"oh my god i'm so sorry i'm really embarrassed i'm sorry about that i'm never coming back here i'm sorry!"
I remember I had a car accident
and everyone's behind me and i'm like uuuuuuuh "SORRY"
Hey guys welcome to Ask Japanese and to Tokyo this is your bloody fashion reporter CathyCat
it's actually not blood it's strawberries whatever let's go and today asked foreigners who are here
living in Japan not just tourists but actually living here what their biggest struggles are
in Japan let's share those and Ask Foreigners in Japan
There we go okay so hello where are you from?
I'm from Mexico - from Mexico - yes
okay so we're currently going around we're asking everyone what was like a mistake you did in Japan
anything you're like oh that's so embarrassing why did I do that so you kind of like stepped into it a little bit
okay well I was in a restaurant I just like call the waitress like "can I have the check please" in my table
and she was like "what are you what are you doing?" it's like "can I pay you" and she was like
"go to the register" and i'm like "why I need to go to the register?" like I have here the money and
can you tell me how much it is and she was like "no you need to go there" and I am like "why"
Yeah and we spent like five minutes discussing and all the customers were like
"what is she doing?" and I am like okay i'm going to the register i'm sorry and then yeah my friend
explained me it's like "no you need to go there because in Japan we they don't do the check on your table
and I was "like oh my god i'm so sorry i'm really embarrassed i'm sorry about that i'm never coming back here i'm sorry!"
fair point yeah in Japan at the front or the exit that's usually where you pay right yeah
I didn't know that - I have that in Friday's when you go to TJ fridays "Do we pay here do we pay in front?"
it depends on which person you're getting it's different every time yeah yeah
always go to the front and pay there and you have like a little slip on your table it will be your little bill thing sometimes it doesn't even say
a price it just marks a couple of things take that to the front they'll take care of it - yes
Have you ever had like an embarrassing moment in Japan you're like oh
facepalm
I remember I had a car accident when I used to live in Hiroshima and I remember like in
Japan you have to call the police like immediately if you have an accident which is not something
we do in the UK so I called the police and of course they all came but instead of just like
one or two people coming I had like 20 officers come and then you have like all these like old
people staring at me like "oh my goodness this foreigners has like crashed their car " and it's just
like a very different experience like if I... never crashed my car in the UK but and yeah
spotlight it feels like the spotlight is more on you - everyone looking at you
like because you're miss like... I guess because they can tell like you know you can tell like we're foreigners maybe
so like that kind of like every like mistake you make it feels like amplified whether people are thinking it or not
that's kind of yeah - how did you crush your car what happened?
uh it was like a very tight car park and then another car was coming in and it was really hard to get out
like Hiroshima's got quite some narrow alleyways and things like
nobody got hurt but it was like a gentle graze with another car and then even for that even if you agree with the other driver like
"oh it's my fault i'm sorry" you still have to call the police and they like get tape out and they like measure everything it's
really like what's the word my english isn't so good anymore ... they're very like specific and to the
details on things - Pedantic? - pedantic probably what we're looking for yeah
yeah so it's a bit intimidating i'm like "I just had an accident do I need all this?"
Spotlight on you - that is my fault it's fine
oh did you have to pay anything? um my car insurance covered everything so it was fine
but it was still like just the experience i'm sure if it was the UK it would have been a bit more relaxed
Do you have an embarrassing moment in Japan
I mean I like i've had so many I can't like sometimes language you know mishaps like one time I was asking for a plastic bag
and instead I asked for a bathtub. I said like instead of FUKURO I said like OFURO
and like sometimes like I used to work at a high school and when I first arrived like I would
like interrupt these meetings because usually in Japan it's not like a normal meeting it's just one
person kind of standing talking and everyone else is just like looking at other stuff and not paying
attention, my experience so I would interrupt these meetings and be like "hi like blah blah blah blah"
and everyone be like "we're having a meeting now" like so just small things like that yeah
in Japan there's a lot of little cultural things where "oh my gosh no one else is doing that" kind of moment
yeah yeah yeah for sure
did you guys already have an embarrassing moment in Japan
oh okay okay so I have the MY SUICA app so I can just use it on the train
but I forgot to tap out of somewhere like properly so now it just won't work and i've like
gone to like, like when it's really busy I keep tapping it and it keeps shutting the gates on me
and everyone's behind me and i'm like uuuuh
SUMIMASEN
that's mine - so uh did you fix it in the end?
um I have I have a pasmo card as well so I use that instead i'll get it fixed at the station next time
okay yeah you might find yourself a station officer who doesn't look too busy they usually take care of that pretty quickly
yeah
how did you get the up to work is it linked to your credit card back home or how's that working?
yeah I just top it up with my bank card from england on apple pay it's so simple
so I was I was so sad when it stopped working I was like "no"
one question um you know Taiwan is very close to Japan right - yes
what is do you think is like a difference between Japan and Taiwan?
are you like the first time you came here like "oh that's different here"
I i think as everything is expensive
if something is far we would take the taxi and not the MRT yeah because the taxi is
almost the same from the Japan train yeah so yeah I think everything is expensive
that thing yeah
all right guys where are you from? - from Sweden - from Sweden what brings you to Japan?
uh work we came here to model so we have three months yeah with our friends we are five swedish guys actually
live in the same buildings yes we are just having fun
came here two weeks ago was there kind of a culture moment where you were like "oh my gosh I think I did something wrong"
I think that's all the time like every time you go out it's like "oh oh I shouldn't do this oh wait we should do this
it's very different from europe you know yourself
yeah can you give me like one example of something that happened to you or one of your friends
they're they're so kind and helpful everyone like my friend he asked for a direction and some lady she
walked with him like 10 minutes just just to show him I think that's wonderful would never happen in Sweden or anywhere in europe I think
I really love the hospitality people here they're so nice here
have you had like a culture fail moment where you're like "oops"
yeah that's happened a lot of times just that same thing like "oh you don't take card" so then it's an awkward moment
"oh who has cash?" you need to figure that out you need to take out money or something
but not nothing too bad I think we were kind of informed when we got here like the small things to know about
One of the biggest struggles I personally find here after my eight years in Japan
is finding house housing can be incredibly difficult
because there's still quite a lot of landlords who don't want foreigners to live in their place
so even though you found a good place um the real estate agents might phone them up and they
say "no foreigners" and it doesn't sometimes even matter if you can speak the language
fluently or not and some just really don't want foreigners in that's unfortunately one of the
sad things I hope that might change sometime in the future but otherwise you need to let it go
and keep looking for something else but hopefully things will get a little bit easier in the future
but if you're curious about finding a place check out this video here with more stuff
about how to live in Japan I hope it will help you guys out thank you so much for checking out
us Japanese this is CathyCat and i'll catch you for more stuff from Tokyo soon thanks bye
Matane!