Tag: bullying

99 problems and I am all of them

(upbeat music)

  • It needs to use Japan.

We love our surveys, we love our stats.

And sometimes it makes me wonder like,

how do you come up with
an idea for your survey?

Like, where’s your brain at?

Because they did a survey on whose
poop smell are you worried about more?

So are you more worried about when you go
into the toilet and you make a poop smell?

You’re worried about
that being very stinky?

Or are you more worried about other people’s
poop smell maybe lingering in the toilet

when you go in after them or maybe even,
you know, it’s a side-by-side situation?

54.8% of people in Japan.

This is a 400% survey, 50% men, 50% women.

54.8% were concerned about their own smell

and 20 to 40 year-old
men were sort of the most,

I don’t know what
you would say, serious,

concerned, I concerned
about their own smell.

They answered that they were
always concerned with their own smell.

71.8% of people were bothered
by the smell when entering a toilet.

Now, I agree, bothered by the smell,

but also it’s in necessities,
like people are in their poop.

So if a place is gonna smell, I’ve
always had this thing about fart.

So you’re in a public toilet.

If you’re a man, you’re
in a urinal, let’s say,

and part of the process is
sometimes you have to fart.

And farts are saunarous, they are, and
they announce their presence sometimes.

So is it socially acceptable to fart loudly

in a public toilet when
someone else is there?

Because I see, okay, my feeling is,

it would be acceptable to
fart and everyone laughs.

But I’ve noticed that
when I’m in a public toilet

and someone else is in the public
toilet with me, I don’t want to fart.

I don’t want to announce to the world

that I have bodily functions.

And this is kind of what
the survey is looking into.

It’s like, these are things we
have to do, you have to poop.

I just wanna get that message out there,
you have to poop, you have no choice.

59.3% said they held the poop as long as
possible, they tried not to poop in public.

54% of women were not
comfortable pooping at all

in public if possible.

So they would try to never poop in public.

38.1% of men don’t wanna sit on
the toilet seat while they’re out.

Now my thought when I saw this survey was
like, how would you come to the conclusion?

Or how would you have the
idea to conduct this survey?

I wouldn’t be like, of
all the things we need

to survey in the world, of
all the ideas and thoughts

that exist in the world.

Which one do we wanna explore the most?

We wanna explore, are you
concerned about your poop smell?

Are you concerned about pooping?

How does poop, again, it’s a necessity.

It’s a thing, maybe this is
something we should talk about more.

But it turns out that this
is a pharmaceutical company

and they produce a pill and the pill
will reduce the smell of your poop.

Now I wouldn’t
pay money for that.

But if you are one of the 54.

8% of people who are always
concerned with the smell of your poop.

And I’m assuming in
public, ’cause I get at home,

I would turn the fan on
and not really think about it.

You could buy this product.

So it was really just like a
survey to get open the door

towards a conversation
towards a sales pitch.

Which is not disingenuous,
but it kind of puts a little bit

like, “Ah, of course,
on it at the end.

” This is a first time event.

So that’s why it’s exciting.

The actual crime and stuff
is not the particular injury.

There’s an interesting aspect to it.

Well, let’s get into the story.

China gives three people
suspended prison sentences

for one, running what is considered to be
the largest Japanese anime piracy website.

It was accessed 300
million times over two years.

We’ve shut down last year.

There’s a group called Koda.

And they basically
gathered all the information.

They brought it to the Chinese government.

They said, “These are the
people that’s prosecuted them.

” And the Chinese
government did.

There’s a lot of back and forth sort
of hate between China and Japan.

And so these stories
where they work together,

I find that kind of
inspiring ’cause it means

that yes, there is an
ability to move forward.

And then there is a lot of ripping on China

’cause, you know,
copyright law is privacy law.

These things don’t exist in China
is sort of a general stereotype.

But this shows that they will
take copyright laws seriously.

They will do things essentially
if you make it easy for them.

The Koda group brought all the
information to the Chinese prosecutors.

I don’t know who exactly.

The interesting part to
me was the punishment

was suspended sentences.

So that means there’s essentially
on probation for X amount of years.

China, in my mind, when it prosecutes,
when it finds you guilty of a crime,

is not a kind gentle
country to be prosecuted in.

Like the punishments are harsh.

So when I heard suspended
sentence, I was like,

Ha, ’cause suspended
sentence really means like,

okay, you’re on probation
for X money years.

If you don’t get in trouble for those
X money years, nothing happens.

The other point was, 37 million
yen was made in advertising

from the website.

No penalties were brought to them.

They don’t have to pay any
money back to the copyright holders.

They had to shut down the website.

They essentially are in a
position where if they don’t get

into trouble, they get to
just keep the 37 million yen.

And I was like, ah, you
know, for this to really be an

effective punishment, you gotta
take that money away from them.

So it was three people to
cite on or into other people.

They were all arrested,
they were all found guilty.

And then nothing happened.

So that sort of put me on the other side.

I was like, hey, this is great.

China’s taking Japanese copyright seriously

and stopping this piracy site.

But then suddenly it’s
like, but also they’re not.

So I was a little torn.

I don’t know where I land on that.

But it is the first time this
prosecution has actually happened.

It’s the first time code has been involved.

It’s the first time these.

Yeah, I don’t know how I feel at all.

It sounds good.

And then it seems like they did nothing.

It sounds like they
like almost lip service.

And I guess that is never
going to be satisfying.

There was a teacher
at a junior high school.

And if you know anything about
kids, especially to a certain age,

kids in junior high school, they’re
still have that youthful meanness

that little kids have that
almost sometimes they’re mean.

They don’t even intend to be.

Like they’ll point out your
physical flaws or something.

Not really intending to
hurt your feelings, but then it

really strikes home because
it really hurts your feelings.

Junior high school kids
have now gotten a certain

verbal acuity that
those little kids don’t.

So they can like fine tune the
pain they cause to other people.

I would say junior high
school is pretty hardcore.

And anywhere, I’m not talking about Japan.

I’m talking about anywhere.

And we know that kids
can be straight up mean.

Several students had been
making fun of a teacher,

mainly of his body, his physical self,

by referring to him by an
anime character’s name.

They don’t say which anime character because
that would actually increase the insult.

I should this guy’s picture ever
show up on TV or something.

So let’s just as an example say Totoro.

So that would imply that
he was large, roundish, maybe

had that kind of face, or
they called him one punch man

because he’d been losing his hair.

They made it very clear
in all the stories I read.

There were multiple stories

that this was about
his sort of physicality.

So it was about a shape.

So this might be more similar
to when people call Gigi Pang,

Winnie the Pooh.

And he doesn’t like it.

So he tries to shut that down.

It gets to him.

And that’s the problem.

Like that’s actually the problem.

If you’re gonna be a junior high school
teacher, you can’t let this stuff get to you.

So let’s give you an example.

A real life example from my own experience.

I was teaching about 12,
13 year old girls in this class.

It was like my second year in Japan.

And I had at that point
started to lose my hair.

I had what you would might
call a severe widow’s peak.

Let’s just give you a
sense of the physicality

for if you’re listening
to the audio version.

There’s a reason I wear hats all the time.

It’s ’cause I’m not proud of my hair.

So this grow walks up to the board.

It just goes, you are M.

I was like, I don’t know what that means.

And being a teacher, I was like, I
wanna understand what you’re saying.

I care about what you’re saying.

What you’re saying means something to me.

I wanna like foster the
relationship between the two of us.

So she goes up to the
whiteboard and she puts an M

on the whiteboard and she goes, you are M.

I’m like, I still don’t understand.

And then she draws a little eye underneath

under each widow’s peak
and a nose and a mouth.

She says, you are M.

Now, she thought ’cause
she was being a really mean,

13 year old girl that
she was gonna tear away

’cause like men are obviously very
self-conscious about losing their hair.

This is a very hurtful thing.

I’m doing, I’m gonna break him.

I started laughing, I
started laughing so hard

because I just came
out of left field for me.

I had no idea what she was talking about.

I was like, that was a wicked insult.

Good job young lady.

And that actually kind of broke her.

She didn’t, ’cause she didn’t
get the reaction she wanted.

I actually was like
really impressed

by the work she put into
it that she was kind of like

deflated, didn’t show
up to class very much.

After that, if I’m being honest.

So these students were referring to
this teacher by an anime character name.

So I’m gonna go with Totoro,
even though I don’t know

that’s the name, but it
just, it gives you sense,

like, hey, they’re going, hey,
Totoro Sensei, Totoro Sensei.

Ha ha ha, Totoro Sensei.

And then two years,
dudes like, had enough.

She grabs the student by the waist
and then throws him to the ground.

Now, there have been multiple
stories with varying amounts of details.

Another story I read said, grabbed
the kid by the shirt, shoved him

and punched him in the torso and head.

Now, the kid had some bruising.

And they say it took a week to heal.

He didn’t, like he wasn’t
like hospitalized or anything.

But this is an adult Totoro Sensei’s
man beating up a high school kid.

And it turns out May 2023,
he put his student in a headlock.

Now, one story said us student.

Another story I read said the same student.

So he’d actually, this is the second time,
potentially he’s attacked this student.

He apologized, he
says, look, I just lost it.

And I beat up a little kid.

And he got a one ton, no, no.

And he got a one-tenth
pay cut for three months.

I, again, this is another story, I’m torn.

You have a teacher
whose, the kid’s words got

to him so much he
physically assaulted a kid.

I feel sympathy on both sides.

I feel sympathy for the teacher
because he had to put up with this

and obviously drove
him to what is essentially

a breaking point.

But the reality is he attacked a kid.

Personally, I think when you grab a kid

and throw him through a
ground, you lose your job.

I’ve done teaching for
years and years and years.

And as per example, my
story, I’ve dealt with these kids.

You can’t let it get to you.

You have to look at it as, wow, did
the kid do a good job insulting you?

Did they do a good job?

Have they really done some creativity?

Have they created?

Have they learned how to
use their words appropriately?

This might be what you need to foster.

Jade is just put in the chat.

Kids need to learn the fuck around
and find out method sometimes.

And I agree with that
if you’re not a teacher.

So if this exact same
event had happened with

neighbors, I wouldn’t be
as upset with the neighbor.

So like they were calling
the neighbor torto, torto,

torto, torto, torto, torto,
and then the neighbor

just grabs a kid and throws him to the
ground and be like, pff, kid deserved it.

Don’t mess with adults.

But because it’s a
teacher and a teaching role.

But yeah, don’t assault your students, yes.

You are essentially
putting yourself in a position

where you’re going to be in close
contact with these kids every day.

They’re going to try
to get under your skin.

That’s the bit you, as a
teacher should know this.

And if you know they’re going to try to
get under skin, you can’t let them do it.

Because that’s what real success is,

is they come at you
again and again and again.

Like waves off of, okay, I’m not.

It’s like the thing there’s
an erosion metaphor

in there if I do that
waves on a cliff.

It doesn’t work out because
the waves always win.

Essentially, this guy probably doesn’t
have the temperament to be a teacher.

If calling you torto, torto,
torto, over and over again

is going to get you to the
point where you actually

assault children, you
shouldn’t be a teacher.

Yes, if it’s a different
situation, rec that child.

If I was in a different situation
and I was like out in a park

and some kids started harassing
me and like I, I could see it happening.

But the thing is, it did
take this man years to

break, but he did break
and that’s the problem.

So I honestly don’t believe
you should be a teacher anymore.

(upbeat music)

Anyo’s chairman, we
did a story on the Anyo’s,

there’s chairman, CEO and president.

They have all three and
like just make sure they’re

going like, isn’t that
all this the same job?

Is the CEO not the
president, is the president,

not the chairman, are these not?

Or is it just like dudes
circle chirken each other

at the C suite of a company?

Anyo’s is an oil company
and the last tirade I went on

about Anyo’s is how
gross oil companies are.

And how gross men are,
especially old executives.

Anyo’s decides to come
through and it’s just like,

let’s just prove this
again and again and again.

The Anyo’s chairman was
fired over sexual harassment.

Last December, the president
was fired for sexual harassment.

And in 2022, the CEO was fired.

Oh, forced to step down
for sexual harassment.

My company has like five presidents.

company has like five presidents.

I understand president of
something, like president of technology.

So the CEO of technology or not CEO,
because that’s a chief executive officer.

But the CTO, the chief technology officer.

Oh, sicky horror.

The position joke was good then.

I didn’t even do that on
purpose from being honest.

There was a joke I did an
unintentional joke a couple weeks ago.

But someone actually came up and
was like, that joke was really good.

I had no idea what he was talking about.

But I just took the compliment.

I think it’s because now I’m just
talking about these things in this way.

The jokes are built
in unintentionally.

But I haven’t think I
want to script them out.

But my actual thing last time
was oil executives are gross people.

And they get away with raping the earth.

And why would this not translate into them?

It’s actually harassing people
around them and thinking it’s fine.

Anyos needs to hire a non-pervert.

And that I would turn the company around.

And they’re not going to
do it because it’s the people

hiring these guys, putting
these guys into the position.

It’s other guys like that,
putting them into the position.

That said, just wait for the next story.

Okay, the mayor of
Guinin is a city in Gifu.

And he has announced his resignation.

There was an accusation
made and the accusation was

that he was sexually harassing staff.

And an independent inquiry happened.

And the mayor, the results
came out in the mayor quit.

They found 99 instances of the
mayor sexually harassing staff.

So that’s 99 different people,
not 99 sexual harassment cases.

Because I could harass someone 99 times.

And it would be the same person.

So they would technically be one case.

He did it like napalm, carpet bombing,
the entire office, city hall, whatever.

Because he didn’t limit it to staff.

He actually sexually
harassed counselors and

other people in fairly
important positions.

And so the inquiry
recommended the mayor quit.

He did.

The 99 instances of the
mayor included touching

boobs and butts, which
could be indecent assault.

So it’s not just sexual harassment.

He flashed the whole office.

I understand.

No, it was physical.

He’s touching people.

He’s he’s he’s doing little
squeezes every now and then.

It’s what I do to Dave all
the time, but Dave likes it.

I just opened myself up to
some big problems right there.

So they did a survey of the staff
mail in female and 80% of the staff

reported being either
sexually harassed or bullied

so power harassment
by the mayor of Guinin.

So then of course he quits and then
he has to apologize because it’s Japan.

You always have to apologize.

I love this dude’s apology because
you can tell he’s not sorry, you know.

He said in his apology,
there are parts where I am not

convinced of the grounds for
the sexual harassment claims.

Like all the claims seem to
come from like just women.

I don’t know what this means.

So the funny part to me is by
saying that he’s not convinced of the

grounds for the sexual harassment claims is
he’s saying that all 99 claims are false.

Is he saying that some
are false and some are true?

Because he’s apologizing, but then
also saying, but I don’t really believe

that this was sexual harassment that
I don’t really think I did anything wrong.

So I’m quitting because you
guys are all like pussy bitches.

But you know, this is further reinforced.

He had been chided by the deputy mayor.

So the deputy mayor comes to go, hey,
mayor, maybe stop touching the boobies

and butts of all the staff, like
maybe maybe don’t do that.

And he’s when his response
was, we are of the same generation.

So I laughed it off.

So the deputy mayor is like, hey, mayor,
maybe don’t touch the staff’s boobies.

And he’s like, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I get what you really saying.

Yeah.

And then he’s probably like, hey,
don’t say sexual things to the staff.

Don’t touch their butts.

And he’s like, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

They might even get said like, hey,
maybe don’t, but try to bully the staff.

But they like it.

Okay.

This is an interesting thing.

Ignat’s just put into the chat,
but they like it from his perspective.

I’ve always found this very interesting.

I bet if you did a lie detector
test with this man and said,

did the staff appreciate your advances?

He would say, yes, and
it would come out as true.

I know lie detector tests are not
actually reliable, but yeah, I’m saying

conceptually that he
believes what he’s saying.

And he believes what he’s doing.

And there’s no way you
can convince them otherwise.

He had someone again
of the same generation.

So a guy similar age similar status saying
to him, Hey, what you’re doing is too much.

And he’s just like, yeah, buddy.

Yeah, we’re doing it.

That’s not how Japanese
men behave, but that is now my

mental interpretation of the
conversation is, uh, hey, Kevin.

Kevin is the mayor of Guinea. Hey, Kevin.

Maybe you could ease back on the,
the, what I see is sexual harassment.

And then Kevin here’s where
I goes, yeah, that’s my ASMR.

I’m just going to cut all those like
fake laughing clips and put them together.

Make that’s my new ASMR podcast.

It’s just the mayor of Guinea and laughing.

Um, a new podcast coming to the chunk
of view test pod network of podcasts soon.

[MUSIC]

The Fowl and the Furious

(upbeat music)

  • A man feels he’s being
    power harassed at work.

I mean, have we not all
felt that way in dignity?

At being, essentially,
slate, wage slaves

felt like the world
treats you unfairly well,

I mean, it’s pretty common.

I think that’s pretty fair.

So he’s like, I’m going to get revenge
on my power harassing boss and company.

They haven’t taken care of me.

I’m going to do the most
sensible thing I can do.

I’m not going to go make a complaint.

I’m not going to go to HR.

I’m not going to try to deal with this.

I’m going to set some
cardboard stands on fire

at a company warehouse.

He managed the fire.

The fire manages to burn
30,000 of 53,000 square meters.

In total, there were
109 employees inside

the warehouse, but
there were no casualties.

So that’s why this move, this
story can get an industry pan

because the destruction
of property is funny,

the destruction of
human life, not so much.

That wasn’t enough for him.

He tried it again at a different warehouse.

So he wasn’t going for the 30,000.

He was going for the full 60,000 square
meter point, whatever points that gets you.

The total damage was 20 billion yen.

So he’s been arrested.

He’s admitted to the charges.

I get the odd feeling.

This might not go his way, 20 billion yen.

You can convert that into dollars.

It’s still like $200 million.

This was a warehouse for Hitachi,
which makes a lot of electronics.

So I’m assuming a ton
of electronics in there.

That’s how the price got so high, so fast.

I don’t know what to say.

Not the best resolution
to the issue at hand.

I think that’s a very standard Ninja
News Japan resolution to a problem.

You’ve gone the wrong direction
in dealing with your problems.

More so, if you’re angry
about power harassment

at work, do you think
prison’s going to be better?

That might be the message I have to
these guys who are going off the rails.

Before you decide to
set fire to something that’s

going to burn down a
warehouse full of billions of yen

worth of materials, do you
think prison is going to be better?

Because you’re probably
thinking, oh, I’m not

going to get caught or something like that.

Well, you are.

Because like me, you’re
not a professional criminal.

I’m trying so hard not to
get into the criminal mindset.

Give advice to the criminals, whatnot.

It’s where my brain goes first is like,
how do you get away with this or whatever?

We’re not doing it.

I’m trying to at least cut down.

I’ll do it maybe on the more interesting
crimes, the more unique and unusual crimes.

That’s my promise to you for this new year.

2024 going forward.

I will only give advice
to unique and interesting

crimes, criminals,
crimes, criminals, both.

Japan, once again, got the fossil
award for its reliance on coal plants.

So you might think,
Japan, technologically

advanced country, doing
a lot for green energy.

Interestingly, Toyota
has 20% of its European

car sales are going to
be a mission list by 2026.

Electric, it’s a combination
of electric and fuel cell cars.

The European ban– this is because the
European ban is going into effect by 2035.

So every car in Europe has
to have no emissions by 2035.

All Lexus’s, Lexi, are going to be a
mission list by 2035, 2030 in Europe.

So they want to make sure the Lexus
can be sold in Europe, uninterrupted.

They’re clearly putting a lot of
effort into these technologies.

Toyota’s a big company.

It’s essentially a national
company at this point in Japan.

The issue– there’s two aspects to this.

Japan has won the fossil award
in 2019, 2021, 2022, and 2023.

It seems a bit much to me.

Because the fossil award
is not really an award.

It’s like an insult.

Your country is too reliant
on non-green energies.

We’re going to try to
embarrass you into doing better.

Japan, certainly
deserving of some criticism.

Japan has– because it’s not a
particular resource-rich country.

It’s an island.

They have to import a lot.

They import from other countries.

Other countries, you buy your stuff.

You’re going to buy
from the cheapest place.

And the cheapest places are going to
use cold refineries and what? This is it.

There’s still a lot of
cold refineries in Japan

to make up for the significant
loss of nuclear energy,

the Fukushima thing, really
put a damper on nuclear power.

Three-mile island.

OK.

Something I’d learned about,
which was a bit shocking to me.

Three-mile island happened, long time ago.

And it really put a damper on nuclear power

being adopted worldwide.

Apparently, if we had adopted
nuclear power at the same rate–

so let’s say, three-mile
island had not happened.

And the progress of
nuclear energy had continued.

We would not be having
a climate crisis right now.

So if we were using nuclear power,

consistently improving it,
upgrading it, that kind of stuff.

At this point, in our lives, we would not
have to worry about the climate change.

But because three-mile
island happened and

people got very skittish
about nuclear energy,

we now have a separate
crisis we have to deal with.

I just found that
it’s the unintended

consequences of a lack
of progress in one place.

I have Fukushima.

Yes, it was smashed.

Yes, it doesn’t work now.

You are talking about an
incredibly old nuclear power.

plant that was hit by an earthquake
and Tsunami and did not explode.

So great, it’s not perfect,
but this incredibly old thing–

because it was built ages
and ages ago– didn’t blow up.

And so I put a lot of faith in the
engineers who created these things.

I think if you did nuclear
power with modern engineering

practices and safety
standards, nuclear power

would be easily the
safest thing we got going.

But who listens to me?

Anyways, Japan gets the fossil world.

That’s one thing, the nuclear energy part.

The other thing is, Japan’s
now gotten it four years in a role.

And I feel like the group is
picking on a very safe target.

Because they could give it to China.

China uses a lot of coal
power, a lot more than Japan.

India– India uses a lot more than–.

I mean, it’s a lot more
dirty energy than Japan.

Why is Japan getting
it over and over again?

So there’s a thought process there.

Like, hey, we can pick
on countries that all react

negatively and maybe
actually try to do something.

I don’t know.

I don’t think China or India
would actually do anything.

They’d probably just ignore it.

If you gave the fossil world to
China, they’d be like, thanks, an award.

You give it to Japan.

They have to pretend
to be a shame like, oh, no.

We have to take this seriously.

Actually, again, Japan really
realistically is just ignoring as well.

This is not a real thing.

It was just interesting to me.

It’s like this group is like we want to
give out this award to embarrass a country.

Let’s not give it to
the ones that are scary.

Let’s give it to the safest
one we can give it to.

It’s just– it’s dumb.

It’s dumb.

This is like the streamers
who go around causing trouble.

Because we had the Johnny Somal.

We had the European dude who
did the trains for free and stuff.

Why did they do it in Japan?

Because in their view, Japan was the place

where they’re going to get
the least amount of trouble.

They’re going to get a Johnny Somal.

I don’t actually know
what’s happened to him.

I tried to find out.

I think he’s in jail.

He certainly was going
through the whole process.

I was getting clips on the Internet.

It seemed like he was out.

But then it also seemed like he was gone.

A bunch of them went to Thailand.

Thailand is not going to put up
with your shit as much as Japan is.

Japan takes the time and builds the case,

but actually gives you
enough time to get away.

So the guy from Europe
who was getting on the trains

for free, he left before
they actually arrested him.

But why do they choose Japan?

Because Japan, even if I get in trouble,

that’s a safe, nice country, and
I’m not going to eat, but you do.

No country is going to put
up with your shit that much.

It’s just got this image of the place

where you could basically
fuck around and not find out.

And it is interesting now that
people are sort of finding out.

Has nothing to do with
the actual story I was doing.

Tangent Sohoy.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Tokyo, the city, has decided to make high
school free, including lunches from 2024.

This is great.

I think free education is very important.

I think it’s great.

The interesting thing is that
this sounds like a great policy

until you realize tuition in
Tokyo was basically already free

for any home making
less than $9.1 million yen.

So the only beneficiaries
of this new policy

that sounds very generous
is actually rich people.

So you had, again, the
average salary for Japan

four to five million yen.

So we’re just going to say 4.5 million yen.

So $9 million yen is
probably a dual income.

It’s two people working full time.

So essentially, if
you didn’t have a dual

income family, high
school was already free.

Maybe you had to pay for lunches.

So the lunches free, that is nice.

So the real only beneficiary
of this new Tokyo free high

school, including lunches
policy, is rich people.

So it’s not really as good.

It is still good.

I don’t want to like crap on it.

I think education be as
free as much as possible,

educating people is always a good thing.

I did run into this question.

So we talked about free
education in one of my classes,

and I was talking to one of my students,
and a lot of my students are older.

And I said, well, do you
agree with this? Is a policy.

Do you think going forward,
people shouldn’t have to pay

for school, people shouldn’t
have to pay for this stuff?

And a lot of my students
would immediately go, no,

I had to pay for it, therefore
they have to pay for it.

I had to pay for it, therefore
they should have to pay for it.

And I said, I kind of trumped them.

I said, so you don’t believe that things
should improve for future generations.

And they were like, what?

You know, of course I
believe that, but you just

said, because you had
to pay, you had to suffer,

you had to do this, therefore the following
generation should also have to do that.

So anything I’ve had to
pay for, or any suffering

I’ve had in my life, I actually
don’t want my kids to go through.

So if I had to pay for
school, I would be super

happy if my kids didn’t
have to pay for school.

I would be super happy if their
kids didn’t have to pay for school.

That is the evolution of society.

So anyone who’s holding
onto these arguments,

like I had to do it, therefore following
generations should have to do it.

You can always hold that in the back
of your head as a counter argument.

So you don’t believe in progress,
you don’t believe in change.

And everyone goes, no, no, no, I
believe in making the world a better place.

Everyone wants to make that statement.

But if you believe in that for real,

then you should hope,
believe and push for the lives

of everyone who comes after
you to be better than your life.

And a lot of people can’t accept that.

It’s an interesting
dichotomy in the human mind.

It goes along with prisons.

Our prisons designed
to rehabilitate or punish,

because those two
things cannot go together.

If prison is to punish someone, you are
not going to make them a better person.

If prison is going to rehabilitate
them, it cannot be a terrible experience.

So putting those things
together, like the ideas,

the concepts, because
everyone who wants to put people

on their prison will say,
this is to rehabilitate them.

But then you say, well, prison is an
awful place that makes people unhappy.

It causes depression.

It does a whole bunch of horrible things.

It gives you PTSD.

You probably get attacked.

You have to probably have to
fight for your life at some point.

I am thinking, of course, about
the worst cases of prisons.

That does not rehabilitate people.

That makes better criminals.

That makes tougher,
meaner people who come

out of prison and are
more likely to reoffend.

If you want to rehabilitate people,
you have to put them into prison.

Prison has to be relatively comfortable.

It has to have counseling.

It has to have a lot of benefits
to make them better people

and realize how they could improve their
lives and make the world a better place.

The dichotomy of these
two concepts never work out.

When you actually try to
have a real conversation,

so you have to ask people what they
believe and then called them out on it.

So do you believe in prison?

Do you believe it should
be to rehabilitate or punish?

And then when they say one, you have to
hold them to it and talk about the results.

If you believe the world should improve,
then the idea that you had to do something

therefore further generation
should have to do it.

Should not stand.

I clicked the button too soon.

Because Japan
universities are going to be

free if you have three or more kids
from 2025 with no income restrictions.

Also, it just means it’s
benefiting rich people.

So I have two kids right now, literally,

if I had another baby, I wouldn’t
have to pay university for my two kids.

Would be having the third child offset
the cost enough for it to be worthwhile?

Not for me at this stage of
my life, because I’m plus 50.

Having a baby now means when my
baby is 20, I’m going to be in my 70s.

So that’s a bit much for me
to start another baby’s life.

But conceptually,
again, for the people who

come after me, this
is a really good thing.

So Japan wants to,
having trouble with the

birth rate, they are
struggling with the concept

of what the problem is
with people having babies.

University fees are not the problem.

People are not saying I don’t want to
have children because of university costs.

It is nice.

It’s a benefit, and I don’t
think we should get rid of it.

But it’s not dealing with
the core issue of people

getting down and dirty,
dropping the bottom out of it,

laying pipe, whatever romantic phrase
you want to use for sexual intercourse.

I have my personal beliefs.

My personal belief is the
problem with the declining

birth rate in Japan is the
work, life, balance, culture.

People work too much.

They have no social time.

They have no free time.

They don’t meet people outside of work.

That means if you
don’t fall in love with

someone at work,
you’re not falling in love.

You’re alone.

You get used to being alone.

And then it becomes too
much trouble when you get older.

And that’s it.

Like you’re just done.

They need to get people to
stop working at a reasonable time

and go out and do stuff and have
enough money to go out and do the stuff.

That’s the secondary part.

If people are poor, they’re
not going to have babies

because they’re spending
all their time working.

If you spend all the time
working, you’re not going

to go out and have babies
because you have no time.

So you need time and money to meet people,
have relationships, and make babies.

A student had to write a diary.

This is a pretty normal school activity.

Is you write a diary and
you hand it into your teacher.

And your teacher marks it.

Just wants to make
sure that you’re capable of

writing sentences and
having thoughts and ideas.

This student was being bullied at school

and wrote in their diary.

It’d be better if I died.

And I wish I had never existed.

The teacher put what’s
called a hanamaru on

the sheet and then
commented, you can do it.

So hanamaru, let me explain what that is.

In Japan, when you do your work, what
the teacher does is they make a circle.

That’s the motto is circle.

And then Hana is flower.

So they make a circle.

They probably do a swirl.

And then they do
blossoms around the outside.

And it’s done on sheets.

It means it’s finished.

You did a good job that kind of stuff.

So hanamaru is a pretty common thing.

Elementary school, they just
kind of do it all over the sheet.

And it makes kids happy because they

get this big colorful swirl
that means you worked hard.

And then the comments, you can do it.

You can do it as an interesting comment.

I think what was actually
happening– there’s no confirmation.

This is my extrapolation
from the concept of A,

being a teacher and B,
knowing how much attention

people put into some of
the work they do sometimes.

I think the teacher wasn’t
actually reading the diary entries.

And if the student was
doing it, and the writing

looked pretty clean and neat,
they were doing hanamaru,

doing the thing, and then just writing
a comment, pretty standard comments.

Because, you can do
it and fight in Japanese.

Fight the whole.

Fight just means you don’t give up.

Try your best.

That kind of thing.

So what ended up happening?

Again, I think this is just ignorance
or a bit of laziness on a teacher’s part.

But this shows the
importance of if you assign

something to a
student, and actually, this

is a way the student was
reaching out to the teacher.

You’ve got to take that seriously.

I know it sucks.

I know reading kids’ essays and stuffsocks.

I’ve read essays.

I’ve written essays.

They all suck.

But the reality is, every now and then,
something like this that’s important happens.

So she gets in trouble.

She claims she did this
to encourage the student.

You can do it.

Is an encouragement.

The problem is you can
do it after the statement.

It would be better if I never existed.

And I should die is not the kind
of thing you want to encourage.

So she was encouraging the student, just
not the way she probably thought she was.

She apologized.

She got in trouble.

It’s all the kid to stop coming to school.

I hope the child is OK and
goes to a different school.

Don’t get into teaching if you’re not willing
to sit down and read two hours of shit.

Because that is a big part of your life.

But it shows that it is important.

Because in that shit might
actually be a call for help.

I’m just thinking about the
essays I wrote in university.

God damn, were they stupid.

And I was just every now
and then, feeling space.

I would not want to be my own teacher.

So you’re angry at the government.

We had that guy at the beginning.

He was angry at his company.

So he decided to set a warehouse on fire.

He had no concern for the
100 people in the warehouse.

That’s actually, to me, the scariest part.

He’s just like, I’m so angry,
I’m going to burn things.

I’m wondering if you thought
the warehouse would go up.

Or if you thought he was just going to burn
this like cardboard thing he set on fire.

But then once it started,
he must know the result.

And he went off to do it again.

So that makes it like egregious for sure.

He can’t claim ignorance at that point.

So anyways, let’s say you’re a person.

You’re over 50 years old.

The consistency of the
plus 50 year olds just losing

their shit and doing
whatever they want is amazing.

It seems like there’s
a switch in your head.

And when you get to a certain age
past 50, it either flips or it doesn’t.

So if it doesn’t, you stay
like a regular normal citizen.

But if it flips, you don’t
fucking care anymore.

You just do whatever you
want, whenever you want.

Because what the hell I’m
50, the thing is the thing I was

thinking mostly is it
50 or not retired yet.

Or at least most people aren’t.

I’m certainly not going
to be retired early.

So you’re 50 years old, you’re like me.

And like, I was like, I still got
like 10, 15, 20 years of work left.

If I got that much time, I
can’t just go doing random

dumb shit and fucking
up my life because I

still have to live a
certain amount of life.

Maybe if I win the
lottery, that switch flips.

And that was going to do whatever I want.

Anyway, so this guy’s
angry at the government.

And you know 50 years
old, angry at the government.

It’s time to get crazy.

A black car smashes
into the Hitachi City Hall.

And three people are injured.

30 minutes later, 15 kilometers away,

a white car crashes into
the Tokai Village office.

So this guy drives his car
into a government building,

gets out and says, you
know what, that’s not enough.

I’m going to get in a different car.

I’m going to drive 30 kilometers, oh, 15
kilometers away, 30 kilometers an hour.

I actually was sitting
there doing the math.

This is so dumb because of a high school

where they go like one train
is traveling at 60 miles an hour.

I started working out how fast he
was driving to the second location.

But of course, traffic and stuff.

It’s probably stopping to go traffic
because it is still in a small city.

30 minutes later, a white car
crashes into the Tokai Village office.

It’s the same guy he admitted to both.

I was so angry.

I took two cars and smashed
them into two buildings.

First of all, he has too many cars.

I bet it’s actually his car in his
mom’s car or something like that.

But he has too many access to too many cars

is clearly a problem if someone
is 50 years old and angry.

When he was arrested, he said, I
have a grudge against the village.

I mean, sure, you know what?

I bet if I go through my
life, I have tons of grudges.

I have a car.

I can’t run into building.

This is one of the benefits
of not being well off.

I’m not poor by any
means, but I’m not rich.

I could not reasonably
smash my car into something

because I was angry.

This story hit my newsfeed.

So I follow multiple newsfeeds.

This hit my newsfeed eight times.

It was a huge story across the news.

I can’t– it’s unique, for sure.

Maybe it’s because the
guy was arrested for this,

but OK, anyways, taxi
drivers at a red light.

And there’s a flock of pigeons in the road.

The light turns green.

Dude floors it as hard as he
can and hits one of the pigeons.

He kills one of the pigeons.

He probably maybe hit multiple,
but he hits one of the pigeons.

And he kills it.

A woman shouts out at
him like, dude, he’s psycho.

And he shouts out the window.

Roads are for people.

It’s up to the pigeons to avoid cars.

So his justification is, I
guess the interesting part

is he seems to think
that conceptually pigeons

would understand what a
road is and that it’s for people.

So he clearly hit these pigeons on purpose.

I think the woman– it’s not really clear.

It seems like the woman
then called the police.

This is verified by video footage.

This dude purposely
hitting a flock of pigeons.

He is then arrested
for killing a single pigeon.

Now, I’m not anti-animal.

I love animals.

I had a Dave in the background.

I don’t think he should hurt animals.

Getting arrested for killing a
pigeon seems like a lot to me.

But in Japan, there is the
violation of wildlife protection laws.

So he was arrested.

Imagine– he’s not going to jail.

But imagine paying a
fine for killing a pigeon.

And imagine hating pigeons so much.

You’re like, I’m going to mess up my car.

I actually wouldn’t hit
a pigeon because I don’t

want to clean it off my car.

It’s a very self-interested
reason to preserve wildlife.

But I’ve actually found a lot of my more
noble traits are actually self-interest.

I recycle a lot because I don’t like waste.

It has nothing to do with
saving the environment.

I’m like, it’s just wasteful.

So I should recycle
because recycling is good.

It’s not waste– that’s
a personal attitude,

it’s not necessarily a generous
attitude towards the world.

This came up more and more.

And I think this– a media bias
note– I found very interesting.

The first story was
taxi driver hits pigeon.

Second story is taxi driver hits pigeon.

About a day later, it’s
taxi driver hits dove.

Which I found a very interesting
shift because the tone changes.

Pigeons– a lot of
people don’t like pigeons.

They’re street rats.

They’re rats with
wings, that kind of stuff.

You’ve heard all those statements before.

Dove, on the other hand,
conjures a very different image.

But I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a dove A

in the wild or in Japan,
the time I’ve been in Japan.

So I forget what they called it.

It was like a rock dove or something.

They were just trying their hardest

to find a word other than
pigeon to create more sympathy.

That was the author of that final article

trying to change the context in the narrative
so that people would get more outrage.

So that’s something you have to be careful.

Media bias– it’s really good to go read
multiple sources when you read the news

because you will see
stuff like that happen.

And it’s very interesting
when you become aware of it.

So you become more
aware of everything you read

and the biases that are inherent therein.

OK, this is national news.

This to me illustrates what a
peaceful country Japan actually is.

Because this would never get
news time, I think, anywhere else.

I’ve never– I haven’t read the news
from every single country in the world.

I would love to do– this
would maybe be like, again,

if I’m rich and I had free time.

I would love to do not
just need to use Japan.

I’d like to do, you know, news Korea,
news Cambodia, news India, news Mongolia.

I would love to do a different
country essentially every day.

Every week do a different
country’s weird news.

It would be super fun.

But I don’t have time.

I live in Japan.

I read Japanese news anyways.

So it made sense to
just stick to one topic.

But weird international news on
a regular basis would be awesome.

If you find some weird
international news from

another country, it
doesn’t have to be Japan.

Send it to
chunkmanbeefchest@gmail.

com, or you can send a message to
speakpipe.com/chunkmanbeefchest.

And I will do a special episode, or I
might do a scenic beer or something.

I would love to do news
stories in the same way

from other countries just
because you know, expand.

Would I do, expand my
mind, expand your mind?

But that’s not what we’re talking about.

We’re talking about how peaceful Japan is

because this was national
news multiple times.

We’ve actually had a very
similar story to this before.

A woman bought a 110 coffee.

Now, what you do in
Japan and Canadian stores,

you buy a cup, and she
say, I would like a coffee cup,

and you get the coffee
cup, you give them 110 yen.

Then you go to a self-serve machine, you
put it in the machine, press the button.

Boom, Bob’s your uncle, you’re done.

She got her cup, she went to the machine.

She pushed the 190 yen cafe latte button
instead of the 110 yen coffee button.

The staff had seen her do
this on several occasions.

They then called the authorities.

I don’t know if she was arrested.

Again, I don’t know if
this is a rest worthy thing.

Someone has been arrested
for this in the past though.

She has made national
news in Japan multiple times.

Again, multiple news
sources picked up this story.

I don’t know what the goal is.

I think she claims she just
pressed the wrong button,

but she just pressed the
wrong button multiple times.

I actually weirdly think that is possible,

because let’s say you
just push the top button

or the bottom button or something
like you don’t think about it.

I could actually see someone
pushing the same button

incorrectly, regularly,
’cause all they care about,

let’s be honest, she’s
fucking trying to rip off 80 yen

from the Canadian store.

She is.

She knew exactly what she was doing.

This is a conspiracy, and it’s not right.

It’s such a small, pointless story,

but because it hits the news,
like on the news, in Japan,

this was on the news in the evening.

This was the evening news.

But show is how safe Japan is overall.

Where they’re like,
we’ve run out of stories.

Let’s report on this woman
ripping off a Canadian store,

80 yen, maybe five, six times.

So much so, an animation
was created to illustrate

what she was doing when she
was pressing the wrong button.

If you watched the YouTube
version, it’ll be up in the corner up here.

It’s just fucking insane.

But again, how great is Japan that way

when so little newsworthy things
happen that they have to talk

about stuff like this, because
they’re making this into an issue.

(chill music)

Good last story.

So you know, this is traditionally

where an Engine News Japan goes to the
creepy, creepy, creepy, creepy man story.

So at a Prefectural Budget
Committee Q&A session,

so you know it’s about to
get sexy and dirty up in here.

You have older men speaking.

And that really, if you’ve listened to
the News Japan for any length of time,

gives you all the context you
need for the rest of the story.

Older Japanese men have not updated
their way of thinking to modern times.

So I have always said to
people who come to Japan

sort of relatively new people,

that Japan is still kind of in the 60s.

So, hey, honey, slap in the
butt as the waitress walks away.

Wouldn’t be that unusual
here for an old man to do that.

Now, it is wrong.

And you will get in trouble for it.

That’s actually, again, how we get

the Engine News Japan final
stories is they always do these things.

because their brain hasn’t
caught up with the times.

Also, these men always are so much older

that their brain isn’t going
to change at this point.

They grew up thinking that
was acceptable behavior.

Times have changed, they have not.

This is government dudes
running their mouths saying stuff.

They say whatever comes into their head
because they’ve lived their whole lives,

people listening to them
saying that they’re smart.

And so now they think they are.

Well,

Takeshi, 69 years old.

Right there, again, everything I
needed to know in the one sentence.

Takeshi, 69 years old, government official.

He was going to ask a question, but
before he asks this question, he’s like,

“You know what, I’m
gonna make some comments

“about a local tea ceremony
event that was held in the town.

“Very kind, very generous.

” You know what he’s gonna do?

He’s gonna promote
the community he lives in.

Seems like a good idea.

So, again, we’re still on
the right track here, Takeshi.

Come on, buddy, you got this.

You’re going to promote a local
event with all the other people

and just say how great it
was, how you had a good time.

It’s a traditional tea ceremony event.

It’s gonna be, you know, Japanese culture.

All perfect, okay.

It was a local tea event put
on by high school students.

Uh-oh.

69 year old politician combined
with high school students

means that the next
thing that comes out of

his mouth has to have
a creepy element to it.

Guaranteed, there’s no
other way this can go.

His statement was,

the sweets made by the
female students, okay?

Already stopped right there.

He’s specifically saying
the female students.

That’s already, you can see with
the slippery slope he’s at the top of.

It’s not creepy yet.

The sweets made by the
female students were delicious.

Stop right there, okay.

You could’ve just said the sweets
made by the students were delicious.

Enough, perfect,
beautiful, everyone’s happy.

Has to keep going.

I also thought those two girls, oh, dudes,
picking out specific girls is dangerous.

He started down the slide.

I also thought those
two girls were beautiful.

Ah, 69 year old man complimenting
what I assume to be 15 year old girls.

Shouldn’t do it.

Just don’t say that part.

I also thought those two girls were
beautiful and a perfect score of 100.

Let’s just say saying they’re beautiful

was already pushing the
boundaries of acceptability.

But I think saying that some young people

are beautiful and they’ve
done an amazing thing.

You could’ve said
they’re wearing their

traditional commandos
and it was all beautiful.

No problem.

When you put a number on them,
you are clearly objectifying them.

And this is what I’m saying.

In his mind,

splitting a statistic on a
woman is not a problem

because his brain is back in the
60s when that’s what all these old men

probably sat around doing
in their 20s was sitting

around going like, ah,
you know, 80 out of 125.

Oh, 100, they were
doing that shit all the time.

I also thought those
two girls were beautiful

and a perfect score of
100, including the taste.

So he was saying
that their beauty was

100 and the taste of
the sweets was on 100,

but of course the taste
of the sweets came second.

And there is, again,
this other creepy thing

that Japanese people do,
like a beautiful and made this

and therefore it tastes better
’cause it’s all in your brain.

Another assembly member did the
political equipment of what the fuck dude.

So he just finishes statement.

This other assembly
person stands up and says,

what the fuck just came out of your mouth?

I don’t think you should
be rating students.

I don’t think you should be rating women.

I don’t think you should be
objectifying, shut the fuck up.

You fucking weird old man.

He did.

I mean, you want to give him some credit.

He did shut the fuck up and did
not continue with his statements.

I bet he would have gone on though
about how, yeah, I don’t even want to like,

because I guess I bet I
start getting in trouble.

Takeshi then afterwards
talking to the newspaper said

that he meant the taste was 100.

So not the, he wasn’t
objectifying the women.

He was putting a score on the sweets.

at those high school
students it made, which I

don’t believe, but I think
he’s just trying to cover

having said some dumb shit
because this is what politicians do.

They say dumb shit and
then they try to walk it back.

They’re not good at the walking back part

because they’ve never
had to do that before.

Takeshi said he meant the taste was 100

and he shouldn’t have mentioned looks.

His final statement is the
only really correct one he made.

He should not have commented
on the student’s looks.

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

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An Honest Podcast

So, I got time to make at least one. Don't know about next week. That's going to be close to the New Year's, but an episode in Ninja News Japan. Yay for the holidays. So, I hope you've had a good Christmas. This is coming out right after Christmas. I hope you have a good New Year. Celebrate safely and be happy. But what's going on in Japan? Stealth marketing has become an issue apparently. So, this is where companies pay influencers to pretend they like a product, but they don't make it clear that that product is actually an ad. So, it's like Instagram and they're like, oh, you know, I'm just going to talk about this product I really like. And they've actually been paid by a company to say that. 

The Japan Consumer Affairs Agency is going to classify stealth marketing as improper representation and make that sort of against the law. Now, I say sort of because of the punishments and whatnot. The reasoning is that this interferes with the consumer's ability to make rational purchasing decisions. And that's going to make you feel dirty. When I feel dirty, I use Pabron hand gel. I use Pabron hand gel. It uses ethanol to kill viruses and bacteria on your hands. Let's use a little bit now. It's gel, so it's a little softer. It's not as... You get that sound? That's all I want. Boy, you know, everything on my hands is dead right now. I sure do love killing things. Should something invade my personal space, I will use Asojeto. Use Asojeto to kill any bug that invades your personal space because we love to kill things. Put that away now. That was so dumb. 

All right, anyways. Basically in other countries, there's already regulations. Japan doesn't have any, so this is the first step towards making regulations. Right now in Japan, if you're an influencer and a company pays you, you don't have to say it's an ad. When I upload this to YouTube, there is a button that says includes paid promotion, which I'm supposed to click if I'm getting money for promoting a product, which has not actually happened yet, which is fine. I have promos some things, but that was usually not done for money. It was done for something else. I still click the includes paid promotion just to be safe, but that is only for other countries, actually not for Japan. I say it's not really a law because a lot of Japanese laws, they're vague and meaningless. This sort of to me follows into the same thing. The punishment for breaking this law, for being in violation of this, is naming and shaming. Basically, let's say I just promoted some Babylon hand gel and didn't make it clear that that was a paid promotion. 

Then they would say, Chomping Beef Chest that runs in Japan promoted a product and he got paid for it and he didn't tell anybody. Honestly, as someone who listens to the show or watches the show, would you care? I mean, if the ad was as obvious as I just did, okay, sure. I think the thing of fans of influencers wouldn't care. I guess it's supposed to be when they say stealth, it's like if I did a whole 20, 30 minutes infomercial basically on a product and how much I loved it. That would matter? If you were a fan, I think this is where it falls apart. If you're a fan of the influencer, the fact that the influencer did something to make money, probably wouldn't bother you if they did it slightly stealthy. But I think any reasonable young person who is watching something and they do a whole 20 minutes on let's say a nail care product or something, or perhaps Babylon hand gel, you would figure it out, I think. 

I don't know. I'd give kids more credit today that they're just growing up with this stuff and they kind of just know what's going on. But we'll see if that actually has any impact. I want to actually, again, with most of the laws and new things like that in Japan, I'm interested in the first cases to see how if it actually ends up having an impact, if it's someone that gets upset or angry about having being stealth marketed to, and then the revelation, and then what happens after that. This is unintentionally related, which I quite like. Chinese customers are making a rush on cold medicine in Japan. Basically people come over to Japan, it's either work or tourism or stuff, and they buy up all the cold medicine of a particular type. It's Babylon Gold.

 I actually just grabbed my Babylon hand gel because I got a big tub of it and it's what I fill up the little container that I keep in my bag for when I go to work and stuff, and I keep one on my desk. I do use, I have a weird preference for Pabron cold medicine. I use their allergy medicine when I have really bad allergy days. This is not, I'm not getting paid for this. This is not stealth marketing. I'm actually just telling you the truth. I use Pabron S for really bad allergy days. When I wanted to find a hand sanitizer, I did when I saw Pabron, I was like, ooh, a trusted name, and it's got the gold band. Pabron Gold actually has that image to me. I actually bought this. I was looking for the jelliest gel. It's not actually Pabron was the selling point. This was the thickest gel I could find in a large thing because I like to play with the gel. The longer I play with it on my hands, the more it's actually getting spread around and used, and the more likely I'm going to do it because I actually enjoy weirdly putting the gel on my hands a little bit. 

Just putting that out there, I actually do seem to be a bit of a fan of the Pabron line of products. Pabron Gold cold medicine is what these Chinese customers are looking for specifically. There's a part of the report was one business traveler bought 12 boxes, and then she said she was buying it for herself and her family back home because they said it's very effective against cold symptoms. They're actually thinking about corona symptoms, China having a particularly large problem because they won't admit there's a problem. They wouldn't take on vaccines from other countries, so they're struggling with coronavirus more so than other countries. Since it's believed to help relieve corona symptoms and they're having a lot of trouble back home, they buy boxes of this so they can use it at home when people get corona. This has also set off Japanese people noticing it's missing, so they start stockpiling it as well. You have now two frontal attacks. One, the Chinese people come in and they buy as much as they can, and the Japanese people see, oh, they're buying it also. I better buy some so that I have some when I get sick. Pharmacies are now putting a limit on how many you can buy. 

This became popular in China because Chinese social media said that Pabron Gold is effective. That was not... I'm not saying go buy it, but if you asked me what I recommend, I would end up recommending it. I'm in this loop now of I'm not being paid to promote it, but I absolutely would promote it because I do actually believe it's a good product. Is that better stealth marketing? Pabron better reach out to me pretty fucking soon. YamatoQ is the Japanese branch of QAnon. A bunch of guys were arrested for stomping into a vaccine site and making demands and trying to be disruptive and stuff, and they were all arrested for trespassing. There were five people total. They have all been given 18 months in prison with a three-year suspension. We've actually had a lot of... I didn't really think about what three-year suspension meant because it actually means nothing. You get arrested, you're going to prison for 18 months, but in three years if you don't get in trouble, nothing will happen. Anyways, the crime though was interesting because they... What the judge said was they committed the crime to force their opinion on others. 

The crime was trespassing, they're 18 months, three-year suspension. That's actually hard to argue with. Again, it was just interesting to see actual consequences for these sort of bold behavior, annoying actions. This was one of the weirdest stories for some reason in the last little while. In 2015, it's actually earlier than that. The lawsuit happened in 2015. Anyways, a former post office worker was working and her boss snuck up behind her and slapped tape on her face, on her mouth, and then ripped it off really quickly. She was freaked out. What did she say? I actually do it in order. I was just supposed to go off on a tangent. The tangent is that news tends to do the headlines and stuff and then get into the details, whereas actually if you do it in order, like in chronological order, it's sometimes more interesting, but that makes it harder to write. She said, that hurt, and then the boss said, shall I put lemon on it? Then she reported it to the postmaster. The postmaster then said, he's just teasing you because you're pretty, which is a little bit weird, but again, it's sort of that very dismissive old Japanese man attitude that we come across a lot. Like, oh, you know, you're pretty, he likes you. 

This is like you have a ponytail or pigtails and he's tugging on it because he thinks you're cute, but that doesn't address the actual core issue is that he just walked up to someone, slapped tape on their face, and ripped it off. She got really stressed out. She felt like she was uncomfortable going to work. She ended up not going to work. She ended up quitting. She sued her boss. She sued him for 17 million yen in 2015. This was years and years and years ago. She ended up just recently, the conclusion, she got 2.5 million yen. Now that's, again, the average salary in Japan is like between four and five million yen. She got basically half a year's salary, and that was seven years ago, so she's had to have other jobs and stuff since then. It's just weird, and then they like quoted the boss. What did the boss say? I did it as a prank to ease her mind because we were busy. Which does not sound legit. This whole thing is weird. I just sat there the whole time going, okay, I'm in my office, and it's really busy, and I see my coworker stressed out, and I want to relieve their stress. How do I do that? I would be like, hey, can I help you? Or, hey, is there any job that is sort of sitting in the background that you don't have time to do? 

Maybe I could do that for you. Something like that would alleviate the stress of your coworker. I'm trying to think of the logic would be like, okay, my coworker is stressed out. I really, really want to help them out. So I'll take some tape, I'll sneak up behind them, and I'll put it on their mouth. I'm also wondering if this was in front of customers because they said it was really busy, but put the tape on their mouth and then rip it off really fast so it hurts. I'm assuming if you left it there, it would still hurt. I guess if you take it off slowly, maybe it wouldn't hurt. How does that alleviate their stress? It would alleviate my stress as the sort of abuser, I guess, because I'm getting it out. I was thinking the same thing. Jade just put in the chat, free waxing. I literally was thinking the exact same thing. There is a moment of embarrassment if you look at the tape and there's a whole bunch of hair on it because, whatever, I don't want to. I have delicate skin and a fairly thick beard. I struggle with this because I need beard oil and stuff. If someone slapped tape on me, I don't know. It's such a weird other point of logic that got you to that point where you thought, here's a good idea that will help others. 

Kids are stomping around outside my room. Where do we go from there? I was trying to think of other sort of pranks, but then this is like internet pranks. Internet pranks, A, they're not funny and they're usually really mean. I'm glad that actually the trend has sort of fallen away from internet pranks where they're being shitty. I know a lot of it was fake and active and stuff anyways, but the now new fake trend on YouTube and stuff or TikTok is to do really nice, like give a homeless person money and stuff. Even if that's fake, at least hopefully someone's benefiting. If people see that and go like, oh, it's cool to be nice to people, I'm okay with that. Even if this is all fake and not all garbage, if the trend is towards being kind to others, I'm okay with it even if it's not real. But we've learned that the Japanese post system is full of people who think that the old style of pranking where you just go up and hurt someone and run away and go, ha, ha, ha, it's just a prank, bro. They think that's still cool. Well, a Brazilian woman of Japanese descent, so she lives in Japan. She's a 41 year old Brazilian woman, but her forebears were Japanese. 

So she's, I don't know, this is it. We've gotten into a point where the world where people move around enough and then they come back and stuff, we're all people. She went to apply for welfare. She was married and her husband got in trouble and he lost his job during Corona and then there was a problem. He drove without a license. His license expired and he was driving and he got in trouble and he lost his license and then lost his job. So there's a lot of problems in her life. Most of it seems to be not actually her fault. She's got two kids she's trying to take care of. So she went to the Japanese government, the ward office to apply for welfare. She was told that non-Japanese people don't get, if you're not Japanese, you don't get welfare. And then they said she should return to her home country. They provided her with false information. She went out and she's really confused. She's like, the ward office told me that I can't get welfare even though I'm a long-term resident. That is all incorrect. She came back with a lawyer and some friends and actually started getting the welfare she needed. But of course then it takes weeks, which is terrible. 

There is a thing that everyone should know if you're a long-term resident of Japan. So I'm a permanent resident, so I would qualify. But anyone who's been here for a long time, there is the Public Assistance Act and it says citizens who are living in poverty are eligible for government assistance. Now, it says nothing, it doesn't define what a citizen is, but a citizen is someone who lives in Japan. The government then made a statement. It concerns, oh, sorry, I have to get past that. That's the last part. So anyways, these officials are now getting in trouble for providing false information because actually as a government official, when you're asked a question about government policies, you're actually supposed to provide correct information. The news went to the government officials, the government office and said, what's going on? And they said, because it concerns personal information, we cannot provide any response at the moment, which is probably technically true, but also a way of not trying to get out of it. Someone in the ward office of that city needs to get fired because of the low-key racism that is unfortunately still a very common problem in Japan. So we've gotten to the end of the year. 

This is a very short News Japan because I only had so much time taking care of family, cleaning the house. I don't want to make excuses. Actually, I thought I wasn't going to get to do any. I got to do this. Pretty happy about it. It's the end of the year. So this is when you get compilation like best sports moments of the year. That's actually my favorite videos. You get best of's, top 10s, lists, but of course the best one that comes out, Pornhub's search terms of the year. So they actually do a really interesting report every year. It's how much time people spend looking at certain things, their search terms, regions. They have a map of America and the most searched term in each state, which is always really interesting because the more conservative states tend to do the most diverse searches might be the way to put it. In 2021 last year, the number one and number two most searched terms, this is worldwide though specifically. Number one was hentai, Japanese product. Number two, Japanese, also a Japanese product. So the big question is from 2021 to 2022, did things hold over? Jay just put, I think I really liked Iowa and Indiana searches. 

I'm going to have to go and look them up now. This was released I think just a couple of days ago. So you'd be able to actually see all the searches. I only was cared about the ones that were relevant to Japan. I remembered that 2021 had hentai and Japanese as number one and number two. What has happened in 2022? I would do a drum roll, but I'm not going to. Exactly the same. Number one is hentai. Number two is Japanese. I think it rocks Japanese industriousness wins out again. I think I hear Dave. He's going to stand outside my door and just be silent and send vibes for me to open the door. America is the number one user of Pornhub. So the American rankings are slightly different than worldwide. Hentai is number one, Japanese number two. In the US, number two is lesbian. So I don't know if it's a lot of lesbians searching for something that they're familiar with or a lot of straight dudes just trying to figure out what's going on. I don't think I should start talking about lesbian porn and straight men. I have a lesbian friend and she said the most unrealistic thing, because you know of course porn is unrealistic, the most unrealistic thing about lesbian porn is their fingernails because they all have really long fingernails. Oh no, no, Jade, believe me, I know who's looking at porn. What I was going to talk about was the psychology of men just looking, because they're so straight they can't even have a penis in there. Having a penis is gay. 

So I think if you're really a straight man, you should cut off your penis because what is the gayest thing about a man? It's the dick. So if you don't have a dick, then you're not gay. There's some logic for you. It's the dudes talk... I actually really enjoyed that video. It was dudes talking about how they don't look at their own penises and stuff and they don't look at men and they don't see men in things because that's all super gay. Anyways, just get to the last point. In the US, so number two with lesbian, number one remains hentai, Japanese products. So Japan tops the world with their hentai pornography, which is a category I've never watched. Now having seen it two years in a row, because I want to support Japan. I live in Japan. I've lived in Japan a long time. I want to support Japan. Maybe I should take a look at it, but I'm wondering what it is specifically that they like. I'm being really honest, I like the real ladies and men. I'm not against having some penises in my pornography. I actually think that's fine. The interesting bit of information that came up from this article, it's not Japan related, is that reality, so amateurs and stuff like that, but the reality search tag increased like 300, 400%. 

So people aren't looking for produced porn. They're not looking for the professionally done pornographic films. They're actually looking for more amateur, more real. Outdoors is a category that jumped up, because people, yeah, they just want like, oh, normal people doing exciting, risky things seems to be the trend at the moment. I was wondering if that's because of coronavirus. We want real life again. So these porn searches kind of reflect the psychology of that I'm interested in. I might actually go back and read the article. I was interested in the relationship to Japan specifically, because I wanted to know if it was hentai in Japanese. And again, I want to say one more time, it is Japan rules the Pornhub algorithm. But it's interesting, you get sort of insight into the world psychology that people don't want to talk about. Because let's face it, people are, when they're doing their search terms, they're being honest in what they want to see. They're not lying to themselves in that moment, which is something we should take into the new year. I'm going to say something kind of inspiring as I can for the last moments of Ninja News Japan of 2022. Be as honest with yourself as you are with your search terms in pornography. Because if you can be as true to yourself as you are to your porn searches, you can be honest and open. And then you can be honest and open with other people in their pornographic search terms. And we can start to understand each other just a little bit better. And maybe that's the path to world peace.

Travel Mixtape of Underwear

Nike makes a splash and lots of things to make you feel bad.

Racism, mysogeny and all the stuff to make you go “Huh, maybe this corona stuff has a point.”

It doesn’t. 

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The commercial mentioned in the podcast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G02u6sN_sRc