Comments by "Jordan, inside-outsider in Japan" (@Jordan-inJapan) on "Dogen" channel.

  1. If you didn’t know anything about Japanese political strategy before, that was basically the 101 level course for free. 😆
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  2. MIXI??! 😂 Dogen-san, I didn’t realize you’d been in the country that long. (For those of you who haven’t been around as long, MIXI is Japanese Facebook from 20 years ago.)
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  3. Sage advice, my friend. I have raised two kids here (they’re teenagers now), and can vouch that Dogen speaks truth. I would just add one point: prepare yourself for PTA duty. “It won’t happen to a foreigner like me”, you might think. As I thought. Until I was selected (by lottery) to be head of PTA for my daughter’s school. The…horror… 😓
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  4. If you want to know what an actual healthy Japanese diet looks like, check out what old people here eat. My Japanese grandma is 104, and she seems to subsist mainly on root vegetables, tiny fish, and ‘mikan’ (oranges). As much as I’d LOVE to live that long, I just don’t think I can give up Fami-chiki…
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  5. Well, the beginning was a bit Tokyo-centric, but overall very solid. That said… I now feel obligated to ‘represent’ and add something from rural Japan. How about, “…until you start bringing your own fruits and vegetables to share with your coworkers.” Or maybe, “… until you start feeling defensive about generalizations on Japan based on Tokyo-centric data.” 😆
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  6.  @OmarLivesUnderSpace  I think it’s just that, even after coming up with a lot of new ideas, the inevitable decision is just to just do the same thing as before with a slight variation. It’s really a joke about Japanese society as a whole (at least when conservative old men are in charge)… not just about politics!
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  7. Thanks for reminding me of the ways Japan has changed ME. (I’ve been here so long I can’t remember what I was like before.) I think “still can’t read the air” was one of my favorite lines, although I suspect that it might actually just be an excuse to “play the gaijin card” and be selfish without seeming to be selfish, since you have an irrefutable cultural excuse. (I admit I catch myself doing that from time to time…)
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  8.  @paperwingedowl  I know, right!? 😂 It’s like this: Each household with a fifth grader in the school district has to meet and determine who the reps are for the various PTA roles. We usually decide by “amida-kuji” (traditional Japanese lottery for deciding roles). And… I won the big prize. Yay. Not exactly HARD work… But I had to attend a lot of (mostly) pointless meetings and make speeches at various school and community events. All in Japanese of course! 😅
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  9. That’s not a toilet. It’s a どこでもドア. You just have to press that little button that says, 「呼び出す」to activate it.
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  10. “Aren’t you ever bothered by all the exceptions and contradictions?” 😂 Brilliant. (But yeah, I think I’m with Richaado on this one…)
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  11. Whenever this situation comes up, I want so badly to answer like this. I often do, initially (mostly unintentionally). But then I never have the guts to follow through when the follow-up inquiry comes. 😅 “Oh…of course, sorry! I’m from Canada.” (Many many years ago…)
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  12. I’ve never worked for corporate Japan, but from my experience with city PTA and education board meetings, this is spot on. Always that one guy sleeping… 😂
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  13. Loved that. And when Dogen said he couldn’t just use Japanese all the time since he’s trying to create a bilingual environment at home for his kid I was like, “dude, that’s the excuse I always use!” (Of course in my case, my Japanese is actually bad enough to warrant the excuse. At least according to my kids.😅)
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  14.  @aw2031zap  Thanks!! (Agreed… 😆 🍻 )
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  15.  @GustafUNL  You’re right. The problem isn’t actually the older generation. But the ‘don’t rock the boat’ culture (in business as well as politics) does happen to be beneficial to those currently entrenched in positions of power…who are mostly all old men. (And they DO tend to resist change, as it doesn’t benefit them.) My wife works at Honda, and it says that there’s often serious discussion of progressive change or innovation in the company, but the guys at the top just veto everything at the last minute, presumably because it sounds like too much work…or just change makes them nervous.
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  16.  @southcoastinventors6583  I don’t allow myself to play that card with friends or people who know me well. But I do catch myself, occasionally, taking advantage of the ‘unintentional kindness’ of causal acquaintances or coworkers. 😆
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  17. A topic of some importance to me, as a resident of a city called 津. (つ in Hiragana. In Romaji it’s T.. 😅)
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  18. “I’m split on this one.” 😂 (My band actually has a song called “Jukujo Disco”, on this very theme. More or less.)
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  19.  @shiromochi-kun  確かに。でも、僕の場合は新しい家建てた。はずれ？😆 (一応チャンネルあるけど。)
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  20.  @roripantsu  You just kind of develop a sense of it after a while… or you don’t. (In that case, you get labeled “KY” if you’re Japanese, or “foreign” if you’re…foreign. 😆)
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  21. This exact situation has happened to me. More than once. 😆
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  22. I think it peaks at around 10 years. (any longer and you start to forget what was “normal“ before. 😆)
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  23.  @AmodeusR  ahhh that would make more sense. (He’s not THAT old…)
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  24.  @corvus2735  Right. Well, the functionality was probably closer to Facebook. But yeah.
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  25. This exact situation has happened to me. More than once. 😆
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  26.  @OmarLivesUnderSpace  I don’t know… any Toyota employees among us?
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  27.  @qwmx  Congratulations! (But how this post got 1000 likes I’m not quite sure. 😂 )
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  28.  @MananaMan  I’m pretty sure it’s the opposite.
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  29.  @southcoastinventors6583  🍻!
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