Tag: interpreters

(upbeat music)

Getting hardest is the hardest part.

A little bit of getting
hardest is the farthest part.

Yep, that’s where we’re starting today.

Getting started is the hardest part.

I need vocal warmups.

Getting started is the hardest part.

Getting hearted is the smartest fart.

All right, with that, let’s get started.

Let’s actually make that the beginning.

That’ll be the beginning of the episode.

Me trying to say a single sentence and not
getting 20%, 30% of the words even close.

This is a follow up to a previous story.

We had a story that was a guy
and he was making noise in his house.

Now this is actually a story that
comes up every couple years in Japan.

Sort of neighbor harassment kind of issues.

It becomes very difficult ’cause the
cops don’t really want to get involved

’cause this is not necessarily
domestic but it’s very similar.

It’s like a dispute between neighbors.

You guys should just
work it out yourselves.

That’s what they want to say.

This man would walk up and down the
streets and other people would be there

and he would shout, “Come
out if you have a problem.

” And so he’s
standing on the street,

shouting at your house, saying,
“Come out if you have a problem.

” If you came out and you said, “I have a
problem with you shouting at my house,”

he would then say, “I’m
just muttering to myself.

Why are you talking to me?

” Idiot.

And then as you walk down the
street, he would go, “Shut up, idiot.

” So that’s the kind
of level of intercourse.

The level of intercourse.

The level of discourse.

I guess the level of intercourse
is still technically acceptable

but I think it’s come to
have a different meaning

than that word of just
interacting with each other.

Take that sentence again.

This is the level of discourse
we can expect from this man.

He tended to start playing nationalistic

military style music at very
high volume starting around 6 a.m.

So I wake up around seven.

This would be the next door to my house.

6 a.m.

This very military
style, almost march style

music that’s very
nationalistic in Japan.

He was playing that as loud as he
could to try to disrupt the neighbors.

So there’s a question of
what do you hope to achieve?

It’s not like all your neighbors
are gonna move away.

So I always have the what do you wanna
achieve question in the back of my mind?

Who are you going after?

What do you think the
result of this is gonna be?

I guess he thinks he
can annoy people enough

that they’ll move away
and then he’ll just have

like a surrounding area of
houses that are just empty

and sort of a circle around him
as their conference of his town.

But of course that’s not
really what’s gonna happen.

They start calling the police.

The police don’t do much.

So the news comes out
because they hear about this guy.

MBS is a new station.

They find him and they
speak to him directly.

He said that he’s trying to raise awareness

of police not cracking
down on traffic violations

and him shouting and playing
music and being disruptive

is a form of protest, which
is a very interesting take

on what he’s doing ’cause
he’s never at any point

during the shouting actually talked
about traffic violations or the police.

He’s never at any point done
anything other than call people stupid.

So somehow calling
people stupid is supposed

to raise awareness
of traffic violations.

So I think we can see that’s
just like a cover he came up with

in the moment when the
news came to speak to him.

He doesn’t actually own this house.

This is a house owned by a
relative where he stays now.

They don’t say whether he’s paying rent.

They don’t say what kind
of arrangement they have.

But legally this is not his
house but he has lived there

and people who live in places
have a certain amount of rights.

Because of the complaints,
because of the constant complaints,

the landlord, his relative is
decided to kick him out of the house.

The guy of course doesn’t want to leave.

He gets him formally evicted and
he has to go to Complaints Court.

The lower court actually dismissed
this case, which is very interesting.

‘Cause this guy owns the house.

He’s saying, I don’t want this
guy living in my house anymore.

And the court’s like, nah,
you gotta let him live there.

So I don’t know if this is
because of rental agreement.

Kind of dispute or if this is because
he’s letting them live there for free.

And they’re like, well, now
this is his place of residence.

You can’t just kick him out like that.

But then it goes to the Osaka higher
court and they overturned the lower courts.

So the first decision was overturned
and they’re saying, get the fuck down.

They are saying he
violated the usage agreement

by making it a base
for nuisance behavior.

So they’re saying because the
agreement is you live in this house.

Now living in this house doesn’t
include harassing your neighbors.

So once you start harassing your neighbors
and you create sort of a base of operations

for a harassment campaign,
that’s outside of the agreement

you’ve made with your relative
who’s letting you rent the house.

So you now have to vacate the house.

No timeline on how one has to vacate now.

And no one North
America is usually 30 days.

Japan can be quite strict.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s
kicked out in a week or two.

I am going to try to follow
up to see if he’s kicked out.

But now this is going to be off the record.

So where he moves to next is
going to be private information.

I think that’s going
to be very hard to find.

Prime Minister Ashiba is in Guunma.

And I think there’s some
advice you’d be given

to just Japanese politicians,
like just don’t make comments.

Don’t lean into any stereotypes.

Don’t make comments about women or groups
or anything because you always mess it up.

I think because there are stereotypes,

politicians think it’s OK to play into
those stereotypes and make these comments.

When the fact is, because it’s a
stereotype, people can get angry about it.

And that’ll ruin your reputation.

And this is what they’re trying to protect.

And it’s a very common story.

And it’s always these guys.

Ashiba hasn’t made that many.

He’s done some gross stuff.

I do remember, like early in his career,

he took a whole only
galleon shoved it in his mouth.

And that was really gross to look at.

But overall, he himself has been
very gaffery comparatively speaking.

He’s still got a bunch.

And this is the problem
because gaffery in Japan

means you’ve only made
one or two, not zero.

They do.

The old Japanese men, I need to stay away
from any comments about women in general.

So he was in Guunma.

Now Guunma has a stereotype that the women

are the strength, the foundation,
the leader of the family.

So Guunma women are strong women.

And this is supposed to come from
back when Guunma primarily produce silk.

And they sort of led the
business, I think, because it was silk.

So it was sort of a female oriented thing.

I don’t even know if that’s true.

Again, this is the stereotype.

And this is where the stereotype came from.

I don’t know how much
of that is actually true.

But maybe they were sort of generally
business leaders in these communities.

So they took on a harder stance compared

to the traditional image
of a Japanese woman.

He’s at a meeting with
local business leader.

So I’m going to go ahead
and guess that most of the

local business leaders
were also old Japanese men.

So he’s in his comfort zone.

He’s like, I can say what I want.

These guys are cool.

Totally forgets that there’s media
there, paying attention to what’s going on.

He said when he’s in Guunma, he feels that
Guunma is a place with many scary people.

I sort of cringe at women
because of their strong image.

So I think saying that I cringe at women

because they’re so strong
isn’t the best political

statement you can make
because every statement

the prime minister makes
is a political statement.

Of course, a lot of people
are like, why did you say that?

That’s a really awful thing to say.

Why are you saying you
cringe at women in Guunma?

That’s pretty.

He’s playing into the stereotype,

probably trying to appease
the Guunma men who are

all like, ho, ho, ho, yes,
our women are strong.

We are hand-pecked men, ho, ho, ho.

This is like playing
into the stereotype of

all Irish people are
alcoholic, which is true.

So of course, the next
day he gets confronted

about this statement
that he cringes in front

of Guunma women
because they’re so strong

and he tries to clarify his
statement by saying, I meant women

are very strong-willed and
supportive of local communities.

I think if I was going to
analyze the two statements,

I cringe in front of Guunma
women because they’re

so strong doesn’t feel
like the same statement as,

women are strong-willed and
supportive of local communities.

So he’s got the right idea.

He’s trying to turn this into like, their
strength is the pillar of the community.

If he had stuck with
that from the beginning,

I don’t think there
would be any problem.

Be like, you know there’s a stereotype
that women in Guunma are strong

and I think they are
the pillar that holds

up this whole community
and I commend them.

That’s the statement that
wouldn’t have gotten him in trouble.

He’s like, using the
stereotype to make a

compliment but he’s like,
no, I see a Guunma woman

and I like cringe down and
become the smallest I can

because I am afraid
she’s going to beat me up.

Just don’t say it.

(upbeat music)

It was a very interesting event
I learned about this weekend.

It was an event designed
to help middle aged men

so people in their forties and fifties
to take better selfies for dating apps.

And I was like, God damn.

That actually is really useful.

So as a man in my fifties
myself, if you said, hey, chung

with beef chest, take a
good selfie, it wouldn’t happen.

I would take the selfie but it
would be just be completely wrong.

Like the atmosphere,
the feeling, the actual,

how to use the camera, all
wrong, all together, all the time.

This event was held for eight
single men in their forties and fifties.

And some of the advice they were given.

So this was a really good advice for me.

It was don’t use yellow
light ’cause that’ll make

you look washed out and
sort of sickly and awful.

I actually use a lot of
yellow light in my room

when I’m streaming and it’s
dark and I have my light on.

It’s yellow to try to
create a soft atmosphere

but at least in that
case, I’m just a little image

down in the corner and
so it wasn’t really impact

and I’m not really going for sex
appeal if I’m being really honest.

When we’re doing Ninja
News Japan or streaming

or anything else, I
think that’s very evident.

But that is good advice.

You shouldn’t use yellow lighting.

I did learn that if you use red lighting,

you don’t see blemishes because
blemishes on human skin tend to be reddish.

So if you use red
lighting, it flushes it out

and you just look like you
have perfect skin all the time.

So I might actually
start going for red lighting

in my room when I
actually start recording.

Men of that age don’t tend to smile much

which means their smiles
are weird and unnatural.

So when they take a picture of
themselves, they don’t have a good smile.

So that’s actually a really good advice.

So I guess you have to learn how to smile.

I actually don’t know if I could
do it naturally in a selfie myself.

Use the outer camera, not the inner camera,
like not like the actual selfie camera.

If you’re watching YouTube video, might
notice a quality change from last weeks

where I switch from the
webcam to my cell phone camera.

So I’ve actually hooked my cell
phone camera up to my computer

to act as my webcam just to
see if there was a difference.

Primarily inspired by this story and
I was just trying stuff out last week.

So if you notice the quality difference
and it makes you happy, well, great.

‘Cause I might be just
going forward with this.

I did notice like a resolution improvement.

That’s not necessarily an improvement
on the picture that you’re actually seeing.

Sometimes some of us could actually use

a little bit of fuzz and
distance and lower pick.

Maybe a little more
pixelization would go a long way.

And the best piece of
advice that I really enjoyed

was undo one more button,
just to look a little more casual.

And it seemed like they had
their buttons up all the way

or maybe just the top
button undone and their shirts

looked a little wrinkly
and they were a little tight.

And they were like,
just loosen that up, baby.

Just show your casual
guy out to have a good time.

And maybe those ladies
start flocking to you.

This was organized by an app for middle-aged
people and it makes perfect sense.

And I think that’s
actually a really good idea.

It’s too bad, it’s only eight.

I think this kind of information maybe
throw it out there on the internet.

You’d actually probably
get more traction that way.

(upbeat music)

Eight people were arrested for
running a fake fortune telling site.

Now the site was real and
the fortune telling wasn’t real.

So why is this one being attacked?

Because I get a horoscope
and stuff where I see like, I’ll

go on TikTok and it’ll give
me like tarot card readings.

We’ll just come up randomly.

And if you actually watch one,
’cause I did watch one out of interest,

it meant like the next week all I got was
tarot card readings every like fifth video,

which I do not want because
I do not believe in tarot card.

I just was interested in what it
would say about today or this week.

So I compare statistically reality.

Did it happen? It did not.

I did enjoy the video.

That was nice.

What is wrong with this
website in these eight people

that they actually ended
up getting arrested for it?

Well, it turns out they had basically

scammed 10 people out of at
least 50 million yen, probably more.

And the fortunes were incredibly specific

and real and aimed at sort
of keeping you locked in.

So they would have fortunes like
you will definitely win the lottery today.

Now, if I said you will have
the lottery in your future

and then you go by lottery
tickets, that’s fairly true.

It’s innocuous.

It’s not actually saying like
you have to buy a lottery ticket.

They were locking in with
like two day, this will happen.

And so that’s fraud.

That’s lying to people.

And that’s the problem with this service.

It was the specificity of the claims

and the fact that they could
basically be proven unreal in

a couple of seconds, but they
were demanding money for it.

So if you got money and
you spent more money,

you get more fortunes
and I bet those fortunes

have actually got better depending on
how much money you actually sent them.

With repeated attempts
to get money from people.

So they actually received 350
payments from one person alone.

So this means they’ve been taking money,

you know, week after week from
the same people, that becomes fraud.

That becomes a scam because you’re
not delivering on any other promises.

You’re not actually delivering
on anything you claim to be doing.

So in 2024, there were
12,170 arrests of foreign people.

This is the largest number
of arrests in the last 15 years.

So I actually do have a
question of what happened in

2009 to be getting more
arrests than they have now.

But this means more and
more foreigners being arrested

right now they have a
thing where if you get

arrested in your foreigner,
they try to get someone

and interpret her in to actually
do translation services for you.

So let’s say I get arrested
and I don’t speak any Japanese.

And my Japanese isn’t actually
good enough to defend myself.

I would want interpreter with me.

The police ask me questions.

The interpreter is there.

I speak to the interpreter.

They respond to the police officer.

That service is there for
people who don’t speak Japanese,

but they don’t have enough interpreters.

And with more people becoming sort of
residents in Japan from more countries,

it means they’re actually
more languages to interpret.

They essentially cannot
promise having an interpreter,

an in-person interpreter
available during questioning.

And on top of the 12,000 arrests, there
were 9,500 crimes with non-arrest outcomes,

which means people were
taken in questions and spoken to,

but they weren’t actually arrested,
but they needed interpreters as well.

So going forward,
interpreting may be off-site

so they might do it through a phone call,
via voice chat, via some sort of service,

like line, online, so a video
call, something like that.

There are currently 4,200 police in Japan
who speak another language, proficiently.

So proficiently enough to be able to switch
languages and actually speak to them.

I’m gonna go ahead and bet a
majority of those are actually English,

but there’s gonna be a lot of them to speak
Korean or Chinese or something like that.

As an English speaker, I
wouldn’t want the policeman who

wants to arrest me actually
doing the interpretation.

So I wouldn’t want the guy who wants
to close this case as quickly as possible,

actually doing the interpretation
for me as the suspected party,

because I feel like there’s
might be a bias there.

There are 9,600 civilian
interpreters if needed.

And this is gonna be starting July 1st.

So these people, I guess they’re on call.

So like you just hang around,

maybe you work from home
situation where you’re on call,

and then the police
call you and they’re

like, hey, now can you
jump into this meeting?

Can you jump into this video call and
actually do the interpretation for the police?

Because maybe you have someone from Nepal

who’s been arrested and you need a
Nepalese speaker to do the interpretation.

You’re not maybe have
one in your small city.

So in the small city I live in, maybe
there are no people from Nepal

who can actually do
interpretation services.

So they’re gonna have to call someone
in Tokyo, Osaka, one of the other cities,

and have them actually
do it via video call.

(upbeat music)

Four people were arrested
for selling mammoth tusks.

The biggest problem with that being

since mammoths have been extinct for a
really long time, they’re not mammoth tusks.

So it would have been one interesting
thing like, hey, I’m selling mammoth tusks.

And you and take a moment and go, where
did you get these mammoths tusks from?

Might be the first question.

This of course was a scam.

This was to avoid ivory restrictions
and sales, which is a very real thing.

Selling ivory is not
that evil, not that evil.

There’s a weird 40 in slip
’cause I actually think it is evil.

Selling ivory is not legal.

There are a lot of sort
of things that you have to

take into account before
you can sell ivory in Japan.

It’s a violation of the
misleading labeling of goods.

So because they’re
selling ivory, but labeling

as mammoth tusks, that
is what makes it illegal.

Not the fact that they’re selling
illegal ivory, that is a secondary charge

that’s probably going to come out when they
discover what they were actually selling,

when they actually discover
where the ivory actually came from.

There is an international
ban on ivory trade.

So the fact that they’re
actually selling ivory

and calling it mammoth tusks,
that’s gonna be two crimes.

But they have to like open the door
with the fraud mammoth tusks thing

and then go, hey, where
did you get this ivory?

You were labeling as mammoth tusks.

And then, of course, they’re gonna find out

they’re gonna be in
trouble for that as well.

In Japan, you could
sell legally obtained

tusks certified by a
state backed organization.

So I’m assuming state backed
means a Japanese state backed,

which mammoth tusks
do not have an organization

in the state that’s going
to like certify that it’s a

real mammoth tusks, again,
because that’s not a thing.

So these people were just
trying to get around the sale.

So it means they’re actually
buying from an illegal source.

There’s no oversight, which means this
is going to be huge charges, big problems.

Don’t buy mammoth tusks online.

(upbeat music)

I mean, honestly, don’t buy
mammoth tusks in person either.

Just a little secondary note that
came into my head after I said that.

There was a kick streamer
called Zokun Zokun, and

he was arrested for
prefectural nuisance disorder.

So basically he’s running around
making a nuisance of himself.

What’s he doing?

Well, he’s a kick streamer.

That’s already one of the first problems,

because all the nuisance
steamers got kicked off Twitch.

They all moved to
kick where it’s a little

more freeform, and
they’re getting in trouble.

So Johnny Smolley was a kick streamer.

That guy went to the
Philippines was a kick streamer.

All these sort of nuisance
streamers have gone to kick.

I have dual streaming on Twitch and
kick, but I am not a nuisance streamer,

at least I hope I’m not annoying
you, or anyone else in my community.

I’m certainly not going outside
shouting things at people

and playing male tourist music
at six o’clock in the morning.

What he did to break the nuisance law

was run around with women’s
underwear on his head.

Now, the thing is on television,
this would be Pete comedy.

So he’s seeing this.

There’s a character, a manga character,
and he wears underwear on his head.

I’m not gonna get into that.

But a Japanese comedian on TV
wearing women’s underwear on his

face, on his head, that I see
would be seen as really funny.

I guess it’s because you
have the option of turning it off.

So if I’m walking down the street

and someone runs up to me
with underwear on their head,

I can’t just turn the channel
and then not see it anymore.

I have to see that, so
it’s being forced on me.

In real life, that’s why it
becomes nuisance streaming.

Viewers contacted the
police and because they could

tell where he was, they
could identify the location,

they could actually send
the police to where he was.

So I think it’s one of those interesting
things where if you’re streaming to people

and those people are ranting you out,
you either haven’t found the right audience

or you’re not doing a very
good job with your streaming.

There were some defenders who kind of
had the same logic of what I had is like,

if someone did this on TV,
if a famous comedian did

this on TV, they would
actually be lauded as hilarious.

What is the problem with this guy doing it?

Because he’s actually not
doing anything particularly illegal.

He’s just annoying people, but I’m
actually kind of in favor of nuisance laws

because these nuisance
streamers are getting so out of hand.

(upbeat music)

This is back from May 26th,

but I missed the story and I
actually was really interested.

We’ve actually done a dueling story before.

So Japan has a long history of samurai.

The samurai has have duels and that’s
why cowboy movies and samurai movies

have those great standoffs,
’cause everyone loves a duel.

Well, these two saitama women, 19 and
16 year old, so women is actually generous.

These are kids.

These two saitama kids were
arrested for dueling on May 26th.

Now they’re both from
different gangs and the

different gangs, they’ve
one called the other one out.

She said like, come meet
me here, she summoned her.

It’s like, meet me here
and we’re gonna duke it out.

We’re gonna fight.

And then we’re gonna have a fist fight.

So I guess they had clean
rules, no knives, no other objects,

nothing, we’re just gonna like
duke it out, old fashioned style.

They didn’t bring swords so
it wasn’t like a samurai duel.

Between eight, 30 and
nine, there were witnesses.

I guess they did this in a
parking lot or something.

Witnesses to the duel, so
they’re like calling the police,

going like, hey, we got two
gang looking chicks out here.

They seem to be like either getting
ready or beating each other up right now.

So maybe the cops should get out here.

Cops show up pretty
quick, they get arrested.

Both admitted to the charges of dueling.

Now why is this dueling a not just assault

or fighting in the street or public nuisance
like every other story we’ve had today?

It’s because it was organized.

And this was the point
I brought up the last

time this came up in
the introduced Japan,

was the organizational
element is what makes it a duel,

not just like an assault or a
fight or actually a lesser charge.

Because dueling is a more serious
charge than just fighting or assault.

Because of that organization factor because
of that forethought that went into it.

Now the police wanted dueling charge

because anyone involved in
organizing the duel is also guilty.

So if I organize it to, so I call
one girl on behalf of the other girl,

I am now involved in the
duel and I can be charged.

If other people show up and
they like stand in a circle around it

because they know it’s
duel, they know it’s going on.

They can all be charged with the duel.

So the police are
actually looking for a way

to extend the crime, to catch
more members of this gang,

to maybe either break
up the gang or give them a

little pressure so they
maybe rethink the gang life.

Isn’t the way they want to live?

But at the same time,
duels are still really cool.

[MUSIC]

(electronic music)

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