women and even foreigners are now participating in traditional japanese culture that was formerly
off limits hi it's your american friend aming here and i'm getting a lesson in the sacred art of
yabusame which is japanese horseback riding from none other than jessica my archer friend who is
now pushing the boundaries of what it means to be foreign and to be japanese new zealand is my home
and japan is my home is that not allowed but how do other people feel about jessica participating
in these japanese cultural activities well based on the first video we did which i encourage you
to watch it was pretty positive although there was still a decent amount of negative backlash
from the western side identity crisis you're not japanese typical racist colonizing behavior of a
white person girl you aren't asian stop making it your entire personality i know right these
people don't even know about japan till recently like herself super weeaboo their own culture
They're just bored of a lack of their own culture, so they appropriate others. Eww, eww, ewwww. This is too long and so on but i think that's enough you get the point
i'm jessica from new zealand and i'm someone who's lived in japan for about 20 years
a lot came up from western people written in english yeah you'll never be japanese who do you
think you are i mean why not have two homes isn't that awesome and cool i'll put it on in a sec
you know more about japanese clothes than he does. Really?
it's about the way you're living your life and how much of the culture you're taking in
and you've made an effort to learn japanese compared to someone who is in their bubble
expatriate doesn't speak has you know foreign food from their supermarket every day and just
goes to work in a foreign company how would you respond to the people that called you a weeb
i i came to japan before the word was invented oh so now you're a hipster yeah baby
i definitely agree with jessica about the issue of integrating into japanese society and
she's certainly done that in many ways including marrying a local and raising her three children
here but just like the issue of allowing women to participate in martial arts i also think
there are other ways that japan can improve and it's not just a matter of getting used to
we were talking about you being a mom with a child with special needs so yeah how how
has that changed your view on japan i got a lot of comments from people just saying like what did you
do to have a disabled baby from japanese people yes from japanese people i think
the expectations that i had for other people in regards to my kid were quite like new zealander
yeah yeah so i expected this kind of like integration into society and people not to stare
it was kind of a nasty shock to be honest to start off with and then i guess i just got used to it
so no no full-on japanese education for the kids that was a step too far bullying kind of
worried us because they're half yeah half japanese half western they stand out a mile yeah so
getting bullied and then have that lead-on effect not wanting to go to school and that kind
of thing just to avoid all that and um yeah we just went straight to international school
Basically my posture it needs to be more of like a horse ridder's posture.
Yeah, he's really sweet. So, he used to be a Yabusame
archer a traditional yabusame and he's got his all his knowledge
and his love of japanese horses and now he's teaching people which is really really cool
okay i love the hat makes the outfit yeah traditional
japanese archers the horseback archer's hat, which is called kishagasa.
here we go we're riding the horses
He's having trouble finding equipment that will fit your footgear.
that's all legs
Magical.
we're gonna take this horse walk it around
and hit that over there with an arrow you think we can hit it on the first try who's taking bets
It's your turn. Yeah. You're up.
it's really tricky getting the timing the start timing i bet so i'm just trying to
learn how long have you been doing this for a year and a half a year and a half
Do you eat basashi? You know it's a Japanese delicacy.
he's standing right behind you
how has japan changed me in like a
spiritual sense and like as an adult i don't know i think i've grown into myself in japan so that's
probably a part of the reason why people say oh like your gestures are so like japanese and your
your manner is so japanese and you're kind of like yeah if you swap the face out you'd be japanese
at least from the american perspective i think some people leave negative comments
because they feel a sense of betrayal like you threw out your american passport that's a very
taboo thing ah right that's quite a big thing but i don't think you have to hate your own
culture to love another culture it's not a black and white you get one only that you can enjoy
have you ever thought of changing your citizenship i have i have british citizenship uk and
new zealand and it would mean getting rid of two passports and residency in japan
so i need to like throw all that away have my one passport my japanese passport like
i'm still really on the fence about it so it depends what you want to do for the future so
for you it wouldn't have a lot of benefits would it if you want to be a politician maybe do you uh
if you want to be able to vote which i would like to vote to be honest this is a big thing so for
me that it's kind of in that area how about your kids what do they have they get to choose when
they turn 21. they have to choose between japan or new zealand are you going to let them choose
by themselves yeah yeah of course definitely okay yeah new zealand is my home and japan is my home
my family lives in japan and also my family family i was born in new zealand so that's
where my heart is like two places i think that's okay isn't it is that not allowed good question
all right good one
we won the big prize today at the farm we hit the target you won tommy you're the hero yeah yes
good job we're tied i beat you no we're tired i beat you you hit three i hit three that's a tie
no that's a tie no
Yeah, we tied. I hit the 2 points faster.
whatever technicality technicality