Comments by "XSportSeeker" (@XSpImmaLion) on "Life Where I'm From"
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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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ROFL, Greg, next time you take them deep in the boonies and order in a restaurant without photos or plastic food displays, preferably a plate with a whole bunch of options. xD
Tokyo is just too easy. :P
Just go tabemono onegaishimasu. xD
Anyways, to note, Google Translate doesn't get a lot of things right, but in an emergency it'll also translate what people are saying... I'm not sure if it'd be able to get everything they were saying in the last bit, but if you don't have a Greg there to help you, it might be the solution.
Actually, I just tested when he gave the options for shoyu, Hakata salt or red miso... Google Translate got: "It becomes white or red miso of pediatric Hakata". LOL
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Awesome video Greg, this eases up trying to explain religion in Japan.
The best way I came up to talk about shinto and buddhism with other people is explaining that you better see them in Japan more as tradition or culture than religion itself.
All countries have some sort of tradition or cultural part that came from religion. Some of them became divorced of faith or belief overtime, for lots of people in those countries.
They have value in several ways - cultural identity, society values, life philosophy, spiritual meaningfullness, personal guidance, expressing emotions, finding common ground in communities plus all sorts of other things. All of those are usually valuable in faith and belief based religions too, but I personally think, this is personal opinion, that they are better divorced.
Blind faith and belief are usually the worst parts a religion has to offer, specially when taken to extremes.
This is how I make sense of religion in general, as an atheist. It's not inherently bad to be part of it, people should be free to follow whatever they want, but blindly believing or putting faith in something that is bad in itself cannot be excused just because one is following a religion. I don't accept religion as scapegoat for bad behaviour or bad ideas.
I don't really participate in any local tradition with links to religion I guess... there aren't many counterparts to the shinto temple, matsuris and whatnot in the world, as uniformly practiced through an entire country like Japan.
I do follow my mom in some stuff around the Anglican church sometimes, which she is an integral part of. Even though I'm not much of a fan of the mass and faith based stuff, my mom grew up in a small town where the Anglican church was big, she is devout in it, most of her big family also is, and I don't find this bad because the Anglican church in particular here in Brazil is probably the most progressive Christian church in the country. It accepts people from all faith, it often has round table discussions from representatives of all faiths, positions inside the church are open to all sexes, you can be married, divorced, widower or whatever, it does not have a rigid structure, it promotes several things in the LGBT community, it's pro-action (mostly in helping the poor) instead of being just ritualistic or money hungry, and it doesn't impose itself or have any authoritarian stint... which is unfortunately why it's also kinda tiny in comparison to other churches. It's more a voluntary community rather than an obligation, a gathering place for likeminded people rather than the place you are forced to go to seek salvation.
Through it is where I came to understand how so many religions just became tools of oppression, mindwashing, cultism and fanatism. It is an unfortunate fact when it comes to faith and religion that sometimes the more oppressive, the more close minded, the more radical, the more rigid the structure of a religion is, the more it tends to attract people, the more people are willing to put their money into it, the more people are convinced about it. Fear and hatred are very effective tools to convince people to believe in something. Lots of people also consciously or unconsciously seek all answers in their lives to come from a single source, so churches often have to offer that because it is easier to follow and make sense of.
On the opposite end of it, the way my mom's church lost most followers was by promoting hands on work, being accepting of other religions, doing work with LGBT families and communities, electing women inside church positions, inviting poor families and people into church activities, and stuff like that. It's probably the smallest church in my hometown, it's always in financial dire straits, it's always bleeding out followers, being fractured, and whatnot. Nevertheless, I am very grateful that this is the religion that my mom chose to put her faith on, out of all other options available in Brazil. She pays a steep price to keep at it, along with another group she joined - Rotary International. But it is fullfilling to her, and I admire her a lot for that, because these days it takes most of her time and money to be part of both. It's a lot of dedication, a lot of hands on service, a lot of patience for close to nothing in return.
Something that I can't really say much about myself I guess. But I do hope to follow her example one day.
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From Brazil here, Japanese descendant family, most converted to some form of Christianity all over... but up until I was younger, the tradition of getting the family together on new years' eve was kinda kept, in the way Japanese descendent families in Brazil kept it going somehow.
So the separation was, x-mas to be spent with your smaller nuclear family or perhaps the family of members that are not of Japanese descent, but new years had to be with the larger Japanese side of the family. xD I never went to big new years' parties or to see fireworks shows because of that. Some of my cousins when they reached adulthood just managed to convince their families to skip to celebrate elsewhere, but at least some portion of the family was always there with our larger group.
I imagine what we do is closer to what traditions were during the time my grandparents and grand-grandparents immigrated to Brazil, few years before WWII, so it looks nothing like modern Japanese customs, but getting the family together was a thing.
Up until my grandparents generation, we used to still see things like Kamidana, and a few more traditional things. We didn't have osechi, but it was a huge collection of dishes that mixed Japanese stuff with local and that of other traditions... I think early on Japanese immigrants tried to adapt and remake a ton of Japanese dishes using local ingredients which results in this mess of different things. xD
Someone makes nabemono, someone else makes mochi, someone cooks fish, some pork dish, someone orders or makes a bunch of sushi, and then you have an assortment of Brazilian dishes and other stuff so that people who dislike Japanese food had something to eat... xD It was always all over the place.
I remember back when I was a kid a few older relatives still gave otoshidama to kids of the family, but this also kinda died off and got mixed up with different traditions over the years... we also had Secret Santa style gift givings, years we did Bingo games and other types of games, plus a bunch of other different stuff. But the family gets older, the festivities get shorter, and things change.
One aunt of mine, the one we usually stay at, still does Ozoni in the first day of the year... but it's mostly me, my mom and her that enjoys it, most of the family either don't like, or cannot eat (case of my uncle who is allergic to everything sesame seed related... super unfortunate considering almost all Japanese dishes use sesame seeds, or sesame seed oil xD ). He's from Italian descendency though, so it's not like he cared all that much about Japanese food already. xD
Anyways, this will no doubt end in my generation. Most of the cousins my age or younger already don't care much about participating in all of this, most of them don't know the significance of most of these things, and most families of my parents' generation didn't care much about pushing, enforcing, and keeping Japanese traditions that came from their parents and whatnot... it just got so diluted and bastardized over the years that it simply doesn't make much sense. It's also the case like I said that most Japanese descendent families ends up going towards some form of Christianity, so there is little left of traditions rooted in Shinto and Buddhist origins. There are some stuff that I experienced as a kid that I only came to understand and realize where it was coming from after I got older and the Internet was here... xD
Over the years, the larger entire family broke apart, got separated, moved to different parts of the country or even abroad, and started celebrating new years and x-mas with family that is closeby. When I was a kid, we used to get together in either some rented place, a big farmhouse of some relative, or something similar because it used to be a huge group of 50+ people. Particularly when my grandparents were still alive, the larger family got together around them... because from my dad's side, it was 11 between brothers and sisters, and from my mom's side was 9 between brothers and sisters. So, huge extended family. But most of them only had one or two kids.
After my grandparents died and each portion of the family moving away to different corners of the country, it just made it harder to justify traveling long hours to get together... kids got older, lots of them didn't adopt Japanese traditions, and so things starts diluting away.
Before the pandemic we were getting closer to less than 20 people groups.... during the pandemic the core group was reduced to less than 10 I think. We weren't there because it's a long trip away, so I ended up celebrating me and my mom only. :P My mom and dad were the son and daughter that moved to a different state after graduation, so it has always been us to travel to the grandparents state... so from when I was baby up to now end year celebrations has always meant 16 hour trips by car or bus to visit relatives.
Anyways, just to give an idea how things are from my pov, and perhaps the experience of lots of Japanese descendant families. Some traditions were kept as much as possible for a couple of generations or so, but it's likely not lasting much longer than this. Well, apart from some of my cousins that got back to Japan and formed families there... xD
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Awesome stuff Greg!
Going there by the end of next month, last trip was 11 years ago. xD
Getting through Narita and I'll be staying with other 7 family members and relatives around Narita station.
Even though I mostly knew all of those, it's always nice to reconfirm the whole thing...
I already got myself a JR Pocket Wi-fi, will be getting the pass later this month, and I guess everything is in check. I also got a couple of Suica cards ready.
People also recommend having an external battery charger for your stuff, specially if you'll be relying on the phone for a whole ton of stuff... Google Translate, Maps, communication in general...
Quite different from the last time we went... no smartphones, calls with international pay phones only, but I already used a huge laptop and Google maps to print everything and carry it around back then. xD
I'm catching this video a bit late, but I imagine the next topic would be hotels and reservations... I did everything through Tripadvisor and Booking. I'd go for Airbnb but most of the people who are going with me are seniors, and they really wanted the conveniences of a hotel stay, so we went with that.
Oh, I'll try subtitling your video in portuguese later today... wanna show the info for relatives. Thanks! o/
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Great job Bobby, and again Greg with the great editing in a more behind the curtains role! xD Really felt the style coming through.
This video made me reflect a bit on my own family, particularly grandparents.
I dunno how it is for other countries, but small family run shops nowadays, at least where I live, are kinda rare. It's either small shops entirely run by hired staff, which are often just doing a job they don't really care all that much about just trying to make a living for themselves or as a step to something they really want to do in the future, or big chains and big business that implemented all sorts of rules and whatnot so that it runs to a certain standard and never strays from it - for the good and bad.
But I remember my own grandparents because they ran a small bar/candy shop/coffee shop mix business in a tiny rural town where my mom grew up in. It's really small, always fluctuated between 2000 and 5000 inhabitants. My grandfather always prided himself about some stuff that he took great care in the shop. I got to enjoy some of it when I was a kid, along with cousins of the same age.
The business was entirely family run, and it was actually an extension of the house they lived in. My great grandparents had a small ranch relatively close to the town.
Long gone memories because everything changed.
When my grandparents died, the then already almost abandoned small ranch got sold to the usual owners of large tracts of land for big agribusiness because my uncles who still lived closeby just had no way of doing anything worth with it, my grandparents too old to do anything with it too. There was no reason to keep it, because a small ranch like that couldn't compete with anything as a business.
The town business itself also closed down, as one of the few last remaining businesses that attended that portion of town, which used to be the central part of town. But at that point, it was already mostly abandoned because of a change in demographics.
My uncle at that time was, if I'm not mistaken, working as an immigrant in Japan. He came back when his parents, my grandparents, health was worsening, and just stayed here as the conditions for immigrants working in Japan also weren't as great as when he initially went there. He spent I think almost 30 years of his life working there, mostly industrial work like making and installing shoji panels, among others - together with brothers, and at one point a few of his daughters, my cousins. Though my cousins only stayed there for a couple of years or so.
As for the change in town, the kids of families who had a business there mostly moved away to neighboring bigger cities in search for work, education, better health infrastructure or some other reason. Eventually, entire families also moved, as they aged. The core original inhabitants and families of the town just moved away or passed away over the years.
Newcomers into town were mostly poor families searching for jobs in the agricultural sector, lots of them were temporary work, or people who worked at neighboring bigger cities looking for a cheaper place to live. As they moved into the town, they mostly went to live in the opposite side of town where new neighborhoods were popping up.
This resulted in the town center shifting away, all the commerce either moved close to that side, or just closed off and newer shops opened up there instead. Small city like that only needs a few markets, drugstores, and whatnot. When older commerce started either moving or shutting down, the entire city center went with it.
The bar portion of my family's house converted into a garage. Old furniture and general furnishings of the bar either got back into the house or were sold, gifted to family members, or just trashed. I think one of my cousins still has an old wind up all wooden clock like the one Ohkuma-san has in his Cafe.
Then after several years, my uncle passed working in a painter job. Too much heat, he had a stroke, it was very sudden. His wife still lived for more years in that house, along with a couple of my cousins until they married and also moved away. Then, because of ailing health issues my aunt also ended up moving with one of my cousins to a neighboring bigger city just a couple of years before she also passed.
And their old home, a multi story ancient house that my uncle had built portions of it by himself, is now there, left as inheritance to my cousins.
It's too old, a lot of it was poorly built, it has foundation problems, and it's in a part of the town that is largely abandoned nowadays.
There is a huge part of the extended family that loves that house because it was the place everyone gathered in end years festivities since the family is all spread around the country, so there are lots of memories there. In my childhood, we made visits bi-annually, and then later at least once a year - we live quite far off. It's the home, town and environment my mom grew in.
But the reality of it is that other than sentimental value, the house isn't really worth anything. Hard to rent, hard to sell. Probably the reality of several of the inaka houses in Japan. It's too big, it's setup in a multi story fashion, and no one wants to make a family business like that nowadays, particularly in that side of town.
So it's been abandoned for several years now. Along with many things that used to be from the time it was a bar/coffee shop/candy shop. It'd likely already been sold if it wasn't for the fact that no one wants it. I think it briefly got rented for a while, but the tenants were criminals doing some bad stuff there, which happens a lot in these types of situations. Cousins were worried about people invading and occupying the space, which also often happens in these cases in my country, but thing is that the town is so small, and the house in such an abandoned part of it, that it never happened so far. There is also a dispute between cousins wanting to sell it and not wanting to sell it because of financial reasons... it's all complicated, as you'd expect.
And I think the story of my family reflects a bit the changes in society. It might reflect the story of some family owned businesses in Japan too, and some situations with inaka homes.
o/
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Awesome series... always wanted to see a bit more on the real cold part of Japan in everyday life instead of only snow festivals and attractions.
Being from a tropical country, the whole thing is totally alien to my own personal experience... been only a few times in places that snowed and for a short period, so living with it is a very foreign concept to me. xD
We almost went up to Hokkaido on our last trip back in 2018... ended up with not enough time to go though, and I'm not sure if all the extra expenses on clothing and whatnot would justify spending just a couple of days or so there.
We think it's just like hop in the train and go there, but depending on climate it seems there needs to be a bit more preparation.
For us, even for the not too cold days before hanami in Tokyo, we end up having to buy clothes and whatnot there because we simply don't have the types of clothes needed. Tropical country where it never gets bellow zero, even the winter clothing we have and take is inadequate... I only started realizing the importance of different types of layering to block wind, rain, while also being breathable, absorbing some moisture and all this stuff when we went to places that got really cold.
But perhaps the next trip with more time to spend... hopefully, my gang will be healthy enough for the next one. xD I joke because both trips I made to Japan is with a group of relatives that are almost all at retirement age.
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Awesome, I love it!
Also agreed that not the entire country should stick to rules like those, but more historical cities should think of urban planning like that all around the world, not just Japan.
I knew there was some preservation effort in Kyoto so that it remained closer to it's roots, but I didn't know they took it this far... explains a lot. xD
I also imagine that codes and rules like those are what makes even neighborhoods so distinct from each other in big cities, and at least in my eyes, it definitely pays off for a country that's becoming more and more touristic over the years - both internally and externally I mean.
I'd be far more interested in visiting cities in my own country if there was such care about preserving the ambience, historical value and aesthetics in general of some of them.
It's also quite the feat to enforce and maintain things that way in a city as big as Kyoto... I can imagine this being done in smaller cities and towns, but managing a city the size of Kyoto must require several layers of cooperation and true will to enforce stuff like that.
The city I currently live in has a bit bigger population than Kyoto... around 500 thousand more people, it's a mid sized capital. There are some preservation efforts on the old part of downtown, but it's just done in a dumb way. It's mostly about the streets and pavement, which are just horrible. Paved with these slippery and hard stones that are just fall hazards whenever it rains, or even with it's not raining. It's less historical preservation and more like the mayor not wanting to invest and receiving kickbacks to maintain things as they are - namely old, useless and horrible.
Meanwhile, decrepit old ugly buildings dominate the landscape, and there are no aesthetic restrictions to anything, so it just looks like a dirtier run down part of downtown instead.
Next time I visit Kyoto I'll pay more attention and value how beautiful the place is even more... :D
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I went to Japan 12 years ago, and then went back this year with the same crew (7 family members, only one friend of the family couldn't go unfortunately).
So, expectations vs reality completely different, but here we go.
We really noticed a dramatic increase of tourists, specially chinese tourists.
Spots that were already popular like Fushimi Inari Taisha in Kyoto, Ueno park in the last days of sakura, Asakusa Kanon temple, and even at hotels or Narita airport in busy times - it was almost unbearable with that many tourists. I think Golden Week gets pretty packed all around, but probably with less foreigners.
Next time I'm thinking of going way earlier (before sakura blossoming) for some quieter visits.
I wouldn't say it was disappointing, and I'm not blaming all chinese tourists, but sometimes it was pretty bad... like guides screaming full lungs in chinese, groups blocking streets, stuff like that. Some foreigners are super rude... you do encounter the occasional rude japanese I guess, but I gotta say that most of the times we had problems were with foreigners. Nothing dramatic though.
In Kyoto I kinda got some info completely wrong (don't blindly trust the Internets people), I wanted to go to Arashiyama to see the bamboo forest, but we ended up in a completely different temple way in the boonies that we had a very hard time getting back to Kyoto station. Some of my relatives will disagree, but for me personally it ended up being great... because it had almost no tourists... in fact almost no one. Shoden-ji temple, had only a relatively small zen-garden in a dilapidated temple. It was a really nice break from the crowds...
Like I said in another post, I'm a smoker myself (sorry again), and I did expect to see more smokers around considering that Japan had a lot of smokers... still has? I was surprised by laws forbidding smoking in public, by the rooms and specific spaces made for smokers, and how few smokers I saw during the trip overall.
And I honestly agree with the entire thing... I kinda wish to have a "smokers room" just like the one that the first hotel we stayed has. Equipped full of filters and whatnot.
The only place that was really packed with smokers was Akiba, in the place reserved for smoking I mean... and a good part were tourists.
Hmmm... what else? Oh, Suica is super convenient. xD It's been 12 years, so of course lots of stuff will change, but some places we went in the first trip and went again this time were almost unrecognizable - specially around Tokyo. Two places I really regret we didn't make time to go - Fuji-san and a Tokyu Hands store. Then again, this time I could spend almost 4 days in Akiba, so can't complain. Guess that's more or less it.
As for the first time we went, it's pretty much the same as Greg's relatives, and that's probably because of international coverage of Japan. There's a huge bias in trying to portray the country as a weird, exotic, packed and out of the normal place when it really isn't. 12 years ago was even worse... we thought we wouldn't find food to eat well, we thought trains were always crazy packed (depending on the time and place they really are, but not all times), I thought I was doomed because I didn't know any japanese, etc.
Oh, something that still surprises me is on diversity of spaces and the incredibly defined boundaries of them. Like, you get out on a train station that is modern, urban, tons of salary men waking in suits all around, etc... then you walk like two blocks and suddenly you are in the middle of an entirely empty, calm and quiet park. In Kyoto around the central stations you are surrounded by these huge modern buildings, lots of big brands, bunch of cars running around some large streets and all.... take a turn you are in an all pedestrian (Gion) street with old historic buildings and whatnot in an entirely different mood.
At times it's super weird, like you went through a portal or something. The different Tokyo neighborhoods are all kinda unique.
Oh well, wrote too much already. Anyways, great video!
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Thanks Greg, for yet another great video that compiles and brings nuance to a discussion I've been having for years with people curious about Japan! xD One more to use when trying to unravel the complexity of it.
You generally have two camps of people on this. One side, people who have heard about the complexity of trash separation for recycling, plus perhaps a doc on that zero waste village that "recycles" "everything", and thinks Japan is a paradise of recycling or something, and the other camp who heard about double and triple packaging of Japanese products and/or how a ton of trash gets burnt and finds it all appalling... it is often hard to explain how none of it is black and white, and reality is more or less in between like in several other developed nations.
But I think there are some models in Japan that are worth thinking about and adopting, sometimes I wonder why it still didn't happen. One is the standardization of product packaging, particularly for companies that already operate in Japan (which is basically most, as it has basically become a global oligopoly), they have no excuses on not knowing how to do it.
My understanding is that while not perfect, particularly for PET bottles, Japan evolved recycling efforts a whole lot in the past couple of decades. And it's not only about recycling... in more general terms it's also about usability, education, awareness, culture and more stuff along those lines.
Standardization and bottles that are clearly made with recycling in mind, with care put into how to clean and break them apart for recycling, by itself educates people towards better disposal practices... which doesn't happen in my country because bottles continue coming in all shapes, consistency and sizes, with paper and plastic labels completely glued to the bottles with zero consideration on how to take them off, an assortment of caps of all materials and qualities imaginable, no standardized shape, etc. You can see from the offset that it wasn't made with recycling in mind, and so people just don't give a damn.
In fact, by comparison, the standard vending machine Japanese tea bottle is so well made (in comparison to local stuff) that I often see people using it as a reusable bottle... every now and then I get some in an import shop and it becomes a bottle to take on trips and whatnot. The bottles of stuff bought locally are so crappy that it often ends up in a state you can't really clean up and reuse.
The whole idea that bottled beverage manufacturers needs to keep changing and messing with bottle designs as a marketing ploy has to die in the west. Well, what is left of it in Japan also has to go, because I know that despite heavy standardization, Japan also has a bit of that leftover.
I also think that for quite a few places, there needs to be some consideration about controlled burning of trash with carbon capture methods and whatnot. While it might sound bad at first because of emissions, it's a whole lot worse if all this trash ends up in a landfill which contaminates the water table and rivers, and all of it ends up breaking down and becoming a source of greenhouse gases anyways, while also adding up to ecosystem damages and microplastics problem. For countries like Japan where there is a lack of natural resources for energy production, and a whole lot of emissions and costs involved in importing fossil fuel energy anyways, at least for me it seems more than logical to burn trash for fuel. It's not a perfect solution, and it might not sound great, but it sure sounds better than just exporting trash and importing even more fossil fuels to fill the gap...
I do agree though that there should be better ways to handle some types of packaging... I do like the practice for cleanliness and food portioning reasons, plus the entire culture of gift giving, but I guess it's time to start applying more forcefully usage of alternative materials, or reusable stuff, rather than just keep using mounds of plastic that will end up being burned away.
In any case, I'm not in any position to criticize or complain. My developing nation still didn't get even close to such considerations. Trash ends up everywhere here, even well educated people have no idea how little of our trash gets recycled, in general people also have no idea how to separate recyclable trash from the rest properly, we are nowhere close to having an uniform system for it, there is little respect for standards and labeling regarding materials and how to recycle them, and our landfills are all problematic in their own ways... I won't even start talking about industrial trash, commercial, and stuff like mining because it'd be an endless complaint stream. :P
The only thing that saves us from going the complete opposite way when it comes to environmentalism and fighting climate change is that most of our power generation, thanks to the lucky geographical conditions we have, already leans heavily towards renewables. Lucky for us, because if it depended on government and people's will, we'd be contributing increasingly more and more to worsening Climate Change, and against the environment in general. But there is a lot more to be done, and it needs to start by taking away the idiot president in charge, replacing with someone that at least doesn't put industrial cattle farming and whatnot above environmental concerns. Realistically though, even if we elected the most radical environmentalist possible, there is only so much that could be done to solve all the environmental issues here... but I think a proper start would be regulating things properly and forcing huge industries to commit to better practices or start paying all the fines they should already be paying for environmental damages.
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Yep, I learned that lesson the hard way too... xD
Fortunately, it wasn't with expensive japanese knifes, just a relatively cheap high carbon knife I got just to see the difference in sharpness.
To be honest, they are kinda scary. It just cuts so easy that you can't avoid think what if your finger was in the way... :P
But great tips and great video Greg, thanks for sharing!
By the way, semi related, during your research did you come by kiwami japan's channel? If you haven't, you should take a look... just for the fun of it.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg3qsVzHeUt5_cPpcRtoaJQ/videos
He makes knives out of everything, and because of a pretty masterful sharpening technique, they all come out cutting like heck. xD
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The land of convenience... xD those are awesome, I'd love to have a service like that here.
We do have frozen meals here, but it's like half a dozen types at most, they are super expensive (sometimes more than just paying for restaurant delivery), and they generally don't taste great nor are very healthy...
If you count lasagnas as a meal, several of them still have trans fat added. The stuff you find on supermarkets are generally bad... it'll do to fill you up, but there always seem to be something wrong with it. The rice comes out kinda raw, the pasta ends up mushy, meat has the consistency of rubber...
You know when food is poorly frozen or it taste like it has been unfrozen and frozen back again? That. You can never trust supermarkets, restaurants, and delivery services to preserve the thing as they should.
I have seen a few app based delivery restaurants offering frozen meals made by them, not industrialized, but they are really hit or miss... the better ones are labeled as "healthy food", and accordingly comes with the healthy food tax - by which I mean, they are too expensive for what they are, and portions are small.
And I've never seen anything offering this much variety... the restaurants that offer frozen meals made by themselves at most will have some 4 or 5 choices based on the standard everyday brazilian meal. Rice beans and a few other stuff, beef stroganoff, feijoada, and then all sorts of pasta... the most common here are spaghetti, gnocci and lasagna. It's really made for those in a hurry, not for those looking to enjoy a meal.
Though I think if I lived there, I'd just do a quick run to a kombini everytime. xD I mean, with frozen food you don't even have to leave home, but really, the only reason why I consider frozen food here is because there is nothing like kombinis around where I live, restaurants are expensive as heck, and everytime you go out you gotta have safety in mind because depending on time of day, you always have a chance to get mugged or something. :P So I have tried a whole ton of frozen, dried, and generally long preserved food... it's mostly been kinda like cup noodles - not the kind you see in Japan, the kind you see internationally... pretty basic and bad. But opposite to cup noodles, if it's a regular meal, it tends to be super expensive too...
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Great video Greg!
Yeah, this problem is replicated in lots of places around the world... I heard about the wild pig problem in the US, and have watched a few older docs on similar problems in other countries.
The wild pig problem on first look also seems to have a simple and clear solution - let's just eat them! xD
But it ends up in the same general obstacles... logistics, regulations, chain consequences and whatnot.
And this all has to do how we do things. Before humanity was around, nature and evolution found it's way towards balanced eco systems over millions of years... but then we came and messed everything up. xD It's not always particularly malicious too, it's sometimes just a consequence of things we did to occupy spaces, cultivate enough food for us, or even protect ourselves like in cases of elimination of predators.
We have lots of international news focused on African nations, but that's only because western developed nations see those countries as their personal safari grounds.
It ends up in lots of cities, towns, villages and whatnot trapped between protecting themselves, protecting their agricultural lands and keeping things as is for tourism and for their international image.
It's an extremely hard balance to achieve, I'm glad Japan is finding a way to balance things...
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@glebkoshelev I don't completely disagree with you on this, perhaps because you used a perspective of the extremes, but just to talk about some points in your arguments.
I don't think we need to protect to the point of our non-existence, but perhaps we have already exploited natural reserves more than we should and it's better we stop now, and start studying it properly so that we can make our situation better.
To be clear, my arguments are all anthropocentric. This is all for our benefit, not because I think we should disappear and let nature recover. I'm not really worried about the planet itself, it has gone through worst things than mankind.
The problem is that this allowance we have for making mistakes, developing and becoming better with time is running out. The amount of exploitation natural reserves can take before things start going south is finite. Not for the planet, but for the sustainability of our own species.
Permaculture is a good example of us doing it right, or at the very least trying to do it intelligently, but unfortunately it's both rare, and hard to implement at large scales. You have small farms that do it, but the industrial farming operations that have most of the land is just not using it.
What we have mostly done so far is exploitive, monoculture, and at most crop rotation. None of which are conducive to sustainable rich environments. Some of it can be sustainable as in keeping growing the same stuff without ruining the soil, but it's not comparable to a full fledged rich environment like a rainforest.
So preservation is needed not because I think we can't get better, but because we need preservation in order to get there.
We need what is left so that we can study it, understand it, and then do it ourselves at some point.
We haven't explored or understood enough of it to let it go, and if we lose it we won't be able to do it anymore.
Until we haven't fully understood and started making on our own, rich and diverse forest environments, we cannot afford to lose the blueprints of it.
I also think it's a very bad idea to become too full of ourselves. The so called miracles of modern science and engineering might look grandiose for us in our own perspective, but it's nothing in comparison to millions of years of natural evolution.
The reason why we are in the current situation, which I mean man made climate change, is because we multiple times thought that we understood nature and how to deal with it. We were wrong. We need to step back a bit, understand where we are wrong, and try to correct things.
I can't explain everything in a single comment, but I highly suggest watching a documentary called "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace". One of the episodes explains how the term "ecosystem" came to be, how we thought it worked, and how wrong we were.
It's also why I am categorically against stuff like geoengineering. We don't know enough to start messing with things like that. If we can't appreciate and see the value of millions of years of natural evolution, which led to us being here in the first place, we might just not make it.
Just remember. Yes, we are part of all this. But we did not get here on our own. From the planet's perspective, we're but tiny babies. We've been here just a fraction of time other extinct species were. If we mean to be here longer than dinosaurs, for instance, we will need all the help to do it, and a whole lot of it will come from the nature that surrounds us, as it has always been. We can't afford to keep destroying it. A whole bunch of the tech we developed over the years, these advanced marvelous technologies that looks very distant from natural sources, were mostly inspired by natural processes.
So I think that it's better if we start seeing ourselves as a mutualistic or at least commensalistic species rather than a parasitic one in relation to our planet.
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Small towns in Japan are like the ideal people thinking about their retirements on a small rural town looks like - an almost utopic setting. xD Through a great deal of selfless work and community strength.
What we really get here where I live is deep isolation, abandonment and a death trap all combined in one. :P
People particularly from generations older than mine all have this dream of retirement that is either in rural towns, or a beach house. But I think from my generation forwards, this dream kinda ended in my country. My mom and dad used to think this way, they mostly gave up entirely after seeing the experiences of other family members and friends.
Crime and violence reached even the remotest of places, the sense of community driven neighborhoods died off, and so I have multiple cases in my extended family of uncles, aunts, and whatnot that had this dream of living their retirement years either on beach houses or rural property that almost all gave up on it.
That is, for the few who have amassed enough wealth to be able to afford a second home.
A few of them tried moving and "living the dream", but most of them just came back to a more urban setting for multiple reasons. Several of them also sold their properties because they either needed the money, or it was simply not worth maintaining.
My mom comes from a small town that is pretty much the same in terms of population. Back when she was young, it was a 5000+ small town where most of the people worked in farms. My grandfather was the local bar/bakery owner with a multi-story home in the middle of the town center there, where most of the commerce used to be.
Today, the city shrank to 2000+, the town center moved to the other side, and the region became completely abandoned. People who live there mostly commutes by car to neighboring cities... it's over an hour away and the road is pretty dangerous. The town itself isn't as safe as it was in the past too. The church which used to be the social center of the town almost has no one there anymore. And the population that is there is mostly from outside, poor, and completely at odds with those who grew up there.
Small farms don't give enough money to survive anymore, so it was all sold off to big agribusiness firms, including my great grandfather small plot of land.
The town sometimes has a big influx and then outflux of people because of projects like a solar farm that was built there.
But it's also because there is no government incentive programs, no one working to take care of elderly people who are still there, no services like the truck delivery or taxi/bus business - so the inevitable happens. Most people who would like to keep living there until their old age are forced to move in with younger family members for care. It becomes basically impossible to live in the town if you can't drive or if you have worsening health issues that comes with old age.
We don't have as much of a problem with negative birth rates and aging population as much as Japan, South Korea and others - but the migration towards urban centers might be even worse.
It's because there is absolutely zero effort on government and social side to maintain small towns, particularly rural ones.
Anyways, thanks Greg for another amazing video!
I'd have no problems moving to a town like Kofu... as any place in Japan would be several times better than living in any city in my country in terms of safety, cleanliness, conveniences and whatnot.
But then again, I'm not young, don't have wife and kids, and have nothing to offer to raise up a place and community like that. xD
I hope those towns are able to keep going for a long time though. There'll need to be profound changes in culture and society, and particularly government policies and whatnot for that to happen, but I hope those will come too.
I can see that a lot is being done, and I don't mean to discount or belittle all of that, particularly because I know from my own country things can be much much worse. But the size of the issue seems to require much more profound changes. Japan, despite being in a recession for several decades now, I think has the money and cultural backgrounds to revert this trend. I hope it can leverage that to change the situation...
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I gotta be honest... at those sizes, I'd rather move away from Tokyo and face the commute. xD
But I'm not opposed to small apartment living... quite the opposite, I'm opposed to huge houses.
Just that my comfort zone seems to be at least 4 to 7x that area space. xD
And that's considering I grew up in a pretty big house with pretty big lawn space...
I still couldn't handle living in such a cramped space because I wouldn't be able to keep some of my hobbies that do occupy some space, so I'd need a separate storage or office area, which I dunno if it'd make much sense renting two difference places rather than just renting a single bigger place.
Then again, if I was working full time and didn't have the time for most of my hobbies anyways, I guess this factor wouldn't matter much. Just a place to crash, that are is good enough.
Speaking of which, I have a semi-related question. I know people with very low budget and some extreme situations will end up practically living in manga cafes, extremely tiny apartments that can be even tighter than what Greg has shown, and some other... hmm... interesting adapted stuff.
Is it common though for those tiny executive hotels to rent rooms for monthly living and stuff like that? Or this isn't allowed? I know there are share houses in Japan which are pretty common for foreigners living there. But there seems to be always be a separation between residential living space and spaces dedicated for tourism.
I'm saying this because it's kinda common practice here where I live for small local hotels to alternatively rent room in a monthly regimen. Big hotel chains won't do it, but small local hotels often do.
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Truly beautiful, I'd love to spend some days or weeks in one... live, that'd be a bit harder. xD
I kinda get the feeling that by comparison, modern japanese houses and apartments might look a bit devoid of "soul", but the thing is that they are just... practical.
Let me tell ya that sure, government might help with some stuff, you can still install lots of ammenities, and the worst thing people say about these homes either aren't true or could be remediated somehow... but it still seems there is a whole lot of dedication to maintain, conserve and keep a place like that up to standards.
And while prices might be cheaper than people think, they aren't super cheap per se (well, probably because they are in Kyoto too), but particularly it seems you'll be spending a whole lot of time and money on it if the objective is preservation or at least keeping the machiya style more or less intact.
You also have very little flexibility if you don't wanna completely mischaracterize and ruin the entire thing. Forget plastic organizers, bunch of modern looking stuff, most mass fabricated things if you wanna keep the look. You might disguise some stuff to fit the historical looks, but that means it'll always be more expensive.
For instance, the garden upkeep is no joke, everything that gets broken or damaged needs specialized service, you gotta get used to how the spaces are set up and distributed, and it feels more like you'll adapt to the style of living there rather than adapting the home to your style of living. Upgrades and a bit of modernization are possible, sure, but they all sound and look just that - upgrades. Expensive ones. By craftsmen that perhaps won't rip you off, but they will certainly not charge you hyakuen prices. xD
Everything that you change, if authorized, will cost you a pretty penny. Which of course makes sense since all of those look more like a complete art showroom... xD
Of course, if you are able and willing to pay for all that, absolutely love the style from top to bottom, plus wanna preserve that kind of historical home... pretty good opportunity, worth knowing about.
Anyways, awesome video as always Greg.
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That's one part of japanese culture that I'd fail so friggin hard.... xD
Well, I've wore suits. For weddings, university graduation, and... that's about it. Perhaps a few other occasions, usually parties that required the outfit.
Even graduation, these days you just rent the graduation gown thing and that's it - doesn't matter what you're wearing under it. xD
Well, I did an internship and a freelance job inside the executive branch of a large company times ago... I wasn't forced to wear a suit, but it had to be business casual. As a former metalhead it really didn't feel like myself, but then again, I didn't have to choose what to wear everyday. xD It'd probably be an issue if the place didn't have central AC that kept the place at the exact same temperature all year round...
But I'm gonna guess, and people may correct me if I'm wrong, that in a tropical country like mine these things tend to be more relaxed because quite frankly, forcing people to wear suits or heavy clothing here is asking for heat strokes, all sorts of bad body odors, and sweat stains everywhere. xD
You end up being more presentable if you are wearing casual but comfortable clothing, rather than formal heavy clothing that you sweat all over because of the heat. :P
If your employer will ask you to wear a suit here, it'll need to provide the environment for you to be comfortable with it... So it's limited to stuff like law firms, and few othet jobs.
School, mine actually had uniforms... Both private schools I attended. But it's shorts and t-shirts, pants and jackets for winter, far from formal. It's more like something you wear so it's easy to identify and so you don't have to waste time chooseing what to wear than a strict rule.
I think these days it's more common for schools not to require or have uniforms anymore.
Also, no rules about hair, make up, accessories or whatever.
University all bets are off... no one cares. xD CompSci course we had people showing up almost in their jammies. xD
Journalism course I swear some days in winter I saw some girls wearing pajamas under some layers of clothing, crocs with socks on, no make up, and like, whatever. xD You did have to be a bit more presentable in front of a camera though, less because it's a rule, more because common sense. xD
But yeah, journalists and reporters do have a more formal dress code still...
Anyways, an interesting topic, thanks for sharing Greg!
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Oh, also love genmaicha. Super hard to find here, very specific japanese import shops will have only sometimes. I just drank my last cuppa last week. xD Gonna have to hunt for more.
But yeah, great stuff. You know, in the past I really didn't like green tea much. I think I tasted some stuff that you could find in local markets here, it didn't taste great, they mixed it with local ingredients and whatnot, so it really didn't appeal to me.
But when I went to Japan back in... I think around 2008, I tasted it again from some of the vending machines, and it surprised me how different it was from the stuff I had tasted before. Very light, not bitter, great as a hot beverage to warm the body.
And then I started tasting several varieties. Yeah... definitely, nothing like a good genmaicha. I also love that lemon tea that you can find in any vending machine. xD But I kinda came to appreciate different varieties with different types of food. Also sweets, it goes so damn well with all sorts of sweets. xD
Oh, you know one other thing that I loved that surprised me too? Ochazuke! Damn, it's so good... I had no idea the thing would be so flavorful just by pouring green tea on it. xD The cheap packaged stuff you can find in kombinis, it brings out a flavor out from the rice that is kinda shocking at first. xD So good.
Awesome video as always... I had seen these tea farms before in other videos and photos, but they left me curious on how the entire processing goes. Very interesting stuff, looks like a whole lot of hard work too. Kudos to the couple working hard to spread the culture, it really is worth all that. I don't even consider the medicinal stuff all that much, I just like the taste. xD
It all also makes sense how imported japanese tea tastes so different from local stuff or stuff made in other countries... I thought I was kinda biased, perhaps not so much learning the complex process they employ. I tried brazilian stuff, english stuff, american... something always seems kinda off - well, after you tasted the japanese stuff. xD
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Yeah... this system, standard, or something that Japan has is often an untold part of the whole experience in Japan.
Kombinis are often called to summarize it, because of convenience, but the whole neighborhood centered around train stations taken to the next level is what I personally think allows Tokyo to work like it does - it's the most populous metropolitan area in the world, but it doesn't feel like it... because it seems wherever you are, you don't quite feel stranded.
I've been to just a few other metropolitan areas in the top list, and the difference is quite drastic. For instance, in Sao Paulo, depending on what you need, if you are at some random point in the city, you are faaaaaar more likely to need a car ride for it - if not taking a bus, then a train, and then a car ride.
Ignoring safety factors, cleanliness and whatnot, just considering geography and city planning in general... you just don't have these clear indicators on where to go and what to expect. Each neighborhood is different, and you don't have a whole lot of organization or standardization to rely on. Rather, it's almost the opposite... commercially speaking, there are neighborhoods where you only have like, one type of service for several blocks, like car mechanics, or chothing stores, or furniture stores.... blocks and blocks of them. The philosophy is different that way - it's built for you to have multiple options tightly packed so you reach the neighborhood by car, but then can shop around on foot.
On my two trips to Japan we stayed in hotels close to stations... though the first trip was more neighborhood-like. First one was close to Shiki station, in between Tokyo and Saitama. Lovely neighborhood that was still expanding at the time, local supermarket open 'till 2 am, plus kombinis, and at the station you had a sweets shop, a ramen-ya, bookstore, drugstore, and a few other things. Around the station you had pachinko and other stuff.
Narita station on the other hand, the one I stayed on my second trip, isn't a great example of typical neighborhood because it's highly focused on people on business trips rather than a typical japanese neighborhood. Perhaps a good tip for tourists - you might want to avoid staying around stations where lots of business trip people also stay at, typically close to airports. Lots of business hotels, lots of car parking towers, lots of kombinis and izakayas, but you'll have less family restaurants, mom and pop shops, bakeries, shotengai stuff. I dunno how to explain it... there are still plenty of conveniences for tourists and all that, but you don't get a feel of community per se... it's like no one really lives there, it's just a permanently transient space rather than something build by and for people living there, you know?
Anyways, great video Greg! Love revisiting my trips considering the perspective you a put up on these videos.... xD
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Brazil here. Big cities like Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are half way between Manilla and a city like New York, but closer to Manilla. Major reason why I don't personally wanna live in those cities. My city has it's problems and traffic jams, but as it's population is like 6x smaller and the public transportation is still bad but fairly good in comparison to those cities, it's way more livable.
But it really depends on how much income you have... like, neither Sao Paulo nor Rio has such chaotic transit, but between bikes, throngs of people, aging cars and buses, poor infrastructure, bunch of trucks and dangerous streets altogether, it is not all that far for lots of people the routine Emiko (?) has.
I've watched the routine people living in suburban neighborhoods and even routines of people living in slums (favelas) in Rio and Sao Paulo... it's kinda similar. Wake up at 4 in the morning, go through several different types of transportation, and take a couple of hours or more with tons of stress points to get to work. Then, going back is just as bad. The chaos in the streets themselves are not as bad, but choke points with long lines can be just as bad.
I have personally never had to face something like that as I was born in a middle class family, in a way smaller city. When I moved to my current city, I spent a year going to university via public transportation, and then I brought my car from my hometown and started using it. Back in my hometown while I was in school, during sometime it was car pooling between parents, at some point my school had school buses for kids in my residential neighborhood, and then when I started university I already had a junker car to drive to it.
Oh, I did live a year... not exactly in Sao Paulo, but a neighboring city that is part of the major Sao Paulo Metropolitan area called Sao Bernardo dos Campos. Final school year before university actually. But as the school as relatively close (like some 5kms away in a straight line) to where I lived with my aunt, it wasn't so bad. I mostly used a direct public bus that stopped right in front of the apartment complex my aunt lives, some 20 minutes until the closest bus stop to the school, which was only some 3 blocks away. In good days I just walked back. Still, I must've shaved off some 10Kgs that year just because of how much more I had to walk. It had less to do with commute per se, but there I used to only sleep some 5 hours on weekdays too, so I can understand why Emiko mostly sleeps on weekends... it's pretty bad, you have no energy or disposition to do much else.
I used buses a lot back in my hometown for english classes and other types of classes downtown, but it wasn't too hard... my hometown is only around 300 thousand people, so it's smaller than my current one, and waaaay smaller than big capital cities like Sao Paulo and Rio. Like, Sao Paulo has 12 million people, my current city has 2 million, hometown, 300 thousand.
But yeah... I don't think I've been anywhere that quite beats Tokyo in terms of urban public transportation for a city that size. I've been to several countries in South America, US twice, several european countries, and Japan twice. There might be better public transportation systems in some european coutries I have not been, but not quite sure the comparison is appropriate because of population size. Tokyo has a population more or less the size of Sao Paulo (some 13 to 14 million people), in a similarly sized area (1 to 2 thousand square meters municipality, 10 to 12 thousand square meters urban/metro area). Sao Paulo also has a metro system, but it pales in comparison to Tokyo. Heck, it pales in comparison to New York. But, those living close to stations do have a better commute... avoiding cars, buses and those minivans, being able to get around with metro alone makes things waaay easier. Of course, real estate is way more expensive closer to metro, so most people just cannot afford living close to train stations, and most people can't afford having business close to it too.
But anyways, thanks for yet another awesomely interesting video Greg... it's quite eye opening. Don't think I'd be able to stand a routine like that without going crazy. Kudos to Emiko too, may she find better conditions for herself and her work in the future.
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Awesome stuff, very informative, well packaged. xD
Here's an extra tip for all - if you are going there in any sort of busy season, BOOK EARLY. :P
Specially if you are going to stay anywhere near big cities, like Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka.
Also, depending on your level of japanese, I'd highly recommend seeking smaller local hotels without big international names. Japan follows some very strict standards for hotels, you'll likely have a great experience wherever you stay, so smaller hotels not only will give you a good experience, they'll probably be cheaper, and staff will likely treat you even better. o/
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In my hometown, no metro or train, buses are always late and packed, and the solution they came up with for rainy days because of the horrible conservation state of buses and poor state of streets was just throwing sawdust on the floor to keep it less wet and slippery, no joke. You get into the bus, it's like getting into a pig pen of something.
On the city I currently live in, which is the capital of the same state as my hometown, the bus system is supposed to be one of the best in the country... yet it still pales in comparison to buses in Tokyo or Japan in general. They are still packed, dirty, and like a rollercoaster ride because of the sad state of streets.
But I guess they are considered a model here because of numbers, articulated buses, plus bus terminals that have enclosed spaces to protect from rain, though it's not all of them. Oh, we also have dedicated exclusive lanes for buses and emergency services only, which probably also counts, but is a constant source of accidents.
We also have ancient trains that are mostly used for cargo and sporadic touristic runs, and a plan for commuter metro that at this point must be like 50yrs old, and probably had 3 or 4 sitting presidents "inaugurating" the start of implementation. Pretty much a running joke at this point, it'll never happen. Corruption and public funds mismanagement, plus a lack of competency and administration capability pretty much guarantees that commuter metro in my city will never happen.
We didn't take buses much during our 2018 trip to Japan, but the few times we did, they felt more like expensive private buses that we do have around here. From Narita station to Aeon Mall, and from Shisui to the Premium Outlet there.
Thanks Greg, another great video!
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Ooof, yeah.. the Thanko stuff. Interesting ideas, sometimes looks good on paper and to show off, but often with product killing bad designs, bad materials or simply impractical. Lots of stuff that seems to never have been tested on a day to day usage basis, as they'll break fast, or not work as intended, or have several very annoying problems.
Well, every country has one of those, when it's not an entire segment of the market. xD
So... as a single guy myself, I am interested in a few of the ideas there, but I'm not really interested in buying single purpose stuff for it as I don't have the space. I'm always looking out for multi purpose everyday usage stuff though. xD
Rice I mostly cook a ton and freeze most of it. A cooking and warming bento box is great for some situations, but at least for me it seems like the Thanko version is lacking some features and implementations. Better design to handle things and not burn yourself, a battery, and both materials and cutlery that will work better with it. Could do without a battery for people warming things in a hotel room or work environment without a kitchen, but it needs refinement to handle hot plates and whatnot.
The electric oven... well, those are pretty cheap from any brand, and I'd personally go for one that fits just a bit more stuff in it.
I was actually considering to get one, but then I bought an air fryer, and now I'm thinking of some way to adapt a stand or something into it to do the job. It should've come with a stand or something, plus the egg container, but unfortunately it's just a strainer-like thing. I'll find some way to do it.
For nabe, I've been thinking of getting one of those induction cooktops with a single "burner" for camping... I already have a full size induction cooktop plus pots and pans, so I don't see the point of getting an entire new thing for it. Perhaps find a way of insulating the pots to avoid burns. It just seems to give you more flexibility on size. That way it can be used either for lots of people or just myself. I already have a set of pots and pans that use a detachable handle on it, I only wish it also had vertical one like that, would be very practical. They are very convenient for direct storage... xD
Though for instant noodles, I don't even bother anymore... it's hot water from the electric kettle directly into a regular bowl with the noodles and ingredients all into it. xD
Grilling stuff... I have an unwieldly round and big electric grill here. Next time, I'll see if I find a smaller rectangular one, perhaps a bit bigger than the one Greg is showing there. Back when I bought it they were all big and round in the local shops, horrible for storage. It's bad because I have to store it out of reach, and so I end up not using much because of that. Kinda like my mixer set... occupies so much space that it ended up stored over the fridge in cupboards that I need a stool to get to, so I almost never bother.
Reachability is king when it comes to daily usage, so these days I kinda adopted the idea that if it's something I'm likely to store away, I gotta rethink the whole thing before considering a purchase.
I didn't have an oven, thought of buying an electric oven, thought about those smaller toaster ovens, then finally got to the conclusion that the best thing I could go for the stuff I wanted an over for was an air fryer... and it's been working well for me personally.
I've also been thinking of getting rid of my rice cooker and keep only the electric pressure cooker, and I usually don't use both at the same time. They are basically the exact same thing, it's just that the pressure cooker is a rice cooker with an airtight lid and a timer on it. Gotta figure out the proper timing though, I have to say the rice cooker single button automatic turn off thing is pretty practical. xD
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Awesome stuff! Greg always hitting my questions just right be them complex or mundane... xD
It's more or less what I expected. Older people, more traditional, families, or just people with a bit more time goes more towards traditional breakfast, kids eat whatever, people who have to hurry to work usually don't eat anything. xD And this just changes over the years.
I guess most modern societies works that ways... unless it's tied to religion, very strong cultural backgrounds, or some sort of more formal ritual, it's just the way it goes.
Here where I live, I wouldn't say there is a strong cultural breakfast of sorts since we are very multicultural, but when it was me, dad and mom it used to be bread, butter, piece of cheese, perhaps some bologna or ham, chocolate milk or coffee milk, piece of fruit. Sometimes oj, sometimes boiled egg, sometimes cereal. All pretty western. Very much what japanese hotels call western breakfast. xD
There's a southern states tradition that several hotels and some fancy bakeries adopted - colonial breakfast. It's basically overpowered western breakfast with not only the basics but also all the extra american stuff like bacon, eggs, jam, etc... plus some other brazilian stuff made of corn and cassava, plus all sorts of bread, cake, and whatnot.
But me living by myself, it's a cup of espresso, and a cup of lactose free milk (also intolerant here) and choco, with a whole bunch of stuff for health. Oat bran, honey, propolis when available, granola. It's less about sitting down to have a meal, and more about shoving the essencials in fast. xD
Coffee to wake up and satiate the addiction, I still need milk for calcium, oat bran regulates my gastritis, and the rest is for cold prevention. I only go back to really sitting down to eat breakfast when I'm visiting relatives...
Anyways, nice one Greg! Always interesting to see real everyday life stuff about people in Japan... it helps demystify things! :D
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That's super interesting...
There is one thing about the interview though that is very true, but tragically countersense - longevity.
See, theoretically, electric scooters should last longer than their gas counterparts. Particularly when you have an interchangeable battery system, because the one thing that really won't last are the batteries.
But in comparison to gas, the mechanics are way less complex, it's just batteries connected to a brushless motor and controls, there shouldn't be anything there that would make gas scooters outlast it.
And yet, there is - the software and other electronic stuff that are mostly unnecessary for the scooter operation.
Those are what have high chances of crapping out, getting out of date, stop working or whatever.
So, it's not the EV aspect, it's all the extra stuff that comes with it - app operated, bunch of sensors, etc. Which also overcomplicates repairs.
And then, I dunno how this is in the Taiwanese system, but because these things are so new... it lacks standardization, so you don't know if the company behind will last, and so several of the designs around all sorts of parts components, battery system and whatnot - you can't be sure if it'll be there 10 years from now. So it really is a thing to worry.
That's also the case for electric cars btw... the mechanics are waaaaaaay simpler than a gas guzzler, but because of all the proprietary parts, onboard computers, proprietary software and systems, all the lockins and walled garden stuff, in the end, an electric car ends up being way more of a hassle to fix, do maintenance and repair than an old gas car.
Anyways, thanks for the video Greg! Interesting stuff
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Again Greg, wonderful, thorough, well organized and lovely information that I was super curious about. It's the sort of stuff I wouldn't expect this much quality and research not even from a dedicated course on the subject or something. xD
So, I had heard a bit about this, but didn't know the intricacies of it.
My mom works in real estate, so I really know about all the huge problems bad tenants can generate, the fears, the downsides, among other stuff around real estate. So while I stand for saying racism isn't justifiable, several of the other reasons for worry coming from a japanese landowner's perspective are plenty reasonable.
I'm also voluntary part of the management group in my apartment building (like, superintendent, not sure how it's called properly), so I end up knowing everything that goes wrong here... some unbelievable stories. My building is almost half rental, half owned, with lots of students. We have everything from the regular stuff like garbage problems, smell and noise problems, garage problems, bad usage of public facilities problems, to downright ugly police cases where people got evicted and prosecuted.
In lots of cases, people have worked long and hard to purchase property for rent, and in some cases those are peoples' lifelines. I imagine in Japan this must be pretty prevalent... plenty common for retirees to have invested in real state through their lives being able to live comfortably in retirement with property rent money.
The last thing landowners in those situations would want are tenants giving them all sorts of problems, or worse, skipping bills and whatnot - in the very same way an employee wouldn't want a job that does not pay in time or generates all sorts of problems for themselves.
Of course, it can be pretty unfair for foreigners trying to find a place to live in Japan, that have all good intentions and would never like crash the place down, but the fear isn't without reason. So what John says is very to the point: the more you show upfront that all the owner will have to deal with is receiving the rent money by the end of the month, the better.
In my admitedly far fetched dreams of moving to Japan, I'd only risk moving there if I had something like a job waiting for me there, or an international job that would allow me to work while living there, and I'd also only go if I had enough money to pay for real estate upfront. Doesn't need to be anything fancy, but I have lots of stuff in mind. Like not in Tokyo but somewhat close, relatively near a station because I don't want to own a car there, if possible somewhere with a climate close to my current city (hard), not tiny but also not big, etc etc.
It's far fetched because I don't intend to leave family behind, but it could still happen one day when I'm older I guess. I'd also only move if I knew I could live better there than here, which isn't very hard considering I live in Brazil... but I do live comfortably here, more than people would imagine given the bad image Brazil has, so.
A distant dream, but still a dream. xD I've been there twice as a tourist, and I have the urge to spend far longer I guess to explore the country and culture deeply. I feel some sort of abstract connection that cannot be put into words, and it's not only because I'm japanese descendant (yonsei).
Even considering I have some family and friends in Japan (relatives), so I could potentially get guarantors, they are brazilian of japanese decendency married to japanese, I still didn't want to rely on them for anything this burdensome.
Other things that absolutely must happen before considering moving there is for me to learn japanese properly, at least as much as I know english right now, and diving a bit deeper into japanese culture and customs/habits. I know quite a bit, but would probably have to talk far more with the family living there before feeling comfortable. But I guess I'm not too distant from it because I have a very low tolerance for noise too. Unfortunately, in Brazil there's not much respect on that, so I'm currently renovating my apartment to include some ceiling insulation... *sigh*. I went the extra step to install my floor with a layer of insulation not to bother the neighbor downstairs, but of course my neighbor upstairs didn't do that, nor respects silence laws at night. Complaints fall to deaf ears and the legal system does not help. Oh well.
Anyways, keep up the wonderful work you are doing Greg... this is invaluable information.
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Heh, I felt that addiction creep on me too... unfortunately, I don't have enough money to keep it. I mean, if I lived in the US or Japan, perhaps, but here in my country they are overly expensive and all imported, so a luxury.
We do have Thermos in Brazil, but they are very much utilitarian... the design hasn't really changed in decades, and they are almost all 1L+ bottles.
Despite being a tropical country, we are a major coffee exporter and consumer country, so that's what it's mostly for.
But you don't see many people carrying individually sized thermos bottles here... the main usage is for businesses and households to keep coffee hot for a day, half a day or so. Also, southern states have lots of people who drink something called "Chimarrão", which requires hot water... but they tend to also carry 1L+ bottles for that. I've seen people carrying 3 and 5L bottles. :P
As for myself... I have a few. Couple of novelty camera lens shapped individual thermos, generic unbranded. I have some 3 or 4 different styles of reusable water bottles, not insulated. And then I used to have a 3L electric thermos... which unfortunately broke, I never managed to find a replacement for a resonable price, so I ended up getting a non insulated electric kettle instead.
The thing is, I now use the electric kettle for tea, and coffee I've been using a fancy Nespresso machine that can also make capuccino... for almost 10 years now. As I don't have a huge need to keep things hot or cold for a very long time, thermos are not very necessary.
But I think I'll eventually splurge on a Zojirushi electric thermos at some point... a simple one that most japanese hotel rooms have. It makes sense from a power usage standpoint. Intead of boiling water all the time, just keep it hot for multiple cups of tea.
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It ends up being a bit of a skewed metric, at least if the idea is to rank "bike friendly" cities, because if the infrastructure is already there good enough for most people, it might still rank low for not having new policies, new plans, and advocacy in general. So the score has an entire section on this, plus a few items (such as increase in modal share) that highly depends if the city is actively investing more on it or not.
Then again, not an easy thing to measure one way or another.
There is one particular point that really matters both for bike riding and public transportation which my country does not have... security. Even if my country scored very high on most of the items, tons of people still wouldn't use it for lack of security, save from gated communities, and other limited specific areas. When I was a kid, I lived in a semi-gated residential neighborhood in the suburbs where kids could ride bikes to go around. And it was fine. Still got my bike stolen a couple of times though.
Now that I live in a bigger city downtown, there's no freaking way I'm using bikes to go around here. Well, we don't really have anything good to point out from the Copenhagenize chart, but the absolute first thing that comes to mind is being mugged, assaulted, and having the bike at high risk of being stolen or broken anywhere I'd go with it. It's kind of a chicken and egg issue. No money is spent on bike related facilities because no one uses it, no one uses bikes because there are no facilities and programs that supports using bikes, etc.
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Oofff.. that's just too much sweet icy treats. xD Of course, I imagine you guys distributed those through several days, but still. I don't see a single thing there that I'd personally not like taste wise, thought I know a huge part of it I'd simply not be able to eat at all (lactose intolerant).
Still, I gotta say... I think japanese people are very spoiled for food. xD I don't mean this in a bad way, it's just that everywhere you go and everything you have there to eat is just all high grade stuff in comparison to what I see here in my own country. The cheap stuff generally either tastes horribly artificial and medicine-like, or like totally flavorless with some grease aftertaste. :P When it isn't stuff with hints of being rotten or past due.
In both my 20 day trips to Japan, I think the only thing I ate that I didn't particularly liked, and it was kind of a dare, was shrimp sashimi, horse meat sashimi, uni... and these little fishes you eat while they are still moving.... oh, and natto. My mom likes it, I just can't.
Kinako I kinda empathize with Aiko... I like it, but only at certain times, because of the weird fine powder texture.
But other than natto, and stuff with milk when I don't have lactaid with me, I actually don't think there's anything inside a combini that I can't eat... and enjoy.
As a single guy who is always ordering food because it's kinda wasteful to cook for myself, I'd love to have a combini nearby. Man... specially those easy to get single serving salads and fruit packages from Lawson.
Swear I had the hardest time chosing what to eat on the multiple times I went to the closest Lawson to our hotel, because of how many stuff there was to choose from. 20 days isn't enough.
Oh, I remember one other thing I bought that really didn't go down well. I mistook it with dried squid. Actually, I think it was still dried squid, but some part of it that was extremely leathery. I love regular dried squid, but that one was kinda bad, Family Mart brand. xD
The one thing I can say I love about the japanese sweets in general compared to brazilian stuff is that they are not too sweet. Here in Brazil deserts are generally too sweet, perhaps because of our sugar cane heritage... sweet to a point it always seems they are hiding other flavors that get overpowered by it, you know? Or more likely, hiding other bad flavors. Cakes are specially bad around that, they throw in a bunch of sugar to hide the taste of that vegetable fat thing.
In relation particularly to ice cream, you'd think that Brazil being a tropical country that is generally hotter would have tons and tons of different choices, but most of the diversity we have is actually imported.
For instance, one of the stuff I like the most which is ice cream sandwitches.... we have no local options, believe it or not. There are no brazilian made ice cream sandwitches. I see some import shops selling a couple different choices from a korean brand, but it's expensive and not always available. Popsicles and regular tubs of ice cream are available in every market, lots of flavors. I also often buy a local brand of zero lactose ice cream which I like a lot.
We had a big trend of mexican style natural frozen fruit popsicles (known worldwide as paleteros), but still, it was a mexican thing, not brazilian. The internal market is pretty stale, people have been buying the same pops and cream flavors since I was kid.
Anyways, great video! Both times I went to Japan was during sakura blossoming season, so I actually didn't eat ice cream much as the climate was still pretty cold. I tasted a bunch of them though, very nice after a dip in onsens. xD
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