the male underwear parts in catalogs and also the female ones are almost exclusively
westerners.... she would like to have a taller nose she admires the taller nose
Hey guys and girls on Ask Japanese, it's Cathycat, greetings from Tokyo now during the five...
The bike is super loud. Let's wait till it goes past...
Hey guys and girls on Ask Japanese it's Cathycat, greetings from Tokyo, during the last
five years I was working here as flashy fashion reporter interviewing Japanese people
"what do Japanese people envy about foreigners" is a question that came up a lot and that was actually
very popular amongst you guys too so this time we're going to talk about some of those issues
that Japanese people have with foreigners or maybe admirations and similar things that we heard in
interviews before. We're going to find out what they are give a little bit of a summary of them
and I might give you my two cents about them
If one of you guys is Japanese or has lived in
Japan or Japanese heritage and you heard some of those cliches before or you have other ideas
be sure to let us know those in the comments as well look forward to hearing your opinion too
You guys know this too from the media, we see those perfect Hollywood stars :perfect teeth, perfect face
perfect body, everything in Japan the media is doing something very similar and the ideal is
often being pushed in a lot of media here in Japan that that ideal seems to be in certain situations
western people... for example what really surprised me the Japanese fashion brand they almost
exclusively use westerners as their models. They even fly people in to model for their fashion even
though they're actually a Japanese fashion brand ... there's a lot a lot of fashion magazines that do
actually have Japanese people in but then the underwear pages are all certainly westerners or
sometimes you'll see like pictures of like smiling perfect westerners like on top of catalogs on top
of even dentistries and similar things like that and I'm like "Where are they getting these
people from? No one looks this perfect!" and also one thing that's really confusing is
the male underwear parts in catalogs and also the female ones are almost exclusively westerners.... WHY?
If you open a wedding catalog or similar you'll be surprised to find out that almost hundred percent
of those seems to be western models modeling for wedding dresses and similar sometimes
you see a Japanese lady and a western man and a tux or similar things or even I heard that
some people who came here to Japan actually became priests because it looks better or kind
of cooler of the priest as a westerner to go with that and that really surprised me because
WHY?
so during a street interview in Tokyo I asked people what do they envy so much
about foreigners and number one of the raised things was generally eyes:
Foreigners have big eyes. And you have green eyes right? I am so jealous of them!
I always look at foreigners and think how beautiful their eyes are.
Eyes because we have different eye colors or many people have different eye colors in the
western world and they say: the eyes have different colors and the eyes are bigger or sometimes even
the hair saying you have different hair colors with us it's generally just like dark hair or
bright black hair, brown hair that kind of thing so these ones have been raised a lot. Maybe the media
and anime and manga have pushed that image as well, but I think there is actually something so magical
about the image of the Japanese beauty about the long dark hair and stuff like that... but maybe it's
partly connected to "the grass is always greener on the other side"
The number two that is usually
mentioned after that is... "ashi nagai shi" meaning "your legs are so long" foreigners legs are so long
They look so slender and stylish.
What is stylish to you?
Foreigners legs are so long.
The women look so ideal, in my opinion.
People in the West... and America. They all look so slender.
If you've seen me interview people on the streets of Tokyo... some of them have longer legs than I do
so there seems to be the thought that foreigners naturally have longer legs but... I wish I had been
blessed with those, because I really don't actually some Japanese people have longer legs than I do
I never gave my lid-crease much thought but here in Japan quite a lot of people are very aware of
what type of lid crease they have... and there are even different words for it like how deep
the crease is if it's kind of hooded and similar things like that and that did surprise me because
many Japanese people tried to use stickers or tape or glue or even going to get surgery... any kind of
things to create that lid crease. If you've seen the most recent video we did with makeup here on
ask Japanese you could also see what efforts go into creating a lid crease: there is definitely a
change but... you know the wonderful beautiful almond eyes are actually adored by people abroad too
Now why girls generally focus on the legs and how slender and stylish foreign girls seem to be
guys in Japan mainly in our interviews focused on "gatai ga ii" meaning the foreigner boys are built very
well in the way. They're more muscly they seem to be stronger or it seems to be easier for them to
gain muscle mass... no I'm not sure if that is true I'm kind of curious about that but in Japan there
seems to be more a style of a "hoso macho" meaning "slender but muscly" not overly bulky and muscly but
having some muscles there and you know they're there but generally on a skinner
type of frame of body... As a little bit of extra trivia here also Japanese people generally really
really really are super super cleansy and they shave a lot meaning actually 100% of my Japanese
friends female friends shave absolutely everything legs armpits but also arms also eyebrows a lot
of things like very very cleanly shaven same thing for boys you generally don't really see
Japanese men with beards: they're always cleanly shaven it goes to the "seiketsukan" we've done
a video about that one and it said that about a thousand years ago there are already documents
about Japanese people shaving. Some people say it's because of the western culture coming in and
there's more revelation of skin and due to that people are making sure that those bits of skin
that are revealed are totally hairless.
Now this is not about looks but a lot of Japanese people envy
that foreigners can say what's on their mind. Speak out what they want to say say things directly
If they hate something, they will say they hate it. We don't do that as Japanese.
They are so upfront that you don't have to worry about them thinking something else.
At least this is what some people in the interviews have told us, now what do we mean by
that? Japanese people are a very harmonious culture and they also say... there is a saying "kotobano catchball" meaning
you are kind of throwing the conversation at the other person and then it throws it back to you you
generally don't interrupt people you generally don't have big arguments with people... if your boss
is talking down at you, you just go like "oh yes sorry I'll do it better" that kind of thing and
that helps a lot to the harmony but some Japanese people and generally the younger generation
admires a little bit that the westerners can be a little bit more outspoken, talk back,
have a discussion and don't have to hold these kind of things in... I learned after living here in
Japan to actually wait until the other Japanese person finished their sentence otherwise you
just end up talking by yourself and I must say I'm like the tiniest person I was the smallest people
I was the smallest girl out of all my friends and they never really gave me a chance to sometimes
speak out... I was always getting interrupted so coming to Japan I'm really happy that they didn't
constantly interrupt what was saying and they were actually listening that kind of make me happy
(off shot) "shall we have lunch?"
Another thing is... Westerners can be loud and outspoken and it's okay Westerners
can come up to strangers and say "hi how are you doing" westerners can go like "hey
what's up" that kind of happy and energetic greeting, and similar things like that is kind
of rare.... Japanese people tend to be more shy more quiet and more reserved but that also makes a lot
of things in this culture work so much smoother so for example: if you go into a Japanese train
even though the train is absolutely packed it will be quiet because everyone is keeping to themselves
everyone is thinking about their own things to do... no one's bothering other people so it's actually a
thing that makes Tokyo and similar things work like that... also sometimes you can see Japanese
people talking louder so for example when a boss is talking with his superior and maybe
he's telling us something to do or maybe he's a little bit upset about what the superior did
but the moment they going to the elevator... they're completely quiet because they don't want to bother
the people around and their business is not your business no one's kind of interfering with each
other's lives and kind of things so keeping to themselves and that quietness actually I must say
it's kind of nice because you can walk down the streets here in Tokyo and people are not shouting
things at you... inappropriate things for girls there is no "cat calling" A wonderful part of that one is
though that no one bothers you... meaning no one actually comes and says negative things in your
face like sometimes in the western societies you have absolutely strange is coming up to you and telling
you "you suck" or as a girl walking down the street there's no cat calling that's wonderful or someone
who dresses like me in crazy flashy fashion you don't you don't have random people coming and
telling you their opinion on your fashion style ... everyone's keeping to themselves they're thinking
what they want to think positive or negative things... actually Japanese people do speak out and
they say positive things so when they see someone who's walked down the street who's cool so to the
guys they will say "kakkoi" like "he looks cool" or if a girl walks down the street and she wears
something cute girls will say "kawaii - you look cute" and that kind of stuff so positive I love it
What people in the Japanese media are getting portrayed is not a western image but actually
a western ideal meaning the perfect westerner with the perfect sizes and the perfect looks
but let's be honest... we don't look like those people in commercials either so actually guys
we're all getting fooled by the media by the perfect people and by the instagram and the
face filters and all of that... we're always gonna look up to other people and it's ironic because
We're trying to facilitate a culture of perfectness that we just can't reach
- Foreigners have cute tall noses! - Tall noses are a good thing in Japan?
Yes it is! We are so jealous! All Japanese are jealous of tall noses.
Their faces will look so pretty from the side.
One example one Japanese girl was very surprised she said she would like to have a taller nose she
admires the taller nose and then I told her you know in the west some people get nose reductions
to have them small and she was like "what why?!" so we always try to aspire to that one ideal
and you know it's really hard to reach that because it's an ideal it's not really that real...
We're always gonna aspire to be a little bit better and look up to those perfect images but if
we keep doing that too much it might damage our own mental health and maybe even our bodies so
guys let's try and stay positive about things like that... so what do you think about the points raised?
Do you have something similar in your culture where there is like an ideal that is so hard to reach
or a weird beauty trend that is trying to get pushed into your culture? Let us know in
the comments down below... okay guys this was it from Tokyo today! There is more coming in your
direction thanks for hanging out and I'll catch you soon with another video on Ask Japanese if
you have subscribed and don't forget to give us a like on the way out... catch you guys soon
and if you're now really curious about the content of the stuff I was telling you about
it ain't coming out of my head it came from our street interviews
we have five years worth of really cool street interviews and I'm gonna pop a couple of links
down in the comment box below so you can actually find some topics that we picked up in this video
and hear it from Japanese people. So I'll catch you soon for more stuff on ask Japanese bye