020 Life in Japan vs. the US

In this episode, we talk about a few differences between everyday life in Japan vs. the US, including food, hangouts, friends, and language. As mentioned near the end of this episode, here is the link to The Tokyo Talks blog post about Kuli English Podcast: https://www.thetokyotalk.com/post/mic-on-thoughts-in-motion-chris-jeng

Contents:

00:00 Start
07:20 Food
28:34 Hangouts and friends
37:07 Language

Chapters

• 0:00 Start
• 7:20 Food
• 28:34 Hangouts and friends
• 37:07 Language

Transcript

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Kuli English Podcast. It's me, your host, Chris. So today is episode 20, and if you're listening to this right on the release, it's going to be a Tuesday.

Because all new episodes are always on Tuesday. So what's so special about the number 20? Well, I like the number 20. It's like a multiple of 10, and then also if I count all my fingers and toes, then I have 20.

You probably also have 20, but if you lost a finger, if you lost a toe, I'm really sorry. That sucks. So the topic of this episode is going to be something like differences between my life in the U.S. and in Japan.

So I figured right from the beginning, I'll go ahead and tell a short little story about one of those differences. So just regarding this number 20, you know, 20 is not really a special number, but it also happens to be the age in Japan at which you can start drinking alcohol. So, I mean, you can kind of drink secretly at home, like no one's going to find you and take you to jail or anything.

But the age at which you can buy alcohol is supposed to be 20. So if you go to like a Japanese supermarket or if you go to a Japanese konbini, like a convenience store, then you can buy alcohol. So maybe like beer or like, I don't know, vodka, I don't know, some kind of highball, anything.

And when you check out, so when you pay for these things, there's going to be something called a nenrei kakunin, which is age verification. They're going to check your age. And what that means is as you're trying to pay, there's going to be a screen that comes out that says, like, you need to check your age.

And there's a button that says I am 20 or over. And then you tap it and that's it. That's it for age verification.

And I've done this a bunch of times, like going to a supermarket or a convenience store. And when you buy alcohol, like nobody has actually ever checked my ID. And, you know, maybe it's because I look kind of, I don't know.

I don't think I look that old. But sometimes in the U.S., people ask me, like, oh, you must be, I don't know, like 18 or 19 or something. And I don't really know.

But but anyways, so sometimes, like when I buy alcohol, I have to do the nenrei kakunin, the age verification. And I never get ID'd. But in the U.S. So let me switch a little bit and talk about the U.S. But in the U.S., the age to drink is not 20, it's 21. So like if you're trying to buy alcohol and you're not 21, like the age verification thing, it's also not just a button. Like usually like a real person comes and looks at your ID.

So, for example, suppose that I'm trying to buy the same thing. OK, I'm going to try to buy some beer or maybe I'm going to try to buy a highball. I'm going to try some maybe vodka or whiskey.

And then I've got my stuff and I'm trying to check out in this American supermarket. Then like at some point, some human is probably going to come look at my ID. And I think in the past, like maybe I don't know, maybe 10, 20 years ago, it wasn't always the case that people always checked you.

Sometimes when you're checking out, like you have the cashier, right? And the cashier is the person that scans all the stuff. So like, beep. Are you going to buy bacon? Beep.

Are you going to buy cheese? OK, whatever. Beep. Are you going to buy coconut water? And then beep.

Oh, you're going to buy beer. And then they take a look at you, right? So they look at you. Are you old? Are you old or young? Are you 21 or older? Like that's what they're thinking.

And they can kind of judge you based on how you look. And so this like this kind of backfires. Backfires meaning like sometimes you have some mendoksai stuff, like some annoying things happen.

And that's because people don't like being judged by the way they look. So if somebody looks like, you know, they're, I don't know, 30 or something. And then you don't ask them for the ID.

They're going to be like, oh, you think you think you think I'm old? You think I look old? You think I'm ugly? So, you know, they could get mad that way. Or they can still get mad in the other direction. So let's say that instead of not checking the ID, like you check an old guy's ID.

So imagine there's like a really old guy and he went to the supermarket. So maybe, I don't know, like Target or Walmart. He's buying beer.

And he's really old, right? So he's got like white hair. And he's like walking slowly. He's like, yeah, I'm going to buy some beer.

You know, saying like, I'm going to buy some beer. And then the employee could be like, sir, could I please check your ID? And the old guy is going to be like, huh? Can I see your ID? What? It's like, so maybe they'll maybe they'll be like, oh, that's cute. That's funny that you think I'm under 21.

But sometimes people get mad for any reason. So like you'd be like, sir, I need to check your ID. And they're going to be like, you think I'm young? You think I'm stupid? You think I'm young? Or something like that.

And you never know. So a lot of places now, like probably in the most recent, what, 10, 20 years or so, they started doing these things where they just started checking everybody. So it doesn't matter what you look like.

You could be like the really old guy or you can be like a really young looking person. And they'll always check your ID. And that's just the rules.

And I think that's just to kind of save a little bit of effort. Because, you know, when people judge people based on how they look, and it's like, ah, you seem like you're 21. Ah, you seem like you're under 21.

Like it's going to be a different experience based on who's there. So I think a lot of places just have a blanket rule. Blanket rule meaning it's like a universal rule.

It's a rule for all cases, no matter what. Even if they're old, even if they're young, you check their ID. So my experience buying alcohol in the U.S. is I always get ID'd because people are like, oh, yeah, like it's possible that Chris is like under 21.

And I don't really know how they look at me. Like some people say you can tell based on the skin or like, you know, hairstyle, I don't know, clothes, anything like that. But, yeah, I mean, sometimes it's hard to tell.

So I think it's easy that you just have a blanket rule. And then in Japan, it's the same for everybody, which is nobody looks at the ID. So if you want to buy alcohol, you just beep, I'm over 20, and then bam, you're done.

And sometimes you also see people at the bars, too. Like there's like some bars in Japan. And then like when you see really young people wearing like school uniforms and they're like taking selfies together at the bar, like it really makes me think, oh, they're probably underage and it's like their first time at the bar.

But, you know, I don't really care. They can do whatever they want. So it was a bit of a long introduction.

But in this episode, we're going to be talking about a couple differences that I've experienced based on like my life in the US, which I lived for 28 years, and then my life in Japan, which I've lived in for about two years. So I've got a couple of fun examples for you. And we'll continue with that right after this short little music break.

All right, so let's go and continue into this next section. So I actually had a bunch of sections that I wanted to talk about in this episode, but it ended up being like too much. So I'm going to talk about just like a few of the sections.

And in each of the sections, I'm going to talk about less stuff. But I'll put the things in a later episode. So anyways, in this section, I want to talk about food.

So food is like a really big thing in life. I mean, everybody has to eat food. If you don't eat food, you're going to die.

Well, I mean, if you don't eat food and you also don't drink like the Soylent, there's like things that you can drink instead. Or it's really sad, but some people can't eat food, so they have to like insert the food like through their throat or like through the arms or something. So don't forget that being able to eat food, being able to taste food, this is like a really happy thing that you can do in life.

So make sure you enjoy the food that you eat or do your best. But so for me, again, I lived in the U.S. for 28 years, like I was born and raised in the U.S. And then I ate food there. And then I came to Japan, and it's been about like two years and I've been eating food here.

So everywhere I go, I eat. And you probably do the same thing too. Everybody goes to everywhere and eats everywhere.

But so I want to talk about some of the food that I ate a lot of in the U.S. And by the way, when I tell these things, you know, it's my story. It's not that all Americans eat the same thing that I eat. Because I'm just like one person, and sometimes I do things that are different from other people.

And also by the same token, like by the same idea, in Japan, like I eat certain foods, but it doesn't mean that all Japanese people eat the same thing that I eat. Or it doesn't even mean that like foreigners, so people that are not from Japan, that moved to Japan, they eat the same thing as me. That's not true either.

Okay, so everybody eats whatever they want. And sometimes you can't even guess like what other people eat. But without further ado, so without delaying anymore, I need to tell you about Chipotle.

So Chipotle is like a Mexican restaurant. And notice when I said Mexican restaurant, it went up. It was like Mexican restaurant? Like I'm not really sure if it's a Mexican restaurant.

And that's because it kind of isn't a Mexican restaurant. If you ask anybody from Mexico, is Chipotle a Mexican restaurant? They're going to say no. They're going to say this is some American trash food.

It's not real Mexican food. This is like, this is a disgrace or something like that. But it's like kind of like American Mexican food.

So it doesn't really exist in Mexico, but it exists in the US. Kind of like Panda Express. So Panda Express is also like a famous Chinese food place, but it's not real Chinese food.

It's American Chinese food. And it doesn't really exist in like China or like Taiwan. But Chipotle, so Chipotle is kind of like a build your own burrito place.

So, you know, if you know what a burrito is, it's like kind of like a Mexican food. Burrito is actually a Mexican food. And you build your own, meaning like you get to choose what stuff you put in.

And you don't actually build it yourself. Like I'm not the one like putting the food in because then I'm like cooking, right? But it's a restaurant. So you choose what you want and they will put it in for you and then they'll make it for you.

And it's kind of nice. It's nice because you get to choose what you want, but you also don't have to do any work. You can just leave your hands like this and you tell them, hey, I want that, I want that, I want that.

And then they'll make it for you. So I want you to imagine that, you know, I'm taking you to my past. So like, I don't know, three or four years ago.

And we're going to pick a random day, any random day. And it's maybe I'm eating Chipotle that day. I ate a lot of Chipotle.

And so we're going to go back in time and I'm going to take you to Chipotle and we're going to order together. Okay, so we're going to order in English together. I want you to kind of imagine this.

But so in Chipotle, we're probably going to order like a burrito thing. So when you start out, like the employees can look at you and they're going to say like, what do you want? Or like, what do you want? And so you usually start out with just the flour tortilla, which is like the skin of the burrito, like the outside. And then you're going to tell them what stuff you want.

So you can point and just say, I want that one. Or you can say like, oh, I want the black beans. And then they'll scoop the black beans.

And they put it onto your thing. And then it has a little bit of black beans, but it's not done yet because, you know, in a burrito, you got to have more things. So then maybe you'll say, oh, can I have the, instead of white rice, can I have the brown rice? And then they'll put brown rice.

And then there's the next part. This thing is a pretty common phrase in a lot of American restaurants, but they'll ask you, what protein do you want? Or they'll say, can you choose your protein? And the protein is like a tanpakushitsu. It's like, what it really means is meat.

So what meat do you want? Do you want chicken? Or do you want beef? Or do you want pork? That's what they're really asking. But they say protein because all these things are kind of protein. And also, because it's not always meat, sometimes you have an option that's fake meat or what I call vegetarian meat.

You can just call it vegetarian meat. That's fine. Or maybe soy meat or vegan meat.

And then sometimes you can also just say, I don't want any meat. But they'll ask you, can you choose your protein? And you can choose whatever you want. I always got chicken at Chipotle. 

I don't know why. I think the chicken tastes the best. And I like all those. 

I like pork. I like beef. I like chicken. 

But at Chipotle, I think the chicken's the best. And then they're gonna take some chicken and stick it on there. And then if you want, you can always order in a custom way. 

So I told you you're supposed to pick one of chicken, beef, pork, or whatever vegetarian stuff. Picking just one is normal. But you can pick two if you want.

You can say, I want two. And then you might have to pay extra. Like they'll ask you, oh, it's gonna cost extra. 

And that would be called extra protein. And then you move on to the next section of Chipotle. And you know, they have their tortilla and it looks kind of full, right? Because you've got like beans, you've got rice, you've got the chicken, you've got the meat, whatever. 

But then you don't have veggies yet. So you go to the veggie section and then you can tell them I want that, that. So maybe they'll say, okay, do you want some tomatoes? And then put on some tomatoes.

Do you want some sour cream? Do you want some lettuce? Do you want some guacamole? And guacamole always costs extra. So guacamole, you can also call it guac. It always costs extra. 

I've never seen a place give guacamole for free. I don't know why. Guacamole is just like special.

And it's also the case in Japan too. In Japan, I don't think I've ever seen free guacamole. It always costs extra when you try to get it on stuff.

So anyways, after you choose all your stuff, then you say, okay, that's it. And then they start working their magic. So working their magic, they're going to do their special thing. 

They're going to take the burrito and they're going to wrap it up. And then they're going to wrap it up in a nice way so that all the food is inside, all the inner stuff is inside and it's not leaking. And they wrap it up with some aluminum foil.

And they're like, okay, here you go. And then you go to the checkout lane. And then checkout lane meaning you're going to pay. 

And then the person there's usually a different person doing the cashier job. And they look at you and they say, oh, okay, so you got guac. Okay, so that's going to be plus $1.50. Okay, your total is going to be whatever, $9.70 or something. 

And then how do you want to pay? And you say, oh, with credit card or with cash, whatever. But this is like my lovely memory of Chipotle. And I've done this so many times. 

I've been to the exact same Chipotle a lot of times. Because it was really close to where I used to live. I used to live right next to Chipotle.

And I also lived right next to this place called Sweetgreen's. Now Sweetgreen's is like very similar to the Chipotle like build your own style. But it's for salads.

It's not for burritos. It's for salads. And so, you know, if you go to Sweetgreen's, you got to order some stuff and they'll ask you, oh, can you choose your base? And what is your base? Well, you know, this place sells salad.

And what's the most important thing about salad? It's just leaves. So you say, I want the purple leaves or I want the green leaves. And actually, you shouldn't call it like purple or green leaves.

You would call it like a romaine lettuce. Or I want the kale. Or I want like, you know, the mixed something. 

Whatever. I want spinach. You have actual names for them. 

I just say the leaves thing because it's kind of like a joke. But, you know, you can order your purple leaves. You can order your green leaves.

And then you move on to the next section. Yeah, I miss this kind of stuff. I haven't had this in like a long time. 

But at Sweetgreen's, then after you choose your base, then you have like toppings. So, you know, maybe it's like corn, tomatoes, or like, you know, crispy things. And then my favorite one by far was always roasted sweet potatoes. 

So roasted sweet potatoes is just sweet potatoes, but they're kind of roasted. So it's a little bit more it tastes a bit more burnt. It's burnt in a nice way.

And so if you ever go to Sweetgreen's, or if you ever get salad stuff, I highly recommend putting roasted sweet potatoes on top. So yeah, I mean, that's like Sweetgreen's. And one of the nice things about Sweetgreen's is that they really mix it well.

At least in my opinion. I feel like they mix it really well. They stir everything very well.

So if you're eating salad at home, or like maybe at a restaurant, and sometimes they give you the dressing on the side. The dressing meaning like the salad sauce thing. And then you have to like pour the dressing on the salad yourself.

So you pour it on. But then when you pour it on, you know, the lettuce, or like the salad at the top, it gets most of the sauce. And then the rest of the salad, you know, maybe it doesn't get enough sauce. 

So then you have some parts that have too much sauce, and some parts that have too little sauce. And then when you eat it, it's like a gamble. Sometimes you get a big amount of sauce. 

A really large amount of sauce. And you're like, oh, that's too much sauce. And then sometimes you eat something and you're like, wait, that didn't have any sauce.

And you know, you can try to mix it. You can try to adjust it. You can try to eat the one with too much sauce right after you eat the one with too little sauce.

And try to mix it or something. But it's just really nice if it's all really evenly mixed. And Sweetgreen's, I like seeing them mix the salad.

I see it as they do hard work for me. And that's kind of like what I'm paying for. So I go there and I tell them, I want the green leaves. 

I want the roasted sweet potato stuff. And then they take all the stuff and they put it into this big bowl. And they have tools.

So not one tool, but two tools. Because when you mix, sometimes you hold the bowl and then you use one tool to mix. They have two. 

So their hands are going. They're professionals. This is their job. 

They've done this a lot. So they super mix the salad and all the seasoning gets spread evenly. And then you finally pay. 

And, of course, you can add guacamole. You can add guac. But it's going to cost extra.

And if you're trying to save money, then maybe no guacamole. Or if you love guacamole, then maybe you just have to get it. But that's Sweetgreen's.

So again, Chipotle was kind of build your own burrito. And then Sweetgreen's is build your own salad. And there's other stuff. 

There's like build your own pizza, build your own burger. There's a lot of those kinds of places. Now let me switch and talk about the Japanese version.

So I gave two examples of stuff that I ate a lot in the US. And that is Sweetgreen's and Chipotle. And now in Japan, what do you think I eat in Japan? People probably have a pretty good image of what Japanese food is. 

So if I say Japanese food, what do you think about? It doesn't even matter if you are Japanese or if you haven't even been to Japan. You probably have an idea of what Japanese food is. Which is like ramen, sushi.

And I mean, there's other foods too, right? There's like curry, there's yakisoba, there's like, I don't know, teppanyaki, okonomiyaki, like whatever. But like the image of Japanese food, I think it's actually kind of nice that when I say Japanese food, the image is very consistent. If I say American food, like probably the image is like burgers, fries, pizza.

But it doesn't include like random small stuff. Like I think one of the really nice things about America is like there's a lot of diversity and there's a lot of fusion of like culture. So like because there's a lot of diversity, then sometimes people mix things. 

So there's like Japanese-Mexican fusions or like Korean-Japanese fusions. And then a lot of really nice restaurants that I'm thinking of in my mind, that I used to really like, a lot of them are fusion places. Where they have some stuff that's like kind of authentic Japanese food, but then they mix that with some other stuff.

So that's really nice. So it's a little bit sad that when I say like, oh, really good American food, people imagine probably like burgers or pizza or something. But I'm thinking of like the fusion food.

But when I say nice Japanese food, everyone's got the same image, and that's the stuff that I like too. Like I love Japanese food. So some of the stuff that I eat a lot of in Japan is probably sushi.

Sushi, I usually, there's this place really close to my house called Sushiro. And Sushiro, it's weird saying that with like an American accent. Because everybody calls it Sushiro.

But Sushiro has like an app. And then if you have the app, then it tells you like what seasonal specials they have. And I don't mean seasonal specials like, oh, like they have like these special combination foods. 

It's just like, oh, there's a discount on tuna or there's a discount on salmon. And then, you know, I really like salmon. I also like tuna.

So when I see that discount, and I know it's there for like a week, then I go to Sushiro, and then I order like a ton of that one thing. Because all the salmon's half price, no problem. I'll just eat a lot of salmon, and it's gonna be half price. 

So like I do that. Or like, you know, if it's tuna is half price, then okay. Then I go order a lot of tuna. 

I go order 10 tunas. And I eat like, you know, 20 pieces of tuna. And I'm like, oh, I'm so full. 

And then I I don't know, wait a little bit, maybe eat one more plate. And then I go home, and like, you know, I'm so full. My belly's full of tuna. 

My mouth smells like tuna. I have like a little bit of tuna stuck in between my teeth. And then I go home, and yeah, I just feel good because I like it.

So like sushi's something that I eat a lot of. And you know, yes, if you didn't already know, Japanese people also probably eat a lot of sushi, and they probably like it. Like a lot of Japanese people like Japanese food, in case you didn't know that.

And then there's one more that I want to mention for Japanese food. So there's a lot of different Japanese foods, and I could probably talk about Japanese food for, you know, more than two hours. In fact, I already talked a lot about Japanese food in the previous recording of this, and then I had to like, redo it because it's too much.

Too much talking about food. So I'll just talk about one more food. And that's Ootoya.

So Ootoya is like a... By the way, I'm not being paid to talk about any of this stuff. All these things I'm talking about because I actually like it. So same with like Chipotle Sweetgreen's.

It's really sad, but they didn't give me any money. I give them money. I give them money by eating their stuff, and then I talk about it in this and give them free advertising.

So in Japan, I have Sushiro, right? And then also Ootoya. So Ootoya is like a Teishoku restaurant. I don't even know how you can really explain Teishoku, but Teishoku means like a Japanese set meal. 

I think that's how I would describe it. It's a Japanese set meal. Set meal usually has like four different things.

So there's rice, and then there's also like miso soup, and then there's also Tsukemono, which is... Tsukemono means like pickled vegetables. It's usually like, yeah, vegetables and it's pickled, and it's like kind of cold and a little bit sour. It's a pretty light addition.

And then the main dish. And the main dish is the main thing, so that's the most important part. So if you're eating like fish or something, then it's gonna be a fish Teishoku. 

If you eat like a Katsu, Katsu meaning like fried meat, then it sounds so weird saying it in English. Then it's gonna be a Katsu Teishoku. Or you can have like, I don't know, Unagi or something.

It'll be a Unagi Teishoku. But the Teishoku just means like it's like a set. So it's got like rice, miso soup, and then like a main, and then maybe some side dish.

Maybe a little bit more. Maybe there's some tofu. I don't know.

But Ootoyo I think is a really healthy option. And so for me, I don't really know, like after I got older, I think when I was in college or something, I would just try to save money and eat stuff that tastes good. But I didn't really think that much about health stuff.

But then as I got older, after I graduated college, and then as people get older, they think about, oh, I don't want to die soon. I want to live a long time. So then I started thinking about health stuff. 

And I think Ootoyo is like a really good balance for eating healthy and also eating stuff that tastes good. And I think like the average Japanese preference for taste, like people like healthy things naturally. It's like in Japan, it's like, oh, so people like good sushi. 

And sushi is kind of good for you. It's got fish. It's not that much fat.

There's also soba, which is also pretty good for you. It's probably not bad. And then stuff like the Teishoku stuff. 

So if you eat a bunch of fish or a bunch of miso soup or rice and stuff, it's not that bad for you. The stuff that's bad for you, again, the stereotypical American food, so like pizza, burgers, these things have a lot of fat. They're very heavy. 

They're very fat. And if you eat those all the time, it's probably not good for you. 

And you can take it from me. So I lived in Hawaii for four months. That's actually where this shirt is from. I got this shirt. 

If you're listening to the podcast, don't worry about it. It's just a shirt that looks kind of Hawaiian. But I lived in Hawaii for four months and I ate a lot of American food.

And then I got high cholesterol. Koresuterooru. I got high cholesterol.

So yeah, I think that's pretty good. We talked about food. I do want to say just one more thing. 

I know it's kind of running a bit long. I feel like after I moved from the US to Japan, it's just been a lot easier to eat healthier. Because in the US, I would eat stuff like Sweetgreen's or chipotle, as I talked about.

And they're not that bad. But you have to actually explicitly choose the healthy options. Because there's going to be a lot of fried foods and burgers and these kinds of options right there for you if you want them.

And in Japan, there's still McDonald's and burgers and stuff. But it's like, I don't know, it's not as much as in the US. And there are a lot of Japanese food options everywhere.

So it's kind of you are given a lot of options, but more of the options are healthy. And also the portions in Japan are smaller. So American portions are kind of really big. 

Even for me, I'm like a guy, right? I kind of eat more. If I was a small girl, you would probably assume that I don't eat as much. But I'm not. 

I'm like a guy and I'm a little bit taller than average. So when I eat food, I usually eat a bit more. And in the US, the food was often too much for me. 

Even for me, sometimes I can't finish it. And what do I do? I gotta do something. Either I take it home and then eat it later, or I just throw it away. 

Or I work really really hard and stuff myself and just eat it anyways. Oh yeah, I gotta eat it anyways. But then in Japan, the portions are very reasonable. 

They're never too big. At least in my opinion. So usually I can eat the whole thing. 

And normally if there's an option to upgrade from normal sized to large sized, then I probably will. So like namimori for normal, and then oomori for large. I usually go for the oomori.

Sometimes there's one above that called the tokumori. And maybe I'll do that. Which is like kind of double the size.

So the portion sizes are much easier to manage in Japan. And I think even if you don't really care that much about health stuff, I think if you eat an average American diet, and then you change to eating like an average Japanese diet, you'll probably end up reducing the amount of fat that you intake. Which is nice. 

So you probably will eat less fat, is what I mean. Okay, so that's a bit too much about food. And then let's go and take a short little break.

And I'll come back and talk some more.

Alright, so now let's go ahead and move on to the next section. So this next section here is going to be talking about like hangouts and like what to do with friends. And I got some notes here, so I'm actually going to be looking at my notes a little bit. 

But so in the U.S., I have like a certain experience in the U.S. And this doesn't mean that all Americans have the same experience. But for me, a lot of my friends after college were actually from the same college. Because I ended up working pretty close to college, like UC Berkeley and Google are like actually pretty close in California. 

So a lot of my friends from the same college also went to work in that same area. And so like the friends that I hung out with kind of didn't change that much even after college. So in college, I met a lot of different people. 

And then like a certain small subset of that, like some of those people that I met in college and became friends with, like they also went to the same area with me. So it was kind of nice. And a lot of the times people ask me, how do you make friends? And that's such a hard question, because for me, I never, after working, like after starting work, I didn't have to like find new friends because I had a lot of my friends from college. 

And then when you already have friends, it's a lot easier to make more friends because you meet like the friends of your friends. You know, somebody will be like, oh, hey, do you want to meet my friend? Like they also are from, you know, something, something, and you might have some kind of thing in common with them. And then they introduce you and then you become friends. 

So I think, you know, that kind of question, like how do you make friends? It's too hard of a topic. I can talk about it. And I did talk about it in the previous recording, but it's I'm actually going to cut that part out. 

So instead of talking about how to make friends, let me talk about a couple differences about like hanging out with people. So again, I, you know, I'm from the U.S. and then I had friends there. And then when I moved to Japan, nobody moved with me. 

It's just me. So then I have to like make new friends in Japan. And, you know, I didn't really have that many friends, but then slowly over time, then it kind of builds up. 

And what's most important is probably like close friends. So, you know, if you have like a hundred friends, but you're not really close with any of them, it's probably better to just have like, I don't know, two close friends than like a hundred like friends that you don't really talk to that much. And, um, so, uh, with those people, I think, um, uh, like what you do in the U.S. I mean, again, this is based on my experience, right? So I don't know how it is for everybody, but like a lot of the times when I hung out with like my U.S. friends, usually you just like hang out by eating a meal together. 

Maybe you go out and eat something together. And then afterwards you go to somebody's house and then you do something at their house. Maybe you play some video games together. 

Maybe you just chat, maybe you do nothing. You stand around. I don't know. 

But, uh, I think going to people's houses was like a really common thing. 

But, uh, yeah, another thing was like a karaoke. Yeah. So completely changing topics, but, um, in Japan, like karaoke is like a really big thing. 

Karaoke, like originally it comes from Japan. Like it was a Japanese word. And then people would just say that the word with an American accent, it's karaoke. 

But, um, something that I noticed is that like, uh, in Japan, people, sometimes they go to karaoke for fun. And this was like a new thing to me. Cause like in the US there wasn't really much karaoke stuff. 

Like nobody, nobody really suggested going to karaoke as a hangout. Like again, the hangout is you go eat dinner or you go eat lunch and then you go to somebody's house. Like that was usually what we did. 

And when we went there, it was usually like you drive there, somebody drives and they pick up some friends that are nearby. And then we all meet up. And after that, then, you know, we're going to the next destination. 

We're going to the next place. So we go to somebody's house and then somebody's driving. It's always by like driving. 

And then in Tokyo, it's like nobody, nobody really drives because in Tokyo, everybody takes the train. The train's like really easy and it's like connected to everywhere. So you just, you just take the train. 

It's a little, little bit different. Um, and then also with the karaoke thing, something that I noticed was like, uh, like Japanese people usually are like pretty good at singing, like even people who have never done any like music stuff. So they've never played any instruments. 

They didn't do orchestra. They have never like performed at music events. Sometimes they're just like really good at singing. 

And, and then it's like, wow. Wow. Like what, why are you so good at singing? And then, uh, for like, I don't want to say anything mean, but like in the US a lot of people have like never done any karaoke and, you know, they probably know what karaoke is, but, but like, have they actually gone to karaoke for more than like 30 minutes of their life? A lot of people probably haven't. 

So it's very natural, but you know, if you've never really sang before, you're probably not really good at singing. So I think the average American is actually pretty bad at singing. Whereas the average Japanese person is really good at singing. 

And if you really look for it in the US there, there, there are karaoke places, but you have to find them. You have to like really search for them. And some of those places, I mean, they're usually in like the Asian areas. 

So like Chinatown or like Korea town or Japan town or something like in those places, then they have some kind of like, like a karaoke place. Maybe, maybe not. Again, this was my experience. 

Maybe other people that live in like a bigger Asian communities in the US they probably know a bit more about karaoke. Um, and then I just, one last thing. Yeah, I'm going to cut out this one, but one, one more thing. 

And so in Japan, you know, again, so I gave that example of how in the US when you hang out with friends, you probably go eat a meal together. And then afterwards you go to somebody's house or maybe you go get boba or something like that. But then in Japan, there's another option here. 

And, uh, it's not very common, but I think people still do it every now and then. And I love doing it. And that is going to the sento or like the onsen, which means like a, like a bath house or like the hot springs. 

And I mean, you can only do this with same gender people. Okay. So if you can't go and like, cause cause to go to the bath house and like the hot springs, you have to get naked. 

So you can't do it as like a boy and a girl, you have to go with the same gender. So I'm a guy, so I can only do that with other guys. And then if you're a girl, you can only do that with other girls. 

Um, otherwise you're going to go to like a separate room and it's like, you're not really actually hanging out together. But, um, I like that. I really like the sento and the onsen. 

It's like a really nice feeling. It's very relaxing. Um, but in the US uh, it's like, there's a different culture around like being naked. 

And you know, I, I kind of grew up with that. Right. So I, I never hung out with other people naked until Japan. 

Um, but in Japan, like you hang out with people naked and if it's at the sento or the onsen, like it's, it's no big deal. It's actually really funny because you know, Japanese people are usually really shy and they're like, Oh no. Like, Oh, shy, shy. 

Oh, I'm shy. I'm shy. And then, and then you go to the sento and they just do like, they strip naked and they're like, yeah, dude, let's go. 

And then it's like, you're so shy, but you're completely okay with being naked. What is this? So there's like a gap. There's like kind of like a difference. 

A big difference is what I thought. I think it's kind of funny. Uh, but yeah, in the US there's definitely some like awkwardness to being naked with other people. 

So even if it's like with your really good American friend and I've, I have actually like felt this too. Like if I go with my Japanese friend, it's like, I don't know, I don't care. But then if I go with my American friend, I don't know, there's like some kind of awkwardness to, to getting like completely naked just because we've always, we share the American culture in common. 

So, uh, I mean, it's fine. I, I try not to make it awkward, but it is a tiny bit awkward to be naked with American friends. And I, I, I don't really know how to fully explain it, but, uh, yeah, I think, uh, that's pretty good. 

And, uh, let's, let's be careful with the time here. I don't want to run on too long. So let's take a short little break here and then I'm going to come back and I'm going to be talking to you about language stuff, which is a huge thing, but anyways, enjoy the music break.

Okay. So this next section, I'm going to be talking about language stuff, which is like a huge thing. Cause this whole podcast is kind of based on language stuff. 

Right? So again, this podcast is for people to get like practice listening to English or, you know, if they just enjoy stories, that's fine. They can do that too. But, uh, language, um, and I'm going to try to tell this in like kind of a personal point of view. 

So this is like my personal experience, but, uh, let me talk about being in the US so in the US, um, I have never felt limited by my English. Like I'm a native English speaker and like I went to school, it was all in English. I went to college, I worked in English. 

Um, and actually like, even it was so much to the point of all English that like, I don't think I ever explicitly changed the way that I talked for other people that weren't good at English. And that's something that changed after I came to Japan because I started understanding like, Oh, so if I change the way that I talk, if I talk kind of slower like this and I avoid hard words, then it's easier for them to understand. But I think like when I worked and also even when I taught at university and stuff like that, I just used like, I just said whatever I wanted to and I tried to explain it and then that was it. 

But I never thought about, Oh, some people struggle with English a lot, even though like, you know, my family doesn't speak with each other in English. I don't know why I didn't really think about it. But, but again, in, in the U.S. I like, for example, if I want to find like an apartment, if I want to live somewhere, like I just know all the rules, um, all the general culture stuff. 

So it's like, if you want to live in this apartment, then probably it's like a one year contract. And it even says on the website, like if you kind of look for it. And so I have that ability, I can like look at the rules. 

I can, I kind of already know the rules, but I can look it up more if I need to. And then like when I try to sign contracts and stuff, like I can kind of read everything. So I know like where I'm supposed to sign. 

And I know that like these parts are talking about something related to, I don't know, maybe like the rent, if the rent is late or something. I don't read the whole contract, but if I really wanted to, I could, um, and I could do it in a reasonable amount of time. Like it wouldn't take too much time. 

I don't have to go and like study a lot, but now let's talk about Japan. So in Japan, I'm definitely limited, um, in terms of Japanese, or at least very much so when I first started out, because like, uh, I moved to Japan and then, uh, like I, I, I'm not a native Japanese speaker. Right. 

So like, uh, I I've made tons of mistakes in the process. I went to a bunch of Japanese school. I like studied Japanese a lot. 

And then like, even after studying a bunch, like, uh, for example, like the housing contract stuff, like at that point, I think I had already been studying Japanese for like, uh, maybe six months or something. And, um, like even trying to get like a house or not a house, but like just an apartment in Japan, like the whole process, like, I didn't really know how long, like the contract is going to be. And I don't really know, like what the different parts of the fee meant. 

Like, why is it that I have to pay this thing? Oh, it's a deposit. Okay. So I can get it back. 

Right. Okay. Why is there a second deposit? And that, that doesn't come back. 

And this one's called reikin, which is like, um, it doesn't really translate. I think some people call it key money, but I think what it really should be called is bribe money. So you just, you're just paying them money as a thank you.

And you don't get it back. And that's like a really common thing. Uh, and I never really understood it because this doesn't really exist in the US you might have like fees or something, but you never say like, oh, this is thank you money. 

And you have to give it, you have to give thank you money. What is this? And, uh, it turns out these things are also negotiable. So in Japan, like a lot of this stuff, if you go through the right agents or you, I don't know, you know, people, then you can kind of skip those fees. 

And it's like, what does these fees, you can skip them. I didn't know that. Uh, so like there are a lot of things in Japan, just like random stuff, like housing where, um, not being able to speak the language or not being able to read the language, you're going to be at a really big disadvantage. 

And so sometimes I like, I meet people and then those people are actually considering moving to Japan. So they ask me like, oh, Chris, like what's different about your life in the US versus Japan. And then that's like the topic of this podcast. 

And then sometimes they ask me, oh, so like, uh, what's, what's a really hard part about Japan. And definitely one of the big hard parts is just the language because in Japan, the most common language by far is Japanese. English will kind of get you places like it, it works, it helps. 

Um, but the main one is Japanese. And as an example, tons of Japanese people in Japan actually like don't speak English to a level to where they can communicate and they live a perfectly happy life in Japan. And it's like, they've never considered like moving out. 

Cause it's like, oh, well, it's kind of annoying. Cause then I have to speak a different language. Uh, so like, you know, if you really want to enjoy every part of Japan, you have to, you have to learn Japanese and you have to learn it like a lot. 

And it takes a long time to learn. I'm not even done learning my Japanese. I just, I just like got to a certain level. 

And then I think my motivation went down because I was like, oh, most of the stuff that I want to do, I can do it now. But the truth is, um, there's always going to be more. Um, and that's kind of how it is with English as well.

And that's why I wanted to talk about it here. But like, uh, if you have like recently moved, um, and you're going to a new country, like, uh, you kind of have this feeling of like, oh, like, you know, I got here. Let me go ahead and start learning the language and stuff.

But then after, after a long amount of time, um, if, if you've learned it to a certain level, then that's great. But there's always going to be more like it's, it's, you're never going to be done. And there's always going to be new words. 

There's always going to be new slang and stuff like that. So even if you reach it like a really, really high level, if you don't keep up with it, like, like the, the bar kind of moves. So like the slang, there'll be new slang, there'll still be new words and it's influenced by like culture stuff. 

So like TV stuff, anime stuff, like these things all have an impact on language that people speak. So even in the US um, you know, if, if you like feel really comfortable with your English and stuff, um, the truth is you probably have been like, the more you use it, the better you get at it. And you actually are learning stuff. 

You just aren't explicitly like actually trying to like, Ooh, let me study this word. Like, uh, maybe you're not actually studying it, but you're still studying it through like a natural way. So I think language is a huge thing. 

And, uh, for anyone who like has no interest in learning Japanese, I think actually moving to Japan is something you should really, really reconsider because, uh, I think sometimes maybe through some online influence, like people say, like, Oh, like Japan's great. You go there and like, all the staff is really polite. And yeah, that's true. 

Oh, Japan's very safe. Oh yeah, that's true. Uh, and so like, we should just move to Japan. 

It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. There there's more to it. Um, you need to make sure that all the things that are really important to you are something that you can still find in Japan.

So like friends, friends, if you don't speak Japanese, you're like cutting out a huge percent of your potential friends. If you don't speak any Japanese, then I mean, how are you going to communicate with people? If hopefully they share some other language with you and you can chat with them and stuff. But, uh, yeah, like there are probably plenty of people that could be a good friend to you, but they can't communicate with you if you can't communicate with them. 

So language is a huge, huge thing. And you know, it's, it's, I'm, I'm like, I'm very related to the language field. I've been thinking about language stuff a lot for the past, like two, three years. 

So, so, you know, the stuff that I say, of course, I always say language is very important, but you know, just as a human moving from like the US to Japan, there were, there was a lot of tough stuff. There was a lot of difficulties about living in Japan. Um, and one of those huge things was just language. 

And I didn't even talk about culture yet. I had to cut the culture section. Oh, how sad. 

Um, actually, so we'll just go ahead and kind of end things here. Um, I have a, I had a couple of different things that I was, that I, that I was going to talk about, but, um, and I'm, I'm just mentioned them. So like, you know, cash versus credit stuff, uh, like the service. 

Um, so like the attitude of like service workers that work at like restaurants or like stores and stuff, and then like the rules, how strict rules are, but, uh, it's already been a pretty long podcast, so I'm just going to go ahead and end it here. And let me give the usual spiel, the usual sayings that I say at the end of the episode, but, uh, yeah, thanks so much for listening to this was episode 20 of good English podcast. 

And, um, actually before I end, I should mention, um, I had this one, I had, I was really lucky to have this one interview, uh, with this digital magazine.

And, um, if you're curious more about why I started this podcast, or you want to know more details, or if you want to know more details about me, then, I mean, you can feel free to read, I'm going to link it, um, in this thing, but, uh, I, I just want to say, like, I think the writer did a really, really good job. Um, it was a really easy process for me. I put in like very little work. 

I just appeared in the scheduled interview and then we chatted and stuff. And maybe I talked about some random stuff that wasn't related to the interview. Uh, but then, you know, then the person went and like, and like really processed it all. 

And then I've never read like an article about myself or like, even about like this podcast. Cause this podcast is pretty new, right? I started it this year in April and this is like, you know, my passion project. Like I love this thing. 

Uh, so then like reading about this, it's like, Oh wow. I wonder if they understood why I made it. And then, yeah, they did. 

And it's because it's like, it's my words exactly. So, um, this podcast, I have like certain ways of speaking and, and then I have certain ways of speaking, like when I'm not on the podcast and I feel like the person who wrote this article did a really good job of capturing it. And I'm like really happy with how I'm not misrepresented. 

Cause sometimes, you know, I've appeared on like other people's YouTubes and then I like, wasn't really happy with the way that they cut it. And they made me look like a bad person or something like that. But, um, if you want to check it out, definitely feel free to check it out. 

Um, I'm going to link it. It's called The Tokyo Talks. And then, uh, if you don't want to read it, it's fine. 

You don't have to do anything you don't want to do. And same for this podcast. If you want to listen to more, you can listen to more. 

If you don't want to listen to more, don't push yourself. You got to be protecting your energy and you want to be focusing on things that make you happy. So with that, let's go and end this episode. 

Uh, thanks for listening to this episode of Kuli English podcast. Hope to see you next time. Maybe Tuesday.