get ready to set your phasers from stun
to copyright infringement I did a howl
hope they've cut away with this I'm not
sure which question I get asked more is
it difficult to make friends in Japan or
why do you never smile I smiled last
Tuesday when I met a friend and we made
the groundbreaking discovery oh my god
you were literally Kill Bill how have I
never noticed this resemblance this is
amazing now I'll admit it seems a bit
odd or patronizing to make a video about
making Japanese friends in Japan making
friends is a precious life skill which
should be as easy as breathing air
walking backwards or enjoying a pitbull
song and yet it is a genuine problem no
diggity no doubt there are many
foreigners living in Japan with no
Japanese friends mainly due to the
language barrier but also because it can
be easy to get trapped inside the
foreigner before on a bubble which looks
like that I should know I was no
exception in my first year I spent
nearly all of my time with other
foreigners and other teachers and in my
head I turned the language barrier into
a much bigger deal than it actually was
because I couldn't communicate in
Japanese ultimately my luck changed at
the end of my first year when I was
walking down the street downtown and
this Japanese guy walking towards me was
literally shocked to see a foreigner out
in rural Japan and his name was my name
netsuke masky and grew it Chris
oh good name that's meeting ya there
from London wow wow yeah oh yeah yeah
yeah whoa
another guy and that's how I met my good
friend ASCII just walking towards each
other down the street on a Friday night
whilst definitely not drunk
you can go ah let's go let's go and by
the end of my second year I was spending
nearly all of my free time with Japanese
friends and teaching them key English
words and phrases in creatable
in incredible oh what's right and
that transition from being this
overexcited tourist to actually living
in Japan with many good friends with the
cultural and language barriers torn down
made me feel that Japan was a country I
had a genuine future and after finishing
as an English teacher so now it's not
difficult to make Japanese friends in
Japan at least not if you follow these
three pieces
so I'd say just by knowing a little
Japanese even the most basic stuff will
go a long way you'll find people will be
far more willing to talk to you and one
thing that helped me practice my
Japanese and meet Japanese people while
removing language barrier was actually
an app called hello talk and it's become
a really popular way here in Japan to
meet conversation partners and make
friends as well it's an excellent
language exchange tool as it sells a few
major problems with the whole language
barrier as the app uses text and has
translation functionality built into it
you can easily get around these
communication problems better still you
can correct your friend when they make a
mistake so it is a genuinely useful
language learning tool I'm fairly
certain half of Japan uses it as the
moment you open up and choose Japanese
as the language you're learning you will
get so many people contacting you
wanting to chat and you can also search
to find someone who you think might be
an ideal conversation partner based on
their language ability where they are or
their personal experience and you can
even make free voice calls through the
app as well which is really useful I've
actually made some really good friends
on there and I talk to you regularly and
practice my Japanese with you can check
out the link below or just search for
hello tool but it'll certainly help you
out particularly in the early stages of
language learning when you want to try
and practice some expressions you'd
learn pretty fun and easy to use for
anyone learning Japanese whether you're
in or outside of Japan first of all if
you live in Japan don't end up like me
in my first year sat inside with a
grammar book all day eating cornflakes
and by the way while we're on the
subject of cornflakes to afford
Kellogg's in Japan you will have to
remortgage your house and your children
unfortunately there's only one
alternative and it makes even cardboard
seem favorable as well as that it has a
rather cheeky brand character get ready
to set your phasers from stun to
copywriting for anything
I don't know how hope they've cut away
with this this is Tenney's Timmy cereal
and look what they've done to the
Kellogg's cockerel almost identical with
two subtle differences
Timmy's cockerel has a helmet and
sunglasses I wish I could have glimpsed
the marketing team of Timmy's sit down
to conceive this character we should
probably think of some kind of original
character to help brand the product now
it let's
use the Kellogg's cockerel what does
that be like copyright infringement no
if we put a helmet on the cockerel
really yeah and sunglasses huh but yeah
I learn from my mistakes don't go and
buy this and as a massive tangent Altima
before he came to Japan I kind of
thought the whole standing out as a
foreigner thing would lead to me having
loads of random encounters I thought if
I sat in a coffee shop long enough Japan
would come to me I didn't
I met my five closest Japanese friends
in a street a house party at a work
party at a local festival and randomly
at a bar I'd say if you go to a lot of
parties where you can meet people in the
same social circle it really helps as it
gives us all Blair of trust by knowing
that you share a mutual friend although
I think I'm starting to read into things
too much we all know the real secret to
making friends in Japan is tip number
three first of all I'm not advocating
the consumption of alcohol probably but
in Japan alcohol feels less like a drink
and more like something out of
Dumbledore's potions cabinet you'll find
Japanese people can suddenly speak
English
after just two drinks all of your work
colleagues who don't speak a word of
English will suddenly magically become
fluent at work party for example one non
English teacher at the school I worked
actively avoided me in the corridor for
fear of having to use English yeah after
just two beers at a recent party he was
able to talk to me about his favorite
bridges for over an hour
in flawless English and you know it was
a interesting conversation but English
aside that you'll find people who are
usually shy reserved a nun opinionated
will suddenly open up you might hear the
words on there and tat in my patent my
is public stance of what people have on
all day at work so a lot of opinions are
kept to themselves and it can be
difficult to know what someone actually
really thinks on that is their real
thoughts and opinions and certainly
after a few drinks the floodgates will
open up there so in Japan alcohol is
really important in its role as a social
tool so whether you're a bar and izakaya
or a nightclub if there's alcohol
involved it can be a heck of a lot
easier to make friends so maybe go and
drink something so there you go lots of
advice for making friends in Japan if
you have any advice yourself please
leave a comment below as for me though I
need to get back to working on my new
chill
cartoon character and I I think the kids
are gonna love machi the mouse currently
passing through Hiroshima it's an
amazing city in fact you can see the a
bomb dome just from the hotel window
here definitely visit the city if you
get the chance also please follow on
Instagram and Facebook so you can keep
up to speed on what's going on and get
useful information along the way until
next time see you later