The Hardest Thing About Living in Japan. [ynIOiqya5_g]

It's currently, um, 20 minutes past 10

in the morning. Ready to wake up,

start a brand new day.

So excited, and it's freezing. I'm wearing

my black long johns. Long johns.

Long johns. As you can see, the packing

process is coming along. A few boxes,

4 boxes of clothing packed. And a green

bag. Still a few more weeks until we

actually move. Oh, what's this tissue

doing here? Put that in the bin.

A bit

better down here. Oh, what's this tissue

doing here? Put that in the bin.

That's good coffee. Hello and

welcome and good morning to you. I hope

you had a nice day.

Well, well, I was thinking long and hard

about what to make a video about for my

YouTube channel and I decided that I would

like to talk about what I would consider

to be one of the hardest things about

living in Japan. So if you don't live in

Japan and you're maybe thinking about

living in Japan in the future, maybe this

would be helpful to you. Maybe— I'll

drink my coffee. I got this new clip-on

lens. Look, it's pretty cool. Oh,

look how wide it is. And there's no lens

flare, no lens flare like my old one.

Look, this is the new one, and then this

is the old one. Which one do you like

better? This one's wider, but this one

looks, looks better. I think it looks

better. Anyway, that's not what we're

talking about. What are we talking about?

Oh yeah, um, the hardest thing about

living in Japan Well, there's many things

I would consider to be irritating or

annoying about living in Japan, but when

it comes to difficult things, well, there

aren't that many difficult things about

living in Japan. But if you put a gun to

my head and you made me choose at least

one, um,

um, okay, okay, I found one. Found

something that I think is kind of

difficult about living in Japan. It would

be the language barrier, obviously. The

hardest thing about living in Japan is the

bloody language. It's so different to

English that unless you speak Japanese,

it can be tricky getting what you want.

Let me explain. So when you

go to a foreign country, a lot of the

times the people in that country usually

know how to speak at least some basic

English. Now the problem with Japan is

Japanese people suck at English, which is

strange because they spend so much time

studying English in school. They spend at

least 6 years of their lives at the

secondary school, or high school as

Americans like to call it, studying

English. And you would expect them to be

at least capable of having a basic

conversation in English, but they can't.

They're rubbish at English. I'm sorry,

Japanese people, but you suck when it

comes to speaking in English. Now you

might be thinking, well, Daniel, you're in

their country, you should learn their

language. And I did. I took JLPT Level 2.

I can speak pretty decent Japanese. I

think my Japanese is pretty good compared

to most foreigners, and I can

speak— I can have conversations in

Japanese if it's like like a basic

conversation or, you know, everyday

conversation. But when it comes to more

technical things, when it comes to opening

a bank account or making a

phone contact— contract,

there's some things that I find difficult

to do in Japanese, like opening a phone

contract or making a bank account in

Japan. I would struggle, to be honest.

And I had to have my wife next to me

helping me. Actually, she did everything

for me and I just sat there playing on my

phone. My phone contract, my bank account,

getting the internet set up, getting a new

apartment. All of these things, my wife

did them because I was too lazy. Not

because I was too lazy, but because it's

just very difficult for me to understand

what they're saying when they're speaking

at 100 miles per hour. Using all this

technical mumbo-jumbo,

specific technical words that I don't

know, I just zone out and I stop listening

and I just sit there playing on my phone.

And if my wife wasn't there to help me,

it would be very difficult. Some time ago,

we were thinking about getting fiber optic

internet sorted out in our apartment, and

we went to the internet shop And we sat

down at this table and there was a guy

explaining. He's reading out this bloody

information brochure to us.

I had no idea what he was saying. I could

understand maybe 20% of it. I didn't know

what he was going on about, and it was so

boring. He went on and on for about 20

bloody minutes explaining to us about how

the fiber optic works, how they would set

it up, what kind of deals they have, what

plans they have. And then, after listening

to all of that and sitting there, waiting

for him to finish explaining, we said,

okay, that sounds great, sign us up. Sign

us up straight away. You know what he said

to me? He said, sorry, we don't accept

foreign debit cards. Well,

it would have been very nice if you told

us that straight from the beginning

instead of wasting half an hour explaining

everything before checking to see if you

can actually accept my payment card. Or

not. And then I turned to my wife and I

said, can't we just use your credit card?

And she said, no, if you want to get fiber

optic internet, you need to sort it out

with your own card. So we ended up not

getting fiber optic because, because I

didn't have a Japanese bank account. So we

went to a Japanese bank to get me a

Japanese bank account. We sat there for,

for an hour listening to some woman

explain about the bank account. I had no

idea what she was saying either. Maybe 10%

I could understand. It just feels kind

of frustrating sometimes when you feel

helpless and you feel like you can't do

anything by yourself, or you need— you

need your wife to be with you in order to

get a phone contract sorted out, or you

need to move places. How would I do these

things By myself? I have no idea.

It'll be very difficult. I'd be sitting

there with Google Translate open. I would

be asking them to slow down a little bit

when they're explaining things. And it's

just annoying, even for me, when I have

level 2 JLPT Japanese language ability.

Imagine if you couldn't speak Japanese at

all, or you had very basic Japanese

language skills. You wouldn't be able to

do anything. Without your wife or your

girlfriend helping you, and it just makes

you feel kind of pathetic, like an old man

who can't do anything, who needs help

going up the stairs or needs help going to

the toilet. Sometimes it feels like you're

trapped in this little bubble. You're

living in Japan, but you're not a Japanese

person. You feel kind of isolated. You

don't feel like you belong here, and it's

like you're in a prison. And you can't get

out. You get trapped in this little

foreigner bubble that you've created

yourself, and it feels like it's very

difficult to integrate into society. It's

difficult to make Japanese friends.

Japanese— I feel like Japanese people

don't really have an interest in making

friends with foreigners unless they're

either really interested in living abroad

and they want to make foreign friends, or

they're really interested in learning

English and they just want to use you. To

improve their English. And when you work

at home like I do and you don't really

have any need to go outside and interact

with people, it just makes

it even worse. I have zero interaction

with anyone apart from my wife and maybe 5

seconds with the sales assistant at the

convenience store. Apart from that, I

don't talk to anyone else. And if I didn't

have my wife, I wouldn't

have anyone. Anyone at all. I would be

going crazy. So if you feel lonely and

isolated in your own country, then coming

to Japan is only going to make things a

lot worse. Unless you're willing to put in

a lot of effort into seeking out friends

and finding people to socialize with.

Prepare yourself for a very lonely time.

Hello and welcome to the first episode of

Drawing with Daniel. Recently I've been

watching a lot of Bob Ross and I felt a

little bit inspired. Starting off with

this painting I drew on Microsoft Paint.

There's mountains, a sunset, people

watching the sunset. We have a road that

winds its way down the mountain,

and we have buildings. On to

the next painting.

This one's slightly closer to the Bob Ross

style. I have a wooden cabin at the bottom

corner surrounded by trees. In a snowy

mountainous region. We have a river

zigzagging its way through the middle of

the scene with mountains in the background

and a setting sun. On to the next

painting. We have another wooden cabin,

this time with icicles coming down from

the roof. We have some broken fences in

the corner. Some mountains in the

background, and smoke puffing out of the

chimney. Hope you enjoyed this episode of

Drawing with Daniel, and stay tuned for

the next one. Goodbye, and see you next