Why Japan isn’t “high tech” [wSGna-m1PUc]

Hello, hello and welcome to today's video.

And in today's video, I'd like to kindly

ice— ice— I'd like to kindly ask people to

stop saying that Japan is high-tech. It

kind of irritates me when I hear people

who have never even been to Japan before,

they don't know much about Japan, they say

things like, oh, isn't Japan so high-tech?

They must be using flying cars and they

have robots doing everything for them.

When in reality, Japan isn't that

high-tech. Okay, it's high-tech when you

compare it to a third world country, but

when you compare it to modern countries

and other first world countries, it's,

it's not actually that high-tech. It's

pretty normal, and in some areas it's,

it's actually low-tech and it's lagging

behind compared to,

compared to other countries in the West.

Oh, oh, that was cold.

It's very cold today. Sorry, I was just so

excited to make today's video I couldn't

even wait for my hair to dry after I got

out of the shower. Okay, so what are we

talking about? Uh, Japan. Uh, examples of

Japan being low-tech. So, um,

wait, should I start with that or should I

start with something else?

Okay, let's backtrack a bit.

So people think Japan is— a lot of people

think Japan is high-tech, and I'm not sure

why they think this is. Maybe it's because

there's bullet trains here. And yeah,

Japan has a lot of bullet trains, and

they're very convenient and they're very

nice, but there's bullet trains all over

the world. We have bullet trains,

high-speed trains, in England. We have

them in Europe. We have them in China. I

don't know if you have them in America,

but bullet train technology isn't really

that new. They've had bullet trains since

the 1950s. It's a 70, 60-year-old

technology. Onto the next point,

smartphones and mobile phones. A lot of

people seem to think that Japan has the

best, latest, most amazing smartphones and

gadgets in the world, when really it's

just iPhones and Androids— Android phones—

the exact same phones they probably sell

in your country. Actually, when you think

about it, Japan is lagging behind all the

other countries when it comes to

smartphones because For some reason, they

still sell flip phones. Yes, you can go

out onto the street in Japan and you can

actually see people using flip phones that

were— that people used to use all the way

back in the 2000s. Flip phones,

seriously? How can you not have a

smartphone in 2018? Even my ex-Japanese

girlfriend, she didn't have a smartphone,

she had a flip phone. And I asked her,

how can you survive without a smartphone?

And she said, I don't need one. How could

you not need a smartphone in 2018? She

said the flip phone is fine for me because

all I do is use it to phone people and to

send messages. It had basic internet

browsing capabilities, but it was pretty

rubbish. And I think the reason why they

still sell flip phones so, so much in this

country is mainly because there's so many

old people. Because of the aging

population, I feel like a lot of areas in,

in technology in Japan are lagging behind,

mainly because they have to cater towards

old people. And usually, in general, old

people don't like adopting new things.

They don't like change. They like to stick

to their old ways. And that's one of the

reasons why a lot of companies in Japan,

they still use fax machines. Now, as

someone who was born in 1989, I don't even

know what a fax machine is. I think— I

might be wrong, but I think one person has

a fax machine and they can send documents

to another person who also has a fax

machine, and then that person can print

out the document that the other person

just sent. It seems kind of silly when we

have the internet. Why don't you just send

them an email so they can print out the

email? What is the point of a fax machine

when we have the internet and we have

computers and printers? You see, this is

the problem I have with old people. They

don't like to get with the times. They

always want to stick stubbornly to what

they're used to. For example, when I was

working in a petrol station in England,

We used to sell newspapers, and I used to

hate doing the newspapers because every

morning some bloke would come with a

gigantic stack of newspapers, and I had to

put all of the inserts and the little

magazines into every single newspaper one

by one. You open it, put in the magazine,

open it, put in the magazine. It took

ages, and it was so annoying, and I didn't

even see the point in selling newspapers

when you can just read the news on your

phone. And the reason why is because old

people, people in their 50s or above,

they don't like using their phones unless

they absolutely have to. So if they can

get a newspaper, they'd rather just buy a

newspaper and walk around with a huge

newspaper instead of just reading the news

on their phone. All the customers that

bought newspapers were old men. There were

no young people who bought newspapers. So

what I think is in about 20 years' time

when all the fairly old people die,

then I don't even know if they'll still be

selling newspapers. So maybe in 20 years'

time there might be some hope for them

to stop selling flip machines. I mean,

flip machines! Did you hear that? Did you

hear me just say flip machines, James? I

know there's no James here. Oh, and don't

forget it costs about 50p to buy a

newspaper, and there used to be old men

who came into the petrol station and

they'd buy a newspaper every single day,

so that's about 5 days a week, they would

spend about £2.50

a week. Sometimes more than £2.50 because

sometimes some of the newspapers cost more

than 50p. Some of them cost £2, so they'd

be spending £10 a week just to read the

news when you could read the news for free

on your phone, which they probably don't

even have a smartphone because they're too

old to use I sound really ageist. Anyway,

back to Japan. Yes, they still use flip

phones and they still use fax machines,

which seems kind of silly when, when

people think that Japan is so advanced and

high-tech. Okay, on to the next point.

They still use little stamps with their

names on to sign things instead of using a

pen and just signing your name. Every

single Japanese person has their own

specific special custom-made stamp that

prints out their name, and they usually

walk around with a little pad of ink in

their bags so that they can sign things

using their little stamp. And you need the

stamp to do anything. If you're signing up

for a phone contract, you need to stamp

your name. If you're opening a bank

account, you need to stamp your name. If

you're applying for a new job, you

probably have to stamp your name. Even

when I went to open up my Japanese bank

account, they asked me if I had a stamp,

and then they— I said no, and then they

gave me a big old lecture explaining why,

why it would be impossible to open a bank

account if I don't have my own special

stamp. And then after all the lecturing

and explaining they did, they went, oh,

actually, you could just use our— you

could just open a bank account using a

digital signature. So, well, thank you

very much for explaining, going on and on

and on about how I need to have a stamp,

when in the end I didn't really need to

have a stamp. It's just so weird

and bizarre that it's 2018 and the

Japanese people are still going around

with a little stamp and a pad of ink to,

to give their approval for things. It's

like being in Game of Thrones when they

signed a letter and they would melt some

wax and then stamp it onto the parchment

of paper. Yeah, we used to do that in

England as well, about 600 years ago in

the middle— middle evil— medieval ages,

in the Dark Ages, in the times when there

were no electricity or computers or pens

and we had to use a candle And some wax to

give our seal of approval. Bloody hell,

Japan, just use a pen to sign your name.

Is it that difficult? Yeah, there are

shops where you can get a special

custom-made stamp if you're a foreigner

and they print out your name. I'm not sure

if you have a really— what if you have a

really long family name? How are they

going to put that onto a stamp? Maybe they

give you a really big stamp or they just

make the letters really tiny so you can't

even read it. I could get my own stamp,

but I'm too lazy to. And I'd rather just

sign with a pen because I like to feel

like I'm living in 2018 and not in the

Renaissance era. Oh, and my other problem

with the stamp is, well, the whole point

of signing your name is to prevent other

people from impersonating you. When you

sign your name, you have a signature, and

the signature is supposed to be a

signature that only you know how to write

out, so other people can't pretend that

they're you. But if you have a stamp, The

other person only needs to steal your

stamp and then they can pretend to be you

and sign things, or they can just get a

new stamp that has the same name as yours

on it and then they can pretend to be you.

It's kind of silly. And my next point is

Japanese websites look absolutely

atrocious. All Japanese web design is

terrible, absolutely terrible. It looks

like— their websites look like websites

that came from the 1990s. They just

overload the web page full of information,

full of text, full of colors. They just

jam every page full of information as much

as they possibly can. And what it results

in, you get an ugly looking website. And

if you know anything about web design,

um, modern web design kind of focuses on

keeping the page looking simple so it

looks nice and it's easy to navigate. But

in Japan, they have this complete opposite

way of thinking where they just want to

bombard the person who's visiting

the website with as much information as

they possibly can, and it just results in

really ugly websites. And my next and

final point is cash. Japan is a cash-based

society. Everyone uses cash to buy

everything. You go to a supermarket, you

use cash. You go to a pharmacy, you use

cash. Everything is purchased with cash.

It's very rare to see people buy things

using a credit card or debit card. When in

England, it's the complete opposite.

Everyone who goes to a supermarket, they

will use a debit card or a credit card.

When I was working at the petrol station,

most customers paid using a credit card or

debit card, and some even use their

smartphones to pay using the wireless

contactless payment system. And only a few

people would use cash, usually old people.

Surprise, surprise. And that's how it's

all interconnected. It's all linked.

Because there's so many bloody old people

in Japan, they don't want to stop using

cash because they're too scared to use

their debit card or their credit card.

And, and the shops are too lazy to offer

credit card or debit card payment systems.

So even in some shops, in a lot of

supermarkets, they'll have signs that say

no debit cards, no credit cards, cash

only. And I just think that's really,

it's really silly because it's 2018. It

would be nice if we could stop using

little round pieces of metal to buy

things. And it would be great if we could

stop using little square pieces of paper

to buy things as well. So here's my dream.

Here's my dream for the future. We get rid

of cash, we get rid of credit cards and

debit cards as well, and we all have a

special online bank account that's

connected to our fingerprints. Yeah, this

is the good part. So you go into the shop,

they have a little fingerprint scanner,

and you just scan your fingerprint, and

that's how you pay for things. I think

it's a really good idea. You don't have to

walk around carrying a load of shrapnel

coins in your pocket. You don't have to

worry about losing your credit card or

your debit card. And if you want to pay

for things on the internet, you can just

get a fingerprint scanner that plugs into

your computer, connect it up to your

Amazon account or your internet shopping

account, and you can buy stuff online that

way. And if you want to buy things on your

phone, Most phones already have a

fingerprint scanner, so you can just use

that and pay for things. Bloody genius!

So in conclusion, Japan, I don't think

it's very high-tech. It would be great if

people stopped saying that it is high-tech

when it's not. Oh, and one last point:

there's no central heating in Japan, so

when winter comes, you're gonna be very

cold. Prepare yourself a little stove in

the middle of the room because you'll be

hunched over it shivering like a caveman

in his cave hunched over a fireplace.

Yeah, Japan, it's really high-tech here.