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Hey guys! Welcome back to my channel

And I'm really happy to say that I'm here with Rachel

And we are going to talk about Culture Shock in Japan

It's not gonna be a lot of Common Culture Shock

You have to take off your shoes indoors?

Yeah, like the "taking off your shoes" is kind of a no-brainer

I think a lot of people who are studying Japanese or interested in Japan are viewing our channels

So I feel like we should talk about the less commonly known Culture Shocks!

We're just gonna go ahead and start with:

Number 1...

These are things that I've noticed recently and the number one thing I've noticed recently is

People on trains with books, and there's covers on their books

So when they're reading books, it's just for privacy reasons, so I think that's actually a good idea

because people aren't looking at what you're reading and you don't feel so self-conscious

But I didn't notice that until just recently!

So they have like newspaper on their books or like book covers sometimes come with the book

in Japan, so yeah it's actually kinda convenient and I actually like it

I noticed that really early on because Jun reads a lot and he buys lots of books

Everytime he buys a book it comes with one of the plain white cover on it

so I never know what book he's got

He'll even use it at home, he just doesn't ever take it off

I'm like "What are you reading Jun??"

Since I've been here this past year and we've been driving to a lot of places

I've noticed that in fancier stores, if you go somewhere where you buy suit, or nice work clothes like that

or some places like the Toyota Home places that we've been to recently

where people are potentially buying a house

like really nice places like that

a lot of the workers, when you leave in a car, they'll come outside and stand there and bow to your car

until you've left the parking lot

Sometimes there's a lot of traffic so you have to sit there for a couple of minutes and they're just bowing

Actually a lot of people in Japan just stand there and wave at you when you leave

and just wait for you to be out of sight

That's actually something that I've learned in Japanese class before

it's just a normal thing here

And they do that even at the Sony Store when I go and check out the stuff for my camera

They just walk you out and then they wave until you leave and they bow to you

It feels so formal and honestly it feels so weird to me

Greeting you at the mall, it kinda goes with what we were talking about on the first one

When stores open, you basically walk in and then everybody at the store goes to the front and bow to you

as you walk through the mall

Then they have this music playing, this happy music plays when it's open

and sometimes i'm like the only person walking into the mall

So it's kinda awkward because they're all bowing to you

It feels like you're royal or something

Really important, like you're high up there

But yeah they all come to the front of the store and bow to you when you come in

So that's only when they open

They play 8-bit music over the speakers

Because I guess they don't wanna pay for royalty

For like playing real music with real instruments and singers

So they'll play like 8-bit music versions, like you would hear on a very old cellphone ringtone

or in a videogame

Yeah, like in a videogame, like Animal Crossing it's...

And then they'll play 90's music or like 80's music

or Michael Jackson or something

Yeah and it's just distracting because you'll recognize the music but you can't figure out what it is sometimes

They play some music outside too on the streets like at Sakae, like in the morning they play music on the streets

Like it feels like you're in a videogame like 24/7

Not even joking, and some stores even have it on a loop

Like one store played "It's a small world" over and over and like I feel like you go crazy

Oh my god! And if you're a worker there...oh my god

Other thing I noticed is say everything you're doing

So I've noticed this while working at a Japanese office

In a Business office

They would go to the door, and even if you have to go to the bathroom sometimes they'd say

"I'm going to the bathroom" and then they'll bow their head

and walk out the door

Like it would just be very quiet, like you wouldn't even notice, people wouldn't even glance up, right?

But it's kinda like the polite thing to do in Japan sometimes, it's not everywhere

but at certain places they'll tell you where they're going

or they're going and coming back and then they'll bow and leave

And they do that on the bus too, so they're like "i'm going straight! I'm going back!"

"I'm going left! I'm going right!"

And they'll tell you on the bus "I'm stopping!!"

"Next Station! I'm going to the Next Station!"

Not all bus drivers do that, like some bus drivers do that

But most of them actually do

It's all about being polite in Japan

it's the reason for why they do things

Okay, so I guess along the same lines as of noise and music and stuff are

they have music trucks here

So we have Ice-Cream trucks in America that will go around and will play like a jingly music

and they have trucks like that here for a lot of different things, some of them will be selling food

some of them will be picking up trash for you, like special trash

and some of them are political vans or advertisements for groups, like music groups up in Tokyo and stuff

There are a couple that come around the places that we've lived a lot and so I hear them all the time

and one of them is selling warabi mochi

It's stuck in my head because it would come around every single day, I hear it it's

"Waraaaaaabiiii Mochi!!"

「Tsumetakute Oishiiiiii yoooo」

and then there's one here that Jun said is for tofu

Tofu truck!

And I didn't know it was a truck first, I thought it was a kid practicing the recorder

and I thought "oh my god we moved in next door to a kid who practices his recorder all the time"

And it was just two notes repeatedly over and over again

It's recorder music

Yeah, same over and over again

And I was like "this kid needs to learn new notes, try something new!"

It wasn't a kid, it's a truck selling tofu

First time I noticed that was in Aomori, they did that with the sweet potato truck

They sell sweet potato, tofu, like they have these trucks that go around like

they sell this stuff!

It's actually kinda cool!

When I first had to study abroad they just did morning announcements they'd be like

And they'd be like "good morning, today is September 27th..."

Just a truck driving around?

It wasn't a truck, it was actually like a speaker in a tower

It depends on where you live

Good morning town!!!

Yeah so announcements, "good morning, wake up it's 7am!"

like what if you wanted to sleep past 7am?

What if you worked the night shift, you got home and now you wanna sleep?

Kinda related to jingles and sounds and all that stuff

At the train station, they always have their own jingle

or their own sounds so like when the train is coming

like they have a certain theme song

So it'll be like a little music box sort of sound

and even if it's on the same line, if you're going the other way, it'll have a different sound to it

So then you know the train is coming and which side it's coming!

And some of them are like commercial jingles too!

I don't know anything about them because I don't watch Japanese TV

But I know in Ebisu in Tokyo, it's like the commercial for Yebisu beer

The jingle for Yebisu Beer

So when the train is coming it's reminding you of the commercial to buy Yebisu Beer

Like I always think about like "what's the coolest sound that they have?"

like, rate from 5 to 4, I could do a video about that

You can start a playlist on your channel ranking each jingle

I could! That would be good!

Thumbs up if you want that video

Like this video if you want that!

In American we have banned Smoking indoors and..

I think it's a State by State thing

but it is banned in Ohio, in my State

So in restaurants you can't smoke inside, Bars, anymore

So like, no smoking indoors and when I came here to Japan they still do it so like a lot of restaurants have

Smoking sections and Non-Smoking sections

So I was kinda surprised by that, it shouldn't even be a surprise because growing up as a kid in America

we have that everywhere!

But I think that's an American thing because a lot of countries still have smoking pretty much

For a lot of States yeah, definitely

I don't even what other States in America

so that might not be in everything in America

It might not be a culture shock for someone who comes to Japan from a State that has smoking restaurants

But they do have like a glass sections where you can go into the room and smoke in the glass room

And they have them at parks too, like parks and other public places so it's kinda interesting

So like when you go and buy something and you'll give them a hundred dollar bill or something

They'll say to their manager "I have a hundred dollar bill, I'm putting it in the register"

And that kinda goes along with "saying things that they're doing"

So they do it and they count the money, they always count the money for you

Like, they put out really nice like a fan, like a Japanese fan and they're like counting the money

They go through all of it and you know you've got the right amount

Counting everything to you kinda feels like an artificial conversation, because cashiers don't really talk to you

I've had some in the past, it's really uncommon

So i feel like it's kind of a conversation starter

Here's your money

It's more or less something to say than stay completely quiet

So moving on to like doctors and dentists

I know we were like "uh we're not gonna talk about taking off shoes"

but you have to take off your shoes to the doctor's and the dentist's

Usually!

I've been to one where you didn't have to

but usually you take off your shoes, it's a little different than America because in America...

if you go see a doctor you get your own room

and you're like in a private room

but here, at least the doctor's that I've gone to

it's like connected to all of the other rooms

It's open in the back

So you'll have your own little desk

but then people walking along behind you, you hear everyone else

it's not as private

In the hospitals and stuff, like when I went to the hospital..it sounds like crippled

They just have curtains, like they don't have rooms

You're all out in the open with everybody else

It probably depends on the hospital room

like what you're in for

Because, when you have a baby, then you get a room to yourself

That's the only time I've actually been to a real hospital here

when I visited Victor's baby

And then at the dentist's, something that...

In America you get sunglasses so you don't have to look at the light or whatever

But here they put a cloth over your face

They just lay a cloth over your face, it feels like a spa

Yeah, they do that at the hair-dresser too

when you go get your haircut

they put the cloth over your face, so you're not looking around

so you're just relaxing

Kids in a shopping cart!!

I used to work in an international school, and we got to take the kids out to the park

And when you do and you take little kids to the park if they're like 3 or under

you put them in a cart

It's kinda like herding sheep into like...behind a fence

There's like a little ramp that unclasps, and then you put it on the floor and they run up the ramp into the cart

And then you lock them in and you push them down the street to the park

And they're little heads are like little peek-a-cow, they're like yeaaaay hiiii

So they wear little hats and whenever you cross the street, they're taught to raise their hands

So when you cross the street and they're in the shopping cart they're like this: STOP