Truth About Living in Japan No One Talks About

Comments · 2K

• MA

  @MapPack · 11 months ago · pinned

  For anyone curious to learn more about Japan, check out my most recent video:<br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93uE9MzUyqY">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93uE9MzUyqY</a>

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• AR

  @area0074 · 1 year ago (edited)

  As a Japanese person, most of the things mentioned here are true and normal for us. However, why is Chinese music being used in the background to represent Japan? That feels quite disrespectful.<br><br>===EDIT===<br><br>Thanks for all the comments — didn’t expect this to get so much attention.<br><br>Just to be clear: arguing about whether people can visually tell Asians apart misses the real point.<br>Sure, some cultures may look similar to outsiders, but that doesn’t make it okay to mix them up. Culture is identity.<br><br>Mistakes out of ignorance are one thing, but when you&apos;re corrected and still double down, that’s just disrespectful.<br><br>Take Hollywood for example — Japan has been misrepresented for decades.<br>Asian actors who don’t even speak Japanese, Chinese-style music, exaggerated bows, outfits no real Japanese person would wear.<br>It’s been like that since Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and honestly, not much has changed.<br><br>Even now on YouTube, the same thing happens.<br>This video clearly put effort into researching Japan, so why use Chinese-style music? A neutral, royalty-free track would’ve worked just fine.<br>Not making that choice feels like the usual Western habit of lumping all Asian cultures together.Isn’t it about time people started noticing?<br><br>That’s why I felt the need to speak up.

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• WI

  @williamalvarez9563 · 1 year ago

  Cleaning should be part of the curriculum here in the States....

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• MI

  @mirandansa · 1 year ago

  &quot;In Japan, you can&apos;t use your signature.&quot;<br><br>You can. In fact, deliveries nowadays would ask for a signature rather than a hanko. I&apos;ve been living in the country for 3 years, and the last time I used my hanko was 3 years ago.

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• OL

  @oldmech619 · 1 year ago

  The firemen in Japan &nbsp;took off their shoes when they entered my apartment.

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• NO

  @non8100 · 1 year ago

  The credit card fees for Visa and Master in Japan &nbsp;are more expensive than the other countries. &nbsp;That is why some small business owners take only cash because they will end up with losing their sales if they allow customers to use credit cards. &nbsp;It&apos;s not about technology. &nbsp;It&apos;s about fees.

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• OR

  @originaldarkwater · 1 year ago

  Just like in Japan, people in North America used to send their kids on errands, let them walk to school by themselves and run around the neighborhood unsupervised, playing with their friends all day without anyone batting an eye. &nbsp;This plague of helicopter parenting is a relatively recent phenomenon.

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• MI

  @mikicoal · 1 year ago

  I&apos;ve moved several times in Japan and had none of the paperwork nightmare described. This was some years back, and I can&apos;t imagine they went out of their way to make it LESS efficient.

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• 宇宙

  @宇宙戦艦ヤマト研究会 · 1 year ago (edited)

  Aight, Japanese here. I&apos;m here to fact check.<br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UDES7pw9dM&amp;t=7">0:07</a> Seal: <b>False</b> <i>yeah seal is sometimes necessary but you can also use your signature in place of seal. Also in some documents signatures are mandatory and seals don&apos;t work.</i><br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UDES7pw9dM&amp;t=9">0:09</a> Cleaning: <b>True</b> <i>yes, cleaning is part of our curriculum</i><br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UDES7pw9dM&amp;t=12">0:12</a> Gym tatoo: <b>True-ish</b> <i>Tatoo ban has more to do with public bathhouses. But some gyms do forbid them.</i><br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UDES7pw9dM&amp;t=23">0:23</a> KFC christmas: <b>True-ish</b> <i>I personally don&apos;t do it. Giving chocolate for valentines day is more wide spread.</i><br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UDES7pw9dM&amp;t=98">1:38</a> Skipping the 4th floor: <b>False-ish</b> <i>Personally I&apos;ve never seen this, though hotels and hospitals that skip 404 and 104 etc. are common.</i><br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UDES7pw9dM&amp;t=104">1:44</a> Pack of 4: <b>True-ish</b> <i>but I&apos;ve seen many products packaged in 4 though.</i><br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UDES7pw9dM&amp;t=108">1:48</a> Gifting 4 of xx: <b>True-ish</b> <i>I personally don&apos;t care. Though I&apos;ve seen older people avoiding it.</i><br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UDES7pw9dM&amp;t=143">2:23</a> Hanko: <b>False-ish</b> <i>It&apos;s rare to see documents that require hanko these days.</i><br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UDES7pw9dM&amp;t=147">2:27</a> No signature: <b>False</b> <i>We use signatures alongside Hanko seals. I personally only have Jitsuin. It&apos;s an old technology on its way out, so only having one would suffice. Nowadays you could digitally sign documents with RSA2048 key on your national ID card, but it&apos;s not that wide spread unfortunately.</i><br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UDES7pw9dM&amp;t=180">3:00</a> Bureaucracy: <b>False</b> <i>Recent adoption in technology is overall positive, and many government process can be done online or in Konbini copy-machines. Government employees tend to be helpful, and I&apos;ve had overall more positive experience compared to Germany and the US, two other countries that I lived. (Oh the US tax return, why do you force literally everyone to do it???)</i><br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UDES7pw9dM&amp;t=239">3:59</a> Safety in public: <b>True-ish</b> <i>We have seen some decline in recent years. But still safer than Germany, not to mention the US.</i><br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UDES7pw9dM&amp;t=288">4:48</a> Umbrella lockers: <b>True</b> <i>The Netherlands should have it too. I get they like their rain jackets though.</i><br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UDES7pw9dM&amp;t=313">5:13</a> Paid umbrella lockers: <b>False-ish</b> <i>never seen paid ones before, but there is one supposedly in Itabashi.</i><br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UDES7pw9dM&amp;t=323">5:23</a> Trusted Police: <b>False</b> <i>Don&apos;t even tell me about 99% conviction rate.</i><br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UDES7pw9dM&amp;t=333">5:33</a> Community oriented police: <b>True</b> <i>They tend to be very helpful, as long as they don&apos;t see you as a threat. If you are asian looking and have tattoo, beware.</i><br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UDES7pw9dM&amp;t=367">6:07</a> Indoor voice: <b>True</b> <i>We are much quieter in trains, and silently curse people who aren&apos;t</i><br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UDES7pw9dM&amp;t=402">6:42</a> Election candidate tour: <b>True</b> <i>they are loud and distracting, but we see it as a necessary part of functioning democracy, which we unfortunately don&apos;t have.</i><br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UDES7pw9dM&amp;t=446">7:26</a> Multiphasic bow: <b>True</b><br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UDES7pw9dM&amp;t=488">8:08</a> Drinking on the go: <b>False</b> <i>Even open containers are allowed.</i><br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UDES7pw9dM&amp;t=527">8:47</a> Food content: <b>False-ish</b> <i>If you&apos;re vegan, it&apos;d be hard to find anything outside Natto and Tofu. Also we wash the eggs like the US so it needs to be refrigerated. Europe has much stricter guideline than Japan.</i><br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UDES7pw9dM&amp;t=574">9:34</a> No sticking chopsticks: <b>True</b><br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UDES7pw9dM&amp;t=592">9:52</a> Laying chopsticks: <b>False-ish</b> <i>It&apos;s an impractical, arbitrary, and archaic rule that no one follows anymore.</i><br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UDES7pw9dM&amp;t=612">10:12</a> No pointing: <b>True</b> <i>but it&apos;s okay to point at non-human objects.</i><br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UDES7pw9dM&amp;t=638">10:38</a> No gesture: <b>False</b> <i>How do you talk otherwise?</i><br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UDES7pw9dM&amp;t=647">10:47</a> No blunt personality: <b>True</b> <i>except for some universities and companies/industries</i><br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UDES7pw9dM&amp;t=708">11:48</a> Position talking: <b>True</b> <i>and it&apos;s annoying af if you are on a spectrum and can&apos;t read the non-verbal cues.</i><br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UDES7pw9dM&amp;t=752">12:32</a> Nudity: <b>True-ish</b> <i>It&apos;s only okay among the same gender. And of course we don&apos;t look at each others private parts. Not like in Europe though where they have mixed gender nude beaches.</i><br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UDES7pw9dM&amp;t=785">13:05</a> Bathing: <b>True</b><br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UDES7pw9dM&amp;t=816">13:36</a> No tattoos: <b>True-ish</b> <i>though this is changing</i><br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UDES7pw9dM&amp;t=844">14:04</a> No tattoos in gyms and pools: <b>True-ish</b> <i>Some gums forbid tattoos, even in Tokyo.</i><br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UDES7pw9dM&amp;t=848">14:08</a> Nice toilets: <b>True</b><br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UDES7pw9dM&amp;t=859">14:19</a> Pop music from toilets: <b>False</b> <i>Never seen it. sounds impractical.</i><br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UDES7pw9dM&amp;t=872">14:32</a> Universal bathroom drains: <b>True-ish</b> <i>toilets at home don&apos;t have it</i><br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UDES7pw9dM&amp;t=885">14:45</a> Socks on: <b>True-ish</b> <i>but only to the same extent as other countries. Just be sensible.</i><br><br>Okay, I&apos;m tired. I did it until #30. Someone please take over.

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• EL

  @ElizabethElizabeth-h3w4k · 1 year ago

  I am Japanese high school student.<br>I think this video serves very accurate information about Japan.

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• G0

  @g0dsf3ar71 · 1 year ago

  As far as clothing sizes are concerned, Americans are generally larger than east asians. Even without taking fat levels into it.

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• CH

  @charlito_gk3880 · 1 year ago

  There&apos;s true in those fact, some are straight prejudices. But since they&apos;re traditional Chinese music for the background, don&apos;t expect those to be fact checked.

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