Comments by "XSportSeeker" (@XSpImmaLion) on "Qu0026A with BrÅgen" video.
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LOL, I can empathize with the girl Dogen said that looked japanese but was born in the US.
Went twice to Japan so far, both times with other 6 relatives.
3 of them (including my mom) can speak a bit of... like, pre-WWII japanese. So, newer words borrowed from english and other languages are right out. Which generates an insane ammount of confusion, let me tell ya. xD
One of my cousins has a medium level japanese reading and writting, mostly because he learned by himself, has been several time to Japan, and has friends and relatives living there. Other 2 relatives and myself knows practically zero japanese... I at most pick up some lose words, spoken, can't read anything. Basic of basics.
That's because I'm 3rd generation brazilian already, despite my parents and grandparents all having japanese descendancy. My mom was taught japanese when she was young, but didn't have much contact with it during her adult life. My dad was taught even less. So when it got to me, there was no such thing as speaking japanese at home. I tried learning a bit when I was younger, but it never caught on, specially because as a kid I really didn't have much interest in Japan and japanese culture at all, honestly. Weirdly enough, interest in Japan and japanese culture came much later on in life, when I was already 19 or something.
Before that, it was all about english as a foreign language. Which I know way more these days than say... spanish, which is a very close language for brazilians.
Anyways, in both trips, as we look plain japanese, we also had a few cases of "why the heck you don't understand what I'm saying?". To the point that on the second trip I considered carrying around a small brazilian flag, or wearing a gaijin/brazilian button or something. xD
No traumatic experiences I guess, as the tourist experience is far more forgiving. Most times, we quickly said we were brazilians, got some surprised looks, and then a total relaxation on the conversation - because people were attending us as tourists of course.
One thing I remember is that this mostly happened with taxi drivers. xD Some of them suddenly became super interested, having a hard time believing we were basically from the other side of the planet, still having a hard time believing that we simply couldn't speak or understand japanese. xD
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