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tell us the bad stuff about japan if there's anything bad everything on this channel
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always seems so overly positive about the country overly positive that's not true this
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all right there might be some element of truth in that in many ways over the last nine years
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this channel has become one great big sales pitch for living in japan uh you know look
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at the stunning scenery taste the mouth-watering food look it's mount fuji and bullet trains and a
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guy in a bathtub the truth is the channel has been so positive about japan because i've had
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an overwhelmingly good experience living here and the videos kind of reflect that as a result
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i have been biased and i've never really talked about the not so good stuff that comes with
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we're living here and honestly this country certainly isn't perfect i mean nowhere is right
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except maybe norway and narnia so i've thought long and hard about it and i've come up with 12
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reasons not to move to japan some reasons are obvious others might come as a bit of
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a surprise now i'm aware this might feel like i'm betraying some viewers who've seen japan
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through these videos over the years and dreamed of living here someday like i'm crushing some dreams
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but honestly despite some of the bad things in this video my aim isn't to dissuade you from
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moving here far from it i want to prepare you for any situations and cultural hurdles you may
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face or encounter in everyday life and no it's not going to be one of those clickbait videos
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like reasons not to live in japan number one the food is so delicious you'll die from overeating
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no get out so let's dive in and hopefully by the end of
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this video and the 12 reasons your dreams of living in japan will firmly be intact
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there you go good as new
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do you like watching films in the evening without
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headphones or having a space in your kitchen to cook food
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maybe you just enjoy sitting in your chair without hearing your neighbors through the wall
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get ready to say goodbye to all those things and more as you move into your tiny apartment
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with walls made of paper that's actual noise from the wall yes it's the obvious one accommodation
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is often small expensive and poorly soundproof just yesterday i heard my neighbours through
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one of the walls have an argument for about an hour and it was so clear that i could pretty
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much hear every word they were saying like it sounded like she was angry at him because
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he wasn't subscribed to abroad in japan no that was a cheap shot even by my standards
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sorry now i'm never really minded about living in a small apartment as i have done the entire
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time i've been living here it's kind of fun fitting your life into a small space it gives
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you a sort of minimalistic mindset where you have to be very careful about the things you
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buy and what you fill your apartment with and in my case i choose to fill the apartment with
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cheap hats from 100 yen store covered in weird english in this case jumping pounding the rock
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it's my new favorite addition to my prestigious hat collection brilliant spending a thousand
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dollars a month on a tiny studio apartment it's just the reality of living in a city like tokyo
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and in your 20s or even in your 30s it probably won't be too much of an issue the problem though
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for me has always been the lack of privacy uh when i first moved to sendai i lived in what
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looked like a nice modern studio apartment it was well lit the bathroom was nice and the bed smelled
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like daffodils but then i moved in and started sleeping in the bed and i discovered i could
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hear my neighbor snoring through the cardboard wall so clearly at night i used to genuinely
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wake up at night and think someone was in the room it all felt a little bit like silent hill
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another time i ended up with a neighbour who happened to be the worst neighbour in the history
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of japan with a daily experience that pushed me to the brink of my sanity every morning at 7 00 am
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i'd be in bed fast asleep and my neighbor this guy would leave for work and there'd be a bang in the
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door and you'd hear his footsteps trail off and then just as he drifted off and fell back to sleep
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you'd hear the ominous sound of the footsteps returning the door would unlock and then and this
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is completely true and i can't believe it happened he would open and close the door 25 [ __ ] times
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every single morning i would count it one two three [ __ ] in my desperation i bought these
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super mega noise cancelling wonder headphones you could be in front of a [ __ ] fireworks
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factory going up in flames split these bad boys on and hear nothing perfect just peace and quiet
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well not quite because every time he shut the door the whole bloody building moved you could
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feel the paper wall moving you could feel the bed rattle honestly by the end i felt like slamming
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his head in the door 25 times every morning but realizing it was probably some deeply ingrained
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psychological trauma instead i ran away for six weeks and rode a bike across japan and journey
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across japan was born so if you've ever enjoyed watching journey across japan it's all thanks
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to my noisy neighbor genuinely but i miss the days of watching a film at 11 p.m and not having
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to worry about my neighbors i miss the days of having friends come over and not having to worry
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that someone's laughing or talking too loudly and that's before you've even got your apartment which
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is a process so incredibly unpleasant it'll make you want to jump up and down pounding on the rock
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so the hundreds of foreigners i've met living in japan over the years i've never met a single one
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who's looked me dead in the eye and said yeah i love looking for apartments in japan like it's not
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fun and that's down to a simple factor and that is as a foreigner living in japan many apartments
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don't allow you to live there to rent it out now i should preface this by saying if you come
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here with a job a lot of the time your company will sort you out an apartment and certainly
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in my first three years i was very lucky that my apartment was all ready to go however after that
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i moved to sendai and i was looking for apartments i found one that i really liked and i put in a bid
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and they turned me down because i was a foreign resident because i wasn't japanese and that's
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something that happened a few times and it's not a nice feeling to be discriminated against just
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because you're not japanese the only way i could get over feeling irritated and kind of angry about
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it was to try and be sympathetic and try and look at it from the perspective of the landlord
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a good friend of mine who's a foreign resident rented out one of his apartments a few years ago
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and the property management company actually warned him not to allow foreigners to stay
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there there's a little box you can tick that says no foreigners in your apartment and they
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presented him with some numbers and statistics to sort of suggest that foreign residents are a
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flight risk that they would skip the country on their last month and not pay the rent which does
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unfortunately happen causing a lot of stress and problems for the landlord not only that but the
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odds of having a foreign resident are very low in your apartment by virtue of the fact that 98
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of japan's population are ethnically japanese whatever way you look at it it doesn't stop
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the whole process from being unpleasant like i can't put a positive spin on it it's just not fun
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except for the fact that when you do get your apartment finally you do feel like
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you've completed the world's hardest video game albeit a costly video game that you
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didn't enjoy playing and one that was riddled with relentless discrimination certainly no pac-man no
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discrimination there although there is a guy there being weirdly attacked by lots of yeah anyway
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a few years ago there was a news story of a japanese train that had done something truly
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unthinkable a railway company issued a public apology after a train scheduled to leave at 9
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44 am left the station at 9 4 am oh my god i can't believe wait what yes that's right a train had
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left the station 20 seconds early it was supposed to leave at 9 minutes 44 and 40 seconds but it
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left at 9 minutes 44 and 20 seconds oh my god while western media had gobsmacked at the concept
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of a train apologizing for leaving more or less on time it also makes sense in japan the country
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where things are formidably punctual things are on time and things always run and work like clockwork
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as a consumer japan is pretty much perfect i mean we've already seen that but of course all of this
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comes at a price there's a reason everything works so well in japan and it comes at human cost it's
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built on the back of a workforce who sacrificed so much for the greater good of society working for a
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japanese company can be brutal particularly medium to large organization the hours are long the lack
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of control over your own life is minimal taking holiday leave for a japanese worker is almost
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as difficult as getting an apartment as a foreign resident like studies have shown that only half of
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workers in japan take their paid vacation they get 20 days of annual leave and they only take
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10 of them which seems unthinkable coming from the uk where everyone is very much keen to go on
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their holiday and the reason for that is leaving your workplace and going on holiday in japan
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it looks bad you will get ostracized for it by your colleagues by your superiors maybe not to
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your face but certainly behind closed doors you won't be seen as a team player if you're
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somebody who's not in the office much it's a very strange thing like you don't actually have to be
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doing anything productive at the workplace in japan you just have to be present being seen
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at work or present in the office is viewed upon more favorably than being productive or doing
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anything actually good even i got a taste of this as an english teacher i could go home at 4 30 p.m
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every day but if i stayed until 6 p.m and just sat at my desk working on something or studying some
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japanese or just playing with my pencil colleagues would sort of come over and just commend me for my
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excellent hard work now you might be thinking well if i do overtime at least i get paid for it but
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typically in japan you don't get paid for overtime work uh so not only are you being unproductive not
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only are you spending lots of time unnecessarily at work but you're not getting paid for it either
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sadly studies have shown that job satisfaction is far lower in japan than it is in the uk and the us
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and while i have seen more foreign workers have their dreams crushed of living and working in
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japan by this point perhaps more than any other on this list you know this is a proper dream crushing
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point the good news is i do know a lot of foreign people living and working in japan in jobs they
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enjoy typically for smaller more entrepreneurial forward-thinking companies or foreign companies
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that have a base in japan so there is still hope but the country does have an overwork problem
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and hopefully at some point they'll they'll realize that and start confronting it
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one of the hardest things about moving here in my first year and something that i really wasn't
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prepared for was losing my independence you know won a new car or a phone contract want to set up
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a bank account hell maybe after a long day at work you just want to use your microwave well good luck
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with that because when you first move here you're going to need someone to do it all for you you're
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going to need a lot of help you might be thinking well don't move to japan then if you don't know
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any japanese and you'd have the same problems in any country it doesn't speak your native language
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but honestly as time progressed it often became less of a language issue
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and more of a cultural issue the paperwork is endless and daunting you use outdated technology
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every day fax machines personal seals aka stamps not actual seals that'll be far more exciting and
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of course to fill out all the paperwork you need advanced knowledge of japanese kanji characters
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you are gonna need someone to help you there's no doubt about that you are gonna need to rely on
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other people a lot more than you would back home and feel like a burden to others and if you're
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someone like me who's fiercely independent then it's really not that fun so imagine you're having
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a bad day you've just been rejected from getting another apartment and someone's told you that
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your youtube channel should be called a boring in japan i'm not boring i'm not boring at all
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and you go to an intersection you get across the street with a few dozen cars waiting and
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while you stand there waiting for the lights to change you suddenly notice that everyone
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is staring at you like you're an anomaly like you shouldn't be there you start to become
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quite anxious and self-aware people are watching your every move you feel like something terrible
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is about to happen and then it doesn't and you carry on walking to mcdonald's now this
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sounds a bit like a horror movie or sounds a bit like the matrix to be fair but the good news is
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it's mostly in your head unless the matrix is real but as i said earlier 98 of japan's
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population are ethnically japanese and it is one of the most homogenous societies on earth
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and inevitably you will stand out if you don't look japanese now you'll notice people don't sit
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next to you on the train or the bus even if it's crowded which makes you really feel like you're
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standing out feels like you're different from everyone you'll notice people at the supermarket
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stare at you and children scream and recoil in terror at your face you know especially if like me
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you've lived somewhere that isn't tokyo you live out in the rural areas where seeing a non-japanese
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person is incredibly rare i mean hell if i see a white person i'm shocked and disturbed as well
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but i noticed in my first and second year here it did get to me a fair bit i did get quite anxious
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about it and i got self-conscious in a way that i didn't really want to care to admit it may be
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stressed it may be uncomfortable but in the end i realized that most of the problem just it was up
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here in my own head for sure people stared at me but nothing bad ever really came from it nothing
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bad actually ever happened but if you're someone with anxiety issues and you end up particularly
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in the japanese countryside i do think it could be an issue and all i can say is the best way to get
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around it is by rationalizing the situation and realizing that even you get surprised if you see
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someone who's not japanese out there you know you will stand out but it's not necessarily a
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bad thing however this is a topic we'll kind of cover again later on in the video because
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in the long term it can become a bigger issue after many years of kind of feeling like that
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now the tokyo olympics has had a bumpy ride this last year and just as things couldn't
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get worse the head of japan's tokyo olympic committee yoshido morty was forced to resign
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after making some rather bold remarks responding to the idea that more women should be featured in
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board meetings he came out with the remark if we increase the number of female board members
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we have to make sure their speaking time is restricted as women have difficulty finishing
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which is annoying oh god now there was just one problem with this comment it's not 1936
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anymore and the backlash was swift with unicor koike tokyo's first female mayor refusing to go
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to meetings with him in protest 150 000 signatures asking for his removal and the world's media
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rounding on him before he bowed out and everyone lived happily ever after until a month later
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when it happened again this time the creative director of the tokyo olympic opening ceremony
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hiroshi sasaki had jokingly suggested that one of japan's top comedians naomi watanabe should
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be dressed up in the opening ceremony as a pig oh to quote hiroshi sazaki nami watanabe could appear
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as an olympic olympic what the [ __ ] is that unsurprisingly he got the chop too and no we're
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not talking pork chops unfortunately though these sort of stories are quite a regular occurrence in
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the media japan is ranked 120th currently when it comes to gender equality and if you look at photos
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of japanese politicians or ceos and leaders it's almost like a where's wally or a where's waldo
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for american viewers to try and find someone that isn't a 200 year old man in the workplace here as
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a woman you're much more likely to get paid less you're going to be looked over for promotions and
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kind of feel a bit like a subordinate for example at work parties women are kind of expected to pour
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drinks and almost take on a bit of a hostess role kind of enkai's work parties at the same time i do
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know quite a few successful business women both foreign and japanese i've done a really great
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job in japan and tokyo's current mayor koike is of course female right now it's looking more likely
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that japan will one day have an empress while it's technically forbidden for women to be emperors
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there is a debate raging with 80 of the japanese population open to the idea as having a female
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empress so change is a foot but if you come to japan as a woman it could be a bit more difficult
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and it will throw up a few more obstacles along the way certainly more than it would back home
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i think there's always been this perception if you come to japan as a foreigner you instantly
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get some kind of foreigner rock star status but the sad reality is you're dave smith in london
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and you'll still be the same unremarkable dave smith when you're in tokyo first off most japanese
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people aren't actually interested in dating a foreigner most people here already under enough
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stress in their 20s or 30s when it comes to their work life and their families the idea of marrying
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someone who'll whisk their son or daughter away to a foreign land doesn't always go down well
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with japanese parents either they're expecting their children to look after them in later years
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now i've only ever dated two japanese people and neither really worked out it got serious very
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quickly and i remember scary words like marriage came up a lot sooner a lot faster than they would
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in the uk just because there is that pressure here to try and get married before you turn 28 years
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old romance as a whole is pretty different to the west where we have a strong emphasis
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on public displays of affection on kissing on hugging on holding hands japan is very
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much the opposite to that where all of those things are kind of seen as awkward the idea of
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marriage is also very different the emphasis is on creating a strong stable family environment
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with a good outward appearance to family and friends it's more about ticking off boxes than
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is about having a connection with personalities and whatnot when i look at a lot of japanese
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friends relationships and marriages it often comes across as more like a business partnership
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than one based on love and affection which isn't necessarily a bad thing however on top
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of that infidelity is a lot higher than you might think there are inconclusive studies that kind of
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talk about this but one factor is cheating is viewed rather differently for example there's
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a whole industry here that caters for late night activities we're talking hostess bars love hotels
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so planned and many people wouldn't view going to those places as cheating here but they certainly
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would back home and no a soap land isn't a place that sells luxury exquisite japanese soap
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go look it up on google i don't want to get this video demonetised but i've spent
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many a long night drinking with friends who were dating a japanese person here
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who are baffled about the cultural differences in between and stressed