covid – NinjaNewsJapan

My Mind is an Island

(upbeat music)

We have a lot of updates to old stories, which is cool.

The last couple of weeks we’ve had the Kai-ten terrorism Sushi.

It says Sushi terrorism, I think is what they were calling it.

So it’s the Kai-ten Sushi restaurants.

We had some kids act like Dix.

They lost a Sushi dough, one of the biggest Kai-ten Sushi chains in Japan.

A ton of money, ’cause their market share went down.

Another market share, their stock went down like 5%.

Caught some 12 billion yen in value.

So they’re having a reaction, they’re trying to like, we gotta step it up.

My family actually went to Sushi dough last week.

My father-in-law gave my wife money.

and just so that we could go out for dinner.

So went to Sushi dough, ’cause kids eat a lot now.

You could not, there was nothing on the,

so is the rotating conveyor belt.

There was nothing on it.

There was little placards with things you could order.

Basically it was just rolling advertisements.

Then we would order on the touch pad,

which is basically like a tablet.

And the Sushi would arrive on the conveyor belt.

We didn’t have any, there was no borders or anything,

but you could see like people were kinda checking.

I didn’t expect anything to happen, because again, this is a national story

that essentially involves three team boys.

So you gotta take that into like context.

Okay, anyways, the other companies are like,

again, this is risking their whole livelihood, the existence of the company.

So they wanna put up sort of guard barriers.

Only orders will come through,

that’s exactly the experience I just had.

There’s a company called Kura Sushi,

and they wanna put up cameras that use AI to scan for suspicious behavior.

So they’re getting super high tech.

The weird thing was the AI, if it sees something suspicious,

like I put my hand in and out of the

conveyor belt, let’s say too many times,

the AI will notify the head office.

The head office is then going to contact.

the individual restaurant where the suspicious behavior has happened.

Which I found to be a bit convoluted,

because you could cut out the middleman.

It sounds like you have a head office where

there’s a giant bank of television screens

that are being AI monitored, forces, suspicious behavior.

And then like a red light goes up over here in some city,

and then some guy gets on the phone and goes,

you gotta touch her!

Something like that.

I’m not sure what they would say.

They would probably come up, Sushi tetto, and something like that.

It seems like the AI could just notify the restaurant itself though.

So the staff could like walk around and check on stuff.

I don’t see the need for the head office,

or maybe they’re making a judgment call,

like they’re gonna review the video

and then call if they feel it’s necessary.

I don’t know about that.

I was just sitting there going like, just notify the restaurant,

cut out the person in the middle.

There may be a reason for it.

They didn’t explain it very well.

Like beyond that, so yeah, I can’t say that much.

(upbeat music)

We also have a former pro gamer and streamer

who has not been around for the last year,

because it’s actually more complicated than the story made it out to be.

Basically she said, she went on stream and she said,

men under 170 centimeters have no human rights.

And what had actually happened?

So I don’t agree with, you know, shitting on people like that,

although I should on people all the time.

So maybe I should.

I think if you pointed out my behavior or something, I would be like, sorry.

I don’t know, or not.

I mean, often I think like apologies make it worse.

I’m just going around in this circle.

A guy delivered food to her apartment, like

a door dash or a Uber eats or something.

And the guy recognized her and immediately started hitting on her.

She took negatively to that, went back to her stream

and basically started insulting the guy.

I bet as like a pro gamer, streamer girl,

she gets hit on by guys all the time and she doesn’t like it.

But at the same time in Japan, especially

you’re using that sort of like sexuality,

the attractiveness to gain your audience in the first place.

So the idea that they wouldn’t hit on you is almost unreasonable.

I don’t know, I don’t know where I land on that one.

If you use sex to get a primarily male audience

and then the male audience takes the initiative

and tries to talk to you, should you be offended?

She was.

So she said a couple of really shitty things about the guy

and he was maybe not that tall.

She likes tall guys.

So she started insulting him and then her gamer base got really upset.

I keep falling into these things where I’m like,

I flip flop back and forth like she’s getting hit on.

She doesn’t want to get hit on.

It’s annoying.

She just ordered some food, leave me alone.

That guy’s not being professional.

He’s delivering food and he sees someone.

He shouldn’t be hitting on them.

But then she shouldn’t go in like rip on him on stream.

It’s a very tough situation.

I think maybe everyone’s a little bit at fault

but she probably got the worst fallout.

She disappeared for years.

She was fired from her pro team

and she hasn’t streamed in the last year.

She tried to make a return to streaming.

She did come on and say it was my fault

for making discriminatory, discriminatory remarks.

We just fare.

So she’s saying, like I said some stuff,

I do think the context changes it a bit.

I think the guy showing up at her house

and then immediately hitting on her is also

wrong and he’s not getting any fallout.

So if there was fallout on both sides, maybe I’d be okay with it.

I’m sitting here wondering like,

is it okay to shoot your shot?

But I think I know the difference.

If I was the Uber Eats guy and I showed up your door

and you showed interest in me,

you still shooting shoot your shot.

No, as soon as I get to that point, it’s like,

I kind of want to start this whole story again.

He should not have hit on her.

That’s basically the idea.

I was trying to think back to when I

was a young man and I would hit on girls.

And if I ever like cross the line, I’m sure I did.

I’m sure every young man,

’cause you don’t understand boundaries yet.

And you learn the boundaries as you get older

and then by the time you’re old enough and mature enough

to not break those boundaries, you’re probably done.

Shooting your shots at girls like you either have

a long-term relationship or you know what you want

or you know how to get what you want or something like that.

And it’s not a big thing anymore.

I’m very torn.

I maybe need some input from other people.

I didn’t think this was gonna be such a gray moral zone.

I am falling firmly on the guy should not have hit

on her at the door.

That’s actually vaguely threatening.

She’s in her home.

So that’s really, really bad.

Should she have gone on stream and shit on ’em?

I actually I’m kind of okay with that.

Only because of the negativity of the way I view.

that initial experience.

Maybe she shouldn’t have said men under 170 centimeters.

Maybe she just said this guy and just kept it specific.

Like this guy just hit on me.

It was really gross.

It was really unappealing.

I think maybe I’d be okay with that.

As long as she didn’t like get him in trouble or docks him or something.

I don’t know.

I looked up a lot of it.

She said a lot of dumb shit.

So this is clearly how she talks.

I think maybe this guy set her off,

but she took it too far.

I don’t think she need to.

Again, these companies, they gotta fire people

if they’re gonna say dumb shit like that.

Once you become a professional and you represent a team,

you just can’t say things.

You can think ’em, you can feel ’em.

You can’t say it out loud.

That’s something that famous people gotta think about.

(phone ringing).

There’s irony abounding.

Dozens of people who were taking a digital literacy course

had their private information exposed to the Internet.

Why not exposed to the other people in the course?

Via LACS security, which I assume would have

been less than one is make sure you have

sort of network security.

So one of the students found that using this like procedure,

they could look at the text file with all the other students’ information.

And being able to do that,

they then had access to their email accounts and stuff.

So they pointed it out.

They got the names and emails of everyone else who was taking the course.

They pointed out, “That student passes the course.

“Digital literacy, they’ve got it, they’re doing it,

“they’ve got it right, they win.”.

The company on the other hand, unless this was the test,

this could have been one of those sort of meta tests.

We’re gonna expose your information, the students who find it,

who find out what we did and try to stop it.

They’re the ones who pass,

“I get the odd feeling that’s not what they were doing.”

And it’s just one of those really crap,

digital literacy courses that doesn’t mean anything.

(clock ticking)

We have two island oriented stories, which I found.

It’s always a weird convergence.

‘Cause if you said, “Hey, find two story news stories

“that are relevant and current about islands on any week.”

I probably couldn’t do it.

But here then they just two of them flopped into my lap.

There’s a company we talked about, I think last week or the week before,

and they were taking investments for.

a non-existent company that promised a

4% return every month on your investment.

Eight people were arrested for this fraud.

And the problem is, what they wanted to do was take the money

and buy a private island and create a resort on the island.

So it wasn’t even like they were just gonna buy a private island

for themselves and then just stay there.

They were actually gonna use it to try to make a business.

They wanted to buy a private island and a cruise ship

and then build a resort and then like,

they would drop people out to the resort.

It would be private, very exclusive, very expensive.

And then, but I was like,

“Wait, they got people to invest in their fake company.

“Couldn’t they just get the same people “to invest in their actual plan

“to buy a private island and cruise ship?”

‘Cause clearly the people investing in the fake company

where the fraud was committed are investing, they’re looking for things.

This as a business plan, we’re gonna buy a private island

to make an exclusive resort.

It’s actually not a bad plan.

The interesting thing to me, finding an uninhabited island,

so it just would be down around Okinawa.

There’s a bunch of little islands.

You can buy an island for 80 million yet.

That’s $610,000.

My image of buying a private island was in the millions,

just inherently.

You had to have millions and millions and millions of dollars.

I think that’s how Nicholas Cage ended up

getting into trouble with the tax and stuff

as he bought islands and he was just spending too much money.

That’s why he makes like 20 movies a year now

to try to pay off the taxes and stuff.

I don’t know if he still has a private island.

$610,000 seems achievable.

Like, if I didn’t have kids,

I would have not that much money, but I’d have a lot of money,

and if I invested that money properly, it looks like I as an individual.

might be able to buy a private island.

I would still have to build a house on it and stuff,

but if I had to have my own island.

Can you imagine this podcast if I was

literally in the middle of a deserted island?

Like doing it outside.

So I’d have to get like satellite Internet or something.

It’d be awesome.

So like I sit in my little room actually,

I would build a house that’s about the size of this room

plus a kitchen in like a shower area.

That would be the size of my, the scope of

my mansion would be like three tiny rooms.

I’ve realized I don’t need much more than that.

My mind is such an expanse that physical limitations mean nothing anymore.

I’ve gone off on private island man thinking,

which is the island is a relevant item on the island in myself.

Anyways, the eight people were arrested for the fraud.

They didn’t get the private island.

I still think that the issue was don’t try to cheat people

to get them into investing a company that doesn’t exist

so that you can take that money and transfer it to another business scheme,

introduce them to the original business scheme.

Maybe that’s it.

Maybe people are like,

why would I invest in a private island cruise ship combo

when I could just invest in this company

that’s promising 4% return every month.

That 4% return every month is a lot

because you think that rules over every month.

It’s cumulative interest that kind of thing.

So that’s maybe they were over promising

it’s sort of a Ponzi scheme then

because they’re gonna take your money and invest it elsewhere.

And then maybe if they make enough money, they’ll pay you back probably not.

Anyways, I found out the price of a private island.

I was shocked at how cheap they were.

I know I don’t have enough money to buy a private island

but I was shocked at how cheap a private island was.

Second island oriented story.

So there was a woman went on social media, a Chinese lady.

And she was on an island.

And she said, hey, everyone look at this island that I now own.

Now there’s a couple of issues there.

Chinese people in China are not allowed to own land.

All land in China is actually owned by the government.

So land ownership is a very big deal.

So she was like getting Max cloud for this post.

So what has actually happened?

She didn’t buy an island.

There’s a very difficult for foreign people to buy land in Japan.

I own the land that my house sits on but

because I’m married to a Japanese person

and have two Japanese kids,

clearly when I die, that land is going to still be part of Japan.

I’m not gonna like try to take it away

or do something with it that was nefarious.

Japan is very worried about Chinese companies

buying Japanese land because they’re worried about like,

if they buy X amount of property, is that now part of China?

That’s kind of the underlying thinking.

I don’t know if that’s how it works but that is the underlying thinking.

So she went on social media said she bought an island in Okinawa.

It’s actually a company that was run by a relative bought the island.

This was very unusual.

So the beaches are owned by the government.

That consists of about 50% of the island.

The core island itself was owned by a holding company.

That holding company sold it to another

company that sold it to another company

that eventually sold it to a Chinese company.

So this is how the Chinese company got in

and was able to actually buy an island in Japan

which they’re probably not supposed to be able to do

is that it passed through so many hands.

I don’t know if this was quicker not but

because it passed through so many entities,

maybe the government lost track of it or maybe they’re just like,

well, this is just being passed around as an investment

and they weren’t paying as close enough attention.

So this woman is technically correct.

The core of the island is her.

The government maintains ownership over the beaches

which is going to be the most attractive part of the island.

It is a question of what are they gonna do with the core island?

Is she just gonna live there by herself

which would mean no one comes to the island

to play on the beaches, which means she has essentially private beaches

even if they are owned by the Japanese government?

Or is the Japanese government going to take the island away

from the holding company, the media company.

that has bought the island that is allowed her to use it?

That is a very interesting question.

I am very interested in this story because is this low-key racism

or is this Japan protecting itself from foreign investors?

Because foreign investors can be very dangerous

if you have a small country with not much land and they buy up all the lands

so the Japanese people can’t buy it.

So I’m interested in where this ends up

because it’s caused a stir in China because this woman now owns an island

which is a very attractive thing.

It’s caused a stir in Japan because

whoa, it’s China subtly trying to buy up all the islands

and all the bits of Japan that they can so that they can actually own Japan.

That is honestly a real concern for the Japanese government.

(upbeat music).

Balloon news.

I guess this was inevitable.

So over the last week, there was the balloon

that was floating around America, the Chinese spy balloon

and it was shot down.

And then it came out that over the last few years,

there’s been a whole bunch of Chinese spy balloons floating around America.

And then a couple days ago, America

shot down a Chinese spy balloon over Canada

and the Canadian military was going

out to try to find the bits of the balloon.

And China’s like, “Hey, give us our stuff back.”

And everyone’s like, “Fluid over our country.”

It’s not your stuff anymore.

So there’s a little bit of a tip there.

Japan came out admitted, “Yes, there have been balloons.

floating around Japan in the same way.”.

Primarily around the islands, just like we’re talking,

“This is technically a third island story.”.

But that’s where the military bases are.

So America has military bases in Japan.

China has been flying the spy balloons around them.

Now, legally speaking, because of Japanese

laws in airspace, they say that they can

shoot the balloons out of the sky.

But then came up to the practical issue.

of could they shoot the balloons out of the sky?

‘Cause this was interesting, ’cause the defense minister

said the first problem is you have to get permission.

So the self-defense force in Japan,

it’s gonna be really long and difficult for them

to get to the point where you can use weapons.

Because the whole point of the self-defense force,

the constitution that was written after World War II

is that Japan cannot have a military.

So the whole point is that they’re not

supposed to really do aggressive stuff.

Shooting stuff out of the sky is seen as really aggressive.

This is also part of the controversy over the last few weeks

where the Japanese government’s like,

self-defense lets expand the meaning,

which means we can shoot stuff in other

countries, as long as we don’t leave Japan.

That’s a really, really interpretive view of what self-defense means.

But what the practicality is, because the self-defense force does not enact

a lot of these things, the self-defense force

may not have the skills to actually shoot a balloon

out of the sky, which I didn’t think about.

‘Cause I saw the video of the American airplane

shooting it out, ’cause you just see the balloon pop.

You don’t even see like bolts or anything,

’cause of course this is like hypersonic stuff.

They’re saying that maybe Japanese pilots,

maybe Japanese weaponry doesn’t have the same skill level,

so they might actually not be able to do it.

Whether or not they want to or not becomes a secondary issue.

So I was thinking they should get the AI cameras.

from the Sushi restaurants and aim them

up with the sky, and if they see something,

they can actually notify the head office

of the Sushi restaurant, and then the Sushi restaurant,

the cough ruined my joke.

Well, sad now.

Since this is not scripted, I didn’t actually

know where that joke was gonna end up,

but I’m sure it was gonna be better if I didn’t cough,

so I’m just gonna abandon that joke now.

Just like Japan’s abandoned shooting down Chinese spy balloons.

(clock ticking)

A gibbon is a kind of monkey.

I’m not gonna get too deep into the details of what a gibbon is,

but anyways, there was a gibbon in an isolated enclosure,

and in February last year, 2021,

Momo, a 12 year old gibbon, got pregnant.

She was in the enclosure alone.

How does that happen?

Is this like one of those Jurassic Park things.

where life finds a way?

We have to figure out what happens, ’cause we wanna make sure,

I mean, it’s great that the gibbon got pregnant, to be honest,

because this is being kept in enclosure because of endangerment.

I just totally forgot that word for a second.

Turns out that at the time of pregnancy,

there was a male gibbon, Ito, was in the next enclosure.

Turns out there was a nine millimeter hole between the two enclosures.

They did a DNA test of the baby, so they

know that the baby is actually Ito’s child.

So Momo and Ito got up towards this nine millimeter hole

between the two enclosures and managed to do it.

Now, not particularly complimentary,

since we’re gonna do some penis shaming,

to Ito there on his member, but Momo was up for it.

Let’s just be factual.

Momo was up for it, backed up to the glory hole, they both got the job done.

There’s no way that didn’t happen without cooperation.

So this was a case of completely consensual sexual intercourse,

resulting in a child that is going to be loved

because the zoo is very happy that his baby’s out there.

It is problematic because you have an absent father.

And I think the reason of that is that Momo

was 12 years old, Ito was 34 years old.

So that age gap is significant.

So maybe we have a lot of different issues.

going on here at the same time.

There’s the age gap, the absent father.

The fact that this was conceived through a glory hole essentially.

What kind of environment is this baby being raised in?

Is really the question, but still people seem happy.

And if you wanna rip on a given,

I was, I mean, the instinct is to make a joke about a nine millimeter hole

and getting your penis through there, but at the same time,

man, he probably had sex more than I did that year.

There was a guy in Japan, I didn’t write down his name.

He designed a Ferrari.

So he was one of the primary designers of this style of Ferrari.

He owns the Ferrari that he designed.

No.

Guess what he was arrested for?

It was not obstruction of his.

He was speeding.

He was arrested for speeding.

He was given an eight,

oh, I think it was, he was given eight months or four months

in jail time, but a suspended sentence.

So basically if he doesn’t get in trouble again, he’ll be fine.

He was doing 128 kilometers an hour,

going 88 kilometers over the speed limit.

The speed limit’s probably only 80.

So he was like easily doubling what the speed limit should have been.

And he goes to court and I was like, this guy,

clearly he designs fast cars, he loves fast cars,

he’s out in the open, he’s driving around in the car he designed,

he wants to open it up, lay it flat, see what happens.

I totally understand what really happened here.

As does the judge, but you don’t want to go into court

and go like, dude, I designed this car to go as fast as humanly possible.

I wanted to see how fast it would go.

You got to give him a story.

So the story he gives through his lawyer is he wanted to expose

the engine to fast moving air to cool it down,

which is a very technical engine oriented thing to say

and sounds almost plausible until you take into account.

or you could just slow down and the car would cool off.

It’s Valentine’s Day.

It is Valentine’s Day this day, the day of recording.

It is Valentine’s Day February 14th, 2023.

They have a practice in Japan called Gidey Chocol.

So basically you work in an office

and every woman in the office is obliged to give a tiny chocolate

to every man in the office.

Just says like, say, face, it’s just like a show.

So whether you like ’em or not, you kind of have to do it.

And then next month there’s White Day, the

men are supposed to reciprocate, but again,

because it’s obligatory chocolate, they probably don’t.

I always thought this was stupid.

Like if you like someone, not like in a sexual way

or a lover kind of way, you just like someone as a person,

I thought that would be cool, give ’em some chocolate,

and then next month they give you some cookies.

It’s just a friendship thing.

I was cool with that.

But the pandemic has had a lot of people work from home.

They sort of like, you know,

they don’t have as much contact as they did.

So it’s changed some of the mores and values

and it’s actually exposed some of the

cracks in the Japanese traditional systems.

A obligatory chocolate has fallen to the wayside over the last few years.

And 83% of women do not want to give gidi gidi choco this Valentine’s Day,

which I 100% am up and I’m bored with.

I don’t want chocolate that people don’t actually.

want to give to me, which is, again, also a weird thing they’re saying.

When people in Japan go on holiday, they

buy like boxes of chocolates or cookies

or some kind of souvenir from the place they went to,

and they give one to everyone in the office.

And I often don’t want them.

Like if someone goes to America and comes

back with like a peanut buttercup, 100%,

I will be eating that.

But a lot of this stuff, I’m just like,

I don’t want your dry fish cake from somewhere in Japan.

You can just keep that yourself.

But yeah, the tradition of obligatory

chocolate seems to be going to the wayside.

Maybe they’re not gonna be doing it as much anymore.

8.2% of women will give the gidi chocolate this year.

So that’s guaranteed.

That’s only 8% out of all the people they surveyed.

74.5% in the low 20s age group.

said they don’t want to.

As they got a little older, so in their late to 20s or early 30s and up,

it went to 80 to 90% said no.

70 year olds, so basically the older women get,

the less they wanna give gidi gidi chocolate, which I totally understand.

61.4% of men are not happy to get it anyways.

So you have more than half of the men are like me

and don’t want your gidi gidi chocolate.

You have a mass majority of women don’t wanna give it.

This seems ripe for, let’s just get rid of this practice.

This seems really silly that we’re still doing it at all.

(upbeat music).

It’s almost like it wouldn’t be in Indonesia, Japan, without a creepy story,

but this one had a lot of elements.

So I have honestly not stopped, but a less

creepy guy’s story is because most of them

are not giving me anything interesting to talk about.

We’ve actually hit, you have to do something really weird

now for me to actually notice.

Once we got to the 50 year old men section

for it was like six months or something,

it was 50 year old men doing something creepy,

we had the guy get down on his hands and knees and lick a girl’s shoe,

just like apropos of nothing.

That’s now my new barrier.

If you can’t be weirder than that, you don’t get on the show anymore.

So someone, some 50 year old man out there

is really like, well, what can I do to get really weird

to get on the Indonesia, Japan?

A polyamorous 74 year old man,

he has eight ex wives in total who all live together.

So I assume in the same house.

Didn’t kidnap a girl, they attempted to brainwash a girl.

There was a bit vague on the age.

So that makes me feel like she’s probably under 18.

This was in order to commit sexual assault at a later date.

So they convinced this girl that they were psychics.

and they said, come to our house to consult a fortune teller.

They lured her into the house and showed her images of aliens

and told her that she would be abducted by aliens.

if she didn’t comply.

The girl believed them said, I will come back at an undisclosed later date.

Talk to her family about this experience she had

and how worried she was probably about getting abducted by aliens

and she had to go back and bang this 74 year old man

to make sure the aliens don’t abduct her.

Family and friends are like, maybe that’s not true.

You should call the police.

She did and then the police showed up.

I don’t know enough about brainwashing to know how this works.

I think luring the woman in to consult a fortune teller

already demonstrates a certain mindset of believability

because if you said Peter, come get your fortune told.

I might do it for entertainment but I would not believe it.

Whereas this sounds like this young woman actually believes

in fortune telling which means she’s equally likely to believe

in other fantastical things like aliens.

in which case she maybe is more susceptible to being brainwashing.

But this didn’t even sound like brainwashing.

It sounded like they’re like weird threats,

weird vague threats and if you don’t come back.

And again, I would like to know my first question would be like,

how does banging you the 74 year old man

stop the aliens from coming to abduct me?

Just explain the relationship there.

Is something you do to me make me make the aliens averse

to abducting me in the first place?

Do you imbue me with a chemical or some kind of super power shield

that stops the aliens from abducting me?

It seems like banging a 74 year old man isn’t going to stop aliens

from abducting me at all.

It seems like these two things might not be related.

I’m glad that she didn’t get abused.

I mean, they were already pushing it just getting her in the house

was already really risky and stuff.

But I think the sentence polyamorous 74 year old man

who lives with 8X wives and his current wife, 9 women in total,

I don’t want to take a look at him.

Is he stylish?

Is he cool?

Because a lot of times these like cult

leaders, this is one step away from cult.

These cult leader dudes, they’re all shaggy and weird looking.

But they must be convincing.

They must be charming somehow.

Oh, have you seen the picture?

I guess it’s 74 year old.

Just not pulling like you used to.

I guess if you hit the point where you have to brainwash people.

Mr. Warman’s just putting the chat, he’s fat bald and ugly.

I mean, you just described me.

It is the charisma element.

I’m always interested in that part of these stories.

Because what is it about them that makes them attractive?

The 8X wives are still hanging around.

That is already too weird to me.

That you would have 8 women who all finds you attractive enough

just to stay in your presence.

Because normally there would be tension between the women.

I don’t know if they’re as or not.

I don’t know what his household is like.

And yet here he is having these women

help him bring in more women to the fold.

So I’m interested in what that.

I said about it being like a cult to my wife too.

Yeah, it has to be.

I kind of want to know what the cult leaders do.

Because this story is so fantastical that it’s inconceivable to me

that someone would believe it.

But here we have a clear example of someone who did believe it.

And I think yeah, the opening the door is if you believe in fortune telling,

you’re going to believe a lot of stuff.

So then we can see how far we can push it

and see how easily you can be manipulated.

In the future, basically what I would like to say is aliens are real.

A fortune telling is not real.

So if someone tries to lure you with that, I just say no.

[Music].

Cover your Orifii

(Electronic music)

Now let’s talk about the economy.

Woo!

If you’re here for the news, you know
you like to talk about the economy.

I’m gonna take it down a notch after that.

I was gonna start with a
song, but then it sounded racist.

Because I was gonna do a reggae style song

like a certain unmentionable
man had done in the past.

But I guess it was probably racist
when he did it, so me copying him

would make me racist,
so I’m not gonna do that.

We’re just gonna talk about the economy.

Prices in Japan are up
4% compared to last year.

And I have noticed that.

I actually have noticed
I’m spending more money

on just like the things I
used to buy used to buy.

Every Tuesday, so today is
Tuesday, I wanna record this.

I’m at home, kids are at
school, boy there’s a work.

I make dinner, so I would
go and buy stuff for dinner.

I’ve noticed that it is more expensive
just to buy basic items for dinner,

which has made me more conservative.

And that’s not a unique
thing to have happen.

Household spending
overall in Japan is down 1.2%.

If everything’s 4% more expensive, but that
means people are buying 1.2% less stuff.

This is problematic.

Because private spending
is nearly half of Japan’s gdp.

So basically Japan’s economy, if
Japanese people aren’t spending money,

then the gdp inherently goes down.

So this increase in
inflation is a bigger

problem than just things
are more expensive.

It means people are spending less money.

If people are spending less money,
the gdp of the country is decreasing.

Now this is led to government calls.

I believe we’ve actually
talked about this before.

Government calls for increases in salaries.

I thought this might
be like an endless cycle.

Inflation goes up, salaries go up,
but then that doesn’t mean anything.

It almost cancels each other out.

And then you can just do that infinitely,

but then you get into a
situation where like 1,000 yen,

which is sort of again, the really
quick equivalent would be $10.

You gotta use 10,000 yen equivalent to $10.

Inflation goes up, prices
go up, salaries go up.

It means nothing.

So part of my brain goes, why
don’t you just not do the inflation?

And then you don’t have
to give the salary increases.

Because if we do a pricing,

inflation of 4% and then a salary increase
of 4%, let’s say, it’s equivalency.

Just don’t do that in the first place.

I know economics is not that simple,
but economists often make it seem like

infinite growth is possible when it isn’t.

This is a problem with
the video game industry

and they think that
they basically are saying,

everything has to be more
successful than the previous thing

to count as successful, the problem being,
there’s only actually a finite of people

who play video games.

So you can only extract
so much money from them.

Therefore, there is not an infinite
well of money you can pool from.

So you have to actually start looking
at as what’s our upper limit, not infinite.

Anyways, they’re
calling companies are

being called to look
at their pay structures

as social responsibility.

Because if the workers don’t have
money, they’re not gonna spend money

’cause they need to save.

If they need to save, then the gdp
of Japan as a country goes down.

That’s the infinite loop
that we’re in right now.

This is being called new
capitalism by some corners, growth,

and it’s a growth and
redistribution policy.

Companies should monitor prices
and improve momentum of wage raises

so that people can continue spending.

The problem is this
isn’t how companies work.

Companies don’t tend to
work on social responsibility

or worry about the gdp,
they worry about themselves.

Companies in a capitalist
society are inherently selfish.

So if the government wants this
to happen, they have to force it,

but if they force it, they’re gonna
be overstepping their balance.

That is sort of the core
issues we’re dealing with

with this problem of
inflation versus wages.

Uniglo.

It’s actually a weirdly positive company.

So they come up as an example a lot.

Uniglo is looking to raise their
annual salaries by up to 40%.

Now that up to is very
important as a lot of heavy lifting.

Whenever something says up to, what
you actually have to read is less than,

I once had a juice that
had up to, it was like a drink,

and it had up to 10% real fruit
juice, but up to 10% could mean zero.

So when I looked at it, I was immediately
like, there may be no actual juice in this

because that is up to 10%.

It was a very interesting
way of wording it.

So that may be concerned.

So university grads, if
you get a job at uni-glow,

right now your base salary will be 255,000
yet, which is pretty close to average.

They’re gonna raise that to 300,000.

That is 16%.

So that’s probably most of their workers.

University graduates
get maybe a little bump,

but you can see what they’re doing is like,
okay, we’re gonna give the average worker

15 to 20% raise.

Store managers currently making
290,000 yen, they’re gonna get 390,000 yen.

That is 100,000 yen increase.

That is significant.

So uni-glow has taken on this sort of,

I don’t think they did it
because of the government,

but they realize like if we
want our workers to flourish,

they have to have money to flourish with.

There is an interesting, it
was spun very positively.

Ntt, the biggest mobile
communications network in Japan.

I said they’re going to move
from a seniority-based system.

So Japan is still very
much like the longer you stay

at a company, the more money
you make at that company,

even if you’re not very good at your job.

But that’s irrelevant because
if I’ve been here for 50 years,

maybe I’ve like absorbed
knowledge in it, something like that.

I don’t know.

They’re gonna change
to a merit-based system,

and I was like, “oh,
that sounds really good.”

And I thought about it more.

What does that actually mean?

Because what’s happening right now is
companies have this base salary system,

depending on how you’re working.

And if it’s going to be impacted by
inflation, so if inflation goes up 4%,

and the company I work for has to
raise my wages by 4% to match inflation,

that’s just less to say,
that’s the new standard.

And that’s not actually
what’s gonna happen.

My company’s not giving me a raise forever.

But let’s say that is what happens.

That’s going to affect your raises
and what not, based on inflation.

You don’t wanna have to react to inflation.

So if you make your raises and
payment system merit-based,

you can ignore the greater economy.

You can say, look, you’re getting paid
this much because of your performance.

If you’re a high performer,
yeah, you do deserve money.

That’s great.

But the average worker
probably will get nothing

because we don’t wanna reward averageness.

So I think, they’re framing
this as a very positive thing.

We’re doing away with the old system.

We’re going to a merit-based system
and everybody loves merit-based systems.

And then I was like, I think
this might be a way of them

to say, we aren’t going
to react to inflation.

We’re going to just
change our pay structures

so that we can
do it all internally

and then turn around and say,
no one has performed well enough

because of inflation, all
our profits have been down.

So that means no one’s
performed well enough.

Therefore, nobody gets a pay raise.

And that seems like the very sad state
of the economy in Japan at the moment.

(Phone ringing)

So you think that’s fun?

Now we’re gonna do international politics.

I gotta come up with
little theme songs now.

I realize that.

I need an economy song.

It gone me, the economy.

And then I need an
international no politics.

I seem to have a very scaw-based
sound for my theme intro, jingles.

I gotta take a little drink of
hot water before I move on.

Mm.

If you’re watching live, this is the
content that gets cut out everywhere else.

This is the stuff on twitch
that you come here for.

It’s the real raw look at
what a podcast construction is.

Mm.

Hot water.

Go smooth down the throat.

Get those sweet sounds out.

I think in about five minutes that
sun’s gonna come through my window.

So I’m gonna take care of that early.

This is the pump-a-do
section of the

podcast where you
get a look in behind like,

how does this magically come?

What does he do to block out the like?

He takes a work shirt and
he hangs it over the window

’cause the window above
my computer has no curtains.

So gotta make sure there’s a
sleeve, not in front of the camera.

All right, so we’re back.

We’re talking about international politics.

The work shirt as blinds, okay, I,
Jade, you’re one of my favorite people,

but you have to, okay, so you can see
in the back there’s blinds on the window.

I’m gonna give you a
little tour of my room.

Before I go on to the sorry,
since I’m like halfway out.

There’s blinds, there’s a big window there.

It’s really nice has curtains.

Little tiny window right
above the computer, nothing.

So what am I supposed to do?

And then the sun around
10 o’clock is 10 o’clock,

comes over that and then just
look at how bleached my face is.

So if I move over here, oh, this is sweet.

Look at that.

Like the camera can’t adjust for
this much washed out whiteness.

I am so white.

This is it.

This isn’t what nightmares are made of.

You can see the uv cut in my glasses.

The blue light cut is the yellow.

And then you can see how
much I need to fix my teeth.

(Laughs)

Uh, I am.

Sorry.

I am of the, oh, no, no, no, no.

I, not, white does not
even describe what I am.

I am the archetype of where
white people came from.

The gene pool, if the gene
pool was like one of those,

you know, on computers when they have like,
like, like, programs for like Photoshop

and they have that thing
is it’s white in this corner

and then like probably like a red in this
corner and then down here would be gray.

Here’s like, I’m up there.

I’m up in the corner that is just white.

I’m almost translucent.

I think you could make a lighthouse
by reflecting light off my face.

Okay, but I’m gonna go back to the podcast.

Ugh, that’s hot in my room.

It’s, we’re in this weird,
it’s like it’s cold outside.

But if I turn on the
heater, it’s too hot inside.

I’m pure as the dripper.

Snow is not pure.

Let’s be really clear about that.

White is the driven snow.

Yes, pure, not a word I would use.

Okay, international politics.

That’s the edit point.

For continuity, I shouldn’t have a sweater

that suddenly appear
’cause all this will get cut out.

I actually know on
YouTube I’ll leave this in.

It’s the audio part that’ll be cut out.

Then no one’s gonna see anything so.

International politics.

I have been framing international politics
throughout the entirety of this podcast

as high school drama, which
has been pretty descriptive.

And it’s because we’re dealing with
boisterous nations like north Korea.

Now this one isn’t north Korea as
China, but China does take a stance.

It seems like communist parties and these
sort of dictatorship-oriented countries

really feel free about
condemning other countries

about stuff they clearly do themselves.

China has gone through a big wave of covid.

In Japan, they just finished
their seventh or eighth wave.

I stopped counting.

It’s not really waves anymore.

It seems very random.

When I check the Tokyo
numbers, it is like 500,000, five.

Like they’ll do, they’ll like
fluctuate that much in a day.

So Japan said, look, China’s going
through a really big covid wave.

We’re going to have people who
want to go from China to Japan.

The covid test, have a negative
covid test before you leave.

Probably, when I went
to Canada and came back,

it had to be two days before I returned.

I needed a negative covid test.

China said that this is a discriminatory,

China said until discriminatory entry
restrictions against China are lifted,

China will stop giving
visa to Japanese

travelers, which is a
bit of an overreaction

because Japan’s not saying you
can’t come from China to Japan.

Japan’s saying, if you come,
you need to take a covid test,

which to me seems very
reasonable because I had to do it.

I came from Canada, which you would
consider a very friendly country to Japan.

Now, it was more short.

I guess it was, it wasn’t peak pandemic.

It was this summer, last summer break.

But I didn’t feel like that
was an unreasonable request.

I didn’t enjoy it.

I didn’t want to do it.

I didn’t want to spend the
$250, which turned into $500.

I had to do one for me and my daughter.

But I was like, yeah, you
don’t want to bring covid.

The whole problem is people traveled around

and that’s how covid got
around in the first place.

So my new Zealand did a fairly good job
because they were locking down the border,

so I didn’t want to end.

I said to do that at the
beginning, but Japan didn’t listen.

The government of Japan
doesn’t listen to this podcast

and that, I think, might be
one of the bigger problems

we have because I have solutions.

So the Japanese foreign minister,
he’s opposed to the Chinese restrictions.

The problem is the China, you being unhappy

with another country’s
decision is irrelevant,

but they always get, this is a
phrase that comes up all the time

and I’ve realized it’s just like a
standard phrase, extremely regrettable.

The Japanese foreign minister
finds the decision of China

to remove the possibility of visas

for Chinese people going to
China as extremely regrettable

and it seems like the harshest
language diplomats can take.

So really this is just a Chinese Japanese
foreign minister going like, fuck you guys.

And then north Korea uses
extremely regrettable for everything.

And the second thought is
they should actually lower the,

so extremely regrettable is
their strong version of language.

They should pull it back and I’m a
father and I’ve realized that’s a father.

So if I get really
rambunctious or voiceiferous

or I make a lot
of noise and stuff,

the kids don’t take me seriously.

But if I get quiet and sorry,
I go, not happy about that.

That has a big impact
and there was a story I read

and it was about world war ii and
they dropped f-bombs constantly.

So it was like, get your fucking gun,

get your fucking kit, get
your fuck fuck fuck fuck.

So fuck was a normal
part of an everyday order.

But when someone came to
the room and said, get your gun,

that had impact because dropping the f-bom

out of the sentence
meant that this was serious.

So on a normal day, a
normal order, you’d say fuck.

But then when it got
serious, you dropped it.

So I was like, oh, what
depends, what they need to do.

It’s actually drop back the lame.

So it’s not extremely
regrettable, you go, that’s too bad.

And sound disappointed, but then
they’ll be like, oh, what does that mean?

I think that actually
might have some impact.

It’d be interesting to see what happens.

(Phone ringing)

Still on international politics.

The ex president of Russia, the
Japan, the prime minister, kishita,

he said, I’m gonna go to america, we’re
gonna have a little meeting with biden.

You gotta, you know, work shit out.

‘Cause we’re gonna solve problems.

And they said, man, if Russia
nukes Ukraine, that’s bad.

Okay, that is the depth of
this statement they made.

If Russia nukes Japan, that’s bad.

That’s, I mean, I think they
said it in a more political way.

But the ex president of Russia, of Russia,

was like, this statement
is completely unacceptable.

You can’t tell US what to do.

You can’t tell US not to use your weapons.

You’re having a meeting with a country that
has just suspended nuclear weapons as US.

What do you get in all of
the up in our faces about?

So the Russian ex president says, the
Japanese prime minister should commit

a ritual suicide at the next
cabinet meeting in Japan.

That’s the only way he
could wash away the shame

of the statement,
the statement being,

please don’t use nuclear
weapons in Ukraine.

I was like, this is what I’m saying.

Like the level, is it hyperbole?

The level of theater these
guys use in their language.

Gets to the point where it’s nonsensical?

Like, nukes are bad.

You should kill yourself for that.

Apparently that’s what, but then,

so the Japanese do supposed
to commit ritual suicide, sipaku.

But you need to say
anything about the biden?

So the president, he’s like,
well, I guess they don’t have that,

I guess you have that in your
culture, so it’s a fair thing to say.

Like, so here’s a question
that I would love to have

someone ask him, do you
think he’s really gonna do it?

I mean, they don’t do that anymore.

It’s not a thing anymore, but
did you think he was gonna be like,

oh man, the ex-president
Roger said, I should go kill myself.

All right, at the next cabinet meeting,

I guess I’m gonna go kill myself
in the next cabinet meeting.

And then if you did it,
like, would you be like,

yeah, Japan’s washed away their shame.

I don’t know what this was supposed to do.

It just didn’t, it’s again, it’s, it
doesn’t make any sense to me.

That’s, I think that’s where
we are, international politics.

When we get to this level,
there’s so much theater involved.

I don’t actually know what
people are saying anymore.

I don’t know what people mean anymore.

That might be why I actually said it,

or recently, like, they
should bring it down a notch

so that it can actually
start to make sense again.

(Phone ringing)

We have talked about the
emergency services video function

that was added to
Japan’s emergency services,

services recently, it was
in October and November.

In October and November,
they read 622 calls,

and they weren’t calls,
they were video calls.

And the reason really for
doing this is young people,

generally, that’s how, if they’re going
to make a call, they make a video call.

So that’s how, what they know how to do.

So they’re like, we have to adapt.

And this is an interesting thing,

’cause you have two very
big sort of stradas in Japan.

You have old people who don’t
know how to use any technology.

And you have young people who kind
of only know how to use technology.

There was an interesting story.

It was in america, and
it was a guy got arrested,

and he didn’t know how to use a phone book,
’cause he’d only ever use the Internet.

So it became a legal right
that they had to have access.

So he’s like, you can
make your one phone call.

Here’s a phone book.

He’s like, I don’t know
how to use, what is this?

I’ve never seen this thing before.

This giant book you’ve
just put in front of me.

So the police were like, okay, well,
we have to let them access the Internet

to be able to contact someone.

So that’s when a phone
call became a broader thing.

It was like, you have to
be able to contact someone

so you can send an email or something.

I don’t know exactly
what the specifics were,

but they did broaden the scope
of what your one phone call

actually entailed and how
you can access the phone,

because they found
that it’s not really fair

if young people don’t know how to use a
phone book that you give them a phone book.

So this was about like since young people

know how to make video calls and
they want you helpful, let’s give it a try.

So they got 622 calls, which is awesome,

but they actually caught
some fleeing suspects

because while they were
on the emergency call,

the guy was like, well, pointed at
the car so I can see their license plate

and they got like a
screenshot of the license plate.

So they were able to catch
some people who did hit and runs.

The one I found most interesting, they
had a hiker who got stranded on a mountain

and they used the video
call to help identify the area

so the people could find them more quickly.

So it was really good, first of all,

that they had cell service,
that was the important part.

But the fact that they had cell service,
they were like, okay, take your camera,

I’m like, look around and then, oh,
someone’s gonna recognize that mountain

so you’re looking at
that mountain, so you’re

this way and then,
oh, look over there,

they could kind of
triangulate where they

were because they
could see the surroundings

and they helped save someone’s
life, which I thought was really nice.

But this did lead US to a couple
of other stats which are interesting.

There were 1.63 million calls to
the non-emergency number in Japan.

It was mostly drunk people asking for taxis

or people complaining
about traffic tickets.

1.6 million.

So I would not want to be the
person on the other end of that phone.

Let’s just make that statement out there.

When I’m looking for my job career change,

it’s not going to be the person
on the non-emergency line.

(Phone ringing)

Japan’s a very gun-safe country and I like
to illustrate that by the kind of stories

that make the news in Japan.

So a 56 year old cop accidentally,
okay, let’s actually just do the story.

Somebody has been bugging me,
his new story is lead with the bit

so you don’t have to read the article or
as I actually want to go through the steps

and then get to the bit.

So 56 year old cop is at the
Tokyo airport police station

and they’re, oh, it’s time to
take the bulls out of my gun.

So they go to take it out of
the hole so it holds your stiff.

So they yank it out really hard.

It bangs the table and goes off.

Now I was a little confused by that.

My understanding is that
guns are inherently designed.

So in the movies you drop a
gun and it goes off and kills a guy.

That actually happens quite a lot.

My understanding is that
in real life guns are designed

to not, if you bang though, just go off.

So I was thinking, was the gun cocked
and the table hit the hammer of the gun

and then it went off?

Or did the person pulling the gun from the
holster have their finger on the trigger

and then when he hit the
table pulled the trigger?

They didn’t explain any of that.

Well, the explanation
was the holster was stiff.

So I, when I pulled the gun out,
pulled it full force and hit the table.

But that makes me
think they had their finger

on the trigger as they
pulled out their gun.

So no one was hurt, nothing happened.

That’s it.

So like in other countries,
you’d be talking about

like a shooting in the airport,
how many people died in Japan.

Basically nothing happened.

And because a gun was
discharged, it became a news story.

And that is, honestly, one of
the reasons why I think gun control

works because that’s
the news story of the day.

[Music playing]

Ok, we’re getting to
local sort of smaller news.

But shogi players– now you would imagine
shogi’s a kind of chess, Asian chess.

I don’t know if it’s just Japanese.

I think it is, but I
don’t want to say that.

I don’t want to actually make a mistake.

Shogi players, chess players–
if you think about the chess

player personality, you would
think of a relatively pedantic person.

I think that is a fair thing to say.

Shogi players are no different.

They are very pedantic.

So this was a high level tournament.

They had like 6, 10, 7, 10.

I didn’t know what any of that meant.

But it’s the high level.

And then one guy goes, look, that
dude’s not wearing his mask properly.

He’s actually got a mask on, but
it’s covering his mouth, not his nose.

Now, anyone who’s wearing a mask properly
knows that it has to cover all the orify.

I do like pluralizing with the
eye more than anything else.

It has to cover all the
orifices on your face,

as in your mouth, and both your nostrils.

Not your ears or your nose or your eyes.

So he said, like, dude, please put
your mask on properly, cover your nose.

The guy ignored him.

So he did set it a couple more times.

The guy ignored him.

He calls a ref.

He’s like, ref.

Dude’s not wearing his mask properly.

And then the ref says,
dude, you got to wear a mask.

He says, I’m wearing a mask.

There is no rule that
bands exposing your nose.

So the rule is you have to
wear a mask, which would literally

mean interpretation wise.

I could put a mask on the
top of my head, cover nothing

on my face, and that
would follow the rules.

So again, these guys are being pedantic.

The ref being a little more
spirit of the rule rather than

letter of the law,
said, you’re disqualified.

Now, the guy left the venue
and he said, I understand.

I will follow a lawsuit.

If your behavior gets you
to a point where you feel you

need to sue people
for doing things like this,

there may be a moment in your life
where you have to stop and say, am I right?

So the actual– I did
look up the law, the rule.

And the rule is players must wear masks
during matches, except for brief moments.

And what they mean is, I’m wearing a mask.

We’ve been here for
two hours playing chess.

I can take off my mask and take a
drink, and then I put my mask back on.

So that’s the brief exception
where you do not wear a mask.

But this guy decided he
doesn’t want to wear a mask.

This is actually the second time.

It seems like showy
players are not anti-maskers,

but they– I guess they want
to have sort of their nose open

so they can breathe so
they can get more oxygen

or their brain so they
can be more effective.

Drink through the mask.

You could filter out all the bad stuff.

You put the mask on and
just open your mouth inside.

You’ll get some.

But it was just one of those
things that’s just ridiculous.

So I enjoyed that story, because I
just enjoyed the idea of showy players

being super pedantic about everything.

Traditionally, the last story in
ninja ninja Japan is creepy guy time.

It’s not even creepy
gender-neutral person time.

It’s a creepy guy time.

It’s always a dude.

I have put a kibosh on panty theft stories,

and a couple other things like
that that just show up too often,

only because they’ve become too repetitive.

But this creepy dudes– they always find
a new and interesting way to gross me out.

So I’m glad I can look at
that for the rest of my life

and know that I will never be surprised
by how creepy and gross guys can be.

Jr is Japan rail.

So it’s a train station staff.

And he was asked to guide
a visually impaired woman

to the platform, maybe back to the exit.

So just be a good person and help out
someone who struggles every now and then.

The woman then accused
him of sexual harassment.

What?

How is the even possible men
have never sexually harassed anyone

in the entirety of human history?

He claims that because he
had helped her several times

that they were just being friendly.

Now, I don’t want to judge, although
you know clearly I already have.

I don’t want to judge that
the man is overestimating

what is appropriate in
a friendly relationship.

I deal with people all the time.

And yes, I deal with people multiple times.

I sometimes make a racy joke, perhaps.

I don’t actually, because I get in trouble.

So I was like, ok, we got
to find out what he said.

What did he say?

Did he cross the line?

So was he being friendly?

Or was he sexually harassing?

So the first thing he said is, what
time are you coming home today?

Now that, I was like, oh, it
could be interpreted both way.

Like, oh, I’ll be around
when you come home.

So I will help you again.

Very nice thing to say.

Or it could be I’m a stalker and
I’m trying to find out your schedule.

Ok, he accidentally
didn’t say just that though.

He said, let’s go to a
new ramen restaurant.

That’s not ok.

So I think we’ve already crossed the line.

Like, he’s asking her to go with him.

Now, if you want to be generous, we don’t
have to be, because he ruins it later.

If you want to be generous, you could
say he is just recommending a restaurant.

And as a friend, he’s
saying, because they’ve

become very friendly,
let’s go to a ramen together.

I think we both all know that
that’s not what’s happening.

But I’m trying to give him
the benefit of the doubt

just so that his last line kills it harder.

She says, I’d like to go to the elevator.

And he said, oh, if we take the
stairs, I can give you a piggyback.

Piggybacks in Japan.

Now, you might be thinking
that that is weird thing to say.

You could interpret
that as kind of innocent.

Maybe a weird joke.

In Japan, piggybacks are sexual.

In anime and stuff, what you see
are usually girls who love a guy.

And then the guy– they
hurt their foot or something.

There is some mechanic in which they
have to– they have struggled to walk.

And the guy gives him a piggyback.

And then she’s laying sort of her head
on the back of his head or on his shoulder.

And it’s the closeness.

And in Japan, that is not sexual, but
it’s a precursor to a sexual relationship,

if I could put it that way.

I think the thing in itself is not sexual,

but it shows where
this relationship is going.

So there is a sexual undertone to it.

There’s a lot of things like that.

On in Japan, several times I’ve
explained the long distance kiss.

And it’s the idea that I
have my cup of hot water

to keep my voice smooth and romantic.

I take a drink.

And my lips have touched it.

And then I share the
drink with someone else.

And their lips touch the same thing.

So in a very metaphysical way, our
lips have touched in a long distance.

They call that the long distance kiss.

So you can see we’re not kissing,

but there is a sexual
undertone to these other things.

So not the indirect kiss.

That may be the case.

I heard it.

So the way it was explained
to me was long distance.

I just really like that term as well.

So indirect kiss– it means the same thing.

It means you’re not actually kissing,
but your lips are touching the same thing.

So I think we’re on the same page.

But at long distance, I
think I really enjoyed that.

So he said, like I’ll give you a piggyback.

Weird.

Again, has an already crossed a line.

But then the last line, he said,
was, isn’t your chest heavy?

I can carry it for you.

So as generous as we might want to
be, like let’s say we’re in a court of law.

And the guy says, oh, I
was just being friendly.

You could try to interpret
those first two examples

as just friendly and
maybe get away with it.

But isn’t your chest heavy?

I can carry it for you.

I think is not something that
friends would say to each other,

even if it wasn’t an on-set.

Like I’m sorry, I just did.

Again, like I said, he has
sabotaged his own defense.

If his defense was, I
was just being friendly.

His statements would have
had to remain relatively neutral.

And perhaps that’s why the
guy is gross and hitting on people

is because he doesn’t
know how to hit on people.

He doesn’t know how to formulate
that relationship in the first place.

Jadus put in, look,
he’s just being a homie.

Big boobs are heavy.

Back pain is real.

I actually do have some friends who’ve
told me that, yes, the back pain is real.

And yet, I never offered to
carry their boobs for them.

So I think with that beautiful sonata
playing around in the back of your head,

we’re going to end
today’s ninja ninja Japan.

[Music playing]

[Music playing].

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.

Unclear Messaging

All we want are some consistent messages. You won’t get them from politics, but you will get them here.

Subscribe https://link.chtbl.com/2fBCyWGa

Leave a question or comment at https://www.speakpipe.com/chunkmcbeefchest or chunkmcbeefchest@gmail.com

Anime Nerds Rule the World

We got some people acting all silly up here in #Japan

That’s what makes the #news

And #anime #railguns.

Subscribe https://link.chtbl.com/2fBCyWGa

Leave a question or comment at https://www.speakpipe.com/VelociPodcast

Sysiphus’ Trip

Man, I kind of lose it over a low quality voice over…oh, and there is #News about #Japan.

Subscribe https://link.chtbl.com/2fBCyWGa

Leave a question or comment at https://www.speakpipe.com/VelociPodcast

Damned if you listen, damned if you don’t

A full dose of ASMR if you cut the episode together yourself.

Subscribe https://link.chtbl.com/2fBCyWGa

Leave a question or comment at https://www.speakpipe.com/VelociPodcast

A good plan annoys me

Ummm, do I even have to say Corona news…and the Olympics? At least one dude has some solid ideas out there.

Subscribe https://link.chtbl.com/2fBCyWGa

Leave a question or comment at https://www.speakpipe.com/VelociPodcast

We’re not going to talk about 24

I think we are on the corona train, or cruise, in this case, until the country just figures out that you don’t go out for drinks and get sick or make people sick. That and there seems to be a booming shoe theft underworld going on.

Subscribe https://link.chtbl.com/2fBCyWGa

Leave a question or comment at https://www.speakpipe.com/VelociPodcast