Hey guys!
So people keep asking me things that I dislike about Japan.
And I don't typically want to be very negative, so I haven't gone over much yet.
I will at some point.
But anyway, so today I'm going to give you a little piece of that with a story about
being a unicorn in Japan.
This is a story about probably the rudest Japanese people I have ever met in my life.
Okay, so the thing about being a foreigner in Japan is that Japan is 98.5% Japanese.
An additional 1%, or even more than that is other Asian people.
So you have less than half a percent of the population in Japan who is white or black
or any other non-Asian foreigner.
If you're in the big cities, of course this is where a lot of foreigners are going to
gather.
And because there are millions of people there, the chances of you seeing foreigners are a
lot higher.
So it's not as surprising to Japanese people to see white people walking around in the
big cities.
But when you get out into smaller Japan, there aren't as many foreigners.
And that tends to have the "Unicorn effect."
Japanese people KNOW that it is rude to stare.
But when they see a foreigner, and they're not used to seeing foreigners, something like
clicks in their mind and they lose all sense of where they are and who they are, and they
just stop and they will give you an open-mouth stare, like a unicorn just walked into the
supermarket.
Most of the time this doesn't bother me.
I can deal with being stared at.
But anyway, there was this one time that Jun and I were riding our bikes to the grocery
store.
And we were riding along a sidewalk where on the left of us was a rice paddy, and the
drop off into the rice paddy was very deep.
It was at LEAST a meter deep, at least about 3ft deep.
And to the right of us we had a concrete barrier to prevent us from swerving out into the road.
So what happens when you have multiple people riding their bicycles along the sidewalk and
they need to pass each other, is they go single file so that no one runs into each other and
no one falls into the rice paddy.
And this is normal.
This is what happens.
So Jun and I see two Japanese girls coming toward us from a little ways down the sidewalk.
So I ride my bike in front of Jun so that we go single file, so that we can pass these
girls, like normal people.
These girls—as soon as they come into view of me, I can see their faces and they are
"Unicorn people."
And they stop looking at where they're going and they open their mouth and they just stare
at me, this entire time that we're getting closer and closer.
And they don't do anything.
It's like they've completely lost any sense of what they are doing.
They have no idea that they're riding bicycles.
They have no idea there's a rice paddy there.
They have no idea that they're coming straight toward me and they have not gone single file
yet so there is nowhere for us to pass.
And they keep getting closer and closer, and I'm looking at them.
I'm like, "Hey, are you guys gonna go single file because we're gonna run into each other
if you don't do something RIGHT NOW."
And no.
They don't go single file, at all.
They ride their bike right into me.
Then run into me with their bicycle, the entire time with their, "IT'S A UNICORN" face.
And they don't say ANYTHING!!
They don't apologize at all!
I was so angry.
They just keep riding their bike past me.
The one girl's handlebar like ripped open my hand and they just freaking drive past
me, turning around, like "WTF UNICORN!!"
That was probably the angriest I have ever been in Japan.
I had like dreams for days after that happening of like, going back in time, seeing them coming
towards me, and once they run into me, just picking up their bike and hulk smashing it
into the rice paddy.
Because I was so angry that they couldn't freaking go single file so that we didn't
run into each other.
So those were probably the rudest Japanese people I have ever met in my life.
And I was very angry about it.
And I'm still a little angry.
So that's kind of an extreme example of being a unicorn.
But it does get kind of annoying after a while if everyone is ALWAYS staring at you.
There are some times you just want to go to the grocery store and be like, "Stop looking
at me!
Buy your groceries!"
So I do have occasional moments in Japan where I just don't want to be stared at, so I will
go out with like a hoodie and sunglasses so I can try to pretend like I'm a Japanese person
who dyed her hair and got a nose job or something.
Anyway, that was my story of being a unicorn in Japan.
I hope you guys will tell me some of your stories about standing out as foreigners because
I know there are some pretty ridiculous ones out there.
I'll see you guys next time.
Thanks for watching!