Things I Miss About England [rbtr3yJna54]

Hey, my name's Daniel and I came to Japan

last year in September. I've been living

in Japan for nearly 8 months now, which is

the longest I've ever been away from home.

It's the longest I've ever been away from

my family, and I just want to talk about a

few things that I miss from home. I know

some of you are going to be thinking, if

you miss— if you miss England so much,

why don't you just go back home? And the

reason why I don't is because I don't want

to go home. I like it here. I have a wife

here, I have a life here, and, um,

leave me alone. I guess one of the main

things I miss about living in England is

being able to speak English to people and

having them understand what I'm actually

saying. Yeah, I can speak Japanese, but my

Japanese isn't perfect, and I'm a very

nervous and shy person, and I don't really

feel confident or comfortable talking to

people in Japanese. I feel perfectly okay

talking to my wife in Japanese because I

feel comfortable with her, but when it

comes to talking to strangers in Japanese,

I find that really difficult. I just don't

really feel confident doing complicated

things like setting up a phone contract or

going to the dentist or going for an eye

checkup. I feel like I need to rely on my

wife to help me do those things. I'm sure

I could go by myself and it would be fine.

I could just use a dictionary, if they say

something I don't understand. It's just

that I get worried that they'll say

something I don't understand and it'll be

really awkward. For example, a few days

ago the ceiling was leaking water and my

wife had to sort everything out. She had

to phone the manager of the apartment,

she had to phone the fire department and

explain everything to them, and she had to

miss a day of work because she was busy

phoning people and explaining things and

trying to get things sorted out. Now, if I

was a normal person, or if I was a

Japanese person, I could have said, it's

okay, you can go to work and I'll handle

everything. But I couldn't because I

didn't feel confident enough that I would

be able to handle the situation by myself.

If this was England, I would still feel

nervous about talking to strangers, but I

wouldn't have any problems with

understanding what they're saying or

trying to explain to them what happened.

I also really miss the food that we have

in England. For example, just simple

things like sandwiches. It's very

difficult to find a nice tasty sandwich in

Japan. You can't just go into a

convenience store or a shop and find a

decent sandwich. Number one, all of the

sandwiches, or most of the sandwiches in

Japan, are made from white bread and they

cut off the crusts. I love crust. And the

fillings of Japanese sandwiches are really

boring. They just have ham, lettuce, and

egg, or mayonnaise and tuna, or strawberry

and cream sandwiches, which is this

Bizarre. In comparison, the sandwiches you

can find in England are amazing. Number

one, they use decent bread. Not brown

bread, but it's like whole grain bread

which has seeds and other things inside of

it. And the fillings of British sandwiches

are great. You can get bacon sandwiches.

You can't even find bacon sandwiches in

all of Japan because Japanese bacon is

weird. It's basically just ham. Anyway,

I'll move on to the whole bacon situation

in a minute. In England, we have bacon,

lettuce, and tomato sandwiches. We have

bacon and egg sandwiches. We have bacon,

egg, and tomato sandwiches. We have roast

beef daddy sandwiches. We have roast

chicken, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches.

And these are just sandwiches from a

bog-standard corner shop or a petrol

station or convenience store. I'm not

talking about Subway or some kind of fancy

sandwich shop. These are just everyday

regular sandwiches that you can buy in,

in a normal shop. And I just miss being

able to eat a decent sandwich whenever I

want to. It's not just sandwiches I miss.

There's so many other food things that you

can't really get in Japan. For example,

pork pies, sausage rolls, beef pies,

chicken pie, Cornish pasties, savaloy

sausages, fish and chips, Scotch eggs,

cottage pie, shepherd's pie, fish pie.

There just isn't really a culture of

eating pies in Japan. The only pies you'll

find here in Japan are apple pies. They

don't eat pies for some reason. I have no

idea why. I just don't understand how an

entire nation cannot eat pie.

Pie is one of the greatest inventions of

all mankind. It's delicious pieces of meat

soaked in rich, flavorful gravy and

wrapped in a savory, flaky pastry. How

could you not want that in your life? I

also miss the wide variety of birds we

have back home in England. I'm from the

countryside, and I've always been used to

waking up to an orchestra of birdish

sounds. For example, you'd have the

sparrows chirping and tweeting away, the

owls hoo-hooing, and the cuckoos

cuckooing, and the robins tweeting all

day, and it sounded beautiful. Here in

Japan, we have crows that go caw-caw,

caw-caw every single day. It sounds

horrible. When you hear crows going

caw-caw, caw-caw, it sounds like the

bloody apocalypse is about to happen.

Yes, there are other birds in Japan.

There's also pigeons and sparrows. But the

thing is, if you have crows in the area,

there won't be other birds in the area

because the bloody crows chase away the

other birds. I also miss the friendliness

and the liveliness of the British people

compared to Japanese people. Japanese

people just seem like they're dead inside,

like they're depressed all the time, like

they're thinking about jumping in front of

a train the next day. I worked in a

convenience store in Tokyo for about 4

months, and I also worked in a petrol

station in England for about 9 months.

And the difference between the customers

is, is so different. For example, British

customers would be so jolly. They'd come

into the shop and go, oh, hey, how are

you? How's your day? Today's a nice sunny

day, isn't it? And the Japanese customers

would be like this.

They don't even look at you. They don't

even say a single word. Some of them,

they just walk up to you without saying

anything. You scan the items, give them

back their change, they just walk off.

They don't even say one word. They don't

even say thank you. You hand them back

their change and they just take it and

they walk off without saying a single

thing. Japanese people treat people who

work in shops or in stores like they're

garbage, like they're beneath them, like

they're not even human. Customer service

is great. It's amazing in Japan. But the

problem is the customers treat the people

who work there like rubbish. And it's

just so depressing having to serve

customers in Japan because of the way

you're treated. You're treated like a

robot. I also find it kind of depressing

how antisocial Japanese people are. For

example, it's extremely rare for a

stranger to just come up to you and strike

up a conversation. If you tried making

conversation with a stranger in Japan— not

that I've tried, or I don't have any

interest in doing this because I'm an

introvert— But anyway, just in case you

were interested in having a conversation

with a complete stranger in Japan, um,

they would probably just look at you like

you're some kind of weirdo and then walk

off. But in England, everyone's so open

and friendly. You can just start chatting

to the granny at the bus stop and she'll

tell you all about her life. I'm not sure

why you'd want to do that, but I guess

some people might. I just feel like people

are very awkward and it's very difficult

to just start a conversation with a

stranger, um, compared to England.

I also miss my mum and my dad and my

sister, and I miss my cats, Toffee and

Mimo. Toffee's kind of smelly, but Mimo

smells great. It's kind of strange not

being able to see my family for such a

long time after being on this planet for

29 years and being able to see them every

single day. I also feel really sad because

I don't think I'll ever be able to see my

cats again. Toffee, the black cat, he's

really old and he's suffering a lot from

diseases, and I don't think he's gonna

make it past this year. He always kept me

company when I was sad and lonely. He

would sit on my lap and sleep, sleep on my

lap, and he would just start purring away,

and he would just— it was like, it was

like all the sadness and loneliness I was

feeling then would just be taken away by

him. And he's just a cat, and I don't know

why I feel so sad about it, but it kind of

tears me up inside that I won't ever be

able to see him again. See him again. I

miss sitting on my red beanbag in front of

the fireplace, and Toffee would be sitting

on my lap. And I miss my mum's shepherd's

pie. And I have to eat rice every single

day now. I just want some potato in my

life. I miss seeing my dad outside in the

garden, mowing the lawn, chopping down

wood for the fireplace. For such a long

time of my life, I spent so many years

just fantasizing about moving away from

home, moving to Japan, and I never thought

about how much I would actually miss it

when I, when when those things finally

came true. I miss the trampoline in my

garden and the swing set that we used to

have, that this woman called Jackie who

lived next door to us gave me for my

birthday present, and then my mum fell out

with her and started calling her a

stuck-up bitch. When you move to another

country, you start to realize all the

things, you start to notice all the things

you took for granted when you were at

home, and then you have to deal with the

fact that you're never going to see those

things ever again.