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Who wants to get married anyway....

Steve’s hookup service!

They look SO miserable don’t they

You can blame people. You can blame the society for organising itself like that. You can blame the old men for not organising against it. And you can blame women for being... transactional.

So I have said it before...I am not a rural person...but there is somthing about a Rice Club that rings right with me! Thanks for another great video Steve :)

me. lol.. If it rains and i drive i will literally get underneath my car and clean everypart of it everytime.. I also wipe it down constantly from dust etc

Gotta love a mini-truck convoy :)

I guess that must be right, but I've never forgotten a Japanese backpacker who I encountered working in a Japanese restaurant at Salamanca in Hobart 30 years ago - she could speak English but was heavily accented, I don't think she'd been in Australia for anymore than a year or less - that girl was an absolute card. We were there for a meal but didn't want to leave when we finished because we were having such a blast interacting with her. I've never forgotten her - she was as funny as all get out and was definitely an outlier in terms of my impression of your average Japanese person.

WD -40 that belt!

As I once read: “Men go broke trying to prove they are not broke to women who are broke.”

Did rice club have a chance to fix all the holes in the rice fields?

I'm not even 100% planning on living in Japan, but i love watching your videos and listening to you talk about all these different aspects of japanese life. Pretty relaxing.

I became interested in Japan because I work long hours in the U.S. While I have undergraduate degrees in the environmental sciences, I ended up working away from home or in low paying food processing jobs. I finally got a decent paying job, but I work 6 or 7 days per week, 8 to 12 hours per day. It isn’t easy anywhere!

"they'll let you out in 48 hours." LOL. no. I had to pay 5 grand for a "felony assault" I didn't commit. They told me I'd see the judge on Tuesday when taken in on a Friday night. Never saw any judge after release and found the charges were dropped or dismissed.

I think it unfair to call non-Japanese “lazy” because they are unaware of the intricacies of Japanese law and culture. I am only aware of some of the details owing to excellent reports by Chris Broad (Abroad In Japan) and the Decoy Voice channel’s excellent reports on odious streamer “Johnny Somali,” as well as other sources. I spent hours watching these and other video articles. But I wouldn’t berate others for not having the same degree of interest or time available to research this or any other topic. Incidentally, two articles on Japanese prisons were enough to persuade me NEVER to misbehave while in that country. As civilized as they appear in most ways, human rights organizations in and out of Japan decry conditions in those institutions. Research THAT (if you can-I came upon this information by chance) and get back to me.

This last drive back home really gave me the layout. That's the little village on the other side of the shrine from your place? And your house is one of the old houses from the earlier village in close proximity to the shrine? Amazing hillside area. That little village has some interesting buildings. The rice planting seems to be coming along well. I know that around Chiba the planting has been getting done last couple weeks. Shooting for end of August harvest. Up in Nagano is the same harvest time, end of August? Good to see the old school water diverter boards. Really great to see the process. How many hillside fields do you guys have, 3 or 6? What percentage of the fields in your village are not being worked this season?

If you are arrested in the US you have the right to a speedy trial which means you have to be charged or let go generally within in 72 hrs. In Japan you can be held for 23 days without being charged. And when a foreign resident is told they will be let go ( suspended sentence) if they simply confess to some crime they didn’t commit they will also risk losing their visa status by doing so.

Hey Steve, I was wondering, some people managing rice fields in Vietnam often have ducks, or I've even seen some with carp in them to deal with mosquitos and insects.. Have you guys ever thought of maybe getting ducks? I guess it depends how far your home is from the field, and how convenient it would be to let them out every morning and every night.

So sprinkling the fungicide on is all good? I imagined you might have sprayed the fungicide with a knapsack. Makes sense to treat the seedlings in the humidity, preventing any losses.

As with most of your videos, I hit the like button before it barely started. Top work fella.

I’ve heard too many stories about how it works here, so I’m on my best behaviour whenever I’m here. Nothing to be achieved by acting like a dickhead.

"movement at the station" , so endearingly Aussie for "finally something's happening".

you should use that oven to cook food. something to market-promote your cafe with. but you may have already thought of that...

Appreciate listening to you on this subject, as I know next to nothing about it. The bit that stood out, was the cultural philosophy, whereby you mentioned: "Rooted in culture... The Japanese don't like failing, they like to be seen as thorough; seen to be doing their jobs." Sounds like the Japanese system works a bit like this, based on their values as a society: "You should avoid causing trouble to others around you (1), and if you do (2), you all should be able to settle the problems yourselves (3) and if you don't or can't, then you're involving the police (4) (and justice system (5)) and putting their backs up, and so now you need to ensure they come out of this problem without your dirt smearing them as well, on top of everyone else you've already got into problems with." Aka: Blame yourself for falling so deep into the Miso Soup! If so, then it's different from the West's "individual rights/habeus corpus" so probably does not sit well with the Western values ie "feels wrong in the gut" type of wrong that then leads to the desire to promote a bad press about a system that seems to have an equally interesting but different logic? Reminds me of King Solomon's statement about two women claiming to be the mother of the same baby: "Chop the baby into 2 halves and give 1 half to each woman." Obviously this was the logic but behind the logic was the values of the people themselves: The natural mother cried for the other woman to keep the baby.

Is growing organic rice a possibility in your area? As always thanks for the videos. 🙏

14:00 thank you for this masterpiece sir the video was quite informative, me like. its very weird that people don't take in mind that the culture of a place will have affects on everything that it comes in contact with. and most of the time bullet point information are almost always incomplete.

Not to be snarky, it's calked a criminal justice system . Many such terms in our "western" Judicial system. Recently found Your wonderful channel, am really liking the variable topics such as thus . Final question, how does nepotism effect modern japan, economy if at all ? thanks so much Steveo T .

modern agriculture

nice area

A British guy I used to work with once went on a drunken rampage in a shotengai, turning over stalls and smashing shop windows (he was almost blind drunk and beyond reasoning with), and ended up punching a J-cop in the face and putting a dent in a squad car door by kicking it. Needless to say, he was in a world of trouble. To avoid jail, he had to apologize both orally and in writing to all the shop owners, apologize to the cops and pay all costs. I thought he was lucky to get away with that - in many countries he would have literally been killed that night, never mind going to jail for a long time.

I've always thought that if the conviction rate is truly that high, the word "trial" is no longer appropriate

Early next year i plan to expand my rural Japan cafe to include rescuing stray cats in my area to turn it into a unique Cat Cafe. Any help is very much appreciated. www.buymeacoffee.com/realruraljapan

excellent topic, that idea about a jury made up of facebook commenters is a pretty scary thing to imagine yeah lol

Great video. Could you please do a video about Japanese forestry management? I have heard there are issues with cedars during the summer.

As an Aussie who worked in a Japanese company for a few years, i can still clearly remember the day i snapped and left. Somewhere between faxing a document to a person in the next room, and being told im lazy for drinking coffee instead of tea, i started to wonder why I bothered getting a masters degree. Glad i got out and im glad someone on youtube is talking about this! I hope others see before being seduced by the bright lights and aoki dress shirts of Tokyo.

Not keen on the Japanese or Australian legal systems. Note I did not use the word 'justice'. But if you are wrongly convicted I think the Australian prison system is more relaxed as long as you're not in maximum security...

Ah, the “98% conviction” trope, a classic, along with “no one in Japan has sweat glands”, and “it’s illegal to be overweight in Japan”. US federal courts have 97%+ conviction rates. Why is that? Most cases don’t go to trial; no early release, no parole, and they get resolved with plea deals. Digital media literacy seems to be in short supply these days.

1) Prosecutors (DAs) in the US are often elected officials, and they need to be seen by the public to tackle big crime cases, even if they fail in the end. 2) A criminal record in Japan, no matter how small, will severely dent your options for work, tenancy and social relationships, and for your family/children as well i.e. "Kids raised by crims will become crims themselves". It brings huge shame to the family, potentially for generations. 3) Japanese police have fallback charges they can use e.g. public nuisance, and that can easily become "he said, she said", except the other party is the police. This is often used in interrogations, in order to get a confession. 4) Racial profiling is common in Japan, for example ethnic Chinese and South Asians. e.g. police searches you far more often if you're in one of those ethnic groups and are not wearing business attire. It's always good to have a rock solid alibi when living in Japan as a foreigner, such as Google location history.

Well said! My favorite part is where you talk about the jury of TH-cam commenters.

Plea deals should not be a thing in America. I remember my dad complaining about that 30 years ago. Getting off on a lesser charge than what was committed is dangerous on society.

Let’s be honest: many modern Japanese men could drop the lipstick and lick up a dumbell. 😂❤

I got into some trouble on one of trips to Japan nearly ten years ago. Naturally I won't go into too much detail, but basically drunkenly caused some property damage & was caught out with cameras, found via our accom, & had to report to the Police. My cohorts & I were facing multiple years jail-time if the owner of the property wished to press charges, but instead we had to formally & personally apologise & pay all the damage costs......In return, once we fulfilled our duties, we had our charges placed 'on hold', & we were free men who could still leave & re-enter Japan without any charges or black mark against our names. My understanding is if we ever get into any more trouble in Japan, big or small, these charges will be reinstigated & i'll be heading for a 'holiday' based on the previous charges. It was a very harrowing time but it caused me to be very careful whenever in Japan, & still have a deep love for Japan & it's culture.[i've returned many times since then]. The Police were excellent.....totally human & unlike their western paramilitary style counterparts. My story shows how 'the figures' don't always show the reality & complexity of Japanese culture. If I meet you in person on a future trip, or when I retire to Japan shortly, i'll give you the full story................a B-grade action move could be made I tells ya. P.S. I've totally given up drinking 3 years back & that minimizes, if not eliminates the chance of messing up like I did in the past.

at last some honest perspective.. its wonderful :)

Kitty crossing the street, risky. If you ever need a topic talk about bugs man. I guess for an Australian maybe they aren't anything bad relatively speaking. Like how bad is the bug situation in Japan? How about mosquitoes? Cockroaches? Any seasonal infestations? Bugs are all over the world but some places have managed them better than others. Go to rural Canada and you'll be eaten alive by mosquitoes in the summer but go to the UK and mosquitoes are uncommon (maybe the odd bite here and there). I rarely see (if ever) cockroaches in Western nations (save for the pit known as New York City) but whenever I visit South East Asia cockroaches are the small fry of intimidating bugs that skitter about. France has issues with bed bugs, does Japan have it's own issues should someone be neglectful? What's the word big bird? A Pacific Island that gets tropical-like weather... I imagine there are some kind of massive bugs that are a nuisance and mosquitoes galore thanks to all those rice fields? (edit: auto correct wrote mosquitoes as misquotes. Ughh)

It's never a good idea talking about subjects you know nothing about. This is a good example.

Sorry to disagree with you about US plea-bargaining system, but no there are NOT 75% innocent people going to jail, not even a extremely small percentage of that number, our system is renowned for under charging crimes by the process off plea bargaining, many very nasty criminals are let off on lesser charges just to save money of trial by jury, are there people that have got railroaded by the system and agree to the lesser charge just to get on with their lives because of the risk and cost? certainly yes, these people usually have existing criminal records and are not trustworthy defendants and they know a jury may convict them due to their past more so than the current criminal charge. From what I have watched from other channels concerning Japans conviction rate, is they use forced confession more so than jury trial, and a case that has even a minor chance of failing to convict, that the suspect will not confess to, many times is never tried, so the likely guilty suspect walks without punishment.

It's sad that an innocent person doesn't hold onto their innocence until the end (come what may) but instead gives it away by forcefully pleading guilty, out of fear, for a lesser sentence. People used to live by their principles, these days people live only out of their self interest.

Keep safe my friend

Early next year i plan to expand my rural Japan cafe to include rescuing stray cats in my area to turn it into a unique Cat Cafe. Any help is very much appreciated. www.buymeacoffee.com/realruraljapan

I live in rural America and it is common to wave to people in their yard or as you are go toward another car passing by. Will Japanese people wave back if you wave to them while driving by?