Japan's Anti-Tourist Sentiment | What's Really Behind It?
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- Опубликовано: 5 июл 2024
- Japan's tourism boom has raised concerns about the rise of anti-tourist sentiment and prejudice against foreigners.
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■Chapters:
0:00 What's going on?
1:58 Reason No.1
3:50 Reason No.2
5:19 Reason No.3
7:22 Conclusion
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Tourists appear to be living in luxury because they've saved up a lot of money with the mission to spend a lot of money while visiting.
Japanese people not visiting foreign countries to spend their savings as much as foreigners also adds a bit of fuel to the fire lol
buy japan rail pass its like 200€/week unlimited travel, allow you to escape crowd and travel outside of tokyo kyoto :p.
People had to save up 3-4 months worth of salary just to visit for a few days given how goddamn expensive it is in Tokyo or other areas where they only allow tourists to go and gouge them there. Christ, girl, stop wearing your ass for a hat.
Who is complaining? How is anyone on the streets to know?
I find it bizarre that that Johnni guy basically got no punishment for everything he did in Japan. He should have gotten some serious jail time from that.
he went to Israel and pulled similar stunt and was jailed from what ive heard
I agree. He got away with too much.
@@777OnlineNowIf I remember correctly, he got deported some time after his arrest/questioning. I believe he got into more trouble while over there, but not with law enforcement. I think he crossed some people he shouldn't have and they attacked/robbed him. Pretty sure his friend actually recorded part it.
Why is it bizzare? The world worships black people and can't blame them for any of the poor choices they make or the bad behaviors they exhibit.
Same, people in the states wanted to book thrown at him and hated his actions as much as the Japanese
Bad streamers and disrespectful tourists giving us the good tourists a bad name. People should really respect others culture and boundaries when visiting a country they weren't born in.
IMO, the tourists that cause a headache for the Japanese people and authorities aren't tourists. They're troublemakers.
fuentesjuanjose90 I agree with you men we as good for foreigners need to put these bad foreigners in their place so we can show the Japanese people that we as good for foreigners are trying to not let this happen again, we as good foreigners apologize on behalf of good foreigners we will stand in solidarity with Japanese people
@@BrittonHenrythis has been happening apparently there's foreigner v foreigner pvp in japan haha
When you let too many foreigners in, the pressure for them to behave decreases and you get more absolute number AND percentage of misbehavior.
Its literally just americans and other angloids
Imagine getting mad at the tourists for having money instead of getting mad at your own leaders and politicians who sold you out.
Exactly these ppl so hate foreigners, they’re retarded
And why is that? Shouldn't the tourists at least learn to have some decency and research about a country, even just a little, to get by without upsetting them?
I can assure you plenty of us Japanese are mad at our elected officials
@@diablow1411 They should have decency, I agree, but that wasn't what I was talking about---I was specifically mentioning the Japanese folks that are jealous that tourists have money while they don't. That isn't the fault of the tourists.
@@diablow1411 You make a point. Nowdays, most people are too lazy to read something , let alone doing "research"
When Japanese people are tourists in countries like Thailand or Vietnam , the same feeling "rich or privileged" forigners arise...
The UK they had to put signs up in Japanese telling Japanese people not to go into people's houses and take pictures
Lol so true
@@ragsdale710 Is that true? I need to look into that.
@@JaejoongPrincess it's in the cotswolds , it's very popular in Japan, even my gf visited there when she went to England
LOL! I think u mean the Chinese tourists. The Japanese are too smart and polite to do something that brash
I came back to Japan back in January. The Main thing was tourist that I saw was pains in the ass. They did not respect anything. I still do as I was told as a soldier in the early 90s, Remember your a guest act like it. Respect the Japanese, be polite, and respect their culture. If tourists did just that, many of these issues would be fixed. But they do not. I remember having to step in and tell a tourist to stop acting the way they did. It is very simple: Be kind, polite, and respectful to the Japanese, and you will be fine.
You can't even spell. You're not capable of teaching anything.
I just wonder from where these tourists were?
@@EndingProcrastinationTom-io4ik the US
@@xjp1998 I'm not really surprised taking in fact that majority of tourists are from US (as far as I heard). I guess the cheaper tourist trip for people the more they don't bother with basic preparations like culture review, manners, stuff like that.
There are 3 million tourists to Japan every month. What percentage of the 3 mil were 'disrespectful'? And anyone with education knows that tourists don't know the nuance of local etiquette.
Imagine saving for years to go on a two week vacation in Japan, and then getting hated for being wealthy and spoiled.
tourism is gaudy.
🤣🤣
Imagine walking into someone's house uninvited and expecting them to welcome you.
@@GustafUNLimagine comparing a public restaurant or sidewalk to a private residence
@@GustafUNLImagine not wanting people to visit your country, but expect to be received with open arms aboard.
Unfortunately there’s no way for Japanese immigration officials to filter for “Stupid” …. As a respectful foreigner living in Japan, it’s extremely frustrating to have a few bad apples ruin it for everyone 😩
It's extremely easy. There should be background checks or applications with testing
I consider myself a good pineapple actually . . don't want to catch me on the spiky bits, hah
Background check, Reference check, and make people do an IQ test.
Honestly all of us migrants should have to do an IQ test. Why bring in dumb people?
Yes there is a way. You can charge a $1000 entry VISA fee payable per person. Or make it $10,000 per person. That way only rich Americans will visit. Then Japan will have the creme de la creme of the society visit them.
Actually they can, Americans.
People go on vacations to have fun, you will save maybe 1 or 2 years to go for 2 weeks in Japan and obviously you will spend a lot more in those 2 weeks in Japan than what you would in your country, its a special occasion. That does not mean that you are "privileged". As long as you behave well, tourist should be welcomed as a source of income and a way to show your soft power as a country. So feel proud.
no there are TOO MANY people going to Japan that is the problem, I just checked the numbers and over 25 MILLION people visited in 2023, that is unbareable for natives to deal with especially in places that are already heavily crowded
Too many decide to go to Japan and Japan is not equipped to deal with Americans or Chinese in large numbers since neither behave themselves well.
@@cottoncandykawaii2673Japan already is at an economical downfall. You can complain about tourists but can you even economically AFFORD to not have them? As the video said, the best way to handle large amounts of tourism is to improve infrastructure to be able to handle said tourism and to make them behave better. Make it an investment that you can profit off for decades to come while keeping locals in mind.
Things are so affordable in Japan, even at tourist prices, for anyone with foreigner currency from western Europe or North America to convert to Yen. I promise, you will not spend more on food and hotels and trains in two weeks than you would in your home country . Maybe the gift shoppe or specialty clothes (even then, a lot of novelty items in Japan are cheap), but if you only get one or two things you still won’t break the bank. Slightly raising tourist prices, I promise, will still not be more expensive than most tourists’ home countries. The problem here is that tourists in Japan *aren’t* being polite. I don’t blame them one bit for shifting strategy.
@@hitokiriizo Americans only make up about 9% of visitors.
Treat each tourist based on said tourists actions.
Japan employees should be able to accept tips for good food and service.
@@richardlau2447 NO, keep tips out of Japan. The instant Japan adopts a tipping system, normal tips will become the standard for average food/service, and high tips will become the standard for good food/service, and customers will risk dealing with employees secretly spitting in the customers' food for not tipping or not tipping enough, just like in NA. The reward for good food and service should be in the form of more new customers, more returning customers, and positive reviews, not in the form of additional money
@@richardlau2447 Tips ruin the service industry. Keep that system out.
Thats a nice ideal but its not realistic, If a certain group of people almost always behaves a certain way then if you start to make assumptions based on the stereotype you will be correct more often than not and save yourself a bunch of trouble.
Sucks for the minority of good people in the group, But thats the reality.
@@Cha4k I agree
Japanese are also tourists in other countries. Just recently I saw a group of Japanese tourists in Bucharest. I hope they had a nice time in my country. It would sadden me to be discriminated by Japanese when visiting their country.
Christ said: "Treat others how you would like them to treat you".
Japanese tourists behave correctly, unlike the tourists they are receiving in Japan.
@@rpoutine3271They used to have a bit of a reputation for taking photos in inappropriate places actually. I haven't heard anything about Japanese tourists in a long time though, so maybe it has changed
Well said, time for you to behave properly in Japan.
Valerie, what has changed is that they aren't as wealthy as they were, so can't afford to travel as much.
They are just as ignorant, interrupting church services and herassing people's private homes. @@rpoutine3271
Despite the fact you don't want to say it, this is a political problem.
They need to realize that the only Gaijin they see visiting Japan are the ones affluent enough to travel abroad. Most of us cant afford that. They arent the only ones with a struggling economy post covid.
Japan is cheap nowadays,
@@oki148 Cheap for Americans, dude. The USD is strong to other currencies too.
@peterc4082 the USD is in the shitter right now, too.
@@peterc4082 I am dealing with 3 currencies. My salary is in yen, i m living in thailand, and I m an American. Sadly, the yen falls against Thai baht so much too. 5 years in the yen falls 30% from 1 yen = 0.31 baht to 1 yen = 0.23 baht today. Baht against USD does not change much, about 15%.
It’s not that cheap. Airflight and many hotels in busier areas are more expensive still.
I want to go back to Japan. I used to live there as a foreign resident. My experiences were mixed, which is quite natural, a lot of stuff can happen in altogether seven years. But I'm really missing it.
As for the lavishly spending tourists vs. poor local workers, my Japanese friends, welcome to the club. "We were as you are, you will be as we are", as it is written on the funeral home of our local cemetery. I remember the days when Japanese tourists came to my home city with the air of rich people visiting a third world country. I remember hiding my humble means while guiding VIP groups from Japan. I remember my Japanese sister-in-law complaining about my family's weirdly tight budget and stinginess. I'm not bitter, just amused. How the world has changed and how we have changed with it!
I'm a foreign tourist married to a Japanese on vacation here now in Japan, June 21 2024 and i love it here every time 🇵🇼♥️🇯🇵🙏🏾
when you push all your society's issues on another group...
For real 😮
I'm a foreigner living in Japan and even I am pretty upset at tourists sometimes.
Yeah, the anti-tourism sentiment made me cancel all plans to go to Japan. It just feels like I wouldn't be welcome there at all.
Yet when you step outside in japan or from your house, the birds are chirping, the air is fresh and people you come across are totally different from what the media reporter told you they'd be.
In real life dealings you'll find it's like that media article was a fiction.
I feel for you bud. I also feel like they don't want us to visit there.
The problem is much greater than just anti-tourism, it's actual xenophobia. I can explain.
So Japanese love Twitter right? I've noticed that whenever there's news of a Japanese man committing a heinous, unforgivable crime.. they get over it in no time, like "just another day at the office" for them.
But whenever there’s news of foreigners breaking petty rules like vandalism, littering etc... it make headlines with 10 to 20 million views, and tens of thousands of xenophobic comments. 🤦♂️ You'll literally be the public enemy of Japan for weeks.
The double standards is obvious.
I wouldn’t cancel your trip. Be an example and bring your yen to areas that aren’t visited often. Be kind, humble and try to speak a little Japanese. Your patience and humbleness is awarded here.
@@raffaelez9665 Not really sure why people should bend over backwards. At heart this assumes Japanese are easily offended and need to be treated with kid gloves. Do you tell people to be the same when they travel to any other country, even less 'cool' ones?
Instead of hating and “blaming the tourists for being wealthy”, I think the Japanese should point their fingers to the government instead. Every month or so prices are rising for so many everyday items, that is suffocating anyone who lives in Japan. And when people start to see limitations on what once was normal, the anger and upset feeling is inevitable.
Bidenflation
The OP's statements are likely highly selective and self-serving, so they should not be blindly trusted. While some Japanese people may hold such sentiments, they are a minority. Anyone who has visited Japan and adhered to its rules and customs would understand that Japanese people are generally quite tolerant.
@@extract8058 Tell me genius, how does what Biden has to do with the situation in Japan? I think you have BDS.
@@Allen-fi4ke it's called THE GLOBAL ECONOMY Einstein. Grow up and try learning something.
This isn't Japan's fault. The Yen is tied to the US dollar. The US over printing their currency will affect other country's currency.like inflation
But now.that the Petro-dollar is finally over, Japan no longer has to be the US' errand.boy since.america.no longer has leverage using their own money against others.
Japan needs to drop the USD to save themselves from America's financial.mistakes that is affecting them domestically
I travelled regularly to japan, most tourist are respectful and nice, never understood why it's so "popular" to bash tourist behaviour. It's actually annoying because this is just a thing online, but now there's this weird feeling when seeing other "white" people in japan, it's like a competition between who can be the most polite and more Japanese. It seems that whenever tourist see other tourist it's directly "yep another fucking tourist whos probably disrespectful". It's almost as if some people see some clueless tourist standing on the wrong side of the escalator, then they go online crying about how tourist are so annoying and how Japan is the land where everyone is perfect. Even if you had one bad experience of a stupid tourist, compared to the amount of people that travels to Japan, it's a drop in the ocean.
I'm from Paris, I see my fair share of tourist and Japanese can be also annoying, especially after drinking. (they are loud as fuck) even though i'd agree they are very respectful abroad
I've never seen such a high number of people fawn over a developed country, or walk on egg shells, as much as people do with Japan.
Exactly… it’s annoying.. they romanticize here to much.. it ain’t all that if you ask me
Japan is probably worshipped because of anime tbh so foreigners see it as this magical place
@@MsTamtee I agree it has many flaws, i get rejected from bar/restaurants like twice a month, I know in my country we don't refuse japanese customer because they don't speak french. And whenever I mention it online it's always "well thats because you were probably a rude ass fucking foreigner"lol
Japan is put on the pedestal mainly by the American media because it's an ally of America, perhaps even a colony.
I lived in Japan.
Twenty-two years ago and people were very nice to me in the countryside
I tried really hard to learn the language and culture.
I knew I could never fit in completely, but I tried.
If you only make 770 dollars per month working in Japan, then it's not the fault of tourists. You're working for a really bad employer.
But I doubt many Japanese people demand higher wages, considering their strict adherence to hierarchies.
If they don't demand higher wages than those cost to company savings get passed on somewhere, maybe better return on investment and Japanese people still benefit, eg Japanese investors.
770? Average over 2000usd
It's the same everywhere where "tourists" congregate. The locals despise them because of bad/insensitive behavior. I'm in the USA and it happens everywhere here too.
True. I remember when I was stationed in San Diego. It was in the news paper that a bunch of Australian sailors got drunk, urinated out in the public, and got arrested for their behavior in downtown Sand Diego.
it's not just behavior it's over crowding, TOO MANY people allowed in at a time
Japanese tourists did this too. My cousin in Paris would get hounded by Japanese tourists to buy Chanel etc products for them because Paris stores had a limit for Japanese tourists.
The USA is a sh1th0le compared to Japan for tourists Comon now.
But they like that revenue. "Over tourism" in any country is a management and messaging problem. Advanced crowd control.
Japan is becoming Disneyland. People treat it like the magic kingdom. The sites and people are just props for their entertainment.
Sadly, yes. When many of the Japanese media portraits Japan in an unrealistic way (because it is fiction, most of the times) it generates unrealistic expectations. Same as when Japanese people travel to Paris and find out that is far from the "city of love" they have seen in movies (something so common, in fact, it is called the Paris Syndrome). I fear it is important that tourist receive a reminder before arriving that in the real world, people have to live and work in the cities they visit, and that they should not disturb the locals.
Japan advertised itself as Disneyland, and now people are crying because people see it that way?
The hell?
@@BQD_Central true
@@BQD_CentralI think we need to define who/what you mean by “Japan.” Because I guaranteed you that the average resident who is having to put up with the situation had no say in that.
Finding trash cans in Japan can be surprisingly difficult; you can walk for blocks without seeing one. I must admit, I’ve resorted to leaving used lunch boxes on restroom tables because I simply couldn’t find a place to dispose of them. This lack of trash cans often leads to illegal dumping, which is not just a tourist behavior. When I was in Kawasaki, I walked along a riverbank and was shocked to see broken computers, printers, and chunks of furniture scattered on the lawn. Homelessness is also an issue in Japan, just as it is in North America. Near Kawasaki Station, I saw young homeless individuals, many of whom likely suffer from mental illness.
It's not a tourist-only problem, but _most_ people here will properly dispose.
> Homelessness is also an issue in Japan, just as it is in North America
"Just as it is in North America" means "the same as" in English. It's not the same. It's an issue, but you have Skid Row in North America. Not comparable.
I have a plastic bag for trash I can't dispose of when I'm in Japan. I take it with me -- I think its disrespectful to litter. I would imagine that's what most locals do. Also, I noticed that a lot of cafes or vendors at street fairs will dispose of the trash for you, but you have to consume it at the point of purchase.
Darn those foreign tourists dumping their furniture on Japanese lawns 😉
I have to point out probably tourists dont hang around kawasaki.... thats an industrial city like Baltimore/Rust Belt
@@yijiequ662 FWIW, I'm an American tourist who stayed in Kawasaki on my last trip. It's close to HND, a short rail trip into Tokyo, and all the usual retail chains surround the station but are roomier than in central Tokyo.
Getting mad at tourists for being "wealthy" and "privileged" is definitely disgusting mindset to have.
Most tourists saves money up and only there for a really short time.
You make some good points about "environment makes bad manners"
You have no idea how vindictive Japanese ppl are.. but y’all will learn.. the world will see
Well, I'm Japanese, but I don't think we hate rich tourists. I think the claim that the Japanese don't like wealthy tourists is just his speculation.
@@ii4826 But you put NO FOREIGNER signs. Tell me why Japan government advertises to foreigners eg Cool Japan and then if foreigners come to spend money some people hate on them? Maybe stop. We don't have to come to your country. Besides the earthquakes would be too dangerous anyway. You are welcome in the EU, as long as no war here.
@@ii48262:40
It's not his speculation, it's statement made by japanese
getting mad at anyone for being healthy is sick!
This was a good summary and reasonable take on the problems of overtourism. Japan is dealing with a problem that is kind of new for Japanese people, but in other overtouristified areas we have been dealing with this problem for decades now. And it's the same problems and perceptions the local people form other countries have for tourists/foreigners
The scapegoating of tourists for issues like littering where its at least partially done by locals is so weird. Like imagine if the govt bans all tourists because "they all litter", and litter still persists? The truth is exposed that the belief of "all tourists litter" was false all along. And now the country has lost all the revenue that would be streaming in from tourists.
Not saying all tourists are angels, of course having visitors means some trouble or inconveniences will come with it. But blaming everything on tourists is just a cause for ignoring your own domestic issues.
Reminds me of when a foreigner does something horrible to a woman over there in Japan and tons of Japanese protest but are mute when it comes to them having one of the highest (Of first world nations) case of Grape (YT censorship) and SA... or when if somebody does a horrible crime of there I have seen news reports where the person was evil because he wasn't pure Japanese..
@@TT09B5 Or the whole 'junior idol' thing.
@@TT09B5 Japan has very low numbers of SA, especially grapes, compared to other developed nations. This despite the train problems. So I don't know what you think you're talking about. And it's not strange to get extra upset when a foreigner, basically a guest, commits crimes. Domestic problems is something a nation is stuck with and need to deal with, while imported problems don't need to be there at all. The existence of domestic problems doesn't make imported problems any better or less unnecessary.
I remember such thing from... Latin America. Many local people there are blaming and hating tourists (especially American tourists) for "littering". The reality was totally different: who were littering were mostly only LOCALS! The local people litter without even noticing it. The tourists usually behave much better. American tourists were especially nice and polite to the local people and local traditions, I saw it on many occasions. To the opposite, plenty of Russian (!) tourists were really disrespectful and even openly racist towards the local Latin population and Latin traditions. But because Russians were looking "white" just like many American tourists were, and the local people didn't see any visual difference from a distance, -- and also because of wide-spread Russian-made anti-American propaganda (in the Spanish language!) being pushed by Russia virally through all Latin social networks and many websites, -- as the result local Latin people hate and blame Americans. There is a stable increase of assaults, batteries and robberies that are directed specifically at American (well, any English-speaking, including Canadian) tourists. As the result of that hate and increasing physical danger there are less tourists that want to come there. It badly affects the economy, local people become poorer and more envy, but the (Russian-made) propaganda keeps blaming "American tourists" for all the trouble (ignoring their own internal problems of these Latin countries, ignoring their own dramatic corruption!)... So the situation is getting worse and worse for everybody.
I really hope that Japan won't go the same way.
I also would investigate who really spreads these anti-tourist sentiments in Japanese social networks. In the age of proxy-wars, mass subvertion, assymmetric warfare and strategical deception, I would not be surprised if those actors who spread anti-tourist hatred in Japan are not Japanese but actually Chinese or Russians (so-called Kremlin trolls).
It would be interesting to know the background and affiliations of those CEOs of some Japanese television channels who order to show only "American-looking" tourists who cause trouble but avoid showing any Asian-looking troublemakers. That is intentional subversion, and it is interesting who actually stands behind it.
At the same time it does not excuse those tourists who behave badly while visiting Japan. Japan has its own issues, problems. It is very difficult for Japan to correct those problems and issues because of the historically conservative way of thinking. Therefore, Japanese people have some shite to deal with, and they don't need extra shite from the Gaijin.
So, both points of opinion are correct, simultaneously.
But -- mark my word -- the real cause of these (and many other) problems in Japan is POLITICAL and INTERNAL, especially now.
When I was in Shibuya last year there were crowds of young Japanese people drinking on the streets and leaving their garbage everywhere. It's very much a domestic problem that's being pushed on foreigners from what I can tell.
So you're saying, it's OK to act like those rude young people than being properly behaved adults?
these Japanese are also hated by the Japanese. So foreign tourists are behaving the same way as the hated Japanese.
@@HeyJuuu He's not saying that at all. You are.
@@HeyJuuupancake and waffles ahh response
Good
The thing is that places like Japan, Amsterdam and Bali are already packed with their own people, that is, they are densely populated naturally, even without a single tourist arrival.
How is Japan densely populated… they literally have a population crisis because no one is having children.
@@TheShahkulu The Tokyos are overcrowded but the country side is empty
@@peterc4082 I mean sure but that's the same for every major city in the world.
@@TheShahkulu They are even more overcrowded. Or maybe the're just used to Japanese faces, seeing a few others raises their blood pressure. I don't know. :)
@@peterc4082I was there several weeks ago visiting my in-laws. It was packed. Granted, it was golden week. But a lot of low-key areas we used to hang around had tourists and locals flocking. A lot more foreign workers too when compared to 10 or so years ago.
I plan to live in Japan, respect their culture, and learn their language, but it sounds like they hate every foreigner. This makes me feel conflicted.
@@user-il1wv6xq1u それは安心です。教えてくれてありがとうございます。
@@user-il1wv6xq1u それは安心です。教えてくれてありがとうございます。
@@user-il1wv6xq1u それは安心です。教えてくれてありがとう。
I've been to Japan several times, and it can often be difficult finding a bin to deposit rubbish. Now I understand why, because of strict sorting and recycling requirements. I always carried my rubbish around with me until I could find somewhere to put it. Just dumping it on the ground like a slob is completely unacceptable.
If Japan makes money from tourists - they need to put more bins in tourist places. It's easy. The rest of the world has been doing that for ages. Japan is highly educated. They can ask their friends in top EU universities how it's done.
@@peterc4082Or the tourists can just educate themselves and adapt to local customs. Japanese tourists in Japan manage to carry their garbage to a bin, surely foreign tourists can too. It’s not like it’s heavy…
@@Kaarver You're speaking of idealised situations but it's difficult to change behaviour.
I work as an MD. I can assure you that it's very difficult to change how people behave, even in terms of very important issues.
A tourist is unlikely to change behaviour beyond the most obvious things. Tourists are short time visitors. They save money, they go on their dream vacation to Japan and they leave to never return.
If Japan wants to promote Japan to only wealthy people who may be more cultured or maybe not, maybe Japan needs to charge for tourist visas. A visa is required for all visitors, even if visa free, you are issued a visa at the airport. Maybe Japan needs to charge for such a visa, you pay when purchasing your ticket or as a mere formality, using your credit card, and passport number and voila you're now allowed entry. $1000 visa per person per visit. If that still does not work, charge $10,000. Easy peasy.
But changing behaviour is very hard. Japan needs to put more bins where tourists frequent and maybe get used to some diversity. After all European classical music is played in Japan but it's not Japanese. That was widely accepted.
That's my take as someone who deals with a diverse group of patients on a daily basis.
@@peterc4082 European classical music and people throwing their trash on the ground, are two completely different things. Japanese people don’t leave out public garbage disposal because they get high winds and monsoon season and typhoons, as well as occasional tsunamis. Trash would be blown out of broken trash receptacles way too often, and Japan prides itself for having clean streets. Even when they had horses and carriages back in the day, unlike other countries that let the horses poo on the road, Japanese people often had poo bags for the horse and would empty it at a stable area. You want to talk about behavior not changing? Japan doesn’t owe it to any foreigner to change a tradition of public cleanliness that goes back thousands of years. People need to respect the customs and use common sense and adjust behavior. There are even places in Tokyo with signs saying not to empty your trash on the street and wait to throw your trash away somewhere indoors (a lot of train stations do have indoor areas for disposing trash, and train stations are all over the place- you don’t need trash bins on the streets).
@@kathleencove Kathleen, changing behaviour is very difficult. You're asking me, Peter, why don't we all have love and ponies in the world? Why are some people poor and others rich? Why wars? Etc. Well the world works as it does.
Japanese people elected a government. That government markets Japan in the world. It brings in money and it creates SOFT POWER. SOFT POWER is very important and helps Japanese companies sell products and services abroad as Japan has a good reputation but that rep came because of PR. Japanese products to be honest are not that good, but if one reads PR one would think they are perfect. They are average for a developed nation. I've used products from across the globe and I've run across a lot of Made in Japan junk. Anyway I digressed.
You see tourists will behave in a certain way. Japan has earthquake proof buildings. They can design earthquake proof garbage cans. And if not, then make the Japan visa $10,000 USD and then only a few people will come and if they litter, well $10,000 will pay for picking up a few items.
I actually want Japan to make their country inaccessible. I'm quite sick of this foreigner hate from these kind of youtube channels. If Japan is so perfect, well let it stay like that. I certainly would never force myself on Japan.
As for classical music, you take the good with the bad. If you want to be world leader you have to tolerate a bit. Have a nice day.
there are 10000 good tourists and only 10 are behaving bad. Media will highlight 10 out of 10000000. Its truly unfair and for Click bait purpose
As an Asian foreigner, I just blend in the background as always. I am afrequent traveler to Japan but to visit some family there.
They can tell if you’re non-Japanese. Even mixed Japanese folks get profiled. If you look Chinese or if you are Japanese-American raised in America, they can definitely tell. Lol
Yen being weak is not the tourists fault. What a weird way of thinking. I live in a tourist city with semi-okay currency so I should be hating on all the tourists who either afford or simply saved up for the trip and are enjoying themselves? Ridiculous. The call is coming from inside the house.
Exactly
It's not a 'weird way of thinking', it's simply the historical truth.
If the value of your country's economy is completely dependant on another nation's economy, then being a citizen of the 'devalued' nation leaves you vulnerable to exploitation of the foreign nation. This is particularily true in East Asian nations in the modern era (see: Qing dynasty, the massive debt the Phillipines accrued under Ferdinand Marcos, Japan under the San Francisco Treaty).
We get cruise ships where I live and I hate them. Travelers who know how to be adults are OK, "tourists" I don't really like. I can understand the generalized feeling.
The problem is deeper than just tourism. The yen being so weak is a worrying sign that Japan's economy won't just be stagnant like it has been for the last 35 years. It could be a sign of serious economic problems to come.
Tourism isn't going to do much to fix that problem.
I swear to God the Japanese have been acting like ‘it’ll fix itself one day on its own without lifting a finger much’ for decades, as they somehow never imagined the Yen would drop that low and stays there, and their world GDP keeps falling and will continue to do so, because they are stuck in a thick severe case of DENIAL about the proverbial ‘deep s**t’ they let themselves become over the last decades…
They can envy all they want I welcome them, maybe that’ll be the awakening they dearly needed.
The media brainwash in Japan is so ingrained and broad, and they have been relentless since the pandemic in demonizing foreigners in any possible way shape or form, even while there was zero tourists allowed during Japan of 2020-22, not that differently than the Edo closed-up to the world period of Sakoku.
I’ve been living in Tokyo since 2009 and am witnessing all of the things exposed by Nobita in this great video that must be seen more.
This might be a sign that Japan slowly want to isolate itself again.
Probably not.
Definitely not. But they definitely want people to stop acting like idiots when visiting their country.
We don't know if Japan is going to isolate itself in the future because of tourists.
@@renegadesigma And you think immigrants will behave better?
@@renegadesigmaI said *might*
Yeah johnny Somali he tried yye same things in Israel & didn't work for his health or anything. I do think Japan should be harsher & invest into ways to prevent bad tourists or misunderstandings
I do think the media in Japan much like in my country blame foreigners & ignore locals. We have school & medical debt not yo mention low wages to. We understand & neither of our countries should use foreigners as scapegoats. I hope things improve.
With characters like Johny Somali, other western foreigners should step up a bit more and put them in their place in order to avoid being characterised in the same bucket as him.
LOL wtf are you talking about ??? It’s ALWAYS the foreigners that treats locals like scapegoats !!! Stop it you guys are so easy to catch it’s truly sad to see. You think colonialism come from the inside are you Effin st*pid dude or you are just lying on purpose ?
There’s clearly NO RACISM AGAINST FOREIGNERS IN JAPAN. All of you are talking about discrimination and this video is not. Stop justifying your hate and understand what the videos is about ffs!!!
@@heyokaoverdashelly2kangel945 I never said racism & I have seen other videos. I am literally friends with people who have been in Nobita's videos 😂
I also reference from my 日本語教師 has said happens SOMETIMES & how she feels.
The worsening of the economy is an issue of the Japanese and their economic situation and rigidy in trying to change it. It has nothing to do with tourists and its just a scapegoat. In all honesty the only thing tourists do is add to the GDP and strengthen the yen, not subtract and depreciate.
tourism isn't a sustainable way to grow the GDP. the Japanese government sold their land and people to foreigners in the name of monetary policy. their fanciful strategies of endless quantitative easing, negative rates, and trickle-down economics only line the pockets of the elite and multinationals.
it comes down to the absence of true democracy in japan. protests and any uprising have been successfully silenced, with the blessing of their US overlords. they're just a colony. the US nuked their economy with the Plaza Accord
thank you! this is the real damn answer. society is deeply uneducated.
With no local support or guidance for businesses, the Japanese gov't just wants to increase the number of tourists coming in for the money they spend here, and that is behind many of the problems.
Then there is the fact that tourists can pay more than locals, so businesses raise prices while local pay stays the same at best, and what used to be affordable is now out of reach - my son used to enjoy ramen at a shop once a week as a treat, but can't do it these days at the tourist prices where he lives.
Or the garbage problem, just putting out more garbage containers but then no one empties the containers when they're full, and they overflow. As the official said, provide tents and tables and people won't walk around eating nearly as much.
The problems can be solved. "Orientation" videos on arriving airplanes showing good & bad tourist practices (walking at "vacation" pace on sidewalks like they're the only ones there); recommending times for using public transportation so the tourists don't fill up rush-hour trains; and having more hotels, etc., pick up/deliver those huge suitcases that tourists bring on the trains, These problems can be solved..
Dude, the problem can be solved by not promoting Japan abroad. Stop making stupid shows like Shogun. They can add a $1000 visa. Japanese tourists were a nuisance in the 1990s in Europe. My cousin from Paris would be hounded by Japanese outside LV stores because they had a limit on how many items tourist could buy to save stock for more people, so they would beg him to buy stuff for them as he was a local. Japanese would so the same to us, they need to get used to the global village the way we got used to it. It's the 21st century and not feudal times.
It really makes no sense. They can increase the prices for tourists, but can’t put up more trash cans and hire more people to empty them?
They happily take the extra cash but won’t do anything to adapt to the influx of visiting people.
@@peterc4082 💀
Plane videos are definitely a good idea 💡
Just having a short video just before landing and it wouldn't cost a lot of money to produce.
Solutions are easy, but those people in power are old farts that doesn't like to change things, so everything takes for forever.
@@denmaakujin9161 This is silly. How about just asking people not to come to Japan. Charge $1000 per visa. I'm all for it. I say let's stop ALL FOREIGN TOURISM to Japan. Japan is too precious to corrupt with us foreigners.
On the matter of media, there's something in psychology called the availability heuristic. It's the reason why so many people might think that crime rates are high, or in this case, why foreigners/tourists are all people to be scorned, and, in this case, nobody in Japan have done no wrong. If you only show one group of people doing bad things, people are going to make a mental shortcut that associates bad things with that group of people. It's real scummy that any media does that.
It's real disheartening that this is the state of things for tourists going to Japan because I do want to visit there.
It looks like the western mainstream have inadvertently saved China from touristy issues.
Its not the media, angloids have been ruining countries for centuries, they already pissed spain enough to pass laws etc, and sexpats are literally banned in laos and cambodia due to this, of course vassal states like japan and south korea cant and must receive a humiliation ritual like the plaza accords
Ditto and bravo- this is EXACTLY what Japanese media has been doing even more vigorously than ever since the pandemic.
My Parisian cousin would get hounded by Japan tourists to buy things for them (they'd pay) in boutique stores which had limits on how many items they sold to Japanese tourists to save stock for locals. That was in the 1990s.
@peterc4082 You guys are bots I’ve seen your comments everywhere lmao stop trying to be a propagandist. None of you are gonna make Japan a playground for shitters. Stop thinking that the world owe you something and humble yourselves. Bunch of child’s in mens bodies lol.
I went there twice (both times just over 3 weeks in different locations) and I personally have not experienced any negative treatment. But maybe cause I went solo and also am more of a calm and chill type and will only talk when I need to ask something specific or if somebody else talks to me then I would respond. In fact, most of the times any meaningful conversations I had with the locals (and I have had many!) were initiated by locals in probably 90% of the times. Also noticed several times when they would give me the looks and talk amongst themselves saying something akin to "I am curious to ask him, but I don't think he would understand me.." and I would look their way and ask in Japanese "sumimasen, daijobu desuka?" and they would be like "ooo, nihongo dekiru no, yokatta!" or something like that and we would both end up laughing about it XD
I had the same experience last year and I went out of my way to avoid other tourists as much as possible.
@@shawnbell6392 OMG me too, I was distancing myself from them as much as possible to not be associated with them mistakenly. One way I think I managed to stand out (and that has actually been noted by some locals that I have spoken to as well, so it isn't my own theory but seems like a fact rather) was the way I dressed up and behaved. I like wearing fashionable clothing styles that are trendy in Japan and Asia in general, which is directly opposite from 90% of the tourists who tend to wear either cliche beige shorts, some pants with side pockets of sorts and/r track suits with a hiking backpack. The funny "incident" I had last time was in Harajuku on Takeshita street when I was just trying to walk ahead (I am a bit of a fast walker too) and a group of young school boys sat on the sides eating and commenting on what they were seeing. And right there I was trying to overtake that annoying tourist group in front of me and they would just not take the hint that you have to pick a "lane" and stick with it if you are going ahead. So, I was getting visibly annoyed and these guys seemed to have noticed it and were laughing at it and commenting akin to "oh, I think he's not happy, what is he gonna do?!" and I quickly find an opening and with a very annoyed "excuse me" get past them and I hear the boys go "oh no he's not having it hahaha!" and I decided to turn around and give them a quick look and handwave and they burst out laughing even harder and started applauding me. So yeah, I had interesting things happen to me over there on both trips quite a lot really XD I mean, my hotel in Sapporo happened to have a tattoo friendly sauna in it (I don't have any tats myself though) and I ended up sitting next to some yakuza boss (rode with him and his wife on the lift up there and then later he casually turns up in the sauna and I see all those crazy tats almost all over his body and he's like "oh, you allright?"lol)
@@AKRex I love those stories and it is reassuring to hear I am not the only one who tries to fit in a non-annoying way. Keep up the good work!
@@shawnbell6392 I promise you - if you also learn basic Japanese at least good enough to know the most commonly used vocabulary and behave very calmly and pay attention to your environment and people around you, you will definitely set yourself aside from the "cliche annoying types". You will have all sort of people also opening up to you and talking to you once you can talk and show your comprehension of their manners etc. If you do manage to learn pronunciation correctly and can put it to good use, locals will even forget that you are not fluent and will start chatting away to you like they normally do, which is funny XD
ive been to japan multiple times in years past and always had an amazing time, love the country and culture so much but im starting to feel like i will feel un welcome if i return to visit again. cant lie it makes me feel pretty sad with whats going on lately
You will be fine. What is shown is probably a small % that feels that way and others know not all foreign tourist are like that.
@@michaelwatson9089I really hope you are correct, but plenty of polls and reporting has shown that that sentiment is pretty widespread at least in major metropolitan areas.
It is - I live in Tokyo since 2009
I'm going to Tokyo on Friday, already starting to feel a bit defensive.
I was an exchange student in 2002 and 2006, I think it will be different this time.
Japan is fighting back againsts foreign tourists.
The poverty piece caught my attention. Japanese are notv relatively poor because of tourists. Just ask anyone in the tourism business. They're just not paid especially well. I moved to Japan, found that my decent paying job in the US was worth *less than half* as much in Japan, and in a few months I had to leave. Costly lesson to learn! It's not a random stroke of bad luck that the Japanese economy has been flat for three+ decades.
An IT job I was looking at in Japan pays the same amount of money I make at my 9-5 call center job here in the states.
@@michaelwatson9089 I have tech friends telling me its not the same as it used to be.
Comparing Japan to the US is no good since the US is living way above its means with debt and I think Japan still has a lot of US treasuries. Better comparison would be Korea or Germany or some other european high tech country.
The reason Japanese wages are so low is because their central bank is printing money and has done so for a long time. The wages always increase slower than other prices which is why it's not enough at some point to afford even food.
@@FiZcthe wages have not increased for 30 years. The whole country was paused when the bubble burst as people thought it would go back to the golden era, but it never did and people never shifted away from thinking it would come back.
@@FiZc Japanese workers are more expensive and not better to European workers in Eastern Europe. Sorry Japan, we will take it all away from you.
If you’re a foreign resident, keep supporting the same local businesses and the staff will recognize that you live in Japan.
Indeed! If you truly like Japan you chose one of the cozy kisaaten or Japanese cafe chains (e.g. Renoir) over Starbucks and you chose Japanese shops and department stores over foreign ones. I don't understand those gaijin who live here but do the same crap they do in their home country.
When you live in Japan you have other issues than being recognized by staff. You will never be fully accepted anyway.
Most residents are able to have a conversation in Japanese and most tourists can’t. No?
@@pizzicatos.7996 Not true. You will be fully accepted as what you are - a foreigner who decided to move to japan. Your past will not go away, you magically cant become someone who was born in japan as a japanese, thats like asking people to call you ginger despite having blonde hair.
I dont understand why people want to be viewed as something they are not, and why to them its a sign of being "fully accepted".
It doesnt matter if people dont see you as someone who was born in japan with japanese genes - they still accept you as a human being, as someone who learned to speak japanese and who lives and works in japan.
@@pizzicatos.7996why do you need to be fully accepted?
Are you insecure?
Most of us that have lived here for a long time don't think about that.
Considering US living Chinese nationals were being attacked for no reason during covid, I would say the not accepted thing happens everywhere.
Last time i visited, I tried to be more careful about how I moved within japan just because of my size and how i look. It was my worst trip to date, I got charged extra in cash by uber driver when i already paid through the app, taxi drivers would drive longer route (which is why i started using uber) when my flight got cancelled I opted to catch the shinkansen to tokyo from osaka, the workers at the bus helped everyone with their luggage before me, stopped when they got to me stared and waited for me to do it myself, then helped everyone behind me, in kyoto I walked in the direction everyone was walking and made sure to follow the flow of foot traffic and a bicyclist went out of his way to ram his bike into my back. I still want to go back because ive always had fun in japan prior to this, but there were plenty more instances than this that happened to me during my most recent trip.
All sounds like a pain in the a$$
This is ignored because Japanese are not white to criticise their racism is seen as racist. This will change though. I think PLA will not be so politically correct when they come visit. Let's hope not but Japan should become a little more humble.
Eating while walking. Is it a serious issue?????
Japanese consider this to be rude. I was aware of the requirement when I went Japan but forgot it on occasion ... I misunderstood have been sworn at quite a bit when I walked around eating.
Bad Environment causes bad behavior. That guy has a point. Every person in the world should know this.
I am not rich or privileged but I was saving hard to come to Japan. I have researched etiquette and am learning Japanese. It's all been for nothing 😢 I am heartbroken that I will be treated like a terrible person. After seeing this video, I have decided not to persue my dream of visiting Japan next year 😔 For your information, despite what the media state, England is not a rich country. It's in a recession as well as going through a cost of living crisis.
I think it's weird thinking it's okay to charge tourists more because they're all rich.
Imagine if the situation was reversed, and I charged a Japanese tourist here in Australia more simply because they're a tourist so obviously must be rich? It would be outrageous.
Spot on
Ain't they already do that though
Australias prices are already outrageous.
For locals and tourists.
Japan's businesses can do whatever they like.
What is fair is to give pensioner discounts for local pensioners. But one should not charge more for the same service rendered. Tourists need to stop visiting Japan. Japanese people don't want tourists there so let's respect them and visit countries which want you to come.
It literally happens everywhere. I lived abroad in Lima, and the downtown area and Mira Flores would always upcharge obvious tourists unless they knew how to politely haggle. In Callao where I worked, I paid normal prices because people realized I lived there and worked the same wages as anyone else in the area. People in America do this too, but with vacation prices. There’s a reason why everything in America is more expensive at airports, gift shops, hotels, resorts like Disney Land, and other equivalent tourist attractions. Do you think Americans make that stuff more expensive just for the heck of it? *Everywhere* on the planet charges tourists more. You’re paying for the novelty of an exotic or vacationing experience, not just regular daily goods. Nobody is entitled to travel for a vacation. If you can afford a vacation, you can afford to pay vacation prices. I often see people get secret discount packages by travel agencies if they’re actually doing a business trip and not just vacationing. This rule has existed literally since like the 1970s, everywhere on the planet. Weird to see people clutching their pearls about it now.
I've been visiting Japan since 2007 and have had trips where the yen was at 78 yen to the dollar so the envy that some people are feeling is so hypocritical. I'm going back to Japan next week and have another trip planned for November but these negative attitudes really hurt to see. I live in Hawaii working at a hotel and we have tons of Japanese tourists who come here and don't tip or tip very poorly so some locals have started to say they shouldn't come.
@perdomot that's because in Japanese culture tipping is seen as an insult. But I think when they travel they should go with the flow and tip people in the hospitality industries because those people work very hard to make their vacation go well.
Tipping culture is bad. Still as a hotel employee you get paid very well to be able to just get up and go traveling so many times.
As a frequent traveler to Japan for many years - the way people act now, I feel like foreign tourists should have to take some kind of test before they’re allowed to enter the country.
Yes, because the first thing I want to do after a 14 hour flight is be lectured. Japan is going to piss enough people off that tourism is going to eventually plummet than they’ll be screaming about the economy.
What the hell are you saying?
@@Trendsetter-zv1xe Do you honestly think Japan’s economy relies on tourism? Wow.
@@kathleencove Not all of it but a percentage of it does. Watch videos from 2021 and you’ll see business owners wanting the tourist back so they have to bring some money in.
They should make like a jlpt “n6” mandatory prior to arrival.
Having been to Japan many times. I can give you some advice. Manners and politeness gets you everywhere.
Unlike the rest of the world? Where everyone loves rude people?
So corny how people try to make Japan some mystical place. It’s just a fcking piece of earth.
@@mightytaiger3000 I disagree. Its a place truly driven by its culture and our sloppy, clueless western ways are not a good fit for it. In the west the focus is on the individual to an extreme and in Japan it is on an awareness of how to share the space. Rude people get away with being rude in many western countries and are clueless about places where that isn't the norm.
@@mightytaiger3000 You don't seem to realize that other places in the world are more tolerant of behavior that would be considered rude in Japan. If you go to Egypt, you're expected to be a bit more pushy because its a fast paced and pushy place in itself.
Japan is becoming cheap tourist attraction with this exchange rate. Japan cannot expect every tourist is good manner. Either Japan jack up the price or stop whining.
Japan has the 3rd highest GDP in the world. Raising prices for foreigners is just absurd.
100% correct. I’d gladly save up a little longer to pay that next time I want to travel, to be fair to the locals. All these people saying “Japan can’t afford to lose its tourists”… um, no, Japan is not the Cayman Islands, their main income is not tourism and foreign accounts. Their auto industry, technology, even exporting music digitally, makes them more money than tourists. Japan has every right to want to protect its public infrastructure, public transportation, and local workforce, by limiting travelers. People who think Japan needs millions of tourists don’t understand anything about Japan. I obviously don’t want Japan to completely cut off travel for all tourists, I’d love to go there, but I think it’s completely reasonable to raise some tourist prices and limit the number of tourists allowed in every year. People complaining about being charged more as a tourist are being cheap. For the average western tourist from North America or Europe (the majority of tourists who are griping), the cost of goods in Japan is already incredibly cheaper than buying equivalent items in Europe or North America, and even with tourist prices it’s still cheaper. People are being unreasonable.
Yes, but if locals are happy to see tourist being charged more for goods and services, they should not be surprised when the prices also increase for them, because provideds see tourists as the preferred client.
@@SystemBD Why would businesses see tourists as the preferred client? They’re seasonal, and temporary. The Japanese public are still the main customers, upcharging a temporary visitor doesn’t drive prices up. Prices get driven up when there are too many people buying something and creating higher demand than there is supply. It’d be hard to produce more goods so there’s enough for both tourists and Japanese, hence production costs to meet demand drive up prices. The solution isn’t to avoid letting businesses price things towards tourists how they want (which businesses do in all tourist-attracting cities). The solution is to limit the number of tourists coming in so that there’s a control on how much tourists can drive up demand. Prices won’t be raised for the average Japanese if they can do that.
Tourists from any country represent those that have disposable money. They spend lavishly because they are not concerned about how much they spend. The ones from the US do not represent the average American. There are plenty of people in the US who are struggling to get by.
The median income in the US was $37,585 in 2022.
you are right, it's usually privledges people who trabel abroad and they tend to treat peoples countries like giant theme parks
A week trip to Japan for for a frugal-ish family costs 2300 usd due to how weak the yen is these days.
Not enough. The flight alone (bought 6 months in advance) is about $1500 per head for a basic economy seat (taxes and fees included). Food and expenses per day are easily $100-$200 minimum lol. Then hotel for about $75-400 a day depending on your taste. You’re gonna need a lot more than 2k pal. And it helps to stay more than a week… maybe 9 days minimum. Better if u stay 2 weeks. And also try to learn the language for a couple years before traveling
@@j.s.6654 Exactly. For the average american to go, they'd have to save up months of income
And I know people who studied Japanese for years still have no money to go.
Tbh I understand why many Japanese resent tourists. It's not the majority, but they have many high profile cases of tourists and foreigners in general misbehaving.
And, unless there's an improvement in the local population's life, that won't improve
Honestly, I've felt this way about tourists all over the world for many years. The difference now is more people are going to Japan because of the weak currency and other reasons (post-covid hype, social media etc). I wonder what Japanese people would think of tourists in places where people go for stag parties etc. Or to be honest, any UK city on a weekend.
I'm pretty quiet and introverted so I found myself fitting in pretty well in Japan. You can get far with politeness and gestures even if you don't know the language and most people are very courteous when you are the same.
However at one restaurant I was firmly invited to leave when I walked in to join the queue for a table. I was the only gaijin in the room.
....but they're so polite.
You probably accidentally entered a restaurant that was booked for a corporate event, or a family event, a restaurant that isn’t actually public access, or might not have been public access that day. That can be hard to know if you can’t read the signs in Japanese because it will usually be obvious on the establishment somewhere to people who are familiar with the place and know the language. I doubt they were excluding you just because of your race, they probably instantly recognized that you weren’t part of a booked group. Corporate luncheons and dinners and even cocktail hours at certain restaurants, especially during certain national festivities that celebrate coworkers and friendship, is actually super common.
This is why researching the culture is important, even if you are very polite and introverted. I agree with you that politeness alone will get you a long way in Japan even if you don’t know the language, because many people there will try to meet you halfway and speak some English.
But to avoid offense, having some level of familiarity with the culture’s customs and rules helps a lot.
And yes, this can be true even with a queue, they were probably giving their names for already booked tables in advance, but they looked like they were showing up spontaneously to you because maybe you didn’t know better. If most of the people were dressed very similarly as well, there’s a clue.
I've been refused entry to establishments solely based on me not being Japanese.
@@kennedysan1045 Take heart....I'm just gonna wait to see kathleencove's reply to you.
As someone who's travelled to Japan many times, I can understand why Japanese people are so frustrated with the recent over-tourism and tourists in general...because I don't like many tourists myself when I travel there: it's clear that they haven't done any research on customs, laws, and how to behave, and they are entitled. That being said, I think there are many more good tourists than bad...and I've definitely seen my share of Japanese delinquency as well, so it's not always fair to blame it on tourists. In terms of money, if I have worked hard in my home country to afford a trip to Japan and contribute to their economy by spending money, I don't feel bad that some Japanese people find it "unfair". Not my problem.
That's just bullshit. Average Japanese is a lot wealthier than you think. That's why they have so much high-end crap over there like luxury trains. Foreigners are their target.
I have been to Japan 3 times and researched the do's and dont's before I went as to not cause issues. I totally understand why the Japanese do not want Gaijin in their country...most westerners are very ignorant of the culture and customs.
At first I thought this is another street interview, but it's actually well researched and full of interesting data!
Well done!
Honolulu hates its tourists secretly. The Japanese tourists are among the best visitors to Hawaii.
Honolulu hates everybody.
Then don't take their money.
@@wcisnijstart that’s the conundrum of the occupied Hawaiian people. They are in a position where it’s tourism and rich retires, or starve.
But I agree with your point completely
Honolulu can get rid of tourists and be the poor shithole it should rightfully be.
It's not like industry will settle there.
So it’s pretty much Jealousy. Japanese are sinking quite low
Sure ban/limit tourism, but don't complain if it hurts businesses and taxes. My country got comfy amount of tourism.
I don't know. I'm a resident in Taiwan, and likely.I'll be back there for another several years
I tried to follow as many customs as I could.
I can speak chinese, but of course, i'm not fluent.
I think if I was living in japan which I hope to do in the future.
I would try to fill in as much as I could, but I know no matter where I live I could never be taiwanese or japanese
I think most people are just kind if you try.
My time and these friends know because of my learning disabilities It's difficult to use Chinese well
I can't say that I'm wealthy.I'm not.
But living in asia does allow me not to be homeless and to pay off my student loans.
I try to eat mostly local food mainly because it's delicious but I've never done lots of traveling or spending lots of money
I was blessed to be able to help Taiwanese college students.
As a resident Gaijin, I have yet to witness any outright "bad behavior" by tourists here. There are just a LOT of them, they walk slow/meander (looking around or at their phones for directions), and they can be loud. Most public smoking, littering, loud arguments, or cat-calling young ladies at night is by Japanese.
It’s a combination of several factors. The weak yen makes it easy for anyone with a charge card to spend freely. However Japanese culture revolves around the inside face/outside face, in conjunction with the belief in their own superiority they are not allowed to directly tell you they think you are scum. Hence the “gaijin seat” move on the train and the mouth noises they make as you walk by. It’s amusing to me because Americans get lectured on following all these arcane rules the Japanese often can’t be bothered to follow themselves. There is this pervasive myth on RUclips that Japan is somehow the perfect society. Such a place does not exist on earth.
I live in Utah, and all our tourist spots are nature spots in the South (Moab, Bryce Canyon, etc). There's shittons of East Asian tourists and they're all... well, I don't personally have bad experiences with them but someone could easily look at the throngs of tourists there and conclude "All these damned Chinese tourists are so rude!" It's not a foreigner problem, it's a tourist problem, specifically an overtourism problem.
About a decade ago Utah started a tourism campaign to specifically promote nature spots in southern Utah. They called them "The Mighty 5": Arches, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, and Zion National Parks. This campaign was so wildly successful that loads of East Asians fly into SLC and take buses down to them. I'm told Moab is even worse and all the locals got priced out there. What I can see from my own experiences taking trips to Japan is that all the travel guides are going to try and send you to already-popular tourist locations (e.g. Akihabara) and you really have to dig to find stuff that's out of the way. Multiply that by millions of people hungry for something to do and you get overtourism in a handful of really popular places.
If you go outside the tourist hotspots the problem goes away, *for the most part*. e.g. I went to Fukuoka for five days last trip to see a petting zoo and a cat island. There weren't that many foreign tourists in the zoo and the cat island was nothing but locals. And lots of very human-adapted feral cats. (community cats?) The only problem is that if you do this you *need* language skills, your translator app isn't going to help you if you lose signal.
(Actually, I *was* able to livestream the cats to my friends in a private Discord call, so there WAS some signal. Still, I don't trust translator apps for anything other than emergency situations.)
Anyway, uh... anyone know some good things to do in Tohoku? I wanna go to the other cat island near Sendai (Tashirojima) and I probably should find something else to do while I'm there.
I think it's mostly because the kind of person who can afford to be traveling like that, already has a poor/ "rich" disposition lol
"Overtourism" means "we didn't regulate tourism properly", as this is like saying "overindustrialization". It's a cope and an excuse for officials doing a poor job.
I despise the Mallorca "anti-tourism crowd" because without tourism the island would be a poor shithole. Proof 1: Corona era.
Americans are by the large tolerant people.
@@peterc4082 well I feel like America is one of the few places you can go and meld into society easily. Especially compared to countries like Japan where if you’re not Japanese it’s incredibly hard to even get a house or a decent job or even a bank account
@@SirBitingBen It's not bad in other Anglo countries. And in the EU, in the cities, it's also fine, you'll be accepted, even in Eastern Europe.
The tatemae definition usually doesn't go far enough to explain how the Japanese use it; a lot of times its not just acting polite publicly but straightforward lying to your face, manipulative flattery to get you to do what they want, and actively sabotaging your reputation behind your back. In other words if they insult you to your face, be glad, you're dealing with an honest person. As a former tour guide in the US for a Japanese tour operator, I used to listen to my clients always saying Americans are lazy workers, stupid, and stink of bad body odor, like it was common knowledge between them; they literally bond with each other insulting "gaijin" even when they are the tourists or workers in the US (I was invisible to them because I look Japanese).
Example of tatemae gone bad: When a business apologizes for making a mistake and thank you for bringing it to their attention, they are trying to keep you from giving them a bad review or be sued, and laughing inside that they got away with it; they are glad to be rid of you as a customer. In the West, if people are truly sorry, they will make an offer to keep you as a customer, the Japanese don't do that.
Thanks for all the informations!
Lived here for two years with my Japanese wife. I’m astonished at the bad behavior I see from tourists. The Japanese won’t say much about it, but I definitely know what they are thinking. Harmony is very important in Japan.
It’s those same Japanese ppl misbehaving and blaming the tourists
Then ban tourists and isolate like North Korea. I propose a $10,000 visa for all tourists.
Japan should jack up the prices. Airport entry tax of 10,000 yen. 4x entry prices for tourists to certain attractions. May not stop tourist from coming but at least they will benefit.
Kyoto's overcrowded could be eased if the city government would do anything to address the fact that the city is an international tourist mecca with millions of visitors a year, but only has the public transist system capacity for the local population. Countless larger cities across the globe would kill to be half as famous of a destination, but Kyoto is sitting on its hands rather than deal with the problems of success, forgetting that the problems of failure are far worse to deal with.
I think it would help for Japan to realize and (grudgingly) accept the difference between behavior which is just "different" and behavior which is actually "bad". Littering is bad. "Eating while walking" is just different. Public drunkenness and aggression is bad. "Being a bit louder than the average Japanese person" is just different.
You've said this so well. Thank you.
how much is "a bit louder" and why do you expect others to change for you?
@@NoctLightCloud Because people don't change behaviour suddenly. That's the realistic and pragmatic view. If you want to WELCOME people in and say FEEL AT HOME, that's what people understand, because that's how WE welcome tourists, we say feel at home, those are not empty words.
So it's rational to accept that most visitors will behave as they do at home, or a little more subdued. It's irrational to be angry at other people who come from other cultures. It's rational to vote for a different government if you think your government is inviting too many visitors.
Some people here expect tourists to walk on eggshells in Japan. Well that's unrealistic and unwelcoming.
@@peterc4082 I went to Santorini last year and at the number one most iconic place on that island, where we all came from afar to enjoy it, a guy with no shame shouted across half the place to his daughter to take another photo of him, and another one, and another one... That's unfair. And it spoils the mood for the rest of us. Why do we need to tolerate such ignorance and egoistic mindset? Being loud while no one else is is not welcomed in most places. You're obnoxious and don't respect the RULES of the host.
@@NoctLightCloud Thanks for sharing that.
Why did it bother you that some guy shouted that. He was excited to be there. Such a thing would NEVER bother me. Unless he was spitting in my face when shouting or shouting in my ear, I wouldn't care. Note that I also would not shout this way, I keep a low profile but I also realise other people are a little different and emotionally driven by different things.
Destinations aren't always as pictured in promotional materials. That's just the reality of life. Travel is relatively cheap these days and people travel. Why do we need to tolerate each other? Well there is always something you may be doing which someone else finds annoying. You never know if you're behaving well or if others are just too polite to say anything.
As for that guy who shouted it would be wrong to generalise that all tourists shout because from your story it seems that only one person was shouting and you and his daughter weren''t.
And if he shouted a few times but was a quite fellow for the rest of his stay, would he be a bad or a good tourist? I think people need to give each other some leeway and tolerance.
Have a good day.
Fk that. They should get their government together and make it stop wasting money. Tourists are not responsible for their plight; their government is.
As a third-time tourist, I agree with your point of view.
Japan is an amazing destination and could greatly benefit from tourism revenues, but it requires careful and responsible management of this industry.
Over-tourism is felt harshly in very localized areas in Tokyo or Kyoto and as soon as you step outside these spots you barely see any foreigners for miles, this is why the capacity for tourism is way higher than perceived.
Managing this requires massive efforts to distribute the influx of tourists into other provinces and new locations. Japan still has hundreds if not thousands of Onsen towns and villages that bloomed in the 80s and are fit to accommodate millions. these towns are desperate for visitors to come and revitalize the local economy as the local clientele is shrinking.
Bussy tourist spots should set certain quotas for how many visitors can be accommodated at any given time and issue a discount card for local residents to avoid the price hikes that are prone to come with high demands.
Profiting chains and big businesses in these highly touristic areas must help by setting and maintaining infrastructures and facilities built for high capacity to reduce tourist strain on the locals such as transport, bins, and toilets.
Localities that enjoy high revenues in tourist areas need to be transparent on their figures and allocate a certain percentage of the profit to improve local services to accommodate public transportation, accessibility, and distribution of the visitors so that more businesses could benefit from it and reduce the pressure on site.
And Japan needs this revenue. with exports declining, the workforce shrinking, and the population aging, tourism revenues are a great source of foreign capital to revitalize and help the local economy.
Unlike middle-income countries where tourism can become a trap, Japan as a rich nation can use tourism like the UK or the UAE to inject revenues into the local economy and boost it up.
So much can be done, and Japan still has so much room to accommodate and become the #1 tourist spot by the end of the decade without staining life for the locals.
Japanese in the 90s, were very whelty and were the tourist. Many of them at my country put the camera in front of your face, tresspassed on goverment instalations or even have the "spot" to take photos for a half an hour.
Now, they face what japanese did at the 90s in other countries.
I have been visiting Japan for >20 years and have always had wonderful experiences and enjoyed my interactions. There have been a few cases where I've helped other tourists (especially Chinese visitors who spoke limited English and weren't familiar with Japan yet) understand how things work/directions/etc.
I agree with the ideas from the video -- punish the bad tourists/foreigners more severely (and more certainly -- doesn't need to be a severe punishment if it is guaranteed to be applied, and swiftly -- even a small fine or official police interaction early would be enough to prevent something like Johnny Somali from escalating, rather than just applying a long jail sentence and deportation after he's terrorized a lot of people). Make expectations more clear (smoking/eating areas, etc.). Perhaps taxes or fees to offset the impact of tourists in certain areas (public transportation -- just selling special edition Passmo cards with collectible designs for 2-3x normal prices and advertised in English would bring in some additional revenue; a hotel tax applied to non-JP passport holders, etc.). And ultimately, increase productivity of industry in Japan so the Yen becomes stronger again.
I'm planning to spend this winter in Japan learning to ski, and exploring parts of Japan far from Tokyo. Also lobbying to host a conference in Ishigaki next year, and hopefully going on my own visits to the Bonin Islands, etc.
I've wanted to go to Japan for decades. I've never been able to make it happen. Now I think I'll never have the chance and if I did I would probably get treated poorly due to the poor reputation that people who came before me left behind. Even though I've admired Japan from afar for a long time. 😑
I'm so tired of the hypocrisy bordering on ignorance and the unique brand of 外 内 "outside-inside" tribal clan mentality of the Japanese. For example, "While I barely survive on low pay, many gaijins (sic) have luxurious lives" Substitute "rich people" for "gaijins". How do you think locals felt when the Japanese were buying up property left and right and flaunting their wealth in Hawaii during the 80s? Shouldn't the Japanese be blaming corporations for low salaries which are increasingly sending profits upstairs to investors? TJR is absolutely correct, the bad economy is Japan's own fault!
Tourists are not a homogenous group. There are Whites, who can be broken down into Europe and North America, and Asians who comprise the bulk of tourists. If you look at photos of that notorious Fuji selfie spot or the railroad crossing in Kamakura, you'll see very few white people. As TJR points out, media exposure focuses on White foreigners. One wonders what the motivation is behind this?
Lastly, empty those trash cans, municipal officials! Tourists are paying the 8 to 10 % consumption tax, and convenience stores that generate all the trash have removed their trash cans from outside. If people are behaving badly, stop being nice and mannerly, and apply this to EVERYONE. Security guards are old and nonconfrontational.
If you don't like it leave and not come back
I've been in Japan for two weeks in April, something that I have dreamt of my whole life. It was an amazing experience, still it felt like visiting a very introverted friend, it was like "nice to have you here, probably nicer when you will leave and I can go back to my things done my way".
Anyway, as an Italian I know very well how tiresome tourism can be, having an endless stream of foreing people coming to your country acting like your home is some kind of theme park. It's hard, but it's business and it's kinda fair, we visit other countries and people from other country come to us.
Japan people are very smart and capable in solving problems, I hope Japan can work out a way to deal with tourism the best way possible and I hope to come back for a visit again when I will have enough saved money
I read that Italy is having an over tourism problem also and they have added fees and raised prices because of it.
I think the problem is Japanese are probably finding it harder to get to work etc. because of tourists. When I lived in Tokyo in the 80s-mid 90s as a kid, I did notice that it would take longer to get to school etc when it was tourist season. I’m sure it’s worse now. I would imagine that the ごみ would be a huge problem too.
Apparently Kyoto public transportation is at a breaking point. Tourism is fine and good, but priority needs to be given to people who need to get to work/school.
@@fattiger6957 yeah definitely needs priority for the people who need to get to work and school
And it doesn't help that now there are 2 new Japanese budget airlines that fly to narita Airport. The country should work in sync to spread out the international flights to various regions.
@@EVL-xj5vc oh wow, didn’t that there were 2. That’s definitely a reason too.
Dude, the Japanese government has been promoting Japan for decades. Why do you think people come to Japan? Because it is promoted via marketing. Even the exports of anime and manga help it. All of this generates SOFT POWER for Japan and money. What is Japan going to export? And Japan needs all the help she can get because China is on the rise and China is going to be the biggest super power in the world. And they don't like the Japanese for WW2. Japan needs to ask who her friends are. If she wants to spit on our tourists, it's not good for her future. We will remember.
Well there's one thing i can do - learn Japanese and act like Japanese 😂😂, and travel to some rural places instead of Tokyo.
Great idea. I’m in Hiroshima right now and I’m planning on returning in the fall. Maybe I’ll do what you just said. In the meantime, I’ll try to learn some Japanese so I can talk to the locals.
You'll still look foreign and that's all it takes to be refused entry sometimes
@@rachelar well Im Asian so appearance is not a big issue. At least not last time when I was in japan - people kept speaking Japanese to me until they saw my passport 😂
@@lilylovesitaly3932 Thats great! Ive never been to Hiroshima but heard lots of good things about it. Have a wonderful trip!
A lot of times they don't like that. Raul places in most countries are the most racist ones.
Today is my last day in Japan. I loved Tokyo and Osaka, wonderful people. Kyoto has some nice history but some of the most stuck-up, rude and downright racist prejudiced c^n7s in all of Japan. They can get a dog up them for all I’m concerned, but probably don’t need to with the pole shoved that far up inside where the sun don’t shine. And yes, tourists are all following the rules, pleasantly surprised I saw no fellow foreigners breaking the rules and we are 100% a scapegoat for the poor behaviourc I constantly witnessed from locals. Had the best holiday but the truth needs to be laid out.
Idk, the anti-gaijin sentiment has been around since early Japan. However, it does seem that their politicians have sold out the Japanese. There’s too much tourism and with the high numbers come disrespectful and rude foreigners. I must say the only thing I hated in Japan during my study abroad were the foreigners who broke every social rule.
I went to Japan China and South Korea this year. Japan was by far the least fun and the most rude of all three. The opposite of what I expected. It was cheap though
By Japan do you mean Tokyo/Osaka? Because that is NOT Japan. Those giant cities are basically their own countries with their own culture/way of life. Ive also been to China and South Korea, and I wouldn't recommend those places to anyone.
@@victortesla4198 What was so bad about SK? Just curious
China is better than Japan? 😂 You clearly didn't see the real china
look at their tourism numbers, they had over 25 million visiters in 2023 alone, you'd hate foriegners too if you lived on a small overcrowded country and had to deal with that
@@victortesla4198China was fun but I still think even Tokyo/Osaka is a lot better than China. SK man, I don’t even want to get into it.
Love your content. Thank you for uploading.
In the States, we have the same issue as Japan, especially regarding the poverty level and influencers.
I don’t have a problem paying an entry fee depending on the price.
I'm going to Japan for the first time this year, and it's a trip I've dreamed about since I was young. I'm a bit worried about coming across as a bad or disrespectful tourist, especially with all the news about rude tourists and overtourism. Maybe it's just my anxiety talking. But I know that if I stay quiet, nice, respectful, and mindful of Japanese culture, I should be okay. Still, I can't shake the feeling of potentially being a burden.
I've wanted to for forever too. Studied Japanese since 09, but can't go. Good luck.
begging for tourism, and then getting mad when you get it. disgusting
they really are two faced
You are correct about bad behaviour. Unfortunately so many people are entitled and arrogant, which unfortunately they behave when visiting places that aren't their own. Years ago, I found out that I wasn't supposed to make noise while on the subway in Tokyo. When I went prior to that, my group (a bunch of teenagers) made a lot of noise. I expressed some level of guilt upon finding out... but someone told me that I shouldn't feel guilty at all. He told me that I was on vacation thus shouldn't care about others or the etiquette, and just enjoy myself regardless of the rules. I told him it was a stupid mentality to have since it means he thought it was okay to be disrespectful to those whose home his visiting. I ended the conversation saying that with that kind of logic, he shouldn't have the right to complain when someone visits his house and poops all over his couch.
As much as I wish to visit your country,Japan should temporarily close its borders to tourists until streaming platforms and social media become less significant. Then, they should start charging entry and daily fees for tourists, like Venice does.
I really don't think the social media and streaming sites are going to become less relevant any time soon... And while Japan closes the door to tourists, do you think other nations will not do the same to Japanese tourists? As for the extra tax, it will simply be added to the price of the rooms, like all other taxes, so it would not solve the problem (and, if something, would it make it worse because the government will become more dependent on tourism to pay for other things).
The only real solution to reduce the number of tourists is to actually impose a limit of tourist per place and per month.
@@SystemBD Other countries will not do that to the Japanese because they know how to behave politely in foreign countries. For example, believe it or not, in my country after a football match, the Japanese cleaned up their trash. What other nation does that in a foreign country? They are polite and do not cause incidents! As for limiting the number of tourists, I agree with you. Their government will not be dependent on tourism. Why? Because after World War II, when they were left with nothing and there was great hunger, they managed to recover because they are resourceful.
I live here, but I get mistaken for a tourist, even though, I was born in Hiroshima and returned in 2000. I agree to a point some tourists are rude arrogant loud and don’t respect our traditions. I do get upset when I see certain tourists acting like entitled brats. Jonny Somali , Logan Paul and that other idiot has ruined it for genuine tourists.
I have a feeling that the cheap cost of Travel to Japan is one of the causes of "Tourists" bad behavior and a weak Japanese Yen for the lavish spending in Japan.
Bingo
This has been going on FOR DECADES! My grandmother said it's been a thing since at least the end of WWII and has only festered ever since. People her own generation just don't have that filter anymore where they care what people think of them. They'll say what's on their mind which is why it always seems it's the older folks running and pushing the anti-foreigner sentiments in Japan. It runs a lot more culturally deeper in Japan and you're only seeing a larger sentiment for it because the anonymity of the internet protecting people's identities and allowing them to say it out loud what would have been considered socially taboo/rude before. It's also the source of the awkwardness of being half-Japanese in the larger cities. You get the feeling of alienation because deep down, there's an aversion to the foreign aspect of your being which always makes you an "other" and it's something that comes from the adults and slowly infects the children. I used to play along well with children there when I was around 5 years old, and you can slowly see the attitudes shift as we got older. Thankfully, I spent the vast majority of my life as an American and while the U.S. has its own issues, I have a feeling that living in a place that passive-aggressively disapproves of your existence wouldn't be a great place growing up. Even when I was stationed there as an adult, I'd always get the feeling that I was generally unwelcomed there. My grandparents' friends who'd visit or talk with them regularly would not come by whenever I visited. Whenever we'd encounter them in the neighborhood, the conversation would be going well until they notice me and then it's a curt reply and excusing themselves away. This is with my father being a very well-paid engineer with a stable job, home etc. They were just against foreigners and hated that my mother married one. Even my own grandparents resented my mother for it. I witnessed a lady losing her shit in public because her daughter was going out with a black guy and she refused to go home. She was saying some very racist shit and it's a good thing by friend didn't really understand Japanese although it wasn't too difficult to get the general gist anyways.
Thank you for this insightful story.
News media definitely has played a bad role. There's plenty of jobs to do as tourism booms. Plenty of work at airports etc. They desperately NEED workers so there's money to go around. When I check jobs around, I find plenty. I remember one that was cleaning swimming pools in a luxury resort in Okinawa for 1500 yen/hour. It's not a HIGH paying job but it's not the bottom end either (especially in Okinawa where the minimum wage is about 1000 yen/hour).
Tourism will definitely bring a bit of annoyance but Japan desperately needs it to stay afloat among the weak yen and the population crisis.
So move your ass Japan and deal with it. Find solutions. And no, charging tourists more at restaurants is foolish and unwelcoming. If you really need to do that, have discounts for the locals of the city (not nationals, the people living in the same town as the restaurant) for example.
Put in place a small tax on arrivals or exits. like 2 or 3000 yen per person. It will bring more foreign currency in.
Japan should have dustbins everywhere. Now these are rare in Japan. Why????
Because of one incident 20 or so years ago where some mentalist put sarin gas bombs in the dustbins and now they're too afraid to have them again.
listen, i'm a weeb for my bokken, my vintage japanese motorcycle, and mecha.
I don't want to sully that fine fine country with my fat headed presence.
bless you
Bless you, Man
I have been to Japan 4 times now and have on experienced racism twice. They were just a couple small incidents that I think of every once and a while.
I am looking forward to visit #5. Hopefully no one will "Jonni Somalli" a situation there and ruin the fun.
I think Japanese also feel very sad about the weak yen, but as a foreigner living in Japan with friends in America I can say that the cost of living seems much better in Japan than in America. Even though my Japan salary is extremely low compared to my friends' American salaries, the cost of food, groceries, rent, etc. is soo high over there that they need to be making 90k USD to maintain a similar lifestyle to people making 400 to 500 man en over here.
The problem is people just look at the exchange rate, but the true indicator of good/bad economy is a factor of comparing peoples average income vs their average expenses, and when you factor that in I think Japan is not in such a bad position.
Good point
The cheap yen is benefitting Japan's economy overall, but it is favoring large international businesses that sell overseas and local businesses that cater to tourists.
Unfortunately the benefits are not being spread to other workers and that is a shame.