Hey guys! It's Linh here
Today I'm going to tell you 10 things you didn't know about Japan
These are all of the things that I have noticed so far since I started living in Japan
It's quite interesting and I think not that many people talked about this topic before
so I decided to share these 10 things with you guys
Here is number 1
If I ask you what year it is right now, for sure most of you will say that it's 2018
Or if you're watching this video in the future, maybe you will say that it's 2019 or 2020 or something
But let's not make it too complicated
The answer is … 30.
Do you know why? If you don't know why, I will tell you why! (too many why?! lol)
Japan is one of the few countries that still have Emperor
The reign of each Emperor is marked with a specific era name
Therefore, the years in Japanese calendar are identified by combining two elements
The first element is the current era name
and the second element is the number of years the current Emperor has reigned
For example, the name of the current era is Heisei
and by 2018 Emperor Akihito has been on the throne for 30 years
so 2018 is referred to as Heisei 30
The 4 most recent era names are Meiji, Taisho, Showa and Heisei
each corresponding with the rule of one emperor
The era names can be abbreviated by taking the first Chinese character
or the first letter of their Romanized names
Since the majority of government and official papers use Japanese year system
I normally have to use a website like this for conversion
As you can see, Shōwa 55 is 1980 and Heisei 22 is 2010
To be honest this system is quite troublesome and time-consuming
So this you in front an Apple store, extremely excited because you're about to get a brand new Iphone
Now that you're holding the new phone on your hand
you cannot wait to try out all of the features including the camera
As soon as you press the button, the shutter sound goes off so everyone was staring at you
No matter how many times you try, you still cannot turn off the annoying sound
All I can say is "Welcome to Japan!"
If you buy a phone in Japan, especially Iphone, it's likely that you cannot turn off the shutter sound
I think you should keep this in mind before purchasing a phone in Japan
I heard that the sound is there to prevent some perverts from taking photos under woman's skirt
It's also because of privacy issue, you cannot just randomly take photos of someone you don't know
My solution is that I always have a silent camera app on my phone
and this allows me to take photo without making sound
However, the quality of these photos cannot be as good as taken by a normal camera
Here you are in a clothing store in Japan and you found the perfect dress that you really want to try on
So you pick it up and bring it to the fitting room
Before guiding you to the room, the staff will give you a white piece of fabric
which you have no idea what it is
So this is how it looks like
It's actually a face cover that you use to prevent clothes from getting stained by your makeup
Sometimes the staff doesn't give it to you directly
but you can find it in a small box on the floor of the fitting room
There's a detailed instruction here but not every shop has this
so it may be confusing and it's a bit tricky to use
This is the face cover and I remembered when I first came to Japan, I was really confused
I didn't really know what to do with this
At first, I thought that they wanted me to use the face cover
so I won't ruin my makeup when I try the clothes on
However, I didn't do any makeup back then so I told them I didn't need it
Then they told me that they were asking me to use that to keep clothes clean, not because of my face
and I felt so embarrassed
In Japan, delivery is efficient, cheap, fast and convenient
This is actually one of the things that I love the most about this country
You have no idea how much I actually appreciate this
One of the most popular and trust-worthy logistic companies in Japan is Yamato Transport aka Kuroneko
Let's take a look at how much it costs
Sending a parcel from Okinawa to Hokkaido is only around 4000 yen for the biggest size
and it's only around 2500 yen for other areas
So I think you can get some ideas how cheap it is
It's also super convenient because if you want to send something
you can ask the staff to come directly to your house to pick the parcel up
or you can drop it off at a convenient store nearby
When you want to order something from the Internet or when you want to send something to someone else
you can always assign a specific arrival time that is most convenient for you. If you are
not home, they will leave a paper with their phone number and a code for your luggage so
you can ask for redelivery through the phone or through internet. Recently, you can also
message them to request redelivery. Sometimes It is also possible to order something,
for example from Amazon, and ask them to send it to a convenience store and you will pick
it up later from there. Number 5: Japanese customs and business manners
There are a lots of things that Japanese do very often but it's hard for you to know
these stuffs if you don't live in an environment surrounded by Japanese.
For example, I notice that when Japanese are with a group, they always stand in a perfect
circle. The more people in the group, the bigger circle it will be. I think if you pay
attention, you may see this quite often on the street, especially after a drinking party
or some kinds of meetings, people will just form a circle and talk to each other for the
last time before saying goodbye and heading to different direction. I found this quite
interesting because in my country, people will just stand at random spots. I don't
really know why Japanese do this and I'm quite sure they don't realize that they
do this kind of thing but I guess they do that to make sure that everyone can see what
is going on and can participate in the conversation. Another thing that you may have already known
is that Japanese bow a lot, especially in a business setting. Before I looked for a
job, I joined a business manner class and we learnt how to bow properly, and I actually
learnt the same thing again after I joined a Japanese company. We had to practice 3 different
bows: you can lean forward 15 degree, 30 degree or 45 degree. After you just have a meeting
with Japanese, they will take you to the elevator, press the button for you, wait for you to
get inside, and they will bow and will not return to their normal posture until the elevator
door is completely closed. So I just normally stand there and it's quite awkward for me.
Or if they see you off at the entrance, they will keep bowing and not go back inside until
you have walked far away from where they are standing.
One more thing that I want to introduce to you is the tejime. Te means hand and jime
means to close or to end something. It is a hand clapping custom performed at the end
of an event or a drinking party. There are several ways to do this, but I'm living
in Kanto area, so I'm only used to the ipponjime. Basically at the end of a party, one person
will give the last speech and after that the person willl ask everyone to put their hand
up like this and say yooooo then clap to mark the end of the party. I heard it is only called
ipponjime in Kanto area but in other places of Japan, they call this itchoujime and when
they say ipponjime it can refers to clapping your hand in 3-3-3-1 rhythm like this. They
also have sanponjime which is when you do this for 3 times. I only got to know this
after I started working in a Japanese company, so I guess not that many people have heard
of it before. Anyway, Japanese have a lot of stuffs like
these and many more but I could just briefly explain some of them today. If you want to
know more about Japanese customs and business manners, feel free to leave a comment down
below to let me know!
You will see this a lot in Japan Recently one of my friend who came all the
way from US to Japan for traveling and she asked me this question: Why do so many people
here wearing masks? Is it polluted or something? There are a lot of reasons to wear masks but
pollution is definitely not one of them. Many people actually wear masks because they have
pollen allergy or hay fever, or they wear it a lot during winter to keep their face
warm or to keep themselves from catching flu especially during the flu season. Also, when
people are sick, they will just cover their face with a mask to not spread it to other
people. Or some may use it to cover their face when they are tired or on days they don't
look super good so they don't want to show their face to people. Sometimes I also use
it so that I can sleep on the train without showing my open mouth to other passengers.
Wearing mask is so common in Japan that in any supermarket and convenient store, you
can easily find a big box of masks like this and inside there are a lot of masks. I don't
think it's very good for the environment so maybe I should stop using this. In my country
we normally just use the same fabric mask again and again but it's rare to see that
in Japan. People tend to just buy this and throw away after they use.
If you go to Japan, you will see people making hand gestures very often. The most common
ones are this X or this. They use it when they want to tell you something is not good
or not allowed. The opposite of that is this which means okay, or means that it is allowed.
If you are in a restaurant, you may notice people do this to the staff when they have
already finished eating and want to pay (cross finger) and it means Check, please!
A lot of Japanese people also point like this when they talk about themselves.
Another common gesture is this and it means money. You can say something like, oh I want
to travel to so many places but I have a problem with this and the other person will understand
what you mean perfectly. Also they use this finger to talk about girlfriend
and I heard this is used to talk about boyfriend. But I have actually never really seen anyone
using this before. But the girlfriend one is very common.
When you're in the middle of the crowd, you may see some people do this while they
are walking and it means that they want to get through.
These are just some of the most common gestures. Since I have many friends from other countries,
I know that the same hand gesture can mean different things depending on where you come
from. Does any of these have a different meaning in your countries? I'd love to know that.
Number 8: Throwing trash is complicated Yes throwing trash in Japan is super complicated.
First, it is confusing because you have to separate garbage into different types. The
rule of separation is different in each city and some cities require you to use a specific
type of garbage bag to throw them. For example, I used to live in a city called Beppu before,
and there we had 3 different types of garbage bags: Green, Pink and White.
Green bag is for combustible or burnable trash. Pink is for pet bottle, cans, and so on. White
is for incombustible and non-burnable trash. And the rest will be thrown separately. If
you have any big stuffs that you want to throw away, you have to call someone to come and
pick it up and of course you have to pay money to get rid of those stuffs. But where I'm
living now, we don't have specific type of garbage bags so we can use any kind of
bags and we also separate burnable trash and plastic trash. *Show green bag and pink bag*
For example, in this city, you can only throw burnable garbage on Tuesday and Friday, and
you can only throw non-burnable or pet bottles twice a month.
The second thing that makes throwing trash so complicated is that you have to follow
a specific schedule for example, …… (Show beppu schedule)
Forgetting to throw trash on the specific day means that you may have to wait for another
week or another month to have another chance to throw it.
Normally you will be able to receive this schedule from the city hall or from the real
estate agent when you move in any apartment, or sometimes you can download it from internet
too. Again the schedule is different in every city so you have to make sure you follow the
rules of the city you're living in.
Goroawase is a form of Japanese wordplay. There are many ways to read every number in
Japanese like they have Onyomi – the original Chinese reading of the Chinese characters,
Kunyomi – the Japanese reading, and English reading. Therefore, it's common to put a
series of number together and associate each number with a specific way of pronunciation.
They normally use this for telephone number to make it easier for people to memorize.
For example, we have this pamphlet of a musical play by Shiki Theatre company and you can
see the number to make a reservation right there.
489-444
Yo-ya-ku shi-yo-yo which means 予約しようよ Make a reservation!
Here is another example for you. 428255
Yo-tsu-ya-ni-go-go Yotsuya is the name of the school, ni means to, and go go literally
means go. So you can see they want to say "Go to Yotsuya!"
Therefore, it can be really interesting and people can really show their creativity with
this.
In Japan, everyone has a personal seal and it is known as Inkan or hanko in Japanese.
This will replace your signature and you're going to need it to make bank accounts, rent
an apartment, or when you fill out some official documents and so on. Sometimes you can just
sign but it's always better to have a personal seal. You can make it for a cheap price in
a seal shop, or if you're a Japanese with a common family names, you can probably find
one in Daiso or some 100 yen shops. You can make a seal with your initials, in alphabet
or in Katakana. There are different types of seal, sometimes
it comes in small container and a small ink like this show the seal box or you can buy
this kind of container and you can see there's small ink covering it so when you press it
down it works ? Be careful though because once you use a seal,
you should stick to using it. One time I couldn't find my old seal so I used the new one and
they didn't allow me to use it at the bank because it's not the same seal.
I heard that if you want to start a business in Japan, you will need to make 3 types of
seals which are representative seal, seal for banking transaction, and square seal for
everyday business transaction.
Alright, that was the 10 things you didn't know about Japan. Don't forget to leave
a thumbs-up if you enjoyed the video. Subscribe and turn on the bell if you wanna watch more
videos about Japan, travel and lifestyle. I'm posting new video every Monday. I wish
you a wonderful week and I will see you in the next video. Bye bye.
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