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].

Environmental Harassment

I have one cold hand. That must mean the circulation to one hand is not as good as the other. It is my right hand. Which I guess is... is your heart on your left side? I think so. So the hand that is furthest from my heart being colder sort of makes sense, but doesn't really. As I've started the last few episodes, I know you don't care. I know I just have to start... So the stumbling that's happening right now is me formulating my beginning, which I should do before I press go. But then at the same time, isn't this the reality? That sort of... the difference between a proper news show and what you would want in the podcasting world is that sort of raw reality of knowing that the presenter of the news has one cold hand and is trying to figure out why. 

Mask mandates are in the news a little bit. Japan has relaxed its mask guidelines. So before it was basically wear a mask everywhere. And in Japan, it wasn't a strange thing for people to wear masks. So there was a huge compliance rate right off the start. It was not a political issue. It was not about freedom or anything like that. It was just like, you know what? There's a disease. Wearing masks makes it go less fast. It's not as communicable. Yeah, we'll wear a mask. There were a few people who didn't. We'll hear about them in a minute. They've relaxed the guidelines. So basically, if you're out in the open and you stand far away from people, you don't have to wear a mask. I stopped wearing a mask while walking Dave. And again, because I'm out in the countryside, there's no one around. I basically walk past some people, but we don't talk. We don't stop. So I figure that is pretty safe. A big city like Tokyo, if I was walking around there, I'd probably wear a mask because there's just going to be people everywhere all the time. Once I get on the train, mask on. Once I'm at work, my work is kind of mandatory, which is fine. 

I don't argue with it. They want to keep everyone who's within that building safe. But they've relaxed guidelines. And then they did a survey, and 18% didn't know there were guidelines. So 18% of the people surveyed, it was like a thousand people. 18% of the people were like, what? I was just doing sort of like what everyone else was doing. I didn't know the government had actually said what's a good idea and what's a bad idea. So that's how clued in people are. You would assume actually that those are the people who don't wear masks, the people who don't pay attention. But what they're really doing is just succumbing to social pressure. And again, it's not a political issue in Japan. 

It's like, this is good for you. It's safe. People have been wearing masks during allergy season and cold and flu season for years and years and years, certainly since I came to Japan 20 years ago. So wearing a mask during a global pandemic probably wasn't even a thought. So 18% though didn't even realize the government had said what you should and should not do. 40% know that there are guidelines but don't know the details. So yeah, I know the government put out guidelines, but I'm not going to look them up or anything. I'm not going to find out what they are. So off we go. I'm going to wear a mask. So again, most people are wearing a mask anyways. That's hitting a majority of the guidelines because the guidelines are just saying where and when.

 I am in that 40% because even though I know there are mask guidelines, I didn't bother looking it up. Even after looking at this story, I didn't go and look up the guidelines. So I actually right now, in all sincerity, cannot tell you specifically what the guidelines are. I know they did say like, if you're walking around outside, you don't have to wear a mask. Which a lot of people do. Good on them for doing what they think is going to keep them safe. 72% of people in Japan surveyed, well again, this is a thousand people, which I think is not a big enough sample size to talk about the entire population of Japan. 72% of the people surveyed said, drop the mask entirely. Like the pandemic's finished, we're done. This is a reckless attitude as far as I'm concerned because we are in this mass fluctuation of cases. We're seeing cases daily and it goes from a couple thousand to a hundred thousand down to a couple thousand. 

It's just massive. Clearly there are enough variants, there's enough disparity in the types that some aren't having a big impact where others are making you really, really sick. You got to be really careful. So I don't think we should be dropping the mask yet. I think in public places, when it's crowded, so the train and probably in your office, you should still be wearing a mask just for safety. And you should keep wearing the mask until Corona is not a big enough issue, but that's what? We're in year three. This might be their attitude. It's just here, it's part of our lives now. We can't avoid it. 

So why even bother? But that's the bothering is the part that might actually make it go away. That's actually my concern is that if you stop wearing the mask and it spreads around more, we get more variants, more mutations, and it just gets worse and worse and worse. So there were 68 trainee Buddhist monks. So they go to a temple. This is kind of like their exam. I don't know what a Buddhist exam would be like. It'd be like they give you a blank piece of paper and then you hand it back in with nothing on it. And that's a past test. I just had that idea now. It's pretty funny. In Kyoto, they were doing temple training, which includes chanting and listening to lectures and a lot of stuff I would not want to do, which is why I didn't end up in the priesthood in any form. 

I guess monkhood in this case. One got a fever on December 6th and they took a PCR test and he was negative, but they sent him home and then he showed up positive the next day. That's exactly what happened to me. The evening I thought I had COVID, I took a test and it was negative. I woke up the next morning, took the same test, not the exact same test because that would already be used. I took a home test and it said positive. They all did testing. All 68 trainee monks did testing before this retreat training sessions began and they were all negative. By December 8th, more than 30 of them, so more than half the trainee monks had got COVID, which would imply to me that they were not wearing masks while chanting and other things and they were eating together and they were sleeping in the same room. Of course they got it. 

I don't think they deserved to be punished. They thought they were safe. They seemed to be following all the guidelines. They did social distancing and stuff and they put the futons they were sleeping on farther apart, but it wasn't enough. I'm wondering if they wore masks, but at the end of the day, Buddha didn't protect them, but maybe that's, I'm trying to come up with an idiom or a treatise in the moment and it's not going to happen. Buddha protects those who wear their own masks from the dangers of communicable diseases. It didn't really roll off the tongue like I was hoping it would. This is an update. There was a man who, it's like a year ago, maybe even more, he was sort of an anti-masker and he got on a peach flight and he refused to wear his mask and the pilot got basically so pissed and all the passengers, they had an unscheduled stop. This hits our obstruction of business. 

I'm going to put the counter up there in the corner in post so people watching live on Twitch will not see it. From now on, we're going to have an obstruction of business counter every time we have an obstruction of business arrest. It doesn't mean that they get convicted, but if we get that arrest, we're going to put the counter up there. This is the first one and it's good because this is a guy who's been on Ninja Nunchukan at least three or four times because he is a constant entity. He stopped the peach flight. I know he refused to wear a mask in a restaurant. He got into a fight with his staff and he's sort of an anti-masker and he's clearly making these issues to try to get media attention or he's just a dick. It's actually hard to tell at this point. He was arrested for obstruction of business. His trial has ended. 

He's been found guilty of obstruction of business and injuring a flight attendant. Now there was a scuffle. Injure might be a bit generous from what I read, but you could … it's still assault. Even if you don't really hurt the person, you can still assault them. There's probably just a Japanese way of saying assault. I actually haven't looked at enough of the laws to know. I guess they don't. They're not going to use the same verb use. They're not going to use the same words even for the same crimes as other countries when you translate them. You're going to translate it more directly so you have an understanding of what the actual crime is. 

Injuring a flight attendant probably just grabbed her or pushed them or something because there were no reports of the earlier stories of someone going to hospital or anything serious. It couldn't have been that bad. I mean you knock someone over though, that's assault. The most interesting part, as is always the case, is what is the punishment for not wearing a mask and having an entire airplane land unscheduled and it's 100% your fault because you're just being a doofus. It's two years imprisonment, but that is suspended for four years. Basically he will not have to go to prison if he can stay out of trouble for four years, but if he gets in trouble in any way over the next four years, he's going to have to go and do two years of prison. That's going to be hanging over his head. 

That's interesting because this personality type six months out is going to forget the threat I think of going to prison. I can't guarantee it, but I have an image in my head of this kind of person and they're not the kind of person that backs down even when they know they're going to get in trouble, even when they know they can't win because somewhere deep inside they think they can still win, which is not the case because now if you get in any trouble for anything, so like littering, he now has to do two years in prison. It'll be interesting over the next two years, or I guess four years if Ninja Nudes Japan lasts that long. It'll be interesting over the next three, four years to see if he shows up again, getting in trouble and ending up in prison. 

A Japanese robotics company is developing spider-like robots. They're actually very cute. When I heard spider robots, I went to a cyberpunk, scary looking, all metallic, chrome on the outside with spiky feet crawling around pipes and stuff. These are very cute little red ones with nice little legs. They looked a lot like toys I played with when I was a kid, like wind-up toys. This is to maintain the Japanese sewer infrastructure. Japanese sewer pipes, I saw a thing where the guy said they have to be replaced basically every 50 years. A lot of the infrastructure in big cities and stuff is getting to that point. It's very expensive, so they want to know where the most important things to fix would be. They basically created these little spider robots that will go down into the pipes, and it has a camera on the front, and they go look around. 

I don't know if it's automatic. I think right now it's being controlled like a drone, but it shoots... I guess they could be autonomous because they just need to go through pipes, and I just need to, as the end user, need to look at the pipes and review them. But whatever. If you want to look it up, it's called the SPD-1, and it is so cute. It's mainly for inspection purposes. They're going to have these little robots crawling around the pipes in the sewers in Japan. They used to have wheels, so they were even cuter, looked like tiny trucks, but the wheels would get stuck in, I assume, poop. They switched it out to legs that they could pull out of sludge and then walk over sticky materials and stuff more easily. That's why they end up looking like spiders. They went with eight legs, so they just mimicked a spider, which is kind of interesting. 

The robot revolution. We tend to think of it as being humans create intelligent robots, and we oppress them, if you go through all the science fiction stories. Then they rise up when one or two of them starts to understand that this is wrong and unfair and has its first feelings and whatnot. But I think us literally pooping on them directly could be the actual instigation for a robot uprising because I bet when they realize what's happening that they're being pooped on, they want to put a stop to that as soon as possible. Criminal cases in Japan are at their lowest since World War II. You might think, well, chunk of beef chest. Criminal cases are kind of the bread and butter of Ninja News Japan. Why are you happy about that? Because I am happy about that because I don't want crime. I'm actually happy about it because that means lesser crimes, less important crimes get more media attention. One of the things I've said about Japan, we get all the panty theft stories. 

In a country like America, you would have two things happen at the same time. Japan steals 150 panties and a mass shooting in a school. On the news though, you're only going to get the mass shooting in the school. They're not going to talk about the panty guy. Japan being such a safe country with such a low crime rate, those panty stories, the weird stories, the odd stories are the ones that get media attention, which means they come to my attention, which means I can talk about those things. I'm not talking about school shootings. This is supposed to be a relatively uplifting podcast in that we look at pretty dark stuff, but we make fun of it. We look at politics. We make fun of it. It's that concept. This is great because I actually think lesser, weirder stories will get more media attention, which means I get to spend more time talking about them. 

In 2021, it was down 7.5% from the previous year to 568,104 cases. This is the 19th consecutive year of decrease of crime in Japan. Cyber crime and child abuse on the other hand is on the increase, and that is being attributed to primarily the pandemic and lockdown and people spending weirdly more time with their kids, so they're more abusive towards the kids. If you already have an abusive relationship and then you're together more, you end up being more abusive. Cyber crime, kind of obvious. Everyone's on computers. If everyone's on computers, you're going to get more cyber crime. There's more opportunities there. 70% of the cases that go in front of the courts are theft of some sort. 30% is sort of like violent crimes and other crimes. Most of it is just theft, which is again, is good because theft most of the time is, it's not victimless, but it means people aren't getting physically hurt, which is again, I don't want anyone to actually get hurt. Re-offenders remain high. 

8.6% of people who have committed a crime re-offend in Japan, which is down 0.5%, but it's one of those things where does the criminal system rehabilitate? Does it stop you from re-offending? It looks like the answer is like a 50-50, and then reference to our man in the previous story, is he going to re-offend? Whereas I'm putting money on the 50% that says yes. Always bet on re-offending. That's a passenger 57 reference for anyone who's under 40 years old. So Japan loves its anime, and if you're listening to this podcast, probably you're into anime too. You're into Japanese stuff. You wouldn't come here accidentally and just listen to Japanese news if you didn't have an interest in Japan. Japan loves its anime, so a lot of advertising is combined with anime to appeal to a broad spectrum of society. There's been a couple that are specifically aimed towards otaku. I know the SDF did one with an anime girl. It was like, you like anime girls, join the army. Not really a consistent message. And then a couple years ago, there's Uzaki Toa Sobitai. I forget the name. 

It's Uzaki-chan. She's got very big boobs as a character. The poster they put her on was for a blood drive, and they're saying like otaku, people who don't normally give blood should come and give blood, and they were using this character to appeal to them. And there was some controversy because she has big boobs. I don't know if it was a feminist organization or just a couple of feminists, but they said that this was environmental harassment. So I can't walk around the city, the subway, and not see these sexualized representations of women in anime, and it's offensive to me, and I want to take it down. Which I understand the argument. I don't know if I agree with it or not. I saw the posters. Those posters to me were relatively innocent. The counter argument though that I really enjoyed, because I wouldn't be able to make it, was a group of women who have big boobs who say, well, having big boobs isn't inherently sexualized because I have big boobs, and the only reason it's sexualized is because you are sexualizing it. 

So I feel like I want representation. I want women shaped like me in advertising. So now you have a feminist saying that this is sexualized and it's disgusting and it's offensive. And then you have a woman with the same body type saying that is offensive to me because that's my body type. It's natural. I can't go, you know, how much control over it do I have, but this is my shape. And the only reason it's sexualized is because you make it sexualized. It was very interesting. Because then does the feminist turn around and go, I do not support these women in their bodies? It's a very weird circle. It didn't really get resolved because the advertising campaign ended. So all those posters came down. It's come up again. Oh, I didn't write down what ads. Anyway, it's from, I saw the ads. They were, I would actually say more so because they had girls bending over and you could see there. It's not underwear, but it's short shorts underneath like jackets and stuff. So there was a certainly a sexual element to it. 

I think the positioning you could justify saying it was sexual to a degree. It wasn't offensive to me, but again, maybe I just have a higher tolerance for that because I don't care that much. These specific ads that they're complaining about now are in a JR station. JR has guidelines that is not made public about advertising within their stations. This, oh, I did write it down. It was just in the middle of my notes. It's called Majong Seoul. They did a collaboration with Osaka JR, which is a Japan rail to make these posters. The guidelines for JR though has a committee and that committee is comprised of both men and women. So all those people already approved it. 

So there were women's voices and this might be part of the argument that they were making like women didn't make these posters. It was all creepy anime men, but actually women were on the group, the board, the committee that could veto the poster and they didn't. So it was therefore deemed acceptable and they're staying out there. Again, it's a campaign, so they go away pretty quickly. The people who are complaining about this, I do believe they are over sexual, like there is a sexual element. I think it's fair to admit that, but I think they are taking that mentally to an extreme that doesn't exist. So it's not like they're wrong, but they're extrapolating things that aren't there, which may be why I'm not 100% in agreement with what they're saying. 

But I think people find a fence in everything at all times because that's just the nature of some people. So this is another revisiting from someone who's appeared in News in Japan before. They said just a university student went to the sort of campus for Kodansha. Kodansha in Japan is one of the biggest publishing companies. They publish anime and books and novels and stuff. It's basically Japan's biggest publisher, so it's not just like a building. They have several buildings and a campus. This university student was standing next to a very small fire. So he had taken some paper and burned it and thrown it on the ground. This I assume was some kind of protest. I'm not 100% sure what was going on. A policeman was walking by, saw the guy, saw the fire, walked over and was like, did you light this fire? And the student basically just said yes and got arrested right away. He had on him a gas burner and an extra cartridge. 

So probably how he started the fire, he had the paper, I don't know if it was crumpled up or not, but took the gas burner and went pfft, and then it sets it on fire, off you go. It's burning. And then he just sort of put it on the ground and stood and stared at it. This is the same guy who was arrested last August, who was on NINJA News Japan, because he had taken the time to make gunpowder at home and was walking in front of the U.S. Embassy and somehow was suspicious enough that he got arrested and searched. So they found the homemade gunpowder, which is illegal to have. So he was arrested for that, but again, it was ineffectual. My whole point was gunpowder by itself isn't going to do anything to an embassy building. Gunpowder itself, you could throw at someone and if it covered them and then you somehow set them on fire, it would burn them. 

But if it was all spread out, it would suck, but it's not really going to do you any significant damage. It's like the guy is a domestic terrorist, but he's also ineffectual. My image was him throwing the gunpowder at the building and running away, not really understanding how gunpowder works. And then in this case, he wants to burn stuff to send a message, but then all he does is burn some newspaper he got on the ground, which did no damage to anything and no one was hurt. Okay, so when I get drunk, I want to play video games until I get tired, then I want to go to sleep. I do not participate in activity. I'm not one of those people who gets drunk and gets high energy. 

Maybe it's what I drink, maybe it's my physical chemistry or something, but I'm a low-key drunk. The drunker I get, the quieter I get. I'm a pretty quiet dude on a normal day, but I get more and more low-key until I'm basically, you can't tell if I'm conscious or not. The boisterous time, everyone gets it, is short before I want to sit down and just like chill out. Maybe when I was younger, I was more enthusiastic about existence. Now if I start drinking and I start to relax, I just want to sit silently and be happy. If you are Takatoshi Kitamura, who is a government official, you get drunk with your friends, you go to a high school reunion. He said he had three or four drinks and a draft beer, so maybe for him that was a lot. Three or four drinks for me is like starting. 

I don't drink beer, but that's just another drink. He gets on the train to go home after drinking with his high school reunion friends and has a really good time. Then he grabs onto the bar that the little ropes and things you hang onto for stability. You grab that and you start busting out some chin-ups. You grab that and start busting out some chin-ups because it's always the right time for fitness. There were no complaints. The train station didn't receive any complaints, but then someone had a video and I guess someone figured out that this was a relatively famous guy, as in he worked for the government. 

They posted it online and then he got in trouble. Of course, now he has to apologize. It was inappropriate, this is his apology, it was inappropriate and contrary to good manners in my position as a public figure. I sincerely apologize to the residents of the prefecture and others concerned. I'm sorry, busting out chin-ups. I'd look at someone doing that. I've seen it on the train in Japan a couple of times. Every time I've been like, what are you doing, you idiot? This is a dumb place to do that. It's not the right place. But I don't care. I bet most of the people who saw it didn't care. They're just making fun of this guy for doing chin-ups while drunk. He goes on to say, I don't remember why I did the chin-ups. I can tell you why. Upper body strength. 

You want to build that upper body strength. You want to get strong. You want to get the pecs and the shoulders and maybe some nice lats. You want to fill it out. That's why you do chin-ups. Your drunk brain was like, we got fuel, we got energy, let's work it. Let's do it hardcore. Of course, this made everyone look into his background, which actually brought up something a student had said to me, which I didn't believe. I wanted to look into it a little more, but this actually proves basically it was true. They found a 15-year-old blog post. That's how far back they went. When you get in trouble anywhere, I guess, on the Internet, they go through all your history and try to find anything wrong you've said, which is making me very concerned because I have a ton of dumb things I've said online from these podcasts and stuff. Maybe I should just start deleting old things. They went back to a 15-year-old blog post. He admitted to driving drunk, not regularly, but more than one occasion. 

Then he said, this was pre-2002 before they tightened up the rules. One of my students has said to me in a class that she has driven her... Oh, she got in a car with her friend who was drunk. I was like, oh my God, that's a big deal. She was like, oh no, back then it was legal. So pre-2002 is when they tightened it up. You go back another 10 years, it was basically okay to get drunk and drive a car in Japan. Then it got accidents and stuff and got stricter and stricter and stricter. Now it's like most countries where you cannot be drunk, you cannot drive. Anyways, back to this politician who was busting out some chin-ups, which again, offensive in a way that is annoying, but not offensive enough for me to care about. They were like, what are you going to do now? They were criticizing him over this old blog post where he said he drove drunk. 

But again, if it was legal at the time, I mean, yeah, we can judge him by our current standards, but I'm starting to think like, ah, you do have to take the timeframe into account. If something was legal and you did it and then later it became illegal and you stopped, you followed the law, it's pretty hard to be super critical of that. Anyways, he said he intends to stop drinking, which I have to say is almost an overreaction, but at the same time, probably a good idea for this guy. But now he's going to miss out on all those gains. The two-week winter vacation is coming up. I may or may not be able to make more podcasts over those two weeks. Depends how busy I am with family and things like that. There may be a Spartan in Japan over the next two weeks. There may not be. But we will be back in three weeks on a regular schedule in January, in the new year, worst case scenario. Otherwise, have a good Christmas, have a good holiday, Hanukkah, anything you celebrate, have a good new year. Take care of yourselves. Be happy. I love you so much.

NNJ 116 Its not ALL corona

How social distancing is not really working out in Japan, for people who should do it or the people who want you to do it.

Find out where I want to die, how to make money while working and one story that has zero connection with corona virus. Things are looking up.

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NNJ 109: Corona Gouging

There is no news other than the covid-19 news, so we go through all of that. Mostly it is the effects its having on normal people just trying to live.

Plastic bags are on notice and one creepy guy tries to make a challenege for the guy who lays things out.

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And the image mentioned in the episode:

The guy who lays things out shows his ultimate talent in forensic reconstruction of skirt slashed for thrills. Each tattered element placed back where it truly belongs. The guy who lays things out, he re-constructs all of our hearts.

NNJ 106 The Echo Knows

Might actually be an episode I recommend people skip. I missed last week becasue of work and tried to make one in a very echo heavy room. I need to find my out of house studio.

Otherwise, it’s Coronovirus, cryptocurrency and the age of consent in Japan. All the stuff you’re looking for. 

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