00:00:00 John Daub: This is a pretty chilly January afternoon here in Tokyo and I'm walking through Ningyocho, one of my favorite really quiet, cute neighborhoods in the city. This here is a really famous restaurant. You can see everybody lining up for it. This restaurant is where oyakodon (chicken and egg rice bowl), a very famous dish in Japan, was born. People are lining up like an hour before it opens. It's hundreds of years old. This is why I love this town. It's got so much personality.

00:35:00 John Daub: All right, let's go take a look at the oyakodon and then I'm gonna take you to meet Hana, a really inspirational young lady I want to introduce you to. Oh wow, this is the menu. That's oyakodon. It's kind of pricey, but oyakodon was born at this restaurant. Not open just yet. Okay, so Hana I believe is just waiting across the street. Oh, it's a red light. Green light. I can make this. I can't make this. That guy shouldn't have made it either. Never cross on a red light, mister. Jaywalker. Okay, so I'm gonna introduce you to Hana. We're gonna get some amazake (sweet non-alcoholic sake drink). I'm gonna take you through this area in Ningyocho. There's the station right there. Hana told me that if we ask her really nicely, she's gonna sing a song for us and that's gonna be pretty cool. I want her to start this new year off, 2018, with a positive message. I'm lucky enough to know a lot of really amazing people here in Tokyo. She's one of them, but I just have to get through this traffic first. There is a lot of Tokyo traffic today.

02:11:00 John Daub: This is Amazake-Yokocho (Amazake Alley), a very famous area of the city. Thank you, Brian. You're gonna love Tokyo. You're gonna love Japan in seven days from now. Hopefully it's a little bit warmer. Yeah, the weather got really cold recently, but it's winter so it's supposed to be like this. Boom. Amazake-Yokocho. Amazake is a really delicious hot drink that's the base of what sake is, without the alcohol. So if you don't like alcohol, amazake is definitely something you can enjoy that has really strong Japanese roots.

03:20:00 John Daub: Alright, Hana! There you are! I was looking for you!

03:26:00 John Daub: Hana! You've got warmer hands than me!

03:31:00 Hana: Yes, I do!

03:32:00 John Daub: So you're Hana.

03:33:00 Hana: Yes!

03:34:00 John Daub: And I know your mom. That's how I know you. She's 19 years old. Have you been here before?

03:44:00 Hana: I have not. I mean, obviously I've been to Tokyo, but not this area.

03:50:00 John Daub: A first-timer! Okay, so I want to show you one thing. Usually there's a really long line. This is the famous Ningyo-yaki (doll-shaped cakes). You know Ningyo-yaki?

04:00:00 Hana: Yes, I've heard of it.

04:01:00 John Daub: This shop is really old, and it's the most famous Ningyo-yaki shop. Right now, I guess they just opened. They don't have any yet, but usually there's a line out the door. Oh, they're buttering it right now. It's too early, but they make these confections in the shape of dolls, in the shape of people. You see that? It has black bean paste in it. These are Ningyo-yaki. This is one of the most famous shops in Japan for it. They make it in the shape of characters. These are not the Seven Dwarves, just saying.

04:47:00 John Daub: Okay, so we're gonna walk through Ningyocho. There you go. This is the subway. It's on the Hibiya Line. On the way there, let's get a cup of amazake, okay?

05:01:00 Hana: Yes, I'm so excited.

05:02:00 John Daub: Yeah. She's 19, so... Oh, and you can drink in one year!

05:11:00 Hana: Yes, I can!

05:12:00 John Daub: You're just not now. Not on camera.

05:15:00 Hana: Not now. Not on camera.

05:20:00 John Daub: I can smell the green tea. It's being roasted right on the street. I love this shop because you can see the green tea smoke.

05:34:00 Hana: Yeah.

05:35:00 John Daub: Oh, I'm scared. I've never seen it, but it smells amazing. It does smell awesome. They're roasting the green tea right now from this machine that looks like it came from the 1960s. It's very psychedelic, but the smell is so good. This is one of the famous shops in Ningyocho, my favorite amazake place. They make tonyu (soy milk) donuts.

06:06:00 John Daub: Two amazake, please. They make awesome tonyu donuts.

06:14:00 Hana: Hello. Hi.

06:18:00 John Daub: Actually, you want to get some tonyu donuts?

06:29:00 Hana: Yeah, I would love to.

06:30:00 John Daub: Tonyu donuts. We're getting them. This is paid for by you from the super chats. Thank you, Leo, Masako, Garcia, Rabid, Rybird2010. I gave Hana a thousand yen before. She's not paying. This is amazake in the packages. Thank you, Jim.

07:20:00 John Daub: It looks like it's going to snow now.

07:21:00 Hana: Yeah.

07:23:00 John Daub: Will it snow today?

07:25:00 Hana: It's not going to snow.

07:25:00 John Daub: No snow today?

07:27:00 Hana: No snow today.

07:30:00 John Daub: It comes out from nowhere, though. The snow is up there, but the background looks like it's going to fall.

07:34:00 Hana: Yes.

07:39:00 John Daub: Thank you very much.

07:41:00 Hana: Here you go. Thank you.

07:43:00 John Daub: Oh! My hand is so cold. Oh, it looks so good. Thank you very much!

07:48:00 Hana: Thank you!

17:56:00 John Daub: Awesome! This is gonna be really cool!

17:58:00 Hana: Yeah!

17:59:00 Hana: So yeah, I was in band and I originally was playing drum set, so then we had a jazz band, we had another band like senior band, rock band, and I also did soccer there.

18:09:00 John Daub: Band camp? Did you have a band camp?

18:14:00 Hana: Not really, but we had little performances in the school, which was really good, and so they really encouraged extracurricular activities. And I took the IB, which was a very difficult curriculum that I had to go through.

18:25:00 John Daub: Cool!

18:31:00 Hana: Yeah, so it was really fun.

18:35:00 John Daub: So, I have to ask, will you sing us a song?

18:39:00 Hana: I'm so nervous though!

18:43:00 John Daub: What I like about—what are some of the messages that you like to say in your music? I'm gonna turn the camera.

18:51:00 Hana: You can give me—those are my donuts, by the way, give me my donuts.

18:53:00 John Daub: We'll eat these later.

18:57:00 Hana: Oh well, so okay. So, the first song I want to sing for you guys is—it's in Japanese, unfortunately, so I'll explain what it's about. It's basically, while I was writing it, I was thinking about what I wanted to remind myself of doing every day, like when I wake up, how do I wanna motivate myself. And I thought about things like the importance of family and friends, and also being positive, and not letting busyness and schoolwork overwhelm you too much. It's so easy to get drained with all the work, pressure, and stress, but this song I just tried to fill with hope. And the title is Korekara mo, which means "now and forever." You keep it in your heart now and take it with you forever.

20:00:00 John Daub: When I was talking to Hana before, she told me about—I knew her music because her mom shared it with me and I was like, well this is pretty good, but I think it's the message. I definitely wanted to start this year off with this kind of a message, and that's why Hana's here to share that with you on this really uplifting livestream. I do feel the pressure, all the stress all the time, and sometimes it's good to take a step back, relax, and say yeah, it's not that bad. Life is once, people, so you have to enjoy it. It's all part of life—the positivity and happiness comes from all of that together.

20:52:00 John Daub: That's true, so how does a 19-year-old know so much about this, huh? I'm 44, but how do you know it? What kind of pressure do you have, besides me pushing this into your face?

21:07:00 Hana: My mom raised me well, thank you mom.

21:09:00 John Daub: Yes, her mom is very nice. She does raise her well. My idea is that even if one person is inspired or positively influenced, then that's worth it and that's everything to me. Even one person.

21:33:00 John Daub: And I'm gonna dedicate this livestream to Gretchen. Gretchen is someone who watches the Only in Japan series from Arizona and she's had a really tough Christmas. She sent me some messages and I read your messages. Things are really tough for you now, Gretchen, but just hang in there and stay positive. Think about it—I got a present from my nieces. Thank you to Koli and Lila. I wanna say to Gretchen, stay positive. Things are really tough, but that's when you have to be the most positive. This song is dedicated to Gretchen today.

22:33:00 John Daub: While Hana sets up, I'm in front of this really cool statue. I don't know what it is—there's a sign, but I couldn't read it. So I'm gonna say this guy is an actor. He looks very serious. What do you think?

22:55:00 Hana: Actor?

22:57:00 John Daub: Yeah, I thought so too. I'm gonna whisper so it looks like we're going undercover. Can you hear me? Are you almost ready?

23:14:00 Hana: Okay, alright.

23:14:00 John Daub: Are you gonna stand or sit for this? Is this a song that someone could dance to?

23:22:00 Hana: Not really. Oh, you could.

23:24:00 John Daub: Somebody give me a super chat to dance. You can't dance to inspirational songs. Could you slow dance to this song?

23:35:00 Hana: Yes.

23:37:00 John Daub: Alright, you could slow dance to it. I'm gonna use this statue—there's my partner. Anything's possible. I just had a cup of amazake. There was booze in that, right? No? Tell us before you start a little bit about this song.

23:51:00 Hana: Okay, so I wrote it last year. It took me like six months from the moment I started writing it to the moment I finished the video. I had written a couple songs before that, but this song I really felt proud of.

24:11:00 John Daub: Hold on, cute dog alert.

24:23:00 Hana: I was inspired by the dog. Yeah, so then I wrote—I spent a lot of time to think about. I really thought about myself because I don't know what other people like, and I can never predict what other people want. So I just thought about what I wanted to hear, and I put that in a song, and I'm really proud of it. I actually haven't sung in front of too many people before.

24:56:00 John Daub: Oh, no one's watching this livestream. There's nobody watching, so okay.

25:02:00 Hana: Alright, oh so you're gonna stand?

25:04:00 John Daub: Yes, I'm gonna stand. Should I sit or stand? Up to you. Whatever you'd like to do.

25:17:00 Hana: I think I'm gonna stand.

25:20:00 John Daub: Okay cool. I'm gonna put the donuts there. Open up. Are you okay? You're not shy, 'cause there's actually people around.

25:28:00 Hana: No, it's fine.

25:33:00 John Daub: Okay, we do have a dancer over here.

25:36:00 Passerby: Oh hello.

25:40:00 John Daub: Yeah, she's gonna sing a song.

25:43:00 Passerby: Yeah, so where'd you come from?

25:46:00 Hana: I'm from Yokohama, but I'm American, not Japanese.

25:48:00 John Daub: Oh really. She's gonna sing a Japanese song.

25:51:00 Passerby: Oh really. When did you start our performance here?

25:56:00 Hana: Oh just like last year. I have a couple videos on YouTube, but that's it.

26:03:00 John Daub: YouTube or SNS. Her channel is Hana Victoria.

26:12:00 Passerby: Nice to meet you too. Hana Victoria. Do you live here in Hamacho?

26:23:00 Hana: No, it's a little bit not so far from here, but I live in the other part—you know, our Ishikawa Island.

26:33:00 John Daub: Ishikawa Island? Wow. Really? Ishikawa, is that like in Kanazawa?

26:48:00 Passerby: No, no, no, it's totally different. In Tokyo. It takes about 10 or 20 minutes by walk.

27:05:00 John Daub: You walk to your island home? Cool.

27:09:00 Passerby: I don't know why cool.

27:13:00 John Daub: Are you friends?

27:14:00 Passerby: Yeah, we're friends. I'm from the United States but I live here in Tokyo for many years. And Hana in Edogawa Ward.

27:21:00 Hana: Edogawa.

27:26:00 Passerby: I've never been there.

27:30:00 John Daub: You should go there. It is the best ward in Tokyo. Edogawa number one.

27:37:00 Passerby: Number one.

27:38:00 John Daub: Absolutely. This is Chiyoda? Chiyoda is a close second. Well, how do you speak English so well?

27:45:00 Passerby: Really? You flatter me.

27:47:00 John Daub: No, this is no oseiji (flattery), my friend. This is true stuff. American joke or something like that?

27:56:00 Passerby: Yeah, I have a joke to tell everybody. It's a big person to me.

28:01:00 John Daub: Oh really? I'd like to tell a stand-up joke right now. Your English is really good.

28:07:00 Passerby: Really? This is not a joke, it's true. English is about being understood, and I can understand you. But accent is a little bit different.

28:23:00 John Daub: Your accent is who you are. Without the accent you'd be like me—you don't want to be like me, you want to be you. Your accent is what makes you you. Keep your accent. You're in like the top 1% of English speakers in Japan. This is no BS. Actually, two weeks ago I came back from Germany. You speak German too?

28:48:00 Passerby: Yeah.

28:55:00 John Daub: Wow, you speak German? My last name is German, Daub.

29:00:00 Passerby: German Daub? Yeah, he's German. So do you speak German?

29:08:00 John Daub: I speak German. I like a jelly donut. John F. Kennedy said that in a speech once.

29:16:00 Passerby: I'm so sorry for interrupting you.

29:18:00 John Daub: Not at all. We love it. If you want you can stay, she's going to sing. You have an audience now.

29:26:00 Passerby: I have an audience now.

29:31:00 John Daub: She wrote this song. It's called Korekara mo. Original.

29:41:00 Passerby: Cool, thank you.

29:43:00 John Daub: And this guy in the background is going to dance. He's going to start moving, come to life and attack us like a movie. Without further ado, this is Hana Victoria from the YouTube channel Hana Victoria singing a very inspirational song which will set the tone for 2018. Don't worry about the stress in your life, relax and enjoy.

33:56:00 Hana: Awesome.

33:58:00 John Daub: What's that supposed to do when you're in a crowd? I'm in a crowd. Clapping. I can't clap and hold it.

35:06:00 John Daub: I'm sorry, so it could have been—it might have been me making her laugh. I apologize. You forgot the words. It might have been my fault. I tend to make unusual faces. It wasn't me, it was Bean. I have Mr. Bean in my pocket. My nieces gave it to me as a Christmas present. Good job. So how did you—tell us a little bit about the words of the song. What does it mean?

35:47:00 Hana: The words of the song—okay, so it's about—it's not about the dream itself, it's about the journey, the tears that you shed, it's about the pain. Because without the pain there's no happiness—they come together. So it's about perception, it's about perspective, like embracing your mistakes and embracing the hardships because they're just a part of you and inseparable from you. So you just have to embrace it and live with it.

36:24:00 John Daub: I love that message. It's amazing that it's coming from someone who's 19. As ZQ said, 19 years old, right? So she sang something so deep, coming from someone who needs a lot of life experience to really feel those words, and yet Hana is 19 but can sing it quite well. Very impressive. And this is your guitar?

36:52:00 Hana: Yes it is.

36:55:00 John Daub: Wow it looks real. I don't have a guitar. It's really nice. I got it like 5 years ago. It's got its own little speaker thing. You can connect it to an amplifier. We should have plugged it in somewhere. Why here?

37:17:00 Hana: Because this is between where we live. I live in Edogawa, she lives down in Yokohama. We met in the middle. And I wanted to drink amazake and get tonyu donuts.

37:30:00 John Daub: Amazake-yokocho. We got some tonyu donuts. They're very good.

37:46:00 Hana: Would you like a donut?

37:49:00 Passerby: Yeah, would you want a donut?

37:50:00 John Daub: You want a donut? Okay, thanks. I'm Phil? Oh okay, yeah we have 3 of them. These are made with soy milk. These are vegan.

38:07:00 Passerby: Are you an Instagramer?

38:11:00 John Daub: Instagramers? I'm a YouTuber and she's—I'm an international man of mystery, but I dabble in reporting. You're an Instagramer, so please follow me. What's your Instagram?

38:38:00 Passerby: Yeah, what's your Instagram? Share it with the world.

38:45:00 John Daub: It's great that we met you. What's your name?

38:48:00 Passerby: Longtail.

38:50:00 John Daub: Awesome. Nice to meet you, Longtail. My name is Don Bond? Crazy Longtail? Longtail literally means the owner of this land in old Japanese. Wow, my name is landowner.

39:52:00 Passerby: Wow, awesome. So what do you have on your Instagram? What do you take pictures of?

40:08:00 John Daub: Which one was yours? Oh shoot, mine got spilled. My Instagram ID.

40:34:00 Passerby: So nice to meet you.

40:42:00 John Daub: Have a nice day, bye bye.

40:43:00 Passerby: Bye bye.

40:51:00 John Daub: That's nice, you know, I like it how just people will talk to you on the street. His English is really good. It's better than my English. Me too. I like it when people have accents. In Japan people don't want to have accents, they want to speak perfectly and that's the wrong way. You want the accent, trust me—it's much cooler. I'm starting to get a Canadian accent, like when I say about. Eh? If you want to do a Canadian accent, you just speak like an American and say eh.

41:32:00 Hana: Yeah, I can drink over there, 18 years old. Mom, don't watch this stream right now.

41:43:00 John Daub: Well thank you for that message. Do you have any questions for Hana about international schools or life in general?

41:56:00 Hana: I went to Indian school. This is really cool, and you've been to India before too. I have for two weeks when I was like 12 years old and it was super culture shock, but it was amazing. I went with my brother and our class—basically an exchange program. My image is international school in India is like Indian international school in Japan. It must be really competitive and really hard. The mathematics was very challenging. You know the Indian people invented the zero. Half of me is very proud of it because I'm half Indian.

42:40:00 John Daub: So you're half Indian. That half is very proud that we invented the zero. Important digit. But anyways, it was a very small school. My class only had like five people. You were the only Japanese and there were four Indians?

42:56:00 Hana: Actually there were three Japanese and one Indian person and one Bangladeshi who could speak fluent Japanese. It was a very interesting mix. Impossible for us not to get close like family. We would play soccer every day after school and my teachers would share their Indian lunches with me. It tastes so good—it's like homemade curry.

43:26:00 John Daub: Oh gosh, yeah, I could eat curry for lunch, breakfast and dinner. Speaking of a zero, would you like the last donut?

43:33:00 Hana: Maybe later.

43:34:00 John Daub: Sharing is caring. Who gets the bigger piece? This is the way the new year is going to work everybody—everybody gets a piece. Enjoy it. Can you taste it? Nice close up. Yeah I like that. I like opening up with a message of positivity.

44:01:00 John Daub: So you're normally a very positive person.

44:03:00 Hana: I try to be. My mom is a very positive person, so she inspires me to be positive.

44:11:00 John Daub: Yes she is. My dream one day is to inspire your mom to be over-the-top positive so she's impressed. Because her mom is so positive—it's like stratosphere. I want to go in the upper stratosphere. No I'm going to space. Alright, that's not a good thing because then I'll just eventually drift away. That would be my goal for this year—be very positive. At the end of last year I had a lot of challenges and a very stressful time. It was hard to stay positive but somehow. I think when I get angry or upset, I get upset for about 5 seconds and it just melts away. Nothing is really that important that it wrecks your health or you hold it inside—doesn't help you find a solution either. You need a clear mind and good attitude to see things clearly, find solutions. That's been my experience, but it's just amazing that a 19-year-old girl with a guitar can give you that message as well on a really cold day sharing donuts and singing songs about hope.

45:45:00 John Daub: Do you also have other—I'm eating the soy milk donut. You have other songs on your YouTube channel. How do you come up with the lyrics and the songs? Where does that come from?

46:02:00 Hana: So it's interesting because to me music is self-expression, but also it's my form of a diary. So yeah, it's basically something that I'm always doing because I need to do it to get it out of my system and it's something that helps me be reflective of experiences and myself and understand myself. Anything that I'm thinking—like if I watch a video and there's a theme that inspires me, then I would try to think of how it applies to my life and think about my past and how this might be relatable to multiple people and just make it my own, create something.

46:55:00 John Daub: I love that idea of creating something from zero—which the Indian people invented. With YouTube it's the same with what I do. It's an outlet for you, right? The music is so amazing how it's self-expression but it can be shared. Through the video I also try to create something visual that relates to the music and the song and the lyrics. You were out in the forest for one music video.

47:38:00 Hana: Wait, was someone filming you or?

47:45:00 John Daub: No I just went down there by myself. Oh I hope that's not that forest—the Logan guy, YouTube controversial stuff. This is a message of positivity, what am I talking about. Okay so it was a forest in Yokohama in Kamakura because apparently I live in Kamakura. There actually is a bamboo forest like five minutes from my house. I was just thinking I wanted to incorporate something Japanese into the song because of the Japanese lyrics. I was born and raised in Japan, so I went down there and the light was just perfect and I just stuck my camera in like a bamboo shoot.

48:32:00 John Daub: That was well shot. Definitely check it out on her channel. I'll see if I can put a little link here. Check it out, that's awesome. And you're going back to Montreal. What college did you go to?

48:46:00 Hana: McGill. Yeah yeah, it's like right downtown in the center of Montreal.

48:56:00 John Daub: But you also have roots in Hawaii, right?

49:00:00 Hana: Yes, because my mom was raised in Hawaii until she left for college.

49:08:00 John Daub: Though like you could have chose a nice warm welcoming place like Hawaii to go to school, but yet you picked frigid frozen tundra Montreal—which is a beautiful city. It's such a beautiful city and I really wanted to get out of Japan. As much as I love Japan, it's a place of comfort for me. Comfort is good, but you need discomfort to grow.

49:39:00 Hana: That's nice to hear somebody else say that.

49:42:00 John Daub: It's when you get out of your comfort zone, in situations of challenge, that you start to grow because you learn from those mistakes. If you're always in tepid warm water you never learn, you never grow. I throw myself in those situations all the time, which is why I'm as messed up as I am. I remember I did this thing called TED Talk a few years ago—not the main one but the other—and to be on stage with hundreds of people was really nerve-wracking. My friend said somebody just cancelled, would you come in and give a talk. I was scared to death and yet I did it, and from that I had more confidence to do these livestreams. I'm actually a shy person, a private person. In general though, it's when you leave your comfort zone or when challenging unplanned things happen—those are the moments when you grow and look back like oh, that's how it helped me. You did it, you got through it, and then you can get through even harder situations.

51:07:00 Hana: Yeah that's why I started a second channel because I had one channel that did okay and if I did it before I can do it again.

51:22:00 John Daub: But thank you so much for joining us on this livestream. I'd like you to check out her channel—she's new to YouTube, very new. We have three videos up. That's all you need—better than two, a lot better than one, definitely better than zero. Hana has a really positive vibe, very positive message, and I think we need more of that in our lives. It's good that we can do it even if it's from Tokyo and you're watching in America—it's a positive message from around the world. Thank you so much, thank you all for joining us. Thank you Hana.

52:01:00 Hana: Can you do a riff or something? Like a riff—heavy metal stuff and then they kick the air? No you don't do that.

52:08:00 John Daub: Sorry so I'll do a riff for you. Alright thanks everybody from Tokyo. This is John. This is Hana, see everybody. I'm gonna give you the last 20 seconds—enjoy a nice static picture of a statue. This is her background dancer.

52:32:00 Hana: You should have listened to the lyrics of the song my friend.

52:39:00 John Daub: Bye.