get to reap the benefits of that lifestyle or culture the sad truth is a diet comprised of love peace and rice hasn't served me so well over the years particularly if you're as greedy as i am oh so good whenever you look up anything japan related online odds are you'll find the country being portrayed as weird like oh my god apparently japan has these robot cafes everywhere full of crazy dancing robots caked in scantily clad women uh no there's just one place in shinjuku and it's uh it's closed now oh my god do you see those wacky japanese inventions people walking around with toilet rolls on their head that's mental i know it's just a japanese inventor who makes funny stuff for magazines and tv nobody actually uses them for frighteningly obvious reasons oh my god have you seen everyone in japan lives off a diet of square watermelons [ __ ] out like melons but square oh it's so weird i mean they are watermelons that are square that is quite weird but they are very rare and they're given as gifts and i don't think i've actually ever seen one in 10 years now at this point i do feel a sense of guilt because i can't be sitting here like oh the internet makes japan look weird when i'm responsible as much as anyone i mean this channel's been built off of me looking for strange weird things in everyday life sitting in a room eating a kitkat and making fun of silly words touch bone headphones i mean in 2007 i scrambled to film this robot dinosaur hotel in tokyo and i got down there to be fair it was a pretty flawed hotel half the robots didn't work but i did the video put it up and then like canada's biggest news channel picked it up because they were like wow weird wacky japan and i went on there and just repeated the phrase robot dinosaurs about eight times the hannah hotel is staffed by robots chris broad is a british filmmaker he recently went to the hotel to document it for a youtube channel abroad in japan okay what was the coolest thing you saw or the oddest thing you saw robotic dinosaur robotic fish the robotic talking egg yeah it must have been a slow day in canada that day then when is it not but with all that in mind people who've never set foot in japan must just think the country looks like this when in reality it looks more like this like it's true that japanese culture is wildly different from the uk and honestly going between the two countries is an incredible transition it is almost like changing worlds but that's because of the architecture the food the scenery it's not that everything is just inherently weird the moment you get out of narrator airport and the reason i focus on these weird stories or bizarre things is that it's just fun you want to surprise and intrigue people i want people standing around the water fountain at work talking about what they saw on abroad in japan what i don't like and the one criticism i do have is often with this narrative of japan being weird when you see it in articles or pasted across social media they talk about the strange stuff they show the weird things but they don't reveal the sort of cultural factors underpinning why things have turned out that way because that's the actually interesting part right like oh there's so many vending machines in japan it's weird well japan gets absurdly hot and humid in summer people need to stay hydrated and because cities are so densely populated and people live in tiny apartments where they can't store an awful lot of goods like multi-packs it's pretty easy to turn a profit by sticking a vending machine on each and every street corner square watermelons it's crazy well basically a farmer in shikoku worked out if you put a melon in a box and grow it it retains the shape of the box and if you sell that as a key watermelon you make lots of money particularly to the lucrative gift market everyone sleeps in a capsule it's wild well these days they're more popular with tourists but originally there were for salary men on the go nice cheap option and because japanese people are very mindful of making noise and respecting others around them sleeping in such close quarters wasn't ever an issue although stay at a capsule hotel full of drunken overseas tourists and you'll quickly discover the concept doesn't work very well but i think if youtube has done one good thing it's dispel a lot of these myths about japan before we could only see the country through the narrow lens of tv and film with the emphasis on a shelf-shocked presenter stumbling backwards and forwards across shabir crossing looking like a headless [ __ ] chicken because there's so many channels these days making videos about japan you can get a real insight into what life is like here what people are thinking so i think these days the weird japan narrative doesn't really hold up to as much scrutiny just because there are people on the ground who can show you the real japan touch bone headphones oh [Music] god so the first time i ever went to tokyo was about 10 years ago for a weekend and there was only one thing that i really wanted to do and that was see asimo the robot now today we're all wowed by boston dynamics and they're frighteningly humanoid robots that can dance better than i ever could but honda had cracked the case back in the 1990s with their p series bipedal robots the end result being asimo so i went to the tokyo mid-icon literally the future museum and i sat down on the floor like everybody else waiting for asimo to come out and as the doors opened and you saw his little white figure he came running out like a human to audible gasps around the room and i cannot begin to express how surreal that moment was it was so cool pretty scary as well and as you watched in awe as it ran around like a human hopped on one leg and even kicked a football you were ready you know you were ready for the future and just as you were like yes the future's here have my wallet take my money asimo retreated back into his room they closed the door and that was it he went back in the broom cupboard and in march of this year after about 30 years of research development millions of dollars asimo was finally retired by honda resigned forever to being nothing more than a million dollar party trick why why now in a country with the world's oldest population japan 40 percent the population over 60 robots are often cited as a way out of the problem and here it was in an alternate reality asimo could have carried your grandparents up the stairs now you'll have to do that instead but it feels like a spectacularly squandered lead and it's far from the only example in the early 2000s japan's cell phones were a generation ahead of the rest of the world in 1999 the first camera phone came out and while the uk got 3g in 2003 japan had already had it a full two years people were riding the trains to work watching tv on their phones however instead of taking over the world japanese phone companies looked inwards domestically at the population of 120 million people why not and this led to the term galapagos syndrome just like the islands of the galapagos are unique for their indigenous species as a result of isolation japan's inward focusing companies created unique devices catering to the domestic population however by taking their eye off the bull and not focusing on software development when ios and android emerged in 2007-2008 japanese companies quickly lost their lead and today all those quirky unique phones we saw in the 2000s have pretty much gone well say for the flip phones and 50 of smartphone sales in japan are now just iphones like everywhere else in the world one of the most striking things i noticed when i was back in the uk recently was that nobody ever had any cash on them or maybe it was just my friends who didn't want to pay for dinner worryingly likely but gone are the days of fumbling around in your pocket for cash you just slap your card down and watch all your money disappear nice and quickly without a thought in the world but not in japan while of course cash cards do exist like suica which you use for trains japan is still very much a cash-based society in the uk and the us it's estimated that 25 of transactions are cash based in japan that figure is still around 65 like most people here carry ten to twenty thousand yen on them at any one time it's about a hundred dollars right because shops bars and restaurants often still require cash to pay so bear that in mind if you're traveling japan you need cash at all times there are things in japan that you could classify as being futuristic particularly when it comes to transport as i mentioned earlier while the uk is still debating what the point of a fast train is here in japan we've had them 60 years and the country's already building a long range maglev train using magnetic levitation to whip passengers from tokyo to osaka in just 67 minutes down from the current time of two and a half hours it'll be the best hundred billion dollars anyone's ever spent and when it finally opens sometime around 20 28 to 20 30. i'll be the first one on it i want to ride it and because of the aforementioned galapagos syndrome there are so many things over here that you just don't see anywhere else god this is so heavy now you might be wondering why does japan still cling to the facts machine it's the same reason that this still exists and is still popular in some capacity it's that number that i mentioned earlier on that 40 percent of japan's population are over 60 and older people are more conservative when it comes to adopting new technology and given japanese organizations are typically run by elderly employees in fact the average age of a japanese president is 60 years old it's no surprise that more outdated but reliable technology still kind of reigns supreme so japan might not be the futuristic wonderland it's often portrayed as and it might not have the most modern tech but what it does have gets the job done every time reliably without fail and in some respects that's probably more important than instantly getting the greatest newest invention that comes out to the market and we just have to hope that the last japanese company on that list of the world's 50 biggest companies toyota is able to cling on in the face of steep competition in the ev market still for a significantly i'll be willing to sell them the blueprints to my flying car and this flying car it doesn't feel the electricity this is fueled with dreams it's just two projectors some broken panel lights and some cling film saran wrap really it's all so just a facade just just like me [Music] this throttle is called a thrust master thrush master sounds like something we do in bed anyway buckle up guys because the next point on this list is the most controversial potentially away we go hey thrustmaster ridiculous oh my so while most of the feedback that i got on twitter related to the misconception that japan was futuristic there was another one that i saw time and again that actually kind of took me by surprise at first and that was the misconception that everyone in japan is friendly and i thought about it for a little bit and then i realized yes there is an element of truth in that now you're probably thinking what are you on about you awful awful man you're just bitter bitter that nobody eats at your godforsaken ramen shop and yes i am bitter especially given how busy the ramen shop next door is look at them over there having fun round full of customers bastards but it's essential at this point to differentiate between politeness and friendliness i don't think there could be much doubt that japan is quite possibly the most polite culture on earth the etiquette and protocol embedded in every interaction borderlines on the extreme over the years i've heard countless stories from tourists who have been lost walking around japan and a stranger comes and helps them and politely comes to their aid i mean i remember once i was lost in the mountains of takayama beautiful city i was trying to find my hotel and i asked a shopkeeper like excuse me do you know how to find this hotel and they got out like a piece of paper and painstakingly drew a map that even then i failed to comprehend and at this point they basically shut down their entire shop and personally escorted me around the streets of takayama to get to my hotel i felt an immense sense of guilt and they were like no no no think nothing of it nothing at all you know it's a very polite and selfless gesture in the face of a complete [ __ ] tourist so you can expect to have these sort of interactions and walk into a bar and meet some locals who will ask you where you're from what you're doing you'll have a drink it'll be great but simply put while you'll experience politeness and hospitality on a surface level it's very hard to go beyond that to genuinely befriend someone here and get to know them beyond those sort of simple polite interactions they're often over very quickly the amount of foreigners i know for example who live in tokyo and don't have a single japanese friend is astonishing now i don't think it's the japanese people are inherently unfriendly maybe they just don't like me uh maybe they just don't want to be friends with me but honestly i think it's just aspects of the culture that sort of act as barriers to really get to know someone japan is classed as a high uncertainty avoidance culture in short situations that involve uncertainty are generally avoided where possible people don't like spontaneity and unpredictability and in some respects that's why things are so damn reliable with that in mind you can walk around a japanese city for hours on end and no one will say hello or make the first move and it's a big reason why many people here come across as shy and honestly if you're an introvert you'll love it as people keep to themselves and so can you but on the flip side it can make japan feel awfully lonely at times another factor on why it's hard to actually break through and get to know someone is the strong emphasis on keeping your thoughts and opinions to yourself and obviously we have this concept as well back home being polite keeping your thoughts up here but the concept is very strong in japan so much so that there's two words to define it hone and tatimai tatemae is kind of your public stance on something right where you just say things to keep up appearances keep the harmony keep the peace and avoid giving any real opinions nft non-fungible token wow that sounds very interesting actually maybe thought it nft and honey is what they're actually thinking their real intention and unless you're on very good terms with someone you often won't find out what that is what they really think although one life hack one way to get around that is just to get them drunk because then you can find out like straight away what they really think nft's humanity's finished non-fungible bollocks whatever crap [ __ ] so what does all this mean what's the point of this well in short it means you come to japan as a tourist you'll experience politeness and hospitality the likes of which you'll never encounter anywhere else however if you stay here and you live here making those meaningful friendships can be tricky and it's something you need to be prepared for relationships generally take a lot more work although who knows maybe you'll get lucky and meet someone who doesn't exactly play by the rule book go [ __ ] yourself so there we have it guys four of the biggest misconceptions about japan but which is the biggest and what did we miss go ahead and let us know in the comments many thanks for watching abroad japan i'll see you right back here to do it next time as for me i'm off to steal some recipes from my ears wild neighbor it's been a long time coming come on then oh my goodness it was a blue screen all along how was it [Music] you

Channel: Abroad in Japan

Views: 3,392,676

Keywords: japan, japanese food, japan robots, making friends japan, abroad in japan, trash taste, chris abroad, cdawgva, wacky weekend

Id: yKFVogGBZPY

Length: 27min 59sec (1679 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 24 2022