Staring a conversation with someone is a skill.
And I was not very good at it for most of my life.
Now I'm a lot more social. So, people can change. Because I used to be really shy.
I was like "Oh no, I can;t go up to strangers. It's going to make them feel awkward.
Most of the time that doesn't happen.
It's not very common for people in Japan to just outright reject you. Dude get out of my face.
That's not likely to happen, but you can pick up on some of the non-verbal ques.
They might get really quiet or kind of turn their head.
It's not very common to make eye contact in Japan in the first place, but you can kind of tell when
somebody's like "Ok I don't want to talk to you".
That's a social skill.
If you're a guy it might not be so easy to do this, because the girls might be like
"Hey what are you up to dude, what are you doing here?"
But maybe they won't. Maybe it will be welcomed. I don't know. It depends on your personality.
It depends on how you start the conversation.
It depends on how smooth you are at talking.
But it's not surprise that people get really uncomfortable if you speak to them in a language they don't understand
or they only understand a little bit of.
So it always helps if you know that persons language and you talk to them in the language of the country you're in.
That's gonna break the ice right away.
I thought for sure they were sisters or something.
They look kind of similar with the same clothes on.
I want to do that with my best friend. I'm just going to come out here and wear the same clothes.
Or maybe I'll come out here with my mom and wear the same clothes.
That would be fun.
Oh my gosh I love your outfit.
Thank you.
It's adorable.
I usually talk to the people that are wearing the unique clothes because
I can tell they're not shy. If you were shy you wouldn't be wearing clothes different from everybody else.
Those are the people that are not shy. So I like them.
Harajuku is a great place to meet people that are not shy.
They are not shy here. They're pretty outgoing. They've got their own personality and they're not afraid to show it.
So, I like this place. I like talking to people here too.
I hear the cicadas
That means it's summer in Japan when I cicada chirping can be hear. That means summer is here.
Japanese is actually one of the top 10 most studied languages in the world believe it or not.
It's an economic powerhouse. This is the 3rd largest economy in the world.
It's got a huge population. Learning Japanese is pretty useful
especially if you want to take it to the next level and learn it for business.
So I encourage anyone who has any interest in Japan to learn some Japanese.
It can be a pretty useful language as well. Diplomacy, economics... this and that.
And it's just got a huge population to top it all off.
It's not just one of those things you could only do as a hobby.
Japanese can be a part of your career too.