0:03 - What's the experience liking moving to a new house in Japan? Anything to take note? 2:40 - Being vegan in Japan? 9:18 - About taxes 12:52 - Any advice for landing a job after ALT? 16:08 - Favorite Japanese films? 17:52 - With the culture surrounding Japan changing because of streaming services and all that, how do you view that culture change?
@@UzumakiHarutoJP Yes, or you can add the timestamps in the description (starting with a 0:00 one) and it will add yours, just did that for the sake of people finding what they want to hear about easily... Since Dogen videos does not usually make use of timestamps, it's not worth activating just for this video, so... Here I am
Very insightful and relatable. As a Japanese person myself, I especially appreciate the mention of the resilience of the Japanese people in recovering from disasters; it is truly remarkable. I believe that the 'disaster mentality' (is what I would call it) can explain both the strengths and weaknesses of the Japanese people.
Thanks for doing this Dogen! Another thing that BLOWS MY MIND about nutrition and Japan is that sugar is not listed explicitly on ANY nutritional label. I try to get around this by looking at total carbs and kinda guessing (1g sugar = 1g carbs). But it blows my mind how much sugar is packed into products in Japan--and not just in the konbini.
Rules of thumb. Alot of the most delicious things in the world.... are packed full of sugar and things that are "unhealthy". This is coming from me that is from Indonesia. I cut down my sugar consumption alot in recent years, and when I went back, I straight-up cannot drink some things that I used to drink all time, mostly because its too sweet for my taste buds.
About hiring an accountant: As someone who works freelance in Japan and has done their own taxes for a few years, I would say that paying for an accountant is only needed if you are doing well, basically upper middle class and, like Dogen, can afford to have private insurance or own property. For those of us on the lower economic brackets, esp. if you don't own property, there is 100% no reason to hire an accountant. The terminology is obtuse (probably intentionally so), but it's all pretty straight forward calculations.
@@joshuaradloff1070 Whoever told you it was M might have been mistaken! It’s an N sound if you look at the mouth shape. Romaji is a bit weird and inconsistent so don’t worry about it!
I've had multiple herniations in my lower back, and despite visiting multiple doctors about it, I can't get any doctor to give me more than a basic examination and get prescribed some muscle relaxant patches. This is despite my telling them I'm getting increasing pain in my right leg and want to determine if it is sciatica or not. No investigation, just medicine. Japan is lovely, and I've been here for more than 20 years. But the medical system needs better care by giving doctors more time with patients & needs to stop incentivizing assembly line care (doctors in Japan make more profit by getting as many bodies through the door as possible. Thus a lot of docs have turned into revolving door places.)
Herniated my L4/S1 10 years ago. Drugs might make you feel better temporarily but they won't fix the problem. Transcend the revolving door system and Google the McGill Big 3 instead.
thank you Dogen, I appreciate your approach to these topics sooo much. I’m half Japanese but a native English speaker and some concepts are hard to put in such eloquent words. I love that you love Japan tho in the end and believe we’ll come out the other end stronger. good luck to us all!!
It's really nice to hear you do this in a way that sounds more off the cuff. Your videos exude confidence as you say everything perfectly off script (and I don't mean that like sterile, you have great delivery for comedy etc). It's nice to see this because it brings more humanity to your presentation. More humility? Anyways, I've been a programmer for 10 years now in games, and AR/VR. I just haven't seen it take off in that time. Like is it really going to become something if it's hobbled along for over a decade now? I'm just unsure if that's gonna change. Hopefully you're right because it is my industry....
My girlfriend's experiences with doctors in Japan were pretty bad. For one, as you mentioned, they often didn't take her very seriously. I've heard that there's some underlying sexism there too ("women always complain about nothing") but I don't know how much truth there is to that. The biggest issue was that many doctors are extremely specialised. She had multiple symptoms in different parts of her body that started at the same time and were clearly related, but the ear doctor said "chest? that's not my concern" and the chest doctor said "your ears and stomach? Go see someone else about that". Then they would prescribe her a bunch of different meds without really giving a diagnosis. It wasn't until she got bad to Europe that someone finally took all her symptoms into consideration and gave her an actual diagnosis. All in all, I would not want to get sick with anything serious in Japan.
Another issue with doctors is that there are no requirements to stay updated. Many of them got licensed a long time ago and then never touched a book again. If you get "medicine" that doesn't work it's often because it's actually kanpo (traditional Chinese herbal medicine). At the place my sister in law worked just a few years ago it was still expected of female employees that they would bring coffee or tea for their male colleagues, so the sexism can be very real in some places. Thankfully it seems to be slowly changing.
@@w花b No, you're not wrong. Or at least I haven't heard a single country that requires doctors to keep up with current research like that. There might be some central agency that is supposed to do that and then update guidelines as needed but that's about it. The effects on patients are probably worse in conservative cultures. Non Japanese example: I'm from Sweden and the first doctor I met regarding my migraines prescribed a medication. It didn't work well and the next doctor questioned it right away saying "We generally stopped prescribing it around ten years ago because of the strong side effects and poor efficacy".
@@SNixD Kampo is highly regulated here. And I must say the Kampo I received were super effective. I love #19, the little blue dragon soup. It always helps perfectly with nose problems
I did not expect you to know and follow AR/VR. When I heard you start talking about it and explain the difference between a smartphone and the headsets that we will use, I was genuinely impressed. Im a AR/VR development student and im mostly focused on the software side of things. Let me tell you that this is not something common to talk about AR/VR in general media, which is exactly the reason why I was so happy to see someone out of our industry (AR/VR) talk about it. Thanks! By the way been watchin your videos for week now, so im still learning stuff about this channel, but I can already tell that it will help a lot with Japanese and few other stuff.
If pesticides and ingredients that are banned in the US are allowed in Japan you know it's bad... In EU we usually look at US as being the ones who still allow stuff that's crazy bad for health in food.
Fascinating discussion Dogen. I've been living in Japan since 2012 and as an older person I have used the medical services here, both hospitals and clinics, many times. My experience has been better than yours. Yes, sometimes you do have to wait a long time although this varies a lot from place to place. When you attend for the first time you can wait a long time but on subsequent visits not so. I have found the medical services here, like other services, second to none. Surprisingly, some of the doctors have a sense of humor 🙂
A while ago, I was listening to a song called シャットアウト by UNLIMITS, and there's this line that goes, 吐き気がするほどに鮮やかな空想世界。First time I heard that line, I was like, "What is that beautiful sounding word 鮮やかな?" That song made me love "na" adjectives, which prior to that, I wasn't a huge fan of.
Translator here, we are encouraged to work with A.I. (much like programmers are nowadays) in certain contexts, because it still doesn't have cultural awareness, doesn't get social cues and nuances, etc. So, no impending doom yet.
Since it expedites and reduces cost of translations, doesn't it mean fewer are required or higher competition? I feel like that mean's it's trending towards doom, but of course will never fully eliminate the job. Instead of being the translator the person would end up being more of an editor.
@@matsurifan well you could use it as a sort of proofreading system, or perhaps to "tidy" a few informal or default texts, or creating a skeleton, but when dealing with translations that are scientific, technical, social, executive, etc. It changes a lot, for instance, if you are dealing with ES from Spain, Argentina or Mexico, the same with English-speaking countries, there is such a wide variety of approaches you can take, that no A.I (for the time being) would be able to replicate you as an individual and your ways when reading, decoding, adapting, choosing, translating, proofreading, editing, and stuff like that (I've tried xD).
@@matsurifan also, a lot of companies use Google translate and similar services (a.i is much better but still) and end up paying a lot more to translators and third-party servs. Involved in the process to undue said fu*kup xD so I wouldn't say is that easy yet, eventually it will be as you say, I'm sure of that as well.
@@matsurifan I don't know if this is of any help but, I asked an A.I about this topic and it answered as follows: "Translation that takes into account cultural and social aspects of each language and its nuances is a complex task that requires a deep understanding of the languages and cultures involved. While machine translation has come a long way, it still has limitations when it comes to accurately conveying the intended meaning, tone, and cultural context of a text. For this reason, human translators who are fluent in the languages and familiar with the cultures involved are often better equipped to provide accurate translations that take into account these nuances. Is there something specific you would like to translate?"
Hello Dogen, thanks for your content. As someone that is trying to learn japanese this is so useful, as knowing about the culture you're getting into really teaches you how to use said language. I'm glad you're doing well, I hope is not something obvious, but you said you gotta greet your neighbors when you arrive. Is it like, ringing their bell, or calling by voice? Or just leaving the present? I moved to Europe a year ago and those kind of things are very specific in each country, in mine for example you don't even greet people in the street, it is seen as weird, but here in Italy people greet each other when entering a building, so I'm curious about those specific details.
I've seen a very interesting video regarding the future of the japanese economy. In that video they basically list a few different reason as to why it has gotten to this point. 1. Japan is mainly focused on the domestic market. If you compare the percentage of export of the GDP, Japan is around the same level as the US. But keep in mind that that is extremely low, whereas for example germany has 4 times (!) the amount of exports relatively to their GDP. 2. Low productivity. As we all know, in Japan the important thing is to show up for work and work long hours. But that leads to a lot of downtime and very productivity, actually one of the lowest of all industrialised countries. 3. The declining and ageing population. Of course all industrial countries have this problem, but they generally compensate with allowing for a lot of immigration like in Europe. This of course has the consequence of a ever-shrinking workforce. On a personal note: I love Japan and already lived there for 1 year as an exchange student. But as much as I want to live there again, I am currently very unsure about that being a wise decision economically. Compared to my home country Germany, basically every aspect of the economy is worse in Japan, the main pain-point being the significantly lower wages and abismal work culture. I really hope that the japanese economy gets better, so it's also more attractive for other foreigners.
I really appreciate that you believe in our future with strong evidences. I am so encouraged and will work even harder for our children and grandchildren 😊
I’ve been looking into a special skill worker visa (SSW), it’s an interesting path for the blue collar worker. If you learn how to weld, you might be able to stay indefinitely.
When you talk about convenient store foods do you mean Bentos as well? I’ve been practically living off of bentos for lunch everyday on weekdays for the last year as a full time worker and now I’m concerned it could be affecting my health negatively
The fact said that about fruit makes me freak out. There's usually a good reason why there're bans on chemicals. Speaking of which I will be looking it up, or stick to buying organic.
Touching upon the translation question. I spent a year working at a localisation company that was pushing machine translation. Quite a big one. They want it out there, their pushing to get it out there as it will allow them to cut costs and reduce need for human workers. It can't handle fiction but to be honest it's pretty damn good for very logical dry documentation. Japanese is still struggles with a little but the closer a language is to English the more it's there. You also get different rates for if your working on a MT doc vs the raw text. Most things will be MT Docs even when they are not and rates are super low. When I asked an superior why we charging them they said "Well we don't force people to take them, they choose to" ignoring the fact they were muscling out all other competition. In short it's a shrinking market, low rates and as Dogen touched upon large pool of existing professionals. By all means go for it but go for it if that's what you want to do, but not as an alternate to ALT work. I'd say your best bet is to get Japanese to N3/N2 and then just hit the streets.
I'm sure I have read somewhere in the past that 7-Eleven don't use preservatives, for example in their onigiri, and they use less food additives in general than the other convenience stores. I'm not sure about pesticides but apparently they've been reducing trans fats for several years (though no idea what they're replacing them with).
12:52 I agree, landing a job in VR/XR in Japan at this very moment is a good idea. Especially when you have some experience in this field. It's growth right now is, for a lack of beter words... scary. Although I do recommend to be very open minded and study this field well before jumping in, especially in the VR industry the balance is completely different compared to for example America.
that might explain why some of the produce that i tried there feels so fresh that its artificial. As for career change in japan i still think IT/tech related jobs are still more viable for foreigners like it's always been because the demand is still there. Especially how it requires minimal language skills and is what helps Japan adapt with the rest of the world.
There are quite alot of movements too in Japan to bring in more people from outside and be more "globalised", especially for IT/tech related jobs. But well, IT/tech is not exactly that easy for anyone to enter, especially if the previous job is being language teacher. You will need to re-train yourself for several years at first.
@@ArchusKanzaki i know there exists intern and ssw programs which are more like blue collared jobs. if there are other full time office jobs i wish id know what they are
I do some work on the UI for Sony Xperia, those phones are pretty impressive. Sucks that all of the advanced features don't have much pull with general consumers who just want something streamlined like an iphone.
Augmented reality (and VR) will never gain the market that companies are promising/expecting, but you are correct that the companies will be hiring in those areas in the near future.
The trans fats and pesticides genuinely surprised me! I guess I never would have thought Japan would still use something like that cause everyone seems so healthy. How do people end up living so long? Avoiding those foods I guess
You probably hit the nail on the head there. These snacks have only come into popularity in the past 50 or so years, so probably not enough time to affect the average yet.
Takashi Miike is such an interesting director. He's done incredibly focused films like Audition, and almost unwatchable chaotic films like Dead or Alive. Agitator is my favourite of his films though, possibly the best yakuza film ever made
I actually agree that, based on their history, Japan is very good at "rising from the ashes" to regain or even often exceed their former glory, and because of that I do not think that the current troubles will be the end for them. They will eventually recover, because that is also part of who they are and always have been as a culture. The only problem is that, based on their history, they really do seem to basically have to be (figuratively) reduced to ashes first before they are usually able to do that sort of thing, which suggests that people currently living in Japan are in for a long, hard period of decline for a while until things finally get bad enough that Japanese culture will finally somehow re-emerge in its next, more powerful form, as the next iteration of their phoenix cycle... I am convinced that Japan will survive and prosper once again, but it will probably not be our Japan, it will be the Japan of our children, or possibly our children's children instead.
I’ve been in Japan for over a decade and totally agree with Dogen. These are all very frank and real insights into Japan. I too go to the Conbini but treat it as a mine field pretty much. It’s pretty much a vegetable oil and sugar store. However if you are aware of that you can dodge those and get some fairly untainted food if careful. Like anywhere, it’s best to just cook at home if you can. I still love Japan, however gone are the days when Japan was magical and sparkling. Now I am just working with the goal to be eligible for “social security “ while realizing I’d probably make more if I had less income due to taxes. Getting a raise isn’t as exciting when half of it is already gone😅 Regards careers, content is probably the future of Japan. There is so much content already but it seems like they still haven’t figured out how to properly capitalize on it. Nintendo is a pioneer regarding that recently I think and other companies should take notes. I have also heard the energy industry might be heating up. I wish the best for Japan, however I think it has to evolve a bit.
@@xionmemoria Thank you very much for the clarification/correction ! You are right. I’m so embarrassed that I overlooked this! I’ll be sure not to fight my boss if he wants to give me a raise. lol
Trans fats are not prohibited in the US. Because there was a big uproar over them a while back, there is a requirement that foods must list the presence of trans fats on their labels, so consumers can decide for themselves whether they want to consume them, but they can still be sold if producers choose to. In general, most food producers have tried to minimize or eliminate them simply because of consumer pressure, not because of any actual regulations prohibiting their use. It's generally very hard to actually get things banned outright in the US (much harder than places like Europe, for example), which is why it's particularly significant that Japan still uses some other things which _even the US won't allow_ anymore...
On the other hand Mountain Dew was prohibited for the longest time in Japan from what I recall due to one of the ingredients. Maybe they changed the recipe because it’s definitely here now as of a few years ago.
Artificial trans fats have been banned in the US. The labeling regulations occurred in 2003 but a ban has since been introduced. They were to go through a three year phase out process, starting in 2015. There have been various extensions, the latest date I've seen for when prior formulations of products had to be phased out of the market was January 2021. There are naturally occurring trans fats that are of course not banned. And there is a way for manufacturers to apply for an exemption to the artificial trans fat ban - I'm not sure what that process looks like or how permissive it is. But there was ultimately a ban of some form.
Not in language but in engineering and computer science. A good chunk of the field is convinced that if you don't learn how to use AI, you will get cut. I don't think fighting it or trying to think that your specific field won't be affected by this adoption of AI will work in the long run, even if fields like writing and other artistic forms try to slow what is essentially a freight train in terms of what it's carrying for the future and how hard it is to stop.
I heard that the reason why some ban ingredients in the US but not in japan is because those ingredients is only safe for a short time where japan have no problem with it being small in comparison and short transportation while in the US by the time it arrived in the consumers hands the bad stuff is already starting to form. correct me if im wrong.
That might be true for some ingredients / chemicals (I cannot claim to know all of them, and doubt that anyone short of a highly-experienced food engineer could), but it's certainly not the case for both trans fats and the pesticides commonly banned in the Western world. The ingestion of trans fats is associated with increased heart risk, increased chance for diabetes and carcinogenicity regardless of when it's consumed (in fact, trans fats are thermally stable and will not change over time), whereas banned pesticides are usually linked to neurological issues owing to the nature of the chemical itself. Furthermore, pesticides generally are subject to effects such as bioaccumulation and biomagnification, meaning they don't get eliminated easily and might "stack up" in one's body over time.
AR/VR won't change the future in the next 20 years or so. There's no way people will replace PC/Tablet with VR headset even if they become super cheap. But AI will change E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G and that is the true unknown. How impactful AI/LLM will become we have no idea. The same way we got no idea what was coming before the internet.
"Programming" is still pretty generally good career choice. However, people who want to enter programming, need to update their skillsets constantly to be able to adapt to, whatever the current market demands. Currently, if you have programming skills that can deal with AI, then I think you are quite in-demand even in Japan. Japan's government seems to be racing to adapt AI, since it is basically entirely new front that have crazy potential to be disruptive, when they missed the train on previous tech trend. Also, that's quite interesting look on the tax in Japan. I do heard that Japan is essentially not that different to US in terms of taxing, which is that they really took alot. Unfortunately though, from what I can see, Japan's salary range are not as high as US.
Something I would advise that is kinda contradictory to what you said, be wary of latest tech-industry buzz technologies like AR, VR, AI stuff. A lot of companies hastily threw caution to the wind to try to get on the big new crazes in tech and lost bigtime for it. Facebook sunk billions into the MetaVerse only to scrap it about a year and a half in. A lot of companies lately lost big on crypto. And there are several red flags showing up in the move by big companies into AI integration and development that show they're rushing right into it without a long-term plan set up because they want big short term success. Focusing heavily on the parts of tech fields that are recent crazes poses a lot of risk, as you don't know if in 5 years the technology will be completely scrapped in favor of the next big thing. There is still plenty of value in getting into programming, or VR, or machine learning, but my advice would be to not be blindly dead set on recent buzzing technologies and do educated research into how the industry is going if you're looking into tech.
You are thinking Germany. They've still had a lot of trouble integrating immigrants because there is /so/ many of them (France obviously has, too, and probably more so than Germany). I think the US has actually been quite successful with repopulating dying towns with new immigrants, and I feel like Japan could really benefit from that kind of program.
I understand the case that Dogen is making about taxes (and I am sure his predictions are correct), however, I think whether or not taxes are high depends on what you are comparing them to. I live in Eastern Europe and pay more taxes than I would in Japan for the same income - the difference being that here, the tax money seems to vanish into thin air, with things like public infrastructure and hospitals continuously in a bad state. Consumption tax is also 19%. On the other hand, in Western Europe it seems like the tax money is put to good use but it seems like the taxes are also significantly higher than in my country (for the countries that I checked, at least). Strictly from a taxation perspective, I would choose Japan without a second thought. I do find the things I just learned about produce and konbinis really worrying, though. I wonder if that is the reason why food seems so affordable in Japan.😢
@@UzumakiHarutoJPyeah exactly. You _already_ have people who are using AI to enhance their creative work process and sadly also a lot who use it to short-cut their "creative" work process. This already has a noticable impact om the market. And the way AI just continues to grow means it really wouldn't take a lot of time for it to actually start being a real problem for people's jobs. For people who don't agree, just know that smething like this doesn't have to be exactly as good as its human counterpart. All it has to do is sell stuff and take potential customers from real people
@@IkkezzUsedEmber I think if someone is worried about their job being taken from them then just do something else honestly it doesn't have to be a problem, since in the end, humans aren't supposed to have jobs be to be taken from them in the first place. I think offloading dirty work to things that can do the work automatically is a good thing, because we can then focus on the things that matter and actually make progress elsewhere
@@UzumakiHarutoJP Bruh some people have YEARS invested in their career/field/study. To tell them "lol just drop it" is not really a viable solution. It ignores much of the reality of a human being's life.
@@tonoshikikai and the fact that this is the case is a sad thing that is unfortunate to be normal... We literally shouldn't be working, this is not what we were designed to do, we were designed to create and help each other but not work for 40 years doing the same thing, that's just nonsense Regardless, there are plenty of jobs available which don't require a specific degree which can provide a decent pay, or you can learn to adapt to your situation and do whatever will keep you alive. Either way, it's gonna be survival of the fittest, thanks to the very jobs that you want to protect
Me, in my country, with 27% taxes on salary if you are paid three minimum wages or above: 🤡 (Btw, the minimum wage here isn't "minimum" at all. It's barely enough for someone to rent a holey wood shack and buy the cheapest industrial food available, which a perfect recipe for you to get sick very easily. No way you to afford even a bike, speaking as someone who lives very modestly because I had to count pennies for most of my life. If you want to be on the lowest end of the middle class you need **at least** two minimum wages, and there's even more absurd taxes on anything we buy and the government is hilariously corrupt, so, we are all screwed really.)
The AI translation bit hits hard. I really wanted to translate, I quite enjoy it actually. But it horrifies me that what I have worked toward for years is about to be largely just taken away by AI. I genuinely fear for many fields going forward, I personally suspect there is a real chance of mass unemployment and that won't help any economy.
I don't necessarily agree with him on this one, I have done a lot of research and many people are saying that translation jobs are not likely going to be taken away by bots for a while because of lunguistic trends and nuances and such. I refuse to give up on my dream so easily.
I find it really hard to believe that VR is going to be successful beyond a handful of people... it's like metaverse, no one cares except people trying to sell it to you
Hi Dogen, despite being aware of all the issues surrounding Japan I still hope to move there when I finish college because I love Japan. Contrast to all the content I've consumed educating myself about Japan's issues, your optimism for Japan's future in the end was the breath of fresh air I didn't know I needed. I'd like to say that despite everything Japan is going through and will go through I too am willing to ride it out when I hopefully move there. Japan is awesome
While they don't look good macroeconomically, a large part of the world is moving into the same situation as them. Eventually i believe the world needs to acknowledge that capitalistic growth won't last forever and need to start coming to terms with it.
Counterpoint: I do not think that VR is going to go anywhere significant anytime soon. The reality is that it's quite expensive, as well as being difficult to develop for, and it doesn't add anything significant in most use-cases. I have a degree in game design, and it turns out that making really good VR-specific games is almost impossible with current technology. The hows and whys are too complicated to get into here, but there's a reason that there have only been a handful of successful games in VR and only one of them (Beat Saber) has really offered anything that can be considered "VR-specific" (ie can't be replicated well enough either in real life or on a normal computer). As for "general life" use, Folding Ideas (the guy who did Line Goes Up) has an excellent video called The Future is a Dead Mall that addresses this topic. To sum it up, normal everyday things like shopping and working are actually pretty bad in VR. When you shop in VR you have this 3D space, like you're really there! But the reality is you're NOT really there. You receive none of the benefits of being there. You can't touch the clothes and feel the material, you can't try them on or look for manufacturing defects. You can't squeeze the produce or feel the weight in your hand or check the freshness. And yet to look at different items you have to navigate space and actually go around interacting with the different things, and if you're looking at pants or fruit or whatever and you want to look at shirts or fish or something you have to go all the way to the other side of the building. Amazon is successful because it's convenient. You can scroll through hundreds of items in minutes, and swap "departments" in seconds. Shopping in VR trades this convenience for.... nothing. It's the worst of both worlds, and there is no advancement conceivable in the current iteration of VR (ie visual headsets) that will bridge that gap. We would need something like Star Trek's holodeck or full-dive neuro-linked VR like The Matrix, Johnny Mnemonic, or SAO to take the next step, and that probably won't happen in our lifetimes. Certainly not this decade. Most other use cases are similar dead-ends. There's something to be said for being able to remotely connect to a shared 3D space for a collaborative effort, but you don't really gain much that you don't get from a video conference call and any 15 year old oekaki board and/or a shared google doc. And, generally, working in a "virtual office" sucks, and nobody wants to do it. Ignoring this simple fact has cost Zuckerberg 100 billion dollars lol
i'm very glad that i know how to read the 栄養成分表示, but i wish that the nutritional facts included separate information on trans fat like labels do in canada.. outside of onigiri, the least offensive sandwiches, and hi-chew, i fear most konbini food
Yes, pesticides. About strawberries, While the two pesticides are not authorized for use in Taiwan, they are widely used in Japan due to climate-related and environmental factors. If the FDA were to set maximum residue limits, strawberries containing the two pesticides could be imported to Taiwan as long as the residues fell within the legal limits, he said. Chlorfenapyr is used for crop protection against a variety of insects and mites, while flonicamid is used to control aphids, thrips and whitefly. That been said, i am aware of eating strawberries in Japan from a long time. Ps: yes, hydrogenated fats. HF are one of the worst thing to eat.
I respect your opinion Dogen, but there is one thing you are definitely wrong about - AR/VR will never become big, Apple or not. They are cumbersome and no one wants to use them all the time. Even small and compact google glasses flopped in the end. This happens with almost every ar/vr owner - as soon as the novelty fades off people use those devices less and less, simply because using normal monitor/phone is much more convenient. I can bet, that even if they will make fully functional eye-contacts that can work as a proper AR device - people still won't be using them too much or too often. So i'd rather avoid this particular industry altogether. The general IT/programming is a much better choise imo.
Me: I have a sony xperia that I mostly read manga on through Manga UP! and Webtoons. I also watch twitch, youtube, reddit, and chat on telegram, discord and then it's all government/local transportation etc. No silicone valley or tiktok here.
The one missed post-WW2 opportunity was proper script reform. Instead some American official insisted that romaji publishing be published in triplicate to make it economically uncompetitive and the Japanese themselves did stunts like moving enthusiastic romaji experimenters to different schools where there was no romaji program. And so we got touyou kanji and Shinjitai instead of sane writing. On the flipside, we were spared the cursedness that is nihonshiki. Hujisan, anyone?
Japan did have a script reform post-WW2 that got rid the most horrible stuff like old hiragana spellings. (e.g. けふ became きょう) That being said, I don't think the writing system is that bad. It takes time to learn, but it's not like Japan has bad literacy rates.
@@2712animefreak The literacy rates are a consequence of extended modern schooling, the writing system is broadly irrelevant. And yes, it's ultimately usable once you invest the time, that's true. But it can still be easily the worst solution in its category. "Bad" doesn't mean "cannot be made to work well enough". But if the option is being actually easy, it starts feeling a bit weird. It's somewhat fucked up that I can recognize the Korean cognate of a Japanese word I know from written Korean more readily than I can read a Japanese word I'd know in my sleep.
You got some things wrong about demographic stuff. No country has overcome the problem and immigration will definitely not resolve the problem in the long run, but Japan has an advantage going into the future as it will be the first country where the population pyramid stabilizes. With that Japan will be ahead of other nations and will at some point be more successful than most other nations. Also the example about innovation sounds absurd as some random people don't make phones, but huge corporations. A better example about innovation would be patents.
All the culture stuff that people love about japan is because it is a homogeneous country. If they would let in a lot of immigrants, Japan would slowly lose more and more it's indentity like it's happening in Europe right now which is very sad to see. Many people that don't live in Europe or haven't been there for a long period of time don't even know how bad the situation is. The only solution is to increase the birthrate.
Re. taxes & your "get out while you can" comment ~19:50: I make good money, but I also pay 50% effective rate in income taxes -- honestly tempts me to leave on a regular basis. The tech job market in the US is a bit bumpy at the moment, but I'm applying.
0:03 - What's the experience liking moving to a new house in Japan? Anything to take note?
2:40 - Being vegan in Japan?
9:18 - About taxes
12:52 - Any advice for landing a job after ALT?
16:08 - Favorite Japanese films?
17:52 - With the culture surrounding Japan changing because of streaming services and all that, how do you view that culture change?
Gigachad.
If auto time markers were turned on, this could potentially be done automatically...
@@UzumakiHarutoJP Yes, or you can add the timestamps in the description (starting with a 0:00 one) and it will add yours, just did that for the sake of people finding what they want to hear about easily... Since Dogen videos does not usually make use of timestamps, it's not worth activating just for this video, so... Here I am
Wow, Dogen’s actually answering questions for once, sugoi!
Very insightful and relatable. As a Japanese person myself, I especially appreciate the mention of the resilience of the Japanese people in recovering from disasters; it is truly remarkable. I believe that the 'disaster mentality' (is what I would call it) can explain both the strengths and weaknesses of the Japanese people.
I would say you, as japanese, are culturally used to disasters so you "instinctively know" how to get out of those
Thanks for doing this Dogen! Another thing that BLOWS MY MIND about nutrition and Japan is that sugar is not listed explicitly on ANY nutritional label. I try to get around this by looking at total carbs and kinda guessing (1g sugar = 1g carbs). But it blows my mind how much sugar is packed into products in Japan--and not just in the konbini.
Rules of thumb. Alot of the most delicious things in the world.... are packed full of sugar and things that are "unhealthy". This is coming from me that is from Indonesia. I cut down my sugar consumption alot in recent years, and when I went back, I straight-up cannot drink some things that I used to drink all time, mostly because its too sweet for my taste buds.
@@ArchusKanzakijust dilute it with water
About hiring an accountant: As someone who works freelance in Japan and has done their own taxes for a few years, I would say that paying for an accountant is only needed if you are doing well, basically upper middle class and, like Dogen, can afford to have private insurance or own property.
For those of us on the lower economic brackets, esp. if you don't own property, there is 100% no reason to hire an accountant. The terminology is obtuse (probably intentionally so), but it's all pretty straight forward calculations.
Honestly it’s tremendously easier than doing US taxes. And if you just have a single income full time the company files for you anyway usually :).
I truly appreciate your genuine care and intentional effort in communication.
Watching this video while eating my 4th combini meal of the week 😬
In the past I would've said "conbini" but as I've learnt its actually conbini just like it's gambate and not ganbate😂
and it's only monday!
@@joshuaradloff1070 so caught up on n vs m that you forgot the double t 👀
@@joshuaradloff1070 Whoever told you it was M might have been mistaken! It’s an N sound if you look at the mouth shape. Romaji is a bit weird and inconsistent so don’t worry about it!
Is the ingredient list showing “部分的に 油 を 水素化”?
I've had multiple herniations in my lower back, and despite visiting multiple doctors about it, I can't get any doctor to give me more than a basic examination and get prescribed some muscle relaxant patches. This is despite my telling them I'm getting increasing pain in my right leg and want to determine if it is sciatica or not. No investigation, just medicine.
Japan is lovely, and I've been here for more than 20 years. But the medical system needs better care by giving doctors more time with patients & needs to stop incentivizing assembly line care (doctors in Japan make more profit by getting as many bodies through the door as possible. Thus a lot of docs have turned into revolving door places.)
Herniated my L4/S1 10 years ago. Drugs might make you feel better temporarily but they won't fix the problem. Transcend the revolving door system and Google the McGill Big 3 instead.
Same thing in Australia as well, at least in the public system/bulkbilled system
Thanks for the video Dogen! The optimism at the end brought a smile to my face!
日本についての質問である程度内容がわかる分英語の勉強にいいね👍
thank you Dogen, I appreciate your approach to these topics sooo much. I’m half Japanese but a native English speaker and some concepts are hard to put in such eloquent words. I love that you love Japan tho in the end and believe we’ll come out the other end stronger. good luck to us all!!
It's really nice to hear you do this in a way that sounds more off the cuff. Your videos exude confidence as you say everything perfectly off script (and I don't mean that like sterile, you have great delivery for comedy etc). It's nice to see this because it brings more humanity to your presentation. More humility?
Anyways, I've been a programmer for 10 years now in games, and AR/VR. I just haven't seen it take off in that time. Like is it really going to become something if it's hobbled along for over a decade now? I'm just unsure if that's gonna change. Hopefully you're right because it is my industry....
My girlfriend's experiences with doctors in Japan were pretty bad. For one, as you mentioned, they often didn't take her very seriously. I've heard that there's some underlying sexism there too ("women always complain about nothing") but I don't know how much truth there is to that. The biggest issue was that many doctors are extremely specialised. She had multiple symptoms in different parts of her body that started at the same time and were clearly related, but the ear doctor said "chest? that's not my concern" and the chest doctor said "your ears and stomach? Go see someone else about that". Then they would prescribe her a bunch of different meds without really giving a diagnosis. It wasn't until she got bad to Europe that someone finally took all her symptoms into consideration and gave her an actual diagnosis. All in all, I would not want to get sick with anything serious in Japan.
Another issue with doctors is that there are no requirements to stay updated. Many of them got licensed a long time ago and then never touched a book again. If you get "medicine" that doesn't work it's often because it's actually kanpo (traditional Chinese herbal medicine).
At the place my sister in law worked just a few years ago it was still expected of female employees that they would bring coffee or tea for their male colleagues, so the sexism can be very real in some places. Thankfully it seems to be slowly changing.
@@w花b No, you're not wrong. Or at least I haven't heard a single country that requires doctors to keep up with current research like that. There might be some central agency that is supposed to do that and then update guidelines as needed but that's about it. The effects on patients are probably worse in conservative cultures.
Non Japanese example: I'm from Sweden and the first doctor I met regarding my migraines prescribed a medication. It didn't work well and the next doctor questioned it right away saying "We generally stopped prescribing it around ten years ago because of the strong side effects and poor efficacy".
@@SNixD Kampo is highly regulated here. And I must say the Kampo I received were super effective. I love #19, the little blue dragon soup. It always helps perfectly with nose problems
This is a great video- hope there are more like this in the mix! Thank you Dogen for all you do!!
I did not expect you to know and follow AR/VR. When I heard you start talking about it and explain the difference between a smartphone and the headsets that we will use, I was genuinely impressed. Im a AR/VR development student and im mostly focused on the software side of things. Let me tell you that this is not something common to talk about AR/VR in general media, which is exactly the reason why I was so happy to see someone out of our industry (AR/VR) talk about it. Thanks!
By the way been watchin your videos for week now, so im still learning stuff about this channel, but I can already tell that it will help a lot with Japanese and few other stuff.
I've heard that there's a lot of things not allowed in food in the EU that are common in the US now I wish someone made a comparative list
Evan Edinger made two videos recently about US food additives that are banned in the EU/UK and visa verse. Really interesting watch.
@@Zomerset thanks, I'll check them out :)
If pesticides and ingredients that are banned in the US are allowed in Japan you know it's bad... In EU we usually look at US as being the ones who still allow stuff that's crazy bad for health in food.
Thank you for this very professional and personnalized video, it was very insightful! Looking forward to your next videos, both funny and informative.
Impeccable timing, once again - Kishida just ramped up the good ol tax deep fryer this morning 🤣
Fascinating discussion Dogen. I've been living in Japan since 2012 and as an older person I have used the medical services here, both hospitals and clinics, many times. My experience has been better than yours. Yes, sometimes you do have to wait a long time although this varies a lot from place to place. When you attend for the first time you can wait a long time but on subsequent visits not so. I have found the medical services here, like other services, second to none. Surprisingly, some of the doctors have a sense of humor 🙂
A while ago, I was listening to a song called シャットアウト by UNLIMITS, and there's this line that goes, 吐き気がするほどに鮮やかな空想世界。First time I heard that line, I was like, "What is that beautiful sounding word 鮮やかな?" That song made me love "na" adjectives, which prior to that, I wasn't a huge fan of.
What a beautiful last message. I wish I had the same hopes for my country.
I love these QAs because they give a much more objective view of how things are in Japan at the moment.
Loved the hopeful note at the end.
Translator here, we are encouraged to work with A.I. (much like programmers are nowadays) in certain contexts, because it still doesn't have cultural awareness, doesn't get social cues and nuances, etc. So, no impending doom yet.
Since it expedites and reduces cost of translations, doesn't it mean fewer are required or higher competition? I feel like that mean's it's trending towards doom, but of course will never fully eliminate the job. Instead of being the translator the person would end up being more of an editor.
@@matsurifan well you could use it as a sort of proofreading system, or perhaps to "tidy" a few informal or default texts, or creating a skeleton, but when dealing with translations that are scientific, technical, social, executive, etc. It changes a lot, for instance, if you are dealing with ES from Spain, Argentina or Mexico, the same with English-speaking countries, there is such a wide variety of approaches you can take, that no A.I (for the time being) would be able to replicate you as an individual and your ways when reading, decoding, adapting, choosing, translating, proofreading, editing, and stuff like that (I've tried xD).
@@matsurifan also, a lot of companies use Google translate and similar services (a.i is much better but still) and end up paying a lot more to translators and third-party servs. Involved in the process to undue said fu*kup xD so I wouldn't say is that easy yet, eventually it will be as you say, I'm sure of that as well.
@@matsurifan I don't know if this is of any help but, I asked an A.I about this topic and it answered as follows: "Translation that takes into account cultural and social aspects of each language and its nuances is a complex task that requires a deep understanding of the languages and cultures involved. While machine translation has come a long way, it still has limitations when it comes to accurately conveying the intended meaning, tone, and cultural context of a text. For this reason, human translators who are fluent in the languages and familiar with the cultures involved are often better equipped to provide accurate translations that take into account these nuances. Is there something specific you would like to translate?"
Hello Dogen, thanks for your content.
As someone that is trying to learn japanese this is so useful, as knowing about the culture you're getting into really teaches you how to use said language.
I'm glad you're doing well, I hope is not something obvious, but you said you gotta greet your neighbors when you arrive.
Is it like, ringing their bell, or calling by voice? Or just leaving the present?
I moved to Europe a year ago and those kind of things are very specific in each country, in mine for example you don't even greet people in the street, it is seen as weird, but here in Italy people greet each other when entering a building, so I'm curious about those specific details.
I've seen a very interesting video regarding the future of the japanese economy. In that video they basically list a few different reason as to why it has gotten to this point.
1. Japan is mainly focused on the domestic market. If you compare the percentage of export of the GDP, Japan is around the same level as the US. But keep in mind that that is extremely low, whereas for example germany has 4 times (!) the amount of exports relatively to their GDP.
2. Low productivity. As we all know, in Japan the important thing is to show up for work and work long hours. But that leads to a lot of downtime and very productivity, actually one of the lowest of all industrialised countries.
3. The declining and ageing population. Of course all industrial countries have this problem, but they generally compensate with allowing for a lot of immigration like in Europe. This of course has the consequence of a ever-shrinking workforce.
On a personal note: I love Japan and already lived there for 1 year as an exchange student. But as much as I want to live there again, I am currently very unsure about that being a wise decision economically. Compared to my home country Germany, basically every aspect of the economy is worse in Japan, the main pain-point being the significantly lower wages and abismal work culture. I really hope that the japanese economy gets better, so it's also more attractive for other foreigners.
I really appreciate that you believe in our future with strong evidences. I am so encouraged and will work even harder for our children and grandchildren 😊
12:52 - For anyone who wants to switch from a teaching job to something else. Get into IT, lots of job openings, demand is high for engineers.
Whats the best, way to start this? I started programming recently but are there other IT jobs to look for?
That's very exciting to hear
I’ve been looking into a special skill worker visa (SSW), it’s an interesting path for the blue collar worker. If you learn how to weld, you might be able to stay indefinitely.
Watching this in my 6th Sony in a row, they really are as good as he says they are :)
Thank you for providing honest answers in the Q/A! Thank you so very much for the objective view and keeping it real.
Thanks for answering all these questions :) enjoyed watching it!
I hope you're right about that last bit. 🤞
4:49 Trans fats don’t seem to be fully banned yet. I still find hydrogenated oils when checking ingredient labels.
When you talk about convenient store foods do you mean Bentos as well? I’ve been practically living off of bentos for lunch everyday on weekdays for the last year as a full time worker and now I’m concerned it could be affecting my health negatively
The fact said that about fruit makes me freak out. There's usually a good reason why there're bans on chemicals. Speaking of which I will be looking it up, or stick to buying organic.
Touching upon the translation question. I spent a year working at a localisation company that was pushing machine translation. Quite a big one.
They want it out there, their pushing to get it out there as it will allow them to cut costs and reduce need for human workers.
It can't handle fiction but to be honest it's pretty damn good for very logical dry documentation.
Japanese is still struggles with a little but the closer a language is to English the more it's there.
You also get different rates for if your working on a MT doc vs the raw text. Most things will be MT Docs even when they are not and rates are super low.
When I asked an superior why we charging them they said "Well we don't force people to take them, they choose to" ignoring the fact they were muscling out all other competition.
In short it's a shrinking market, low rates and as Dogen touched upon large pool of existing professionals.
By all means go for it but go for it if that's what you want to do, but not as an alternate to ALT work.
I'd say your best bet is to get Japanese to N3/N2 and then just hit the streets.
I'm sure I have read somewhere in the past that 7-Eleven don't use preservatives, for example in their onigiri, and they use less food additives in general than the other convenience stores. I'm not sure about pesticides but apparently they've been reducing trans fats for several years (though no idea what they're replacing them with).
19:13 there is this tradition of leaving the elderly on the forest, that's a way to manage it
12:52 I agree, landing a job in VR/XR in Japan at this very moment is a good idea. Especially when you have some experience in this field. It's growth right now is, for a lack of beter words... scary.
Although I do recommend to be very open minded and study this field well before jumping in, especially in the VR industry the balance is completely different compared to for example America.
that might explain why some of the produce that i tried there feels so fresh that its artificial.
As for career change in japan i still think IT/tech related jobs are still more viable for foreigners like it's always been because the demand is still there. Especially how it requires minimal language skills and is what helps Japan adapt with the rest of the world.
There are quite alot of movements too in Japan to bring in more people from outside and be more "globalised", especially for IT/tech related jobs. But well, IT/tech is not exactly that easy for anyone to enter, especially if the previous job is being language teacher. You will need to re-train yourself for several years at first.
@@ArchusKanzaki i know there exists intern and ssw programs which are more like blue collared jobs. if there are other full time office jobs i wish id know what they are
I do some work on the UI for Sony Xperia, those phones are pretty impressive. Sucks that all of the advanced features don't have much pull with general consumers who just want something streamlined like an iphone.
Yay! Dogen answered my question!
The last one...
Augmented reality (and VR) will never gain the market that companies are promising/expecting, but you are correct that the companies will be hiring in those areas in the near future.
Thank you! Do you think you could teach us ingredients in Japanese that we should avoid when looking at labels in Japan?
Would a package say “部分的に 油 を 水素化”?
They will straight up list マーガリン most of the time. As a general loose rule the fewer the ingredients the less likely one of them is trans fat
The trans fats and pesticides genuinely surprised me! I guess I never would have thought Japan would still use something like that cause everyone seems so healthy. How do people end up living so long? Avoiding those foods I guess
You probably hit the nail on the head there. These snacks have only come into popularity in the past 50 or so years, so probably not enough time to affect the average yet.
I've been staying with a Japanese family a lot recently and there's constantly neighbors bringing gifts 😮
Takashi Miike is such an interesting director. He's done incredibly focused films like Audition, and almost unwatchable chaotic films like Dead or Alive.
Agitator is my favourite of his films though, possibly the best yakuza film ever made
I actually agree that, based on their history, Japan is very good at "rising from the ashes" to regain or even often exceed their former glory, and because of that I do not think that the current troubles will be the end for them. They will eventually recover, because that is also part of who they are and always have been as a culture.
The only problem is that, based on their history, they really do seem to basically have to be (figuratively) reduced to ashes first before they are usually able to do that sort of thing, which suggests that people currently living in Japan are in for a long, hard period of decline for a while until things finally get bad enough that Japanese culture will finally somehow re-emerge in its next, more powerful form, as the next iteration of their phoenix cycle...
I am convinced that Japan will survive and prosper once again, but it will probably not be our Japan, it will be the Japan of our children, or possibly our children's children instead.
I’ve been in Japan for over a decade and totally agree with Dogen. These are all very frank and real insights into Japan.
I too go to the Conbini but treat it as a mine field pretty much. It’s pretty much a vegetable oil and sugar store.
However if you are aware of that you can dodge those and get some fairly untainted food if careful. Like anywhere, it’s best to just cook at home if you can.
I still love Japan, however gone are the days when Japan was magical and sparkling.
Now I am just working with the goal to be eligible for “social security “ while realizing I’d probably make more if I had less income due to taxes.
Getting a raise isn’t as exciting when half of it is already gone😅
Regards careers, content is probably the future of Japan. There is so much content already but it seems like they still haven’t figured out how to properly capitalize on it. Nintendo is a pioneer regarding that recently I think and other companies should take notes.
I have also heard the energy industry might be heating up.
I wish the best for Japan, however I think it has to evolve a bit.
@@xionmemoria Thank you very much for the clarification/correction !
You are right. I’m so embarrassed that I overlooked this!
I’ll be sure not to fight my boss if he wants to give me a raise. lol
Trans fats are not prohibited in the US. Because there was a big uproar over them a while back, there is a requirement that foods must list the presence of trans fats on their labels, so consumers can decide for themselves whether they want to consume them, but they can still be sold if producers choose to. In general, most food producers have tried to minimize or eliminate them simply because of consumer pressure, not because of any actual regulations prohibiting their use.
It's generally very hard to actually get things banned outright in the US (much harder than places like Europe, for example), which is why it's particularly significant that Japan still uses some other things which _even the US won't allow_ anymore...
On the other hand Mountain Dew was prohibited for the longest time in Japan from what I recall due to one of the ingredients. Maybe they changed the recipe because it’s definitely here now as of a few years ago.
Artificial trans fats have been banned in the US. The labeling regulations occurred in 2003 but a ban has since been introduced. They were to go through a three year phase out process, starting in 2015. There have been various extensions, the latest date I've seen for when prior formulations of products had to be phased out of the market was January 2021. There are naturally occurring trans fats that are of course not banned. And there is a way for manufacturers to apply for an exemption to the artificial trans fat ban - I'm not sure what that process looks like or how permissive it is. But there was ultimately a ban of some form.
I recall Shogo of Let's Ask fame talking about looking at Leaving Japan at some point.
Good work Dogen.
Thanks for the video :)
日本に関して悲観的な見方される様子は、日本人ぼいちょっと自虐的な感じが笑、でも、最後の、日本が今まで何度も苦境から立ち直ってきたように、今後若い世代がきっとより良くしてくれるって言っていただいたところに、日本愛を強く感じます！
Not in language but in engineering and computer science. A good chunk of the field is convinced that if you don't learn how to use AI, you will get cut. I don't think fighting it or trying to think that your specific field won't be affected by this adoption of AI will work in the long run, even if fields like writing and other artistic forms try to slow what is essentially a freight train in terms of what it's carrying for the future and how hard it is to stop.
I heard that the reason why some ban ingredients in the US but not in japan is because those ingredients is only safe for a short time where japan have no problem with it being small in comparison and short transportation while in the US by the time it arrived in the consumers hands the bad stuff is already starting to form.
correct me if im wrong.
That might be true for some ingredients / chemicals (I cannot claim to know all of them, and doubt that anyone short of a highly-experienced food engineer could), but it's certainly not the case for both trans fats and the pesticides commonly banned in the Western world.
The ingestion of trans fats is associated with increased heart risk, increased chance for diabetes and carcinogenicity regardless of when it's consumed (in fact, trans fats are thermally stable and will not change over time), whereas banned pesticides are usually linked to neurological issues owing to the nature of the chemical itself. Furthermore, pesticides generally are subject to effects such as bioaccumulation and biomagnification, meaning they don't get eliminated easily and might "stack up" in one's body over time.
ty for another awesome video!!! you're like japan vsauce
AR/VR won't change the future in the next 20 years or so. There's no way people will replace PC/Tablet with VR headset even if they become super cheap. But AI will change E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G and that is the true unknown. How impactful AI/LLM will become we have no idea. The same way we got no idea what was coming before the internet.
12:33 you know, there are countries with 19% VAT
Those are also my fav Takashi Miike movies. Wasn’t Goro amazing in his role in 13 assassins?
"Programming" is still pretty generally good career choice. However, people who want to enter programming, need to update their skillsets constantly to be able to adapt to, whatever the current market demands. Currently, if you have programming skills that can deal with AI, then I think you are quite in-demand even in Japan. Japan's government seems to be racing to adapt AI, since it is basically entirely new front that have crazy potential to be disruptive, when they missed the train on previous tech trend.
Also, that's quite interesting look on the tax in Japan. I do heard that Japan is essentially not that different to US in terms of taxing, which is that they really took alot. Unfortunately though, from what I can see, Japan's salary range are not as high as US.
Also about combini...it's probably a good idea to buy only japanese style food there then. Onigiri, makidzushi and such
thanks dogen!
Something I would advise that is kinda contradictory to what you said, be wary of latest tech-industry buzz technologies like AR, VR, AI stuff. A lot of companies hastily threw caution to the wind to try to get on the big new crazes in tech and lost bigtime for it. Facebook sunk billions into the MetaVerse only to scrap it about a year and a half in. A lot of companies lately lost big on crypto. And there are several red flags showing up in the move by big companies into AI integration and development that show they're rushing right into it without a long-term plan set up because they want big short term success. Focusing heavily on the parts of tech fields that are recent crazes poses a lot of risk, as you don't know if in 5 years the technology will be completely scrapped in favor of the next big thing. There is still plenty of value in getting into programming, or VR, or machine learning, but my advice would be to not be blindly dead set on recent buzzing technologies and do educated research into how the industry is going if you're looking into tech.
4:02 and 3rd ones too
You are thinking Germany. They've still had a lot of trouble integrating immigrants because there is /so/ many of them (France obviously has, too, and probably more so than Germany). I think the US has actually been quite successful with repopulating dying towns with new immigrants, and I feel like Japan could really benefit from that kind of program.
I understand the case that Dogen is making about taxes (and I am sure his predictions are correct), however, I think whether or not taxes are high depends on what you are comparing them to.
I live in Eastern Europe and pay more taxes than I would in Japan for the same income - the difference being that here, the tax money seems to vanish into thin air, with things like public infrastructure and hospitals continuously in a bad state. Consumption tax is also 19%.
On the other hand, in Western Europe it seems like the tax money is put to good use but it seems like the taxes are also significantly higher than in my country (for the countries that I checked, at least). Strictly from a taxation perspective, I would choose Japan without a second thought.
I do find the things I just learned about produce and konbinis really worrying, though. I wonder if that is the reason why food seems so affordable in Japan.😢
you're never going to move out. That house is amazing.
I think we’re safe from AR/VR disrupting careers for atleast 2 decades. AI maybe 10 years
AI growth is exponential... 👀
@@UzumakiHarutoJPyeah exactly. You _already_ have people who are using AI to enhance their creative work process and sadly also a lot who use it to short-cut their "creative" work process. This already has a noticable impact om the market. And the way AI just continues to grow means it really wouldn't take a lot of time for it to actually start being a real problem for people's jobs.
For people who don't agree, just know that smething like this doesn't have to be exactly as good as its human counterpart. All it has to do is sell stuff and take potential customers from real people
@@IkkezzUsedEmber I think if someone is worried about their job being taken from them then just do something else honestly
it doesn't have to be a problem, since in the end, humans aren't supposed to have jobs be to be taken from them in the first place. I think offloading dirty work to things that can do the work automatically is a good thing, because we can then focus on the things that matter and actually make progress elsewhere
@@UzumakiHarutoJP Bruh some people have YEARS invested in their career/field/study. To tell them "lol just drop it" is not really a viable solution. It ignores much of the reality of a human being's life.
@@tonoshikikai and the fact that this is the case is a sad thing that is unfortunate to be normal... We literally shouldn't be working, this is not what we were designed to do, we were designed to create and help each other but not work for 40 years doing the same thing, that's just nonsense
Regardless, there are plenty of jobs available which don't require a specific degree which can provide a decent pay, or you can learn to adapt to your situation and do whatever will keep you alive. Either way, it's gonna be survival of the fittest, thanks to the very jobs that you want to protect
Me, in my country, with 27% taxes on salary if you are paid three minimum wages or above: 🤡
(Btw, the minimum wage here isn't "minimum" at all. It's barely enough for someone to rent a holey wood shack and buy the cheapest industrial food available, which a perfect recipe for you to get sick very easily. No way you to afford even a bike, speaking as someone who lives very modestly because I had to count pennies for most of my life. If you want to be on the lowest end of the middle class you need **at least** two minimum wages, and there's even more absurd taxes on anything we buy and the government is hilariously corrupt, so, we are all screwed really.)
South Africa?
@@joshuaradloff1070 Seems more like Spain, judging from her early videos
@@MrKata55Nah, it's Brazil, judging from their other comments on this channel
The AI translation bit hits hard. I really wanted to translate, I quite enjoy it actually. But it horrifies me that what I have worked toward for years is about to be largely just taken away by AI. I genuinely fear for many fields going forward, I personally suspect there is a real chance of mass unemployment and that won't help any economy.
I'm a year off finishing my translation degree and I completely feel this way.
I don't necessarily agree with him on this one, I have done a lot of research and many people are saying that translation jobs are not likely going to be taken away by bots for a while because of lunguistic trends and nuances and such. I refuse to give up on my dream so easily.
What if you use AI alongside?
Ok. Good to know
Does Japanan still use DDT?
All the time I've been waiting for the punchline 😂😅
Plumbers, Pet finder, Farmer. These jobs are there to stay for a while until optimus is truely working(10years?)
I find it really hard to believe that VR is going to be successful beyond a handful of people... it's like metaverse, no one cares except people trying to sell it to you
Hi Dogen, despite being aware of all the issues surrounding Japan I still hope to move there when I finish college because I love Japan. Contrast to all the content I've consumed educating myself about Japan's issues, your optimism for Japan's future in the end was the breath of fresh air I didn't know I needed. I'd like to say that despite everything Japan is going through and will go through I too am willing to ride it out when I hopefully move there. Japan is awesome
til about flonicamid and chlorfenapyr 🍓
Lawsons chicken always trumps Familymart... But 7-11 has the best egg mayo sandwich...
How is McDonald's still a thing in the US if trans fats are not allowed?
I was a vegetarian for 7 years until I started working in a Japanese restaurant and became a sushi chef
While they don't look good macroeconomically, a large part of the world is moving into the same situation as them.
Eventually i believe the world needs to acknowledge that capitalistic growth won't last forever and need to start coming to terms with it.
Counterpoint: I do not think that VR is going to go anywhere significant anytime soon. The reality is that it's quite expensive, as well as being difficult to develop for, and it doesn't add anything significant in most use-cases.
I have a degree in game design, and it turns out that making really good VR-specific games is almost impossible with current technology. The hows and whys are too complicated to get into here, but there's a reason that there have only been a handful of successful games in VR and only one of them (Beat Saber) has really offered anything that can be considered "VR-specific" (ie can't be replicated well enough either in real life or on a normal computer).
As for "general life" use, Folding Ideas (the guy who did Line Goes Up) has an excellent video called The Future is a Dead Mall that addresses this topic. To sum it up, normal everyday things like shopping and working are actually pretty bad in VR. When you shop in VR you have this 3D space, like you're really there! But the reality is you're NOT really there. You receive none of the benefits of being there. You can't touch the clothes and feel the material, you can't try them on or look for manufacturing defects. You can't squeeze the produce or feel the weight in your hand or check the freshness. And yet to look at different items you have to navigate space and actually go around interacting with the different things, and if you're looking at pants or fruit or whatever and you want to look at shirts or fish or something you have to go all the way to the other side of the building. Amazon is successful because it's convenient. You can scroll through hundreds of items in minutes, and swap "departments" in seconds. Shopping in VR trades this convenience for.... nothing. It's the worst of both worlds, and there is no advancement conceivable in the current iteration of VR (ie visual headsets) that will bridge that gap. We would need something like Star Trek's holodeck or full-dive neuro-linked VR like The Matrix, Johnny Mnemonic, or SAO to take the next step, and that probably won't happen in our lifetimes. Certainly not this decade.
Most other use cases are similar dead-ends. There's something to be said for being able to remotely connect to a shared 3D space for a collaborative effort, but you don't really gain much that you don't get from a video conference call and any 15 year old oekaki board and/or a shared google doc. And, generally, working in a "virtual office" sucks, and nobody wants to do it. Ignoring this simple fact has cost Zuckerberg 100 billion dollars lol
11:00 "Think about all the apps you use as well, they are either Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. Or Tiktok."
I use none of these, lol.
i'm very glad that i know how to read the 栄養成分表示, but i wish that the nutritional facts included separate information on trans fat like labels do in canada..
outside of onigiri, the least offensive sandwiches, and hi-chew, i fear most konbini food
Surprised about taxes since I'd guessed they'd take less taxes since you have kids
Yes, pesticides. About strawberries, While the two pesticides are not authorized for use in Taiwan, they are widely used in Japan due to climate-related and environmental factors. If the FDA were to set maximum residue limits, strawberries containing the two pesticides could be imported to Taiwan as long as the residues fell within the legal limits, he said. Chlorfenapyr is used for crop protection against a variety of insects and mites, while flonicamid is used to control aphids, thrips and whitefly. That been said, i am aware of eating strawberries in Japan from a long time. Ps: yes, hydrogenated fats. HF are one of the worst thing to eat.
Wait. The killer's name is Itchy?
He wouldn't be related to Scratchy by chance?
...
I'll keep my day job.
I was waiting for a punchline this whole time.
I respect your opinion Dogen, but there is one thing you are definitely wrong about - AR/VR will never become big, Apple or not. They are cumbersome and no one wants to use them all the time. Even small and compact google glasses flopped in the end. This happens with almost every ar/vr owner - as soon as the novelty fades off people use those devices less and less, simply because using normal monitor/phone is much more convenient. I can bet, that even if they will make fully functional eye-contacts that can work as a proper AR device - people still won't be using them too much or too often. So i'd rather avoid this particular industry altogether. The general IT/programming is a much better choise imo.
Maybe not NEVER, but not for the decade at least
0:50 Ah hah, the false-cognate of the Japanse "マンション" ("manshon") and the English "mansion" strikes again!
Me: I have a sony xperia that I mostly read manga on through Manga UP! and Webtoons.
I also watch twitch, youtube, reddit, and chat on telegram, discord
and then it's all government/local transportation etc. No silicone valley or tiktok here.
三池崇史!!!!!!!! have you seen カタクリ家の幸福?
The one missed post-WW2 opportunity was proper script reform. Instead some American official insisted that romaji publishing be published in triplicate to make it economically uncompetitive and the Japanese themselves did stunts like moving enthusiastic romaji experimenters to different schools where there was no romaji program. And so we got touyou kanji and Shinjitai instead of sane writing.
On the flipside, we were spared the cursedness that is nihonshiki. Hujisan, anyone?
Japan did have a script reform post-WW2 that got rid the most horrible stuff like old hiragana spellings. (e.g. けふ became きょう) That being said, I don't think the writing system is that bad. It takes time to learn, but it's not like Japan has bad literacy rates.
@@2712animefreak The literacy rates are a consequence of extended modern schooling, the writing system is broadly irrelevant.
And yes, it's ultimately usable once you invest the time, that's true. But it can still be easily the worst solution in its category. "Bad" doesn't mean "cannot be made to work well enough". But if the option is being actually easy, it starts feeling a bit weird. It's somewhat fucked up that I can recognize the Korean cognate of a Japanese word I know from written Korean more readily than I can read a Japanese word I'd know in my sleep.
You got some things wrong about demographic stuff. No country has overcome the problem and immigration will definitely not resolve the problem in the long run, but Japan has an advantage going into the future as it will be the first country where the population pyramid stabilizes. With that Japan will be ahead of other nations and will at some point be more successful than most other nations.
Also the example about innovation sounds absurd as some random people don't make phones, but huge corporations. A better example about innovation would be patents.
All the culture stuff that people love about japan is because it is a homogeneous country. If they would let in a lot of immigrants, Japan would slowly lose more and more it's indentity like it's happening in Europe right now which is very sad to see. Many people that don't live in Europe or haven't been there for a long period of time don't even know how bad the situation is. The only solution is to increase the birthrate.
In Germany we have a consumer tax of 19% and income tax is what feels like 50% 😂
tbh I highly doubt the rise of AR and VR. After seeing facebook's flop with it, I don't think people are gonna buy it with Apple either.
Re. taxes & your "get out while you can" comment ~19:50: I make good money, but I also pay 50% effective rate in income taxes -- honestly tempts me to leave on a regular basis. The tech job market in the US is a bit bumpy at the moment, but I'm applying.
16:15 I think his name is Takashi Miyake. and yeh, I love some of his films too!
no, he pronounced it correctly.
Biochem here: really bad for the amount the US consumtion. Yes it's cancerous, but not in every days amount (outside of us, even now)