- Hey guys, so, I just got back from my trip
to Japan and South Korea, and I filmed
a little bit whilst I was there.
But I was just really bad at vlogging on the go
'cause I was on holiday.
- [Voiceover] Nice one.
- And so, I just wanted to sit and chat with you guys
about just things that I had learned whilst I was out there.
Some of it's gonna be serious, some of it's gonna be silly.
When visiting new and different places,
I think it's always a good opportunity to reflect
on your own environment because we take
a lot of things for granted.
Visiting new places really opens up your eyes
to just the completely different ways that people
live their lives.
Obviously, we still look through a lens of the environment
that we were brought up in, which can make us
somewhat judgmental.
From a western perspective, I viewed Japan and South Korea
as the technologically advanced
and democratic Asian countries.
And I kind of put them together, which I now know
that I shouldn't have done because Japan and South Korea
are very, very different places.
We went to loads of temples when were in Kyoto,
and they were absolutely gorgeous.
Me and my dad decided that our favorite monk
was the Bosatsu monk.
So, you have the monks that have no possessions
because they have reached enlightenment.
The Bosatsu monks, however, are on their way
to enlightenment, and they will not reach enlightenment
until all world suffering has ended.
The Bosatsu should basically be like,
at the forefront of the revolution because they
wanna reach enlightenment, but world suffering
needs to end first.
Japan is not currently living in 2015.
Japanese years are not done based on Christian calendar.
It's currently the year 27 in Japan because that
is when the current emperor started ruling.
And so, when he dies and there's a new emperor,
it will start from zero again.
Or one, I'm not sure.
We went to the Peace Museum in Hiroshima,
which is all about the atomic bomb and secular war.
I'm planning on writing a whole blog post about it,
so if that is up, I will link it below.
But what I'll say now is the main thing that stood out to me
was the fact that the Americans aren't mentioned at all.
There's no blame placed anywhere, and the way that I would
describe it is as aggressively peaceful.
One of the first things that I noticed
when I got off the plane and onto the subway in Tokyo
was that there are women only carriages on the trains.
I asked about this, and obviously, it was because
if you are a woman traveling on the train,
maybe like late at night, and there are drunk men,
like, it's not very safe for you, so there's a women only
carriage because, you know, men aren't responsible
for their actions, women should change their behavior.
Just, you know, classic victim blaming,
that I thought it was very interesting that there
was just like, it was part of the establishment,
and part of the infrastructure that there were
women only carriages.
Karaoke is cool.
I love karaoke.
You have like, huge establishments of karaoke rooms.
You and your friends have a room to yourselves,
and a karaoke machine, and sometimes a load
of space to dance, and oh, my God,
I just had the best time ever.
I just got along there.
It was amazing.
I just wish it was cooler here.
The main thing that I learned that I didn't know
before, and now, I was just like, whoa, okay,
was that Koreans have different birthdays.
When you are born, you are one.
So, you are a year old when you're born.
You're actual date of birth kind of means nothing
because everyone turns a year older on the first of January.
Often, people will ask you how old you are
when they first meet you because then they know
how to address you and how to talk to you.
The whole everyone turning a year older at the same time,
I find really interesting because to me,
it kinda feels like everyone just moves through society
in like, batches, like along a production line or something.
Can't talk about Korea without talking about K-pop.
♫ I'm a loser
♫ Just a loser ♫
It's all in Korean, I don't know any Korean.
I was visiting my friend who's teaching English out there,
and she had literally just been to a Big Bang concert.
Big Bang is a K-pop band.
So, she was all buzzed up about Big Bang
and was showing me a list of their music videos,
and it got to the point that when I was leaving Korea
and I was in the airport, a Big Bang song came on,
and I recognized it.
I was like, yes.
I also learned that the Korean alphabet
is one of the easiest and most simple alphabets
to learn and understand.
The shapes of the letters are supposed to mimic
the shape that your mouth makes when you make that sound.
But yeah, that's some stuff I learned.
I had an absolutely incredible time.
Please let me know in the comments
if you have ever been to any of those places
or if you've been to other countries in Asia
and how they compare, if they're like,
similar or different.
Please give this video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it
and I'll see you guys soon.
Bye.
(upbeat music)