They would be shocked!!!

Like "oh yeah....."

You have green eyes right? I am so jealous of that!

Hey guys and girls on Ask Japanese it's Cathy Cat.

What are Japanese girls envious of?

Where is that jealousy that Japanese girls feel

when they look at foreigners.

Today we're gonna check out one of our most popular videos

and talk you through a couple of those steps that girls keep telling us actually

quite a lot over the last couple of years so...

Let's go!!!

Okay let's start....

Would I shock a Japanese person if I hugged them on first meet?

We would be shocked!!

Like "uuuh yeah"

That's the old logo that's going round

You have green eyes right?

I envy that so much!

Hey it's cathy Cat and today we have come to shibuya to ask

girls what they envy about foreingers so let's go and ask Japanese.

If I'd known that this video would get 2 million views I would have worn something nicer....

What are you envious of?

Foreigners can get easily excited about things. They are nice even to strangers.

They can hug people upon meeting them for the very first time!

Japanese people would get super surprised if you did that to them!

If I hugged a Japanese person on the first meeting,

I would shock them? - They would be SHOCKED!!!

We would react like "ooooh....."

And probably freeze.

The big eyes that foreigners have!!

Right number one is how you react to strangers. "Shoutaimen" is the word

for a person that you met for the first time.

In English you would say stranger, but actually if you

take the specific word for it...

it goes "the person that you are meeting for the very first time" so...

it might be a friend that gets introduced to you by another friend it might be a colleague...

Any person that you're meeting for the very first time and they said...

Being friendly and open to someone you are meeting for the very first time is not to be taken for granted

in Japan. Japanese people tend to be....

Shy... quite shy especially with strangers and there is actually a word for it in Japanese....

Hitomishiri....

Which means pretty much like... being shy to people.

not just shy in general but shy to like new people that you're meeting.

I think that really crystallizes out how Japanese people feel a little bit timid

when they meet you for the first time.

Doing things that you do...

naturally which might be a handshake.... a hug....

or maybe even those kisses on the cheek....

that people used to do for introductions with each other...

or do in Western countries...

Those ones are definitely taboo.....

Japanese will never be too close to a stranger, generally...

If you meet a stranger and you get introduced to someone, you don't touch...

at all...

You will have full on conversations and such without touching at all...

Not when you say hello and even not when you say goodbye.

So yeah... being open to strangers....

is a very different thing here in Japan.

The big eyes???

I like blue eyes a lot. So pretty.

I like that foreigners have such a good style.

What "style" do you mean?

Foreigners have such long legs...

Foreign girls have such a perfect style.

Ok the size of the eyes is often discussed.

Not in this video but in some of the other videos we spoke about as well is the...

type of eye crease.

Japanese people take a lot of or put a lot of attention on what kind of

eye crease you have. How big the width is from your crease from your first....

lid to your crease...

How much of the crease disappears...

If there is a crease, if there is not a crease... these are all things

that as a westerner I have never really cared about...

And I never really looked at....

But even speaking with some of my colleagues they would say Oh yeah...

"He has a very pretty eye crease and...

she did this with her crease and also in recent interviews when we talked

about plastic surgery...

Many people would say that girls would get surgery in order to

create the eye crease or try to create it with makeup.

And one more was "style"

"Style ga ii" (good style) When I started this first I was like "Oh"

"People are stylish" in the English word sense which you mean like

"You're very fashionable."

But in Japanese "Good style"

generally actually means you're slender.

It pretty much means Tall-skinny-slender those kind of

things so...

You don't say "good style" to someone who is dressed fashionably you say it to

someone who... will look good in that kind of skinny fit fashion.

Which I at first didn't realize when I started doing this...

There seems to be an image that Westerners are all very tall and pretty....

and SKINNY

Because that's what people see here in the media.

Models, Tv personalities, everyone.

They all look very "good style"

Not just "stylish" but you know, perfect.

So that's a thing that many people actually mentioned so yeah.

When you go to H&M you see western models, makes still sense,

but if you go to UNIQLO in Japan which is a Japanese company...

They exclusively or almost exclusively use Western models too.

That's the way they brand but also the way they push that

again it's like the ideal image of the Westerner.

Another...

funny thing I have realized is if you get a catalogue of a fashion

catalogue, any kind fashion catalogue out here...

Generally all the fashion pages are Japanese people...

And then all the underwear pages are westerners exclusively.

That's generally in Japan, if you wanna see a cute model or a cute idol...

in their underwear you PAY for their special books where you can see

them in their underwear.

So I guess they just took the Japanese models out...

and put the western models in...

to model.... underwear......

That's the only explanation I can get for this.

Yeah I find it confusing.

I think westerners....

and Americans all have a good sty le.

Europeans and Americans are all so beautiful!

I am so jealous of all of them.

I envy how much freedom they have.

What do you mean by that?

They are so excitable.

For example?

They give cheerful replies. - They are so friendly!

Super friendly right?

Even to people they meet for the first time - They're like "yaaaay"

Yaaaay

Things like this? - That's right.

Freedom and fun are two things mentioned, mostly it's the fun thing that with

westerners we are like "yay what's up how are you!" like

Very cheery personality again, I think that also links to "people you meet for the very first time"

Very friendly, very welcoming going "hey what's up"

So those kind of things, I think they also get partially facilitated

by the ALT which are assistant language teachers (in Japan)

that go out to schools in Japan

And yes they are there to teach english but another big

part of being an ALT is also to create a positive

emotion towards the language of English. And Towards foreigners in a way

as well. So they are usually super cheery, they do lots of cheerful things and I think that creates

the first image that many Japanese young people get

From actually meeting foreigners or...

meaning that all foreigners are super cheery and genki.

Cause they had people like that in their class teach.

Might have even been the very first foreigners that they ever met.

That's where the freedom and fun part comes in.

Is is good to have a tall nose in Japan?

Yes it's very good!

We all are jealous of tall noses!

Why? Aren't small noses cuter???

I wonder why?? - Why? Maybe the face from the side...

looks more beautiful with a tall nose.

Japanese girls admire tall noses!

The tall nose thing... I might have mentioned this before but...

In Japan having a tall nose is a beauty ideal... and then in the west some people don't like

tall noses. Again... I think the grass is always greener on the other side.

Because....

Dainty small noses are seen as something cute (abroad) and then tall noses

are seen as something elegant. Something of beauty here in Japan.

So that's a real contrast we're having there.

I was asked the way by a foreigner in Shinjuku.

I think especially because they are foreigners, they can ask the way in Tokyo...

If I lost my way in Tokyo I would not be able to do that.

I would search the way with google by myself on my phone.

I envy that foreigners can ask.

I think this links back into people being very shy especially towards strangers.

Instead of calling out to a stranger and asking them for help... many Japanese people

would rather prefer to look on their smartphones and maybe look for a certain

location and then again...

If they still don't know how it is, they will not again ask a stranger ...

They will try and go to some sort of official for help. So if it's something you're looking for

For example within a department store...

There will be an information booth where they will ask.

Or they will go to one of those Koban police boxes and ask there

for help and where to go.

First try not to ask strangers, but if you have to ask strangers then ask strangers whose

job it is and then if you're really still can't find it then you might have to ask a stranger.

Foreigners are so colorful... and beautiful...

Foreigners have tall noses right?

I look at them an I am jealous. Big eyes and you all have different eye colors too right

I am so jealous of that.

Always look at foreigners and admire that so much.

Especially that girl that was speaking about tall noses and western images,

not sure if you can see it on you screen, but when I met her...

she really put a lot of effort into the right usage of highlighting

and blending in order to make her nose a little bit taller.

Which then worked with the whole setting of the movie in the end. The video we were filming. That was interesting.

And finally when we asked Japanese girls on the streets of Tokyo...

What kind of ideal they have in mind, it's generally

Celebrities, TV stars, popstars, and they tend to be...

Caucasian and I think that's because this is one of the most presented in this culture. American movies are here

I think there is a lot of american movie influence so

that seems to be the most represented, next one is generally asian popstars

and similar things, famous people. In this video it was someone from China,

but recently because of the K-pop boom it used to be a lot of K-pop idols or Tv personalities and then finally

people of color are very much underrepresented

but in some of the videos we've done after that...

we had people mention people of color as well that they admire.

And I think that's again because they are very underrepresented in Japanese media

You don't really see that many people of color in Japanese media at all so hopefully

that will change in the future. So people see the beauty and have a new beauty ideal in the future.

We'll find out.

Thank you very much for watching, I hope you enjoyed this. We've done more videos on

jealousy and similar things like that. Just generally Japanese culture and what people really think of here

be sure to come into our library and check out some of these things.

Thank you so much for watching this video and I hope to catch you soon here

on the Ask Japanese channel. Coming from Tokyo right out to you, no matter where in the world you are.

See you bye!