Hearted Youtube comments on Life Where I'm From (@LifeWhereImFrom) channel.
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I actually have a really heartwarming story about my family's current landlord... Our place is rented by our company, as this makes the rental process much smoother. When the landlord, who also resides in the building, found out that it was a foreign couple moving in, he couldn't really have done anything even if he'd wanted to protest. Well, after having met him, he expressed to us his relief (especially at our ability to speak Japanese) and admitted how nervous he had been. Although it's sad that he was so worried, I'm glad that by actually meeting us in person, his fears were allayed. I somehow feel that if the landlords could meet the potential tenants directly, instead of just hearing "they're foreign" from the rental company's middleman, there might be fewer problems.
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Normally I would say I prefer fresh food over frozen, but I actually prefer frozen veggies to fresh veggies, because here in the states, at least, frozen veggies are often flash-frozen shortly after harvest to lock in the freshness, whereas who knows how long ago your "fresh" produce was picked?? If Aiko thinks that the 1L box of ice cream is huge, she would think the tubs we have in the states are gigantic! You can get "party tubs" that are like maybe a gallon? or more? of ice cream! Usually just vanilla or chocolate or strawberry. But our ice cream flavors are just as varied, here, and we have so many different brands, not just haagen daaz (sp?). We have a lot of the same frozen foods, but from more cultures- mexican is a big one, and pizzas, and italian (lasagnas and pastas and even premade chicken or shrimp dishes). Of course we have tv-dinners with the all-in-one trays of meat, veg, starch, dessert, too. And a lot of frozen breakfast meals, too- burritos, biscuits/sandwiches, egg bowls, waffles, pancakes, etc.
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As a Canadian, I think a lot of us grew up hearing that "It doesn't matter where you're from, now that you're here; You're Canadian." or similar mentalities towards immigration. (After passing our relatively strict immigration process.) We're encouraged to practice tolerance, acceptance, and to welcome difference. Canada has our own share of problems, and our own dark history, but this common sense of acceptance I think is still being taught today regardless of our past, or present. Maybe we're idealists.
I always find my common sense clashing with foreign countries when I think of how topics like immigration are approached there. I think in Canada, our national identity isn't something as concrete as to be defined and contrasted against others, but something we attempt to use to embrace new cultures and ideas. At least, on paper. In practice I think we have a long way to go.
With a lot of countries, you hear the opposite practiced. A strong national identity with well defined cultural practices, rich histories and sources of pride, sometimes an exclusive mentality of "You'll never be one of us." And I think with something like a national or cultural identity ground gained by others is sometimes viewed as ground lost by that people.
As a result of the ambiguous nature of our accepting teachings, growing up I often found myself wondering what it actually meant to "be" Canadian. I knew of strong examples of other cultures and their activities, but being Canadian felt loosely defined, or open ended. Like it was waiting for the next chapter.
Perhaps this is why as a Canadian I find other cultures and countries so fascinating, and emigrating one day is a frequent dream of mine. I don't know if it's in search of an identity, or just to see the wide world where all these wonderful people come from.
I'm looking forward to your documentary!
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I really relate to this video a lot. My husband is a native Spanish speaker, and I am a native English speaker. When me and my husband met, we didn't even speak the same language (because he had only been in the USA for 6 months, and 2 months before I met him I had taken a Spanish placement exam and gotten a 1%.... so we both literally knew not a single word in each other's languages.) We would communicate through google translate for the first 5 or 6 months, even if we were going out on dates. We would make sure to keep our phones fully charged so that we could use the translators. I was the first one to start learning the other's language. I easily picked up Spanish, as it was my 4th language at the time. Sadly, there are important factors that made it so that I ultimately would have to be the one to become bilingual. A.) I had access to college language courses in my area of study. My husband has zero access to any form of schooling. B.) I had already learned 3 languages before Spanish, so obviously I am above average when it comes to my ability to quickly pick up a language. I already had the tricks and tips up my sleeves. C.) The people that I became surrounded by were all Spanish speakers. My husband's family, my fellow employees, my classmates in college all spoke Spanish. My husband on the other hand rarely was around my family, and we shared the same friends, so Spanish was the preferred language. Not English. And D.) It just wasn't necessary for my husband to learn English. He could easily get anything he needed done in our city through Spanish, because we now live in an area where Spanish dominates. English isn't a necessity.
I also understand how you feel when it comes to speaking to your wife and children in your own native language. My husband works 12 hour shifts and 6 days per week, and when he comes home at night the last thing that he feels like doing is getting stressed out by the difficulties of English. He doesn't have enough time in the day to properly study, nor does he enjoy it. English is hard, reading it especially, and I'm sometimes a little bit too understanding about it. I have only ever tried to teach him bits of English maybe 10 or 15 times in the 3 years we have been married.
But one large difference between learning English to live in the USA, and learning Japanese to live in Japan that I feel affects us both greatly is the attitude towards those still learning English in the USA. Even my mother and my older brothers constantly tell me how "this is America. He is in America now, so he should be learning English." instead of realizing that she could also take it upon herself to learn Spanish for her son-in-law. Many Americans don't give immigrants credit for even attempting to learn English, they don't feel honored when someone tries to learn English, and they only see it as something that immigrants should have already learned before coming to the US. In Japan or Korea, even in countries like Germany and my husband's native Guatemala, the locals see any foreigners learning their language as a good thing and something to be praised. They see it as the foreigner respecting their culture and their country and they see the effort being put in to trying to blend in. In America, this is the complete opposite.
And so, due to my husband's struggles to learn English, many people criticize him, belittle him, and hurt us with comments like he only married me to become documented or that he doesn't respect me or my family because he won't learn English.
Sorry for this massive rant, I guess this video hit a cord with me! I wish you luck in continuing your Japanese, and don't ever give up hope or lose motivation. It takes time but you will get where you want to be! The people in your life will be surprised more and more the further you get, and one day you will be in a social situation and you will suddenly realize, "hey... this is easy! I understand almost everything!" and after that point, you will skyrocket!
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I am very proud to be Canadian and to have had the privilege of living in such a safe, tolerant, and vibrant country for all my life. It's very hard for me to imagine ever living in another country but I think I should definitely try doing so at one point in my life to gain new experiences. That being said, as an avid viewer of your videos I've also always wondered what your ethnic background is time and time again and I'm really glad that you created this video explaining that by including the point of views of all your siblings. I cannot express in words how relevant this video is to me personally. I just can't believe how similar our ethnic backgrounds are. I, myself, was born in Ontario, Canada but my parents are both natives of Guyana; my mother is half Chinese (paternally) and half Amerindian (maternally, Indigenous peoples of South America) and my father is half Portuguese (maternally) and half Brazilian/Mixed (paternally). Similarly, I cannot count how many times I've been asked what my background is and I would say about 80% of the time I'm mistaken for Filipino and the remaining 20% Mexican. All in all, I absolutely enjoy your videos because they are informative (well-researched/structured), inspirational, and interactive.
I have an obsession with Japanese culture, history, and cuisine and I plan on making it my next vacation destination. In essence, what I would like you to know is that your videos are very precious to me because I feel as though I'm "living" my dream life through them (I don't want to sound weird but I'm not exactly sure how else to phrase it). To end my long tangent, I wish you all the best with your first feature-length documentary: "Being Japanese."
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We moved to our current town (~11k people, half of pre-tsunami numbers) and everyone has been very welcoming. I do speak passable Japanese, which helps things (though some Miyagiben is difficult, even for my wife who grew up in Tohoku, but everyone is super chill and helpful). I definitely love it as someone who just filed paperwork to start his own company to sell what I grow in the coming year. A few things jump out to me:
If you don't like talking to people, the countryisde isn't necessarily the best for you. We have shared responsibility for mowing where we meet at 6am a few times in the summer, and cleaning our han's community center others. We also have various events. You may also get invited to funerals (well, viewings, I think might be the word I would use in US English) for people in your han. All of the events, meetings, etc. come to us by kairanban, a hand-passed bag with a binder where each takes it to the next house. The hancho (the head honcho, as it were) rotates yearly and is responsible for gathering that and managing things.
For renovations, even something like changing a light switch out technically requires a licensed electrician. Not doing so could invalidate the insurance in the event of fire and possibly hold more penalties (I've never researched it, but imagine if a mistake caused several houses to burn!) I'm not sure of all the rules around things, but it's definitely something to think about; Japan may be much more strict than wherever you may be from.
If you're from somewhere with central heat and AC, you might want to build a tightly-enveloped house with good insulation. This is much more expensive and not popular here. Because of Japan's humidity and mold, you have to get really good ventilation or else the mold will find you and take over. Even in our house (built in the late '90s) with somewhat better-than-average insulation and designed to have constant airflow, we really have to keep dehumidifiers going in multiple rooms much of the year. When we rebuild, I do plan on doing a passivhaus-standard house with mechanical ventilation, but just be careful with that. If you do decide to keep it more Japanese-style (breathable), be aware of which wallpaper or plaster you use. Also, as evidenced by the tanks attached to the houses, many places will have propane rather than city gas with propane being more expensive and also requiring contracts. Our in-laws have a kerosene tank and wall-mounted kerosene heaters.
Wastewater is another thing. Some of those places may have pit toilets that require pumping. In Kofu, maybe there is a sewer system that can be connected to in some places, but that's not universal. We have a septic tank, but that may not be possible in some places. Our septic tank requires yearly certification from the government (about 12,000 yen) and a yearly maintenance contract (rates vary).
As mentioned, places with farmland require special handling. I went through the process to get approved (required before I could get the mortgage) and it was pretty painless all-in-all. This is a fairly Japanese-intensive process. I've heard how strict and insular the group is can vary based on location, but our farming committee was lovely and happy to have people coming to grow on unused land.
The tax, pension, insurance, and other stuff can also be tricky for those that don't know Japanese (for your hard-mode side), and some things aren't super clear even if you do (though staff everywhere have been patient and helpful with us).
I wouldn't change having bought a house in the countryside for the world; we love it here! Just thought I'd chime in as briefly as I could with some thoughts and gotchyas.
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this was really interesting and i'm looking forward to the rest of this series, but there were two things tom gill said without mentioning their historical background that i think provide an important context!
1) "after world war 2 japan managed to stay out of wars" -- after the atomic bombs we dropped on japan, the us initiated an unprecedented surrender. we occupied the country for a couple of years, had a handful of unqualified twenty-somethings rewrite the japanese constitution, and part of that was completely disarming the nation. so yes, japan managed to stay out of wars, but there's a lot of complicated history and really atrocious politics and war crimes on the us' behalf
2) wrt deinstitutionalization in america, that's obviously a looooong story but it was actually a pretty well thought out plan because mental institutions were completely isolated, most folks were admitted without consent, and a lot of malpractice happened in them. there had been a plan in place to create community health homes, the first housing specifically for mentally ill people, etc. a lot of people were working on this after john f kennedy kicked it off, but this was completely put to a stop by ronald reagan who didn't want the federal government to support mental health services, so not enough of the community care was created and the remaining folks had nowhere to go
these are just two topics i care about a lot, so i wanted to add some background info!
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Love the nuanced tone you used on this topic Greg... I often talk about this but in a way more sharp tone. xD
Put simply, the stuff you usually see on international news coverage, specially for countries like Japan on a western publication, is often times sensationalized, exaggerated, or made to look weird/unique on purpose.
There is a secondary intention there, and it's often not a great one.
It changes at times, but sometimes it's demeaning (as in, our culture is superior to theirs), sometimes it's fetishization, sometimes it's targetting specific subcultures to make it look like it's a mainstream thing, sometimes it's for the clicks or for the views...
And it's also often in a judgemental tone, not to provoke discussion or to make people think, but rather superficial and one sided. Which is quite unfortunate.
I often say that if your own culture was seen through the lenses often applied by international news about Japan, or other foreign countries, it'd look as "weird" if not weirder.
You don't even have to go that far I guess... tabloids will usually give a sense of how that goes. But still, tabloid news is not the same as international news because at least on tabloid news you have the full expectation that it's purposedly made that way for the clicks. International news often portray themselves as serious, composed, when they often actually are not.
It gets to a point where a whole ton of these weird things that are often covered in international news are there mostly for tourists instead of japanese people.
The weirdest thing most tourists will think about Japan when they visit there will probably be how not weird Japan actually is.
It's a really good exercise to go through all these supposedly weird and unique things that are often talked about Japan, and see if there isn't something there in your own culture that looks or sounds extremely similar. Look hard enough, you'll often find that there actually is.
I'll just talk about one thing that came up recently that is not an example of weird thing, but how international news tend to distort things, in this case by shallow coverage: the "Fukushima disaster".
Fukushima is actually the 3rd biggest prefecture in Japan, the Daiichi power plant tsunami flooding and subsequent meltdown was bad, but the plant is located on the west coast of the prefecture, and the area that is still dealing with problems around ionizing radiation is a radius of a few miles around the plant, not much more than that.
It was catastrophic, I'm not trying to diminish how severe the whole thing was, but it affected an area much smaller than most people imagine.
The vast majority of the prefecture was not affected all that much, and it's a prefecture that almost reaches all the way to the east coast of Japan... it has lots of mountains, lots of onsens, lots of interesting stuff to see, different terrains, lots of cities and culture, lots of stuff that even most tourists don't see (because most tourists only go to Tokyo and Kyoto)... because it's a huge prefecture, not only a power plant.
And yet, as it was labeled "Fukushima disaster", people specially from outside Japan thinks the entire prefecture is condemned or something, when not even the capital city of Fukushima which is located more towards the north of the prefecture didn't change much. :P
I don't think many people realize this, but the capital of Fukushima, that has the same name, never saw anything related to ionizing radiation out of the Tohoku 2011 disaster. They had problems in infrastructure and public transportation because of the earthquake, but that's mostly it.
So I think it's awesome that Greg often makes videos de-mystifing Japan... I think it's needed, because it's something you don't see a lot on traditional media.
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