Comments on: How I Played the Foreign Tourist on Japanese TV

By: Forgetful Orange

Forgetful Orange — Sat, 18 Jan 2014 09:01:00 +0000

When you said this “You’d never see anything like it on American TV, presumably because
Americans couldn’t care less what any other country thinks of us”

I thought this is just due to the difference between multi-cultural vs mono-cultural society.

If I were Japanese, where everyone looked like me and had the same cultural background, what “foreigners” thought of my place would be something of interest. Because there’s a very specific contrast.

For muti-cultural US or Australia, there’s no real unique culture other than tendencies & habits that have developed over a few hundred years since our ancestors left Europe.

So this is totally understandable, to my mind. I wouldn’t expect any other country to have such a TV show but I would expect Japan to.

By: Tokumei Yamada

Tokumei Yamada — Wed, 08 Jan 2014 22:41:00 +0000

I know you said it sounds ugly to say that more Japanese should speak English, but I think a bigger issue is that train lines and bus maps are equipped with multi-lingual markers, such as having stop names in Roma-ji (and possibly Hangeul, though Koreans will almost certainly be able to read Roma-ji). Kanji REALLY DOES create a barrier to travel for non Chinese / Japanese in Japan, and in Korea, for instance, there is Romaji and Hanja for every train stop. This does wonders in making a place more accessible to foreigners.

By: silly girl

silly girl — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 23:34:00 +0000

urra arsehole for saying that ! I’m hawt and I have his Walls up as my desktpp rite now, rilly ido. You’re just an 0ld-ass hata who doesn’t like that he can sprakken de Jap. Fuck off.

By: simonsickboy

simonsickboy — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 23:32:00 +0000

lol@bonus wallpapers. I like you, kiddo. But..d00d…the only person that’s putting that up as their desktop *not that it’s “bad art”* is the girl with a crush on you who could easily crush you if she rolled over on you. Hatorz hate away. It’s sickboy.

By: justa

justa — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 02:07:00 +0000

I’ve been approached twice in my 4 months of living in Japan. The first was in Downtown Fukuoka, where a camera crew was milling about. A man in a funky suit and bow tie came up and asked in english if I wanted to be interviewed, but I was nervous and said I was busy (which I was, but 5 minutes wouldn’t have been that different). Afterwards, I thought it would actually be really cool to say I was on Japanese TV, but on my way back they were gone. Luckily, I attended a mochi making event afterwards, and chosen as the international student rep and interviewed for the local station.

By: lumiina

lumiina — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 02:04:00 +0000

I saw YOUは何しに日本へ camera crew at the airport. I think they were eaiting for a celebrity. But I was still preparing my script in my head. Then one of the guys looked at me and my heart raced and I walked away quickly, looking like I wasn’t interested. I don’t think they were going to approach me, ha. But it just shows me that even if it sounds dreamy, I’m too camera shy! Plus, I wouldn’t want my moment on TV to be of me after 14 hours on a plane!