5 Things I Hated about Living in Japan

So as most of you know, I've been to Japan

over 14 times, and if I add up all of the

times I've been to Japan, in total I've

probably lived in Japan for a grand total

of nearly 4 years. And even though I quite

liked being in Japan for most of the time,

there were a few things about living in

Japan that I really hated, and I think I

would like to point those things out in

this video. After living in Japan for a

few years and then coming back to England,

one of the main things I noticed is that

we have a lot of self-service checkout

counters here in England compared to

Japan. And I'm not saying that Japan

doesn't have any self-service self-service

checkout machines. It's just that it was

very rare for me to see any. I don't

remember seeing any kind of self-service

checkout things at any of the supermarkets

or any of the shops or convenience stores

I went to in Japan. But in comparison, it

feels like almost every single supermarket

or any kind of shop in England— we have

self-service checkouts here. Aldi, Tesco,

Sainsbury's, loads of different chains of

shops and supermarkets here have

self-service checkouts. And for some

reason, Japan barely uses them at all. As

someone who doesn't really enjoy

interacting with people very much, I

really hate it when to go shopping and buy

food, and I have to talk to a member of

staff. And in Japan, it's even worse

because you feel like you're being

bombarded with questions like, do you have

a points card? Would you like a bag? Do

you need a straw? Do you need a fork? Do

you need this or that? And having to do

all that in Japanese can become a little

bit stressful, even if you do speak pretty

good Japanese like I do. I passed JLPT

Level 2, but I still kind of feel a bit

nervous when I have to go to a convenience

store and buy something that might be

behind the cash register or ask for some

fried food that's in the counter thing.

There's been so many times when I was

living in Japan and I felt a little bit

peckish. I wanted some fried chicken or

something to eat, but I decided not to go

into the convenience store, mainly because

I just didn't really want to have to talk

to someone who worked there, and I just

wasn't really in the mood for using

Japanese. And then I came back to England

and I discovered this amazing feeling of

being able to just walk into a

supermarket, nearly any kind of

supermarket, and just pick up a basket and

add whatever I wanted to buy. And I didn't

have to talk to any salespeople because

every single supermarket here in England

has a self-service checkout thing. And I

could just scan my own items, pay for it,

bag it myself, and then just go home. And

it felt so nice not having to talk to

anyone to be able to get all of that done.

And in Japan, I just didn't really feel

like I would be able to say the same

thing, because even though people think

that Japan is technologically advanced for

some reason, they just haven't really

embraced the whole self-service checkout

thing. And I think one of the reasons why

self-service hasn't really caught on that

much in Japan is because they pride

themselves on their customer service so

much. I think they believe it would be

rude towards the customer if they made the

customer do such tasks like having to scan

their own items and have to do the whole

transaction by themselves without any kind

of assistance. In Japan, everyone's used

to such high quality and high standards of

customer service. I think a lot of people

there would not like it if they suddenly

had to do everything themselves. And then

you add into the fact that most Japanese

people are old people. They've got loads

of elderly people who would probably

struggle using a touchscreen kind of

computer to do their own shopping, and

they would need assistance anyway. So then

that would make the whole self-service

checkout thing kind of pointless because

you would need loads of staff to assist

all of the old people struggling with the

computer system. And I guess that's why it

hasn't really caught on in Japan. I also

really hated how you had to use cash

whenever you wanted to buy basically

anything. I don't remember using my debit

card for anything really, apart from maybe

a few big purchases like a gaming laptop,

or maybe going to an electronics store and

buying something expensive like a phone.

Then yeah, you would be able to use your

debit card or your credit card. But just

doing day-to-day shopping like buying food

or buying just a few items here and there,

you would almost have to pay cash pretty

much every single time. So you'd have to

carry around a lot of cash with you

whenever you go shopping. It was kind of

frustrating when you just want to go to

the supermarket and buy your food and buy

your groceries, but first you had to make

sure you had enough cash. And if you

didn't, then you had to go and find an ATM

and then get some cash, then go back to

the supermarket. And then they would fuss

around giving you back change, and then

you'd always end up with a big mountain,

a big pile of 1 yen and 10 yen and 20 yen,

so that you had to try and find a way— you

had to put efforts into finding a way to

spend all of these coins. Otherwise, you

just start building up this massive

collection of coins and it just feels like

you're wasting money. I just really don't

understand why they have to make the whole

shopping experience so convoluted and

frustrating and difficult and long-winded

when all they needed to do is implement

some kind of card reader so you can use

your card at any kind of shop and then

just make it easy like it is in England.

The other problem I had with living in

Japan had to be with the food. And

whenever I hear other foreigners talk

about how amazing the food in Japan is,

it kind of pets my peeves. It kind of

pisses me off because I really never

understood what the big fuss about

Japanese food was. Some of it's okay,

sure, I love sushi and ramen like everyone

does, but sushi and ramen isn't really

that special anymore. You can get sushi

and ramen in literally every other

country. You don't have to go to Japan to

be able to get that kind of food. And

sushi and ramen isn't really that special

anyway. It's okay, but if I'm really

hungry and I want something special, my

mind doesn't automatically think of sushi

or ramen or any kind of Japanese dish. I

have to say, I didn't really enjoy quite a

lot of the Japanese dishes I was given,

and there few dishes that were just

outright disgusting, and some were just

really disappointing and bland. I think

the worst meal I ever had in Japan was the

fugu dish, the poisonous pufferfish that

was made famous in that Simpsons episode.

And I've always been very curious as to

what fugu would taste like. So a few weeks

before me and my ex-wife got divorced,

actually the very last restaurant we went

to together was a fugu place. And it was

supposed to be like a special occasion.

It was just after Christmas, and we went

to this fugu restaurant, and it was

supposed to be really good. And it was

really expensive. It was like $60 per

person, and the meal was just really bland

and really boring and lacking in a certain

luster. So it was kind of like a 5-set,

a 5-course meal where they'd bring out

different dishes of fugu in different

ways, cooked in different ways. First it

came out as kind of like a sashimi, and

then kind of like a fried version of it,

then in a soup, and then in like a grilled

way. And I swear every kind of rendition

of the fugu that was served to us tastes

exactly the same. Didn't taste of

anything. The only part of the fugu meal

that was kind of tasty, I guess, was the

deep-fried one. And obviously that's

because it's deep-fried. Anything

deep-fried tastes good, but it didn't

really taste of anything apart from the

soy sauce that you dipped it into. Might

as well just get some fried chicken and

that would have been way cheaper and way

tastier. So I left that restaurant feeling

pretty unsatisfied and pretty unhappy,

and I was still hungry because I didn't

really eat a lot of it because I didn't

really enjoy it. Ended up going to the

convenience store and buying a microwave

cheeseburger for ¥300, which tastes 100

times better than that stupid fugu

restaurant did. The funny thing is, in

Japan, the fugu restaurants are supposed

to be something that's really special,

and you only go there maybe once a year

because it's so special and so great and

so amazing that you don't have it very

often. Japanese people absolutely love

fugu, and I just really couldn't

understand it at all. And then the worst

kind of food in Japan has to be from the

very traditional kind of Japanese

restaurants, or if you go to a very

traditional Japanese-style inn and it's

very traditional where they've got those

people who come into the room, give you

room service, and they're dressed in

traditional Japanese clothing like the

kimono thing. They come into the room and

number one, it's not just the food that's

really bad, the service, the customer

service is too good to the point where

they come into the room, they guide you

into the room, and you're sitting there

for nearly half an hour listening to them

explain every single thing in the room—

how to turn on the lights, how to use the

bath, how to use the shower, shower or the

aircon, they'll get the remote control and

then explain to you what every single

button does, even though there's a massive

on and off sign, or it's pretty obvious

that this is how you make the room hotter

and colder. But they'll tell you

everything in the room— how the TV works,

how to use the remote control for the TV.

And because everywhere you go in Japan

they want to give you such amazing

customer service, they just feel like they

need to explain every single thing to you

as if you're stupid or as if you're a

child, and it's just really frustrating.

Anyway, back to the food. Uh, the food in

these of traditional inn places really

sucks. There's maybe a few dishes that are

nice, but apart from that, everything else

is just weird. So when you sit down for

dinner at one of these traditional inn

places, they'll bring in loads of

different plates, maybe 50 different

plates, and they're very small little

plates, and they're just full of weird

things that doesn't even look like food.

They look like decorative ornaments or

decorations, like flowers or weird

vegetables that you've never seen before.

And it kind of— it looks pretty like a

decoration, but it doesn't look

appetizing. It doesn't look like food. It

just looks kind of weird. They put way too

much effort into making it look pretty and

delicate and everything, but it doesn't

really taste that great, and it doesn't

look like it would taste that great

either. I don't really think food has to

look really pretty. Just give me a nice

piece of grilled pork or beef steak and

that's good enough. It doesn't have to

look amazing. I know it's gonna taste good

because I have an expectation of what

grilled meat is gonna taste like. I have

no idea what these weird mounds of green

slime and seaweed and weird pickled

vegetables that look like they got plucked

out of the forest floor taste like,

because I'm never gonna eat that stuff

usually. But one of the weirdest things

that I found about living in Japan is how

the people there just seem kind of

robotic, especially people who work at

shops and restaurants who are serving you

as a customer. There's like no humanness

behind their faces. They just seem like

really advanced robots. They look like

people, but they don't act or move or

speak like people do. And it's just really

weird. You can't really feel like there's

any kind of human connection you can have

between them, even if you're having a very

short interaction with them. It's like

when you go to a restaurant and you pay

for stuff, they speak, but they're just

saying— they're acting out these preset

lines that they've been trained to say

when they deal with a customer and

exchange the money and give them back

change and receipt. It just feels like

this automated, very soulless, very

lifeless, very robotic kind of interaction

that you'll have with staff in Japan in

general. Compared to the UK, it's

completely different. You go to a shop

here and people seem like people. They're

friendly and they're kind, and there's

like this warmness. Even though you're

only having a brief interaction with them

handing over money, there's still a bit of

chitchat you can expect to have there that

doesn't feel robotic. It just feels human.

It's also a real pain to get anything

important done in Japan or anything big.

Getting it done by yourself is quite a

difficulty, even if you do speak the

language fairly well. You would need some

kind of helper, like a Japanese friend or

wife or girlfriend, to help you through

the whole process. For example, trying to

open a bank account is such a pain in the

backside, and trying to get a mobile phone

and getting a SIM card and getting a data

plan sorted out is a real hassle. And the

worst thing of all is trying to get your

own apartment by yourself without having

any friends or girlfriends or wives

helping you either. I think it'll be

pretty much impossible possible if you

didn't really speak much Japanese and you

didn't have any friends in Japan to help

you and you were trying to get an

apartment by yourself. I don't think they

would even let you get one. Here in

England, if I wanted to get a mobile

phone, I'll just go on Amazon and I'll

just buy a SIM card and then I'll just

carry out some kind of plan. I would buy

some kind of plan on the internet and it's

so easy to do. It doesn't require me to go

into a shop and sit down with a member of

staff and sit there for like an hour

listening to him read out a contract to me

explaining every single thing. Sometimes

it just feels like trying to get anything

done in Japan is way more complicated and

way more confusing than it actually has to

be. It's like they make you go through

these extra steps that you really

shouldn't have to, and it's really

unnecessary. But that's just what Japan is

like, and that's why it can be pretty

frustrating and annoying living there when

you have to get certain important things

done. If you're just going there on

holiday, you don't really care about

getting a phone or opening a bank account

or getting an apartment, then you won't

really have any of these problems. But

you're not really going to be living in

hotels if you're living in Japan for

longer than a few months. So those were 5

things I really hated about living in

Japan, and I'm not looking forward to

having to do some of those things again

when I go back to Japan when it finally

reopens. But hopefully I won't have to do

some of the things that I had to do

before, like getting a phone or opening a

bank account, because I don't really plan

on living in Japan again. Maybe just going

there for a few months would be good