Comments by "XSportSeeker" (@XSpImmaLion) on "Life Where I'm From"
channel.
-
1
-
Nice look into the culture... man, shotengai in Japan is something I hope never goes away, and further, I hope franchises never become the majority, much less take over.
There is an intangible value into these associations in Japan that I truly admire and respect, being from a culture where this sort of thing pretty much died off.
I grew up in what could be described as a gated community. Residential neighborhood that back then was exclusive to the employees of a specific company, all residential, but it had a club with pools, bar, some sports venues and whatnot smack in the middle of it for community gathering.
It was still nowhere near the closeness and tight nit planning that some Japanese neighborhoods and shotengais have, but it gave me freedom to go around friends houses and just have a relatively safe space to be stress free I guess.
From that time on, it has mostly been apartment buildings, and these days you don't even know your neighbors anymore.... not even in gated communities like that, majority of people tend to keep it to themselves, and the turnover is pretty high.
This sort of isolation comes with crime rates and how unsafe it is to just walk around these days anymore, which is kind of a sad reality.
I still somewhat make the effort to walk around a few blocks and buy locally, but it's becoming an increasingly rare occurrence to meet independent shop owners who weren't swallowed by big franchises and whatnot... so you end up with shops with high turn over rates and people who are less worried about forming relationships, and more worried about all the pressures that comes with franchises, chain shops and whatnot, until they can get away from it because it's not theirs and not their name in business anyways.
I've been curious and kinda vicariously looking at Japanese shotengai culture in anime of all places... xD I didn't quite understand the concept the first time I watched something with them, but as I watched more and read more about it, heard about it more from relatives who lived or worked in Japan for a while, and finally after visiting Japan and wondering around in a few of them.... I came to appreciate it more and more.
There is something about them that cannot be replicated by other models.
For the curious, I still remember when the concept came to my attention the first time - Abenobashi Mahou Shotengai. Anime fans, give it a watch, it's quite fun. xD Kinda similar to School Rumble or Galaxy Angel in referential humor and crazyness, but with all the nuts story having the titular shotengai as a background.
I first watched it having no idea what a shotengai was, and then later I re-watched it knowing a bit more about the whole concept inside the culture... several things made much more sense then. xD
o/
1
-
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.
1
-
1
-
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
1
-
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.
1
-
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
1
-
1
-
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.
1
-
1
-
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
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1