(upbeat music)
All right, so golden week is over, but,
that means now I have
to reorganize my schedule
and just gonna get
everything back on track.
So we had a really busy time at work
and then family came over golden week
and now things maybe have finally settled
down to the way they’re supposed to be.
But here we are, in Japan,
with the news, for you.
Excellent, really chance.
She just does not go away.
She is in the news
constantly because she
thought, oh, she’d been
sentenced to prison.
She’s gonna go to prison.
Of course, she did the
smartest thing she could do.
She appealed.
She’s like, I don’t wanna go to prison.
Let’s appeal the sends.
I didn’t like the way they
talked about the fraud.
So the way the fraud
was mentioned in the
article was she induced
affection from three men.
So she committed fraud by
getting three men to fall in love
or I actually had a conversation
with this about my student.
I had a conversation
about this with my students.
And I found it very interesting that
they were all very dismissive of the men.
They were all like, all these guys,
they should have known better.
They should not have
fallen in love with her.
They should have known
what they were getting into.
And I was like, I know you
understand, like she’s picking.
She probably did mass
messages to hook the lonely men.
And those lonely men are suddenly convinced
that this is their dream girl in that.
They’re in love with her and she’s in
love with them and it’s all gonna work out.
And I have a lot of sympathy for the
men because she was choosing older men
who basically now probably have less
opportunities for relationships than this.
This really young, fairly
attractive girl comes in.
She falls in love with them.
She’s saying all the
things they wanna hear.
I mean, this was her guide.
Her guide was on the things you need to
say to keep them hooked, to give you money.
I read some excerpts
from it in an old episode.
It was very interesting
because she was right.
She was like, you don’t just
immediately ask for money.
That’s suspicious.
You have to like defer and
say like, “Oh, I got big problems.
” And then they go,
“Oh, what’s the problem?
” You go, “Oh, no, I don’t
wanna burden you with it.
” And then you try to defer and defer and
defer until they force you to tell them.
And then you go, “I owe
money or my friend owes money
“or money needs to be
owed and I need money.
” And then they
go, “I’ll offer to you.
” You go, “No, no, no, I
don’t wanna take it from.
” But then they’re more generous because
they’re like, “Here’s my opportunity
“to show this person how much I love
them “and support them and help them.
” And the thing is,
she’s playing on that idea
of if she refuses again
and again and again.
It doesn’t feel like a scam anymore
because they’re trying to
force her to take the money.
Anyways, that was in her
book that she sold online,
which is actually what got
her in trouble in the end.
I didn’t know this part.
She was also as part of her case.
She had failed to declare
40 million yen in income.
And again, the average salary in
Japan is four to five million yen.
So she’s talking like 10
years of an average salary.
She had not declared an income.
I assume that was in one year.
God, man, see, and this is it.
It’s the fiscal, I get
on this bit every time
because I’m like, she had so
much money available to her.
They’re not actually going
to make her give it back.
Or are they, I’m not
sure, that’s the thing.
She could have hidden a lot of that money
and once she got out of
prison actually been okay
or set up a new life or
something, she didn’t do it.
She filed her appeal on May 1st.
Today is May 7th.
This is when the story came out.
She’s finding ways to keep
herself in the news, which at
least is interesting because
I don’t know why it eats on.
I think the level of her scam, her ability,
and in the fact that
she worked really hard.
And then came to this
point where she got caught
and the whole collapse,
like that rise and
fall is the bit I’m
finding most interesting.
So I really want to see
where does she end up?
Does she end up going to prison?
How much time does she do?
What’s the punishment?
How far does it go?
And then I actually want to know
what happens when she gets out.
Like, does she rebuild her life or does
prison make her like more of a scammer?
Because, you know, there is the idea that
prison is supposed to rehabilitate people,
but I think we all know the reality that
it doesn’t really do that in most cases.
So where is she going
to end up after this case?
That is the bit I’m most interested in.
I’m unfortunately going to
have to wait a decade to find out.
Biden gave a speech.
And in that speech,
she said Japan, China,
Russia, and India are
xenophobic countries.
And Japan was like, what?
Well, why are you picking on me?
Why are you putting, you’re lumping me in
with these other guys, China and Russia?
There’s bad guys.
India, it’s been neutral.
It could flip the floor
back and forth on India.
Like, we work with them,
we sometimes we don’t.
But China and Russia,
you know, don’t do that.
And so they were very upset.
And his reasoning was Biden’s
reasoning was, Japan, China,
Russia, and India don’t want
immigrants, which is true.
Like I actually don’t know as much
about China and Russia and India.
India, I don’t think wants immigrants
because they’ve got a billion people already.
Maybe that’s enough people.
China, similar situation.
Also, I would say xenophobic
for political reasons.
Russia has its own issues.
I don’t claim to know anything
about those countries in any real way.
But Japan, I have lived
here for a long time.
I claim to know something
about the country.
And I would say xenophobia
is still a fairly accurate thing.
They don’t want a lot of foreigners
coming in and changing Japan as a country.
The Japanese embassy protested,
but also they didn’t change their policy.
They still don’t want immigrants.
So this is maybe the bit
that I find most interesting is,
is Biden has essentially
said something that’s true.
And then Japan’s been like, well,
that doesn’t make us look good.
You shouldn’t say that.
And then you should
apologize, but then it’s still true.
What Biden was actually
talking about was how immigrants
to America actually helped fuel
the economic growth of the country.
And immigration is a good thing.
And we should promote immigration.
And people should immigrate to countries.
And build those countries up Japan.
Billion times now, we’ve said
suffering and population decline.
I think some immigration actually
do the country a bit of good.
They are still resistant.
And apparently that’s not xenophobia.
That’s something else completely, which
has maybe a completely
different name that I don’t know.
I don’t know what else you would call it.
24-year-old attacked his
57-year-old father with a wooden sword.
And this is– we go through these trends.
I said in the last episode, we
do go through trends in news.
And so we had a trend of crossbows.
And then those crossbows
were actually made illegal in Japan.
Weirdly, near my train
station, I actually found a poster
that looked quite old, giving
information about crossbows.
I guess how you’re not
supposed to have them.
That’s interesting.
I’ll throw that up on the
Instagram after this episode.
If this happens a few more times,
they’re actually going to be like,
have wooden sword rules going to place.
They’re going to have wooden
sword ownership laws put in.
Because that’s what Japan does.
Like guns are illegal.
And then they’re like
bows and arrows are illegal.
Swords are illegal.
Crossbows, people started using those.
Crossbows are now illegal.
So wooden swords, man, if you go ape on
those, I bet they make wooden swords illegal.
It’s not legal to carry a knife
with you unless you have–
can explain why you’re carrying
that knife from 0.8 to 0.B.
So this is a classic.
I’ve actually talked about
this a bunch of times.
But it’s something people know.
You wouldn’t actually be allowed
to carry a Swiss army knife.
When I was back in Canada, I
used to carry a Swiss army knife
with me all the time, just
to my bag or something,
has a screwdriver, other stuff fairly
useful, randomly throughout the day.
If I could not– if I
would stop by the police
and they said, why do you
have the Swiss army knife?
And I couldn’t give
them a reason, a specific
reason, then that is
illegal for me to carry.
So if I was carrying a fish-gutting knife
and I was going fishing,
that would be illegal.
If I had a fish-gutting knife and I
was going to work, that would be illegal.
That’s– there’s a certain
level of interpretation
that comes with the
rules in Japan, which is a
very interesting thing,
but also very important.
And no, who’s interpreting those rules,
the guy who might be very angry at
you at the moment, who is a police officer.
His father was sitting in a chair
and just started beating them.
He was arrested.
They are still looking into the reason why.
But the only reason this
story caught my attention
is when he was being arrested, he
said, perhaps, I went a little too far.
And I think, yeah, once
you pick up a wooden sword
and start hitting another
human being with it,
I think, maybe, yeah,
you went a little too far.
There was a guy who owns an izakaya.
And is a guy who owns– it’s a bar.
That’s food.
And often, they’re
very small and very local.
It’s a very authentic Japanese experience.
Foreigners really enjoy
enjoying the izakaya’s.
They, of course, do
have trouble with English,
because not every
Japanese person to be English.
The reason a lot of
people like me have jobs
is because we come to
Japan and teach English.
And the reason we teach
English is because the education
system in Japan is so
poor at teaching English.
So really, the whole reason
I am able to live in Japan
is because the Japanese education system
has failed so miserably at teaching English.
This bar owner went and had some trouble.
He had a white couple of what he said.
Come in and asked for an English menu.
And he said, no, we
don’t have one of those.
And then, basically,
he said it was really
troublesome to have this
foreign couple in his bar.
He went online.
He decided to complain online,
which is always the best idea.
I mean, if you’re going to complain,
you really want to go on
the internet and complain,
because that’s going to
make everything better.
He said, I’d learn
English if I came to an
English-speaking country,
which I bet is not true.
I bet if you went to either of that,
or he’s actually just
saying, I would not travel.
This is Japan.
If I went to an English-speaking
country, I’d speak
English, make the effort
to speak Japanese in Japan.
If that’s a hassle, bring an interpreter.
It’s one of those things
where he’s not wrong,
but he’s also not
right, because if you’re
running a bar, your bar
runs on customer service,
you should be trying to accommodate
as many customers as possible.
This is a case where if you had someone
with a fairly good smartphone
or a laptop or something,
you could actually just have them speak
into it, and it could do the auto-translate.
So I think we’ve now
hit a level of technology
where you’re not having deep
political conversations with customers.
It’s like, hey, what do you want to drink?
Hey, have you enjoyed your stay in Japan?
How is things?
How are things?
Do you want anything else?
Stuff like that.
These are not really hard
phrases for someone to learn.
So you went on, which of course, because he
goes on, you know, again, very good idea.
Indigenous Japanese might not know
this, but if you go to another country,
speaking that country’s
language is taken for granted.
Like back in the day in
Barcelona, you couldn’t not only
get away with English, you
couldn’t speak Spanish either.
Everyone’s both Catalan.
Can stupid Japanese
people finally stop with this?
We lost the war mentality?
Now, that is giving me a lot
of insight into this gentleman’s
politics when he uses the
we lost the war mentality?
Because it’s something
that right wingers say
that, you know, we
should stop sort of cow
towing to other countries
and bending our back.
Because yes, we lost the
war, but we lost the war
with so long ago, we could
still be proud of ourselves
and live up and, you know, be proud
of being Japanese, that kind of stuff.
This had some trouble.
He ended up closing his
restaurant for a short period of time.
The threads taught posts generated
over 65,000 likes and 10,000 retweets.
So that is showing you that
there is a large segment of Japan
that is on board with
this kind of attitude.
Or the retweets could just be sharing,
but the 65,000 likes, I
think it’s actually clear.
They’re saying they
actually like this as a concept.
This doesn’t seem like something
worth fighting over a question mark.
I’ve been rescued myself,
I’ve been rescued myself
going overseas and finding
an English menu available.
You don’t have to know English,
but currently it’s the spreading.
It’s spreading at the, let me start again.
This doesn’t seem like
something to worth fighting over.
This doesn’t seem like
something worth fighting over.
It’s a question mark is actually
putting it hard for me to say.
This doesn’t seem like
something worth fighting over.
That’s a statement, not a question.
I’ve been rescued myself going
overseas to find an English menu available.
You don’t have to know English,
but currently it’s spreading
as the words lingua franca.
And knowing it brings big benefits
for both companies and individuals.
So they’re saying that, yes, while
you don’t have to learn English,
it’s kind of like what
I’m saying, making small
accommodations in English
will actually help your business.
Another poster concurred
saying it’s been spirited
to reply the way the
shopkeeper did 10 years ago
when I asked foreigners what
they thought of Japanese people.
They uniformly say they’re pretty gentle.
I probably mean they kind.
But now I’m hearing
some say they’re so cold.
I guess the over capacity of tourists.
The over capacity of tourists is
a very recent phenomenon though.
So that’s really just a
post-COVID phenomenon.
So that is one why question
the veracity of that statement
only because this clearly
has to be a trend over time
for people to be changing their
opinions not just a very recent thing.
Although they could just be
talking to very recent tourists.
On the 21st, so the last month,
they were temporarily closing the store
due to mental and physical
stress from the controversy.
But of course, they did not
back down from their stance.
In their closure message
they said, I don’t know when
we’re opening again, but it’ll
be a bar that doesn’t depend
on the also precious white
personages who can’t read Japanese.
So this guy is decided to take a stand
and that stand is, I don’t
want foreigners in my bar.
They goes on, this is very good article.
This is from Unseen Japan,
which is a very good website.
So if you are interested in Japanese stuff,
Unseen Japan by J.
Allen, he actually goes on,
he does the article, which I
read most of it to you just now.
Then he goes on to go
further with our tourists
driving out the regulars, walk-ins or
challenge, strategies for handling the influx,
and then it gives you
some other stuff to read.
It’s a very good website.
I would highly recommend
it if you have the time
you could subscribe there
and enjoy some Unseen Japan
because they do have
very similar feeling
news to what we do
here at Ninja Ninja Japan.
Lawyers, everyone knows.
Lawyers is very lovable, fun-loving people.
But the bar association
thinks that you know what?
People don’t think people
love lawyers as much
as they could, so let’s
do something about that.
So they decided to make
some cute mascots and logos
to offset the image that lawyers
are strict and unapproachable.
I actually, if I wanted a lawyer, I
would want my lawyer to be fairly strict
and fairly unapproachable because I would
want him to be that way in the courtroom.
They’ve created a
character called Ben Tota.
Tora is tiger and Ben is the
kanji in Bengoshi, which is lawyer.
So on the top of his forehead is a
kanji, sort of built into the stripes.
It’s actually very subtle, it’s quite good.
So it’s a cute tiger character who is
supposed to soften the image of lawyers.
Tigers famously cute
and approachable animals
that everyone would think of as
first of you, say cute and approachable.
Everyone goes, oh yeah, you know, tigers.
It is a very cute-looking tiger.
500 designs were submitted from
the public and other organizations.
So basically, this is actually,
this kind of put me off the lawyer.
‘Cause companies
do this, they do like an
open call for designs,
but and they pick one.
But what they’re actually
getting is free samples and
they can pick the sample of
like best and reward that one.
But those other people
have still done the work.
And those other people don’t get paid.
There was another character in the article,
which is a big purple dog
with weird leaves on its head
and a symbol for lawyers on it,
which I did not understand at all.
So there were some pretty
like out there design choices.
I think the tiger was the
best one, probably of the
ones I saw, but I only saw
a few and of the ones I saw.
I don’t see how this is actually gonna,
like if you have a very
strict serious looking lawyer
having this mascot in
the same vicinity as him
is not going to make him
seem more cuddly and friendly.
I think, I don’t know.
Or maybe they’ll just make
it like we can talk to lawyers
and they can hold the
plushie of the tiger next
to them and be like, you
know, don’t talk to me.
Talk to, what was this name?
Ben Tota, talk to Ben
Tota and tell him your issues
and then I will go to court
and fight on your behalf.
Kyoto district legal affairs bureau staff,
another very strict
sounding group of people.
So we got a group of
lawyers and then these guys
who are the district legal affairs
bureau for the city of Kyoto.
So they’re gonna be pretty serious stuff.
There was a manager in his 50s
and he grabbed one of his
subordinates in his 20s by the chest.
I don’t know what that means.
By the chest, I would
assume the lapels of his jacket
if he was wearing a suit
jacket, but maybe he grabbed
his shirt, but grabbing by
the chest actually means,
like it sounds like he grabbed
two giant handfuls of peck.
I hope, I don’t know if that’s a sound
that peck’s make when you grab them.
So you grab those.
Actually, there’s no way it
would have been that powerful.
We knew, we know this
from the rest of the sentence
and then he started
kicking him around the
waist, which is a very
awkward way to do it.
It’s like, so tie boxing, they
grab the back your head
and they kind of like
knee you in the stomach.
This guy grabs your chest, your pecs.
Again, I think it must have
been the lapels of a jacket
and then he starts like
kicking you in the waist.
So he’s not getting a lot of leverage to
kick him very hard, which is a good thing
’cause I don’t actually
want people to get hurt,
but I’m also on the like, if you’re
gonna bother to hurt someone,
you might as well follow
through and do it right.
The reason he was grabbing this man
and doing very awkward kicks to his stomach
was that the man was discussing spoilers
from a recent manga called Oshino Ko.
I don’t read a lot of manga, so I
don’t actually know if this was good,
but apparently it’s a very plot-heavy story,
so the spoilers would be very important
to the kind of people who
actually read this comic.
The manager has been
transferred and the subordinate
reported no injuries, but
he did report it to the police.
There have been no charges yet.
When the supervisor was being
spoken to, he said, I don’t like spoilers.
Now, I personally don’t care about
spoilers, but I know other people do.
So I try not to give too many spoilers,
but the reason I don’t care about spoilers
is because I found out
there was a scientific study
that found that spoilers
don’t actually ruin
the value of entertainment of different
things, which is very interesting.
‘Cause they found what
happens when there is
information that you know,
your brain can then process
the information of the
story as it unfolds faster,
and you actually can at
times get more enjoyment
out of it, so let’s say a
very complicated story.
Having spoilers in the back of your
head actually simplifies the story,
and means you can follow
along more efficiently.
Now that isn’t a reason to
actually start spoiling things
for people, again, like I don’t
think spoilers are a big deal,
but other people do, and I
don’t wanna ruin their pleasure.
I think maybe the
internet has grown spoilers
into something that
it didn’t used to be.
So that is fair, don’t
spoil for things for people
who don’t want it spoiled for them,
but if you are the spoily in this case,
don’t grab people by the pecs
and start awkwardly needing
them in the stomach,
because that’s not any better.
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