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punk rebel ecks posted:- The country, at least Tokyo, is super advanced. I heard of other nations being ahead of America but it has to be experienced to truly understand. A city designed solely around walkability. Public transportation with speed, pricing, and reliability that makes cars antique. Not an inch of building space not used for retail. This is more cultural than anything. The US has all of the tools to design a futuristic city like Tokyo, but the people in the US don't want it. punk rebel ecks posted:
These exist in the US, but really only certain areas, like LA/SF choose to ever put them in, and even still it's mostly only Asian people. For example, when I buy a house, I will be installing a bidet. quote:- While the Japanese people may initially seem cold, if you have a basic conversation, as in say a few Japanese words, they become extremely nice and friendly. Only outwardly. quote:
Yes quote:- It's also difficult to find a toilet and drinking fountains. Toilets are super easy to find - any station/department store. Drinking fountains are harder. quote:
Until you eat Japanese food every day. That being said JP food is still my favorite quote:
lol quote:
yup quote:
yup quote:- A near cash only society sucks, I prefer using cards. yup quote:- It gets very lonely not being able to speak the language. Despite being surrounded by a sea of people I felt alone. There were at times I was sitting across from people and I would want to talk to them, and vice versa, but I knew I couldn't. Makes me really emphatic to non-English speaking immigrants in my country. quote:- Despite many obvious cultural differences, I didn't feel that day to day life in Japan was THAT removed from America. Maybe I would have to live there for a bit to see. But I really felt that "they were all people just like me, just from a different place". I'd say it's very different. But if it's your first major international travel, then yes, you'll realize that people are sometimes more alike than different.
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Apr 24, 2019 19:54
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ntan1 posted:This is more cultural than anything. The US has all of the tools to design a futuristic city like Tokyo, but the people in the US don't want it. True. ntan1 posted:Like Stringent said, it gets lonelier when you do speak the language How so?
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Apr 24, 2019 21:36
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My understanding is that unless you actually are Japanese, you will never be no matter how long you’ve lived there or how well you speak the language. Ever. You will always be an outsider. I’ve seen rants by people who have lived in Japan for 20 years about this and I want to shout “if you’ve lived there that long you should loving know this by now!” At least when you are a visiting talking dog you are a novelty and people want you to leave with a good impression of the country.
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Apr 24, 2019 22:10
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I'd imagine if you get involved the your community you could at least get a sense of belonging in that micro sense. This is definitely just my musing having not lived there for a long period of time though.
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Apr 24, 2019 22:28
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Romantic dinners in Tokyo: Instead of ginza steak there’s ukatei, which is pricier but also more of a exclusive setting. BUT, like ginza steak and most fancy pants restaurants the place gets filled with moneyed tourists like French, Arab, Hong Kongers, and other nouveau rich types easily and the service will drop if you don’t speak Japanese. It’s still good food don’t get me wrong and if you don’t really go to those kinds of places you won’t notice the drop in quality. I was at tempura endo in Kyoto last night. Minimum sets were 10k and the staff really made sure I understood the ordering system and add on a 10% service charge. Wasn’t a problem for all the other euro tourists around me because though! I wasn’t even served with the dipping sauce and had to passively aggressively give a few looks for them to pour for me. Still good food and the fried scallop with a dash of caviar was interesting. My recommendation : Nakasei by asakusa. A upper mid range tempura restaurant with an inner garden, a really good lunch place and not busy. Also not expensive: Not sure if you guys are up for French but freaking robuchon au dome can’t go wrong.
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Apr 24, 2019 22:51
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Most Japanese people I know are pretty sweet and friendly in a way that I feel is perfectly genuine, even past the point where you're this weird non-threatening curiosity. There's a lot of dumb condescending old men in izakayas but with the people I actually know (as long as they're people from outside work, which is a different story) I don't feel any of that.
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Apr 24, 2019 22:52
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Martytoof posted:I could look inside and take photos as long as I didn’t post them anywhere. That’s my cool skytree story, thanks for coming to my Ted talk. post the photos and call no man -sama
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Apr 24, 2019 22:56
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punk rebel ecks posted:- Arcades are everywhere. That said in terms of "new games", it's always the same dozen games or so. I didn't realize that such few companies made modern arcade games in Japan. The Japanese arcade industry is in a toilet compared to how it was even 15 years ago, as far as variety is concerned. The games are now targeted exclusively towards obsessive types with lots of skinner box poo poo, as opposed to what arcade games used to be: quick bursts of fun that are "easy to learn, hard to master". Instead of many different games arcades in Japan now are full of dozens of copies of maybe like 6 games. There are certain arcades that are dedicated to the old, good games (look for places full of identical cabinets with CRT monitors) and those places are great, but walking into a random taito station or club sega is going to be a real boring, samey experience. d0s fucked around with this message at 23:36 on Apr 24, 2019 |
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Apr 24, 2019 23:33
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the new densha de go is really loving good though
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Apr 25, 2019 00:31
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Doctor Zero posted:My understanding is that unless you actually are Japanese, you will never be no matter how long you’ve lived there or how well you speak the language. Ever. You will always be an outsider. I’ve seen rants by people who have lived in Japan for 20 years about this and I want to shout “if you’ve lived there that long you should loving know this by now!” I think most Japanese people are lonely and feel like outsiders. It's just an extremely othering culture.
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Apr 25, 2019 01:15
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mikeycp posted:the new densha de go is really loving good though yeah true!
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Apr 25, 2019 01:45
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Stringent posted:They're still cold. The same tack that leads you (and myself) to believe this can be applied to everyone, technically. Who’s to say that this isn’t universal? We’re unfortunately not mind readers. For my part, I’m not a cold person. I believe Rosseau was right. So even if everyone else is cold, or if they’re all truly welcoming, I’ll tip the scale in the direction I believe in. “If you won’t, I will.” quote:
Yeah, that. I get the sense that I stick out like a sore thumb for being the only fat Guatemalan-American trans woman eating at Kushikatsu Daruma  It kinda sucks, honestly. Lots of self-doubt. That said I believe it’s complicated and very much influenced by both Japanese cultural arrangements and lovely American diets. quote:
I can definitely see proficiency at the language causing more resentment and contempt than less, for certain people. I have no idea if it’s universal or realistic, though.
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Apr 25, 2019 01:54
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caberham posted:Romantic dinners in Tokyo: Dope! Gonna check these spots out tonight. Is Akiba(that's the nickname for Akihabara, right?) a decent spot to look for a board game? Friend is interested in a game, wondering where the best spot would be to look..
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Apr 25, 2019 01:57
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Doctor Zero posted:My understanding is that unless you actually are Japanese, you will never be no matter how long you’ve lived there or how well you speak the language. Ever. You will always be an outsider. I’ve seen rants by people who have lived in Japan for 20 years about this and I want to shout “if you’ve lived there that long you should loving know this by now!” My experience of Japan is that it’s a cool place to live, but I’ll be hosed if I live here long-term. This doesn’t feel like home to me the way the US does, and I have no love for the society and don’t wish to integrate into it. Dad keeps hounding me into living here for a month or a year and I don’t know how to tell him that it doesn’t sound enjoyable at all.
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Apr 25, 2019 01:58
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Pollyanna posted:My experience of Japan is that it’s a cool place to live, but I’ll be hosed if I live here long-term. This doesn’t feel like home to me the way the US does, You’ve been on vacation for like a week. That’s entirely different from having a routine set around daily life, and is probably far too soon to make that sort of judgment (I feel like that requires 6 months to a year, because you need to go through the whole cycle and both super-love and turbo-hate a new place to get a grasp on it). You can get a vibe for a place but after that short, no foreign country is “going to feel like home” in that way.
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Apr 25, 2019 02:05
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d0s posted:The Japanese arcade industry is in a toilet compared to how it was even 15 years ago, as far as variety is concerned. The games are now targeted exclusively towards obsessive types with lots of skinner box poo poo, as opposed to what arcade games used to be: quick bursts of fun that are "easy to learn, hard to master". Instead of many different games arcades in Japan now are full of dozens of copies of maybe like 6 games. There are certain arcades that are dedicated to the old, good games (look for places full of identical cabinets with CRT monitors) and those places are great, but walking into a random taito station or club sega is going to be a real boring, samey experience. UFO catchers are bullshit and need to be outlawed.
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Apr 25, 2019 02:12
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harperdc posted:You’ve been on vacation for like a week. That’s entirely different from having a routine set around daily life, and is probably far too soon to make that sort of judgment (I feel like that requires 6 months to a year, because you need to go through the whole cycle and both super-love and turbo-hate a new place to get a grasp on it). You can get a vibe for a place but after that short, no foreign country is “going to feel like home” in that way. Yeah, exactly. In truth, far too early to tell for sure.
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Apr 25, 2019 02:12
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harperdc posted:You’ve been on vacation for like a week. That’s entirely different from having a routine set around daily life, and is probably far too soon to make that sort of judgment (I feel like that requires 6 months to a year, because you need to go through the whole cycle and both super-love and turbo-hate a new place to get a grasp on it). You can get a vibe for a place but after that short, no foreign country is “going to feel like home” in that way. yeah i went through that cycle after like 3.5 months there i've been trying to get over there permanently since i got back from that trip
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Apr 25, 2019 02:27
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harperdc posted:You’ve been on vacation for like a week. That’s entirely different from having a routine set around daily life, and is probably far too soon to make that sort of judgment (I feel like that requires 6 months to a year, because you need to go through the whole cycle and both super-love and turbo-hate a new place to get a grasp on it). You can get a vibe for a place but after that short, no foreign country is “going to feel like home” in that way. I do have to say that I never felt the truly negative feelings about Japan when I was living there before. Sure, we all know the quirky and inefficient way some things are done, but that never bothered me deeply and overall my years there were really pleasurable. But yes, hard to judge anything after only a week.
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Apr 25, 2019 02:28
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Pollyanna posted:UFO catchers are bullshit and need to be outlawed. for the most part I agree but I won a pretty good taito station waifu on a single coin once so I'm conflicted 
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Apr 25, 2019 02:36
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Back to subway discussion, heres an interactive map of New York City's system where you can see where they found (of the bacteria and etc they could actually identify) things like diarrhea or UTIs. http://graphics.wsj.com/patho-map/?sel=bact
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Apr 25, 2019 02:38
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Blackchamber posted:Back to subway discussion, heres an interactive map of New York City's system where you can see where they found (of the bacteria and etc they could actually identify) things like diarrhea or UTIs. http://graphics.wsj.com/patho-map/?sel=bact I think a big reason the Tokyo metro and JR lines are generally a bit cleaner? There’s down time, and stuff can get cleaned up at stations and on trains. We could probably have a whole page or two of fun sights and smells of the Tokyo train system, but despite seeing the worst of it all, it all gets cleaned up quickly. Because seeing people vomit on train platforms is absolutely a part of the Tokyo experience.
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Apr 25, 2019 03:17
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Maybe cuz I grew up in the American northeast where no one acknowledges each other on the street and saying "Hi" to strangers is blasphemy but I never found Japanese people "cold" lol I had lots of randos come up to me and talk in restaurants and bars and the like.d0s posted:The Japanese arcade industry is in a toilet compared to how it was even 15 years ago, as far as variety is concerned. The games are now targeted exclusively towards obsessive types with lots of skinner box poo poo, as opposed to what arcade games used to be: quick bursts of fun that are "easy to learn, hard to master". Instead of many different games arcades in Japan now are full of dozens of copies of maybe like 6 games. There are certain arcades that are dedicated to the old, good games (look for places full of identical cabinets with CRT monitors) and those places are great, but walking into a random taito station or club sega is going to be a real boring, samey experience. Mostly true, but rhythm games have never been better. I spend a stupid amount on SDVX or whatever whenever I'm over. I was p disappointed with the arcade versions of Theatrhythm though, they felt and played real bad.
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Apr 25, 2019 03:29
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Magna Kaser posted:Mostly true, but rhythm games have never been better. I spend a stupid amount on SDVX or whatever whenever I'm over. Yeah I guess part of my complaint is that I never really cared for them and over the years they ended up taking over so much floor space in arcades, pushing out all the sticks and buttons games (except for fighters). If you're into it though yeah it's a great time to be an rhythm game player
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Apr 25, 2019 03:40
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Magna Kaser posted:I was p disappointed with the arcade versions of Theatrhythm though, they felt and played real bad. it's bad jubeat and chunithm though...
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Apr 25, 2019 04:58
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We went to an arcade in an otherwise nondescript neighborhood in Tokyo during our trip. I don't play arcade games, so what I remember best is the smell of cigarettes and despair
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Apr 25, 2019 05:05
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Johnny Truant posted:Is Akiba(that's the nickname for Akihabara, right?) a decent spot to look for a board game? Friend is interested in a game, wondering where the best spot would be to look.. Yellow Submarine has a board/TCG/RPG satellite store, at least in Dendentown. I bought White Knight and a Japanese version of the second Dragonlance novel there. Very legit!
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Apr 25, 2019 05:05
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d0s posted:for the most part I agree but I won a pretty good taito station waifu on a single coin once so I'm conflicted Oh no it’s adorable. I love that kitty 
Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 05:10 on Apr 25, 2019 |
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Apr 25, 2019 05:06
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I can only imagine all the people calling Japanese people ‘cold’ have just literally never been to a large city?
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Apr 25, 2019 05:27
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Is that literally the only thing you can imagine? Not that I don't believe you, just wanted to confirm.
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Apr 25, 2019 05:31
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It is literally the only possible explanation for people to literally believe that in a literal sense.
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Apr 25, 2019 05:32
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Shout out to all my poorly traveled 日本人
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Apr 25, 2019 05:35
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I don’t find Japanese people particularly more cold than anywhere else. Though really the only time I’ve interacted with Japanese people in the past 5 years is at the *~_HUB_~*
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Apr 25, 2019 05:38
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Stringent posted:Shout out to all my poorly traveled 日本人 Thanks for a bunch of articles talking about people who have never been to big cities to back up my point that people must have never been to big cities
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Apr 25, 2019 05:45
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Yeah it's a big city thing all over the world
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Apr 25, 2019 05:55
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Doctor Zero posted:My understanding is that unless you actually are Japanese, you will never be no matter how long you’ve lived there or how well you speak the language. Ever. You will always be an outsider. I’ve seen rants by people who have lived in Japan for 20 years about this and I want to shout “if you’ve lived there that long you should loving know this by now!” If this mentality is true, Japan is going to go through some turbulence as it accepts more immigrants to counter its aging population.
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Apr 25, 2019 06:01
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I guess it makes sense that Japanese people would have a general perception of folks in Tokyo being cold since the vast majority of the population lives in the countryside.
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Apr 25, 2019 06:01
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i don't think it's a particularly unfair generalization of tokyoites
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Apr 25, 2019 06:13
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You know that weird thing where peoples' fuses get super short for some reason when flying? That's what everyone is like on the trains in Tokyo, every day. No Taro, you cannot loving stand in this single square centimeter, it's mine.
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Apr 25, 2019 06:42
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mikeycp posted:i don't think it's a particularly unfair generalization of tokyoites It’s perhaps not unfair, but relative to what? Are New Yorkers and Londoners known to be very kind and warm to outsiders, and moreover people who humble about making asses of themselves, not knowing etiquette, being generally dirty, and not knowing any of the language at all (aka virtually every tourist to Tokyo). Given the context and when compared to peers I’d say Tokyoites are nice as gently caress considering the dumb poo poo they put up with.
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Apr 25, 2019 06:47
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