00:00:00 John Daub: Hey everybody, I'm back for another live stream, and in this live stream I wanted to talk about the knife laws here in Japan. A lot of travelers from abroad will come, especially backpackers like me when I was a backpacker about 10-15 years ago. I always carried a pocket knife, especially if I was on a long 6 or 9 month backpacking trip. It's just one of those indispensable things that you have in your backpack that you use whether it's to cut a loaf of bread and butter it when you're sitting in the middle of a forest after buying it from a French supermarket or something like that. It also has a screwdriver and a corkscrew.

00:00:39 John Daub: But I was looking on the internet and I'm going to link to this article about a tourist that was stopped by the police and asked if he had a pocket knife, and he ended up spending 9 days in jail because he didn't know about the law. And you should know the law, and I'm going to explain that to you right now. Once again, this is from the Japan Times. It's listed at 2009, but with more and more tourists coming to Japan, I think it's something that you should know. So what I have here set up is my knife. I was stopped by the police last year and they talked about this with me, so I set up this system and I'm going to explain all this to you.

00:01:20 John Daub: Now I have a pocket knife here with me, but it has a screwdriver. It actually is okay according to the law. And here it is right here. And I always make sure the knife is in a case. I took it out for the thumbnail picture, but whenever I carry a knife in Japan, if I ever carry a knife, it's always in a case and put away and it's always locked up. Knife laws in Japan are extremely strict and it may be different than the one in your own country. Now this is a run-of-the-mill pocket knife, and if the police stopped you, you might get in trouble for this.

00:01:53 John Daub: But the police comply to the law because in Japan a knife is a dangerous weapon. Boy, that is kind of noisy behind me. They're setting up for a festival in this area. Not a great place for a live stream. But a knife is considered a dangerous weapon. And if you've seen the news in Japan over the last few years, the biggest mass casualty murders have happened because of knives, because people have gone on mass stabbing sprees. So to Japanese police, a knife is a knife. It's a deadly weapon here in this country. They don't have guns; they got knives. It's a knife problem. And it is a culture with swords, right? The samurai had to check those in when the samurai were ended at the beginning of the Meiji era, which was like 150 years ago.

00:02:44 John Daub: So let me go back to this knife now that the construction has stopped nearby. Now what the law is according to the internet, and it's very conflicting. If you look at the internet, you're going to find a lot of different information. Is it 6 centimeters? Is it 9 centimeters? Is it 8 centimeters? You know, 2.7 inches? 3.8 inches? Here's the pic; I took a picture of it. Alright, according to Google, in Japan any fixed knife containing a blade length of 15 centimeters or more requires permission from the prefectural safety commission, like the state has to say that it's okay to carry any knife over 15 centimeters. That's like what, 6 inches? All knives with a blade over 8 centimeters are prohibited from being carried at all under a crime law.

00:03:27 John Daub: So if your knife is over 8 centimeters or like 3 inches, yeah, you're breaking the law with the exception of carrying for duty or for justifiable reasons. And if you're walking around the city of Tokyo, there's no justifiable reason whatsoever to carry a knife. And it seems pretty crazy, but if you're a backpacker and you've just arrived into Tokyo, you don't want to be carrying a knife. Alright? Don't do it. So basically what I'm telling you is if you're making a trip and you're going to Tokyo, don't bring this at all. Don't bring this to Japan. Leave it at home; you don't need it. If you're coming here for a couple of weeks, you might need it. Just leave it at home. It's only going to cause you trouble, okay?

00:04:19 John Daub: Although the wine is good; you can just buy a corkscrew at the 100 yen shop. You can buy a pair of scissors. Just don't bring the knife, even though this complies with the law. And I'm going to show you right here. That's what this tape measure is here for. Okay, technically I'm not breaking the law. They said on the internet it's good for 6 centimeters. Here's centimeters. So 1, 2, 3. The blade itself is 6 centimeters. So this is okay. But I still would not want to carry it around Japan. It's too much of a risk to carry it around Tokyo.

00:05:08 John Daub: So what I do is I leave this knife put away, and if the police do stop me, it's away. And I say I do carry a knife; it's for in case I have a problem with my camera equipment. It's locked away. It's justifiable. It's all put away. Nobody can get to it. I don't have any intention of using it there. It's done. So for the police, that might be enough. Alright. But I'm telling you right now, it's not worth the hassle to carry a knife in the city of Tokyo.

00:05:44 John Daub: If you buy a knife, this is also interesting. If you buy a knife, usually the knife shop will wrap it up really nicely, and you can carry that to your hotel. Put it in your suitcase and don't take it out. Don't take out your knife at all until you get home. If you check it in, don't carry on knives; you have to check it in. And even then, you might want to tell the airline that you have a knife in your checked-in luggage just so it doesn't get stopped or flagged. I'm telling you from experience that letting people know in advance is often the best policy.

00:06:20 John Daub: But after reading the article of a police officer, this is the situation how it went. The police officer stopped and asked the tourist who was asking where to, how to get to Kinokuniya, which is like a bookstore. And the police then asked him, and they've asked me before: are you carrying a knife? And he said yes, and he took it out. And the police arrested him, and apparently he was locked up for nine days. And this is sort of the thing. You don't have to agree with the rule. You don't have to agree with the law. But it's the law. And that's the thing that's so important when you come and travel to a different country.

00:06:55 John Daub: Even though Japan is the safest country in the world, it's the safest country in the world for a reason. The laws are extremely strict. And if you do come to Japan, you should know what the laws are that keep the citizens here safe. And the knife laws are one of the big ones. People don't carry knives like pocket knives in Tokyo, even little teeny ones, utility knives. Just no situation in the city of Tokyo that would require it. I'm going to repeat myself a couple of times because I don't want to see anybody get in trouble. Because there's a lot of backpackers who do; they're in Tokyo right now and they got knives.

00:07:30 John Daub: What about katanas? Swords are absolutely restricted. Don't carry them around the city. If you buy a sword, it's okay; you have a receipt. First of all, most swords are not real. They're not real swords. They could probably kill someone if you did, but they're not really sharp swords, the ones that are sold in the city as tourist items for $100 or less. Unless you pay over a couple thousand US dollars, it's not a real sword. It's a tourist thing. You have to carry the receipt for that, and you want to just put that away, leave it in your hotel. Don't put it in a special bag. And if the police do stop you, you have cause for saying that it's just something that you bought and you had no intention of using it.

00:08:18 John Daub: Once again, it's about according to the law that I showed you at the beginning. You have a justifiable reason for having it. It's a tourist item that you're taking back. If it's a real sword that you paid thousands and thousands of dollars for, that comes with a certificate, and you have to get permission by the government before you buy it. Alright? So you can't just go and buy a real Japanese sword. These katana, they have to be documented by the government, by the country of Japan. So before you can take that, because the steel that they use is actually very regulated here in Japan. You have to notify the government that you are taking that steel out of the country. And without it, you're breaking the law.

00:09:04 John Daub: You know, it's all about getting caught. If you're not caught, then you don't get in trouble. But as more and more tourists come to Tokyo, and I'm talking like we're going to have 40 million tourists, and about 7 years ago we had under 10 million, we had like 3 million. Japan wasn't even in the top 50 for tourist destinations. Now it's in the top 10. So this has created a lot of stress with situations where police are stopping more foreigners just because there's more of them. And if you do get stopped by the police, always be honest. I found don't try to deceive them, because they might know something that you don't know about what you're carrying. For example, honesty is always the best policy with the Japanese police. They know, at least my experience. They know in advance before they ask you the questions. And honesty shows that you're a reputable person. Okay. Don't lie. Don't ever lie to the police in Japan.

00:09:57 John Daub: This is a story that I want to end with. Yeah, and I'm getting comments. That's crazy. I don't go anywhere without my Leatherman. You can go places. Just don't walk the streets of Tokyo with a knife, especially if it's over 6 centimeters. If it's under 6 centimeters, they might get very angry and tell you to put it away and leave it at your hotel and never bring it out again. But they'll probably write down your information, and if you get caught again, then you're going to jail. And jail in Japan stinks, because you can just rot there for two weeks without reason. I think it's like 48 hours you can be held without cause in the United States or something. In Japan it's like two weeks. You don't want to be held for suspicion of anything in Japan. You don't want to be under suspicion. You want to be a stand-up guy. Okay. Don't bring your knife.

00:10:48 John Daub: I'm reading the comments here; it's kind of funny. Irish: I restricted myself from carrying my Swiss knife, not worth the trouble or the hassle. Exactly. It's just not worth it. You're not going to use it enough to make it worth the possibility, the risk of being stopped by the police for whatever reason. And police do stop you; they will stop you to talk to you, and then they'll ask you questions. Just the laws are different here. It's a safe country, but it's also a country of laws. Very much so. And I respect those laws. And that's why I carry knives; I put them away.

00:11:22 John Daub: Now my story before I get too much. Last year when I was hitchhiking, I was in a place called Iwakuni. Iwakuni is a beautiful city near Hiroshima that's famous for a bridge, Kintaikyō (Kintai Bridge). It has three beautiful arches. And I had a drone but I wasn't allowed to use it there, so I carried it with me and then I put it down one place to take some pictures and left the drone there. And then when I came back, the drone was gone. And I left it there for an hour. And I didn't really freak out. I knew that nobody really stole it. Well, there's always the possibility of it. But somebody had turned it into the police, and I went to the police station and there it was. It had the address of the man who returned my drone, and I sent him a gift when I got to Hokkaido and said thank you very much for returning the drone. The policeman said that he returned it; he didn't want any reward, but here's his address in case you want to give him a gift. And I did.

00:12:20 John Daub: Alright, with that said, the police also said one thing to me. Inside my drone case I had a razor knife, one of these little things that you use to cut paper. And I used this specifically to get the SD card out of the drone or to kind of smooth out the wings of the drone in case they get damaged, to cut down on any kind of drag or wind resistance. And I've used it a couple of times responsibly. But the blade itself was over 6 centimeters, even though it's retracted and put away in the case, and I had justifiable reasons for it. The police officer told me it's illegal. Throw it away. Get rid of it. Don't carry it with you in your drone thing. He gave me a warning because he knew I didn't have it for bad reasons. But you can't assume that people are carrying knives for anything but bad reasons in Japan. You're basically, if you carry a knife, you're guilty until proven innocent. And this isn't the United States where you're innocent until proven guilty.

00:13:19 John Daub: Where in some cases we've seen in the United States it doesn't always work out like that either. But in Japan, if you carry a knife over the legal limit, you're going to get in trouble if you get caught. So just don't carry it. And that's the only message that I have. It's raining here, so I'm going to get out of the rain. I'm doing a live stream every single day, so this is one that I've wanted to do for a while. And this is one I think that a lot of people that are backpacking are going to be affected by this, and I'm sure it's going to help them. Very, very important.

00:13:49 John Daub: Very delicious water, Mirai's from Tottori Prefecture. My friend Dean sent me a case of this. Super good. Drink Mirai's. Drink the future. I'm not really plugging it, but I sort of am because I like Dean, and I like Mirai's water. We're still kind of under the influence of a typhoon. If you saw the live stream yesterday at sunset, we had a beautiful sunset, by the way. We were affected by the typhoon. There's a typhoon sort of raining right now. There's high winds. But I walked over to this neighborhood. I really love it. It's called Tsukuda. Let me show it to you right here. This is a Tsukuda bridge that goes through the center of it. And over there on the other side, this is where the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu used to get some of his fish. And this island, Tsukuda, it's a man-made island separated from the rest of the city. And it was actually founded by people from Osaka, fishermen from Osaka. And they would come over to the island to fish, and they would fish by ferry going across. And I'll give you some more of the history of this island. It's pretty cool. But this island now is where a lot of celebrities live up there in these really expensive mansions. It's on a corner; I guess it looks like Manhattan, and it has a beautiful view of the river from up there. I wish I lived up there, but I don't. I don't have that kind of cash.

00:15:09 John Daub: It's raining here in the center of this little area. It's a floating garden, and you can see it's sort of floating back and forth through the wind as the rain comes down, just ever so lightly. Yeah. So that's all I have to say. Don't bring your knife to Japan, no matter how big or how small you think it is; you just won't need it. Any questions? Yeah, you can hit the like button if you want. Don't smash it; just hit it lightly. I really appreciate all the likes. It helps to get the word out there. So a little bit of Q&A before I go back.

00:15:50 John Daub: It seems like a lot of rain in Japan. This is the rainy season. The rainy season goes from, I'd say, around June 10th to about July 20th to 25th, and it rains almost every day. We had some good weather in between. Five meters without a 7-Eleven is even in Tokyo. When they said meters, I thought it was a knife question. Ask questions, guys. Hello Kitty Shinkansen. I'm not really interested in that, John. I'm a guy. I'm not going to travel all the way to Kyushu, which is like a two-hour train ride. Hold on a second. I got the new wide-angle lens. I'm not going to travel two or three hours on a Shinkansen to ride another Shinkansen that has a kitty on it. That's not what I do here. Although it's crazy enough where I might do it. Well, wait until you have kids. Yeah, I know, right?

00:16:49 John Daub: What's the best month to visit Japan? May. May and October, I would say. May, September, October. Those are the three best times. What are the plans for the main channel this month? The next episode is kind of interesting. I was invited to go to a male-only traditional capsule hotel. There's not that many around anymore, but this place still takes men only, and it's still mostly only Japanese. And I wanted to preserve this kind of culture, this sort of boys club type of thing. And I know I might get in trouble because it's the Me Too period where, well, you know all the politics behind that. I'm not getting into that, but in Japan there still exist these places that are men's only. And I want to get behind the reasons of why and what's it like, and is that the traditional Japanese experience? And how is it changing, this kind of stuff? I don't get into politics too much, but that's going to be the next episode. I also have one on Japanese candy. I have one on some temples that I did in Kyoto. And I have a couple that I just made inquiries to some big corporations to show you some unique things about Japan. So we got some really amazing topics, topics that other YouTubers are going to be chasing after I introduce them. So I kind of like that. I like to look for original stories. And I'm not a vlogger on the main channel. These are all stories, okay? It's not about me; it's about the stories. Here it's more about ideas that I think I want to share with you, but I can't because the format for the main channel is only twice a month. And here I can do it like every day.

00:18:33 John Daub: Are capsule hotels dying or just the men's only ones? That's a very interesting question. This is bimbim2121. Japanese capsule hotels, okay, to Japanese they're dying. They don't stay; there's something called business hotels that have come up. They're about 5,000 yen a night. Apo Hotel is one of the chains, for example. They're about 5,800 yen a night. And this is where most people are staying, businessmen and stuff and budget-minded tourists. But capsule hotels are still alive because of the tourists. Because the tourists are so curious about the capsule hotels that they're making a killing mostly with tourists. So when you go to the capsule hotels, you're not going to see that many Japanese. You're going to see mostly tourists that want to share the capsule experience. So are they dying? I don't know. I think there's more tourists than ever coming to Japan and they're the ones that are keeping the capsule hotel industry alive.

00:19:31 John Daub: You're my favorite Ralph Macchio. Yeah, look, I've gotten that since elementary school, 1984 when that movie came out, you know, I heard everything. So I don't need to respond. Wax on, wax off. Have you ever done any episode on the retro game console market in Japan? No, I made one on retro games a couple weeks ago, about a month ago, a retro game center in Tokyo. But I don't have any reason to go beyond that because there's Super Potato in Akihabara which sells it. And other than that, there's some hobby shops that have retro games. But it's not a topic for the main channel. Retro gaming was something I wanted to do for a while. I touched on that in that episode. But I don't have any reason to go back to that anymore.

00:20:17 John Daub: What is the name of your hat? This is Gorn Brothers. I've been getting my hats there for a couple of years. Keep the fort down. I like this; you can wear it either way. Maybe not that way. But you can wear the hats either way. You know, if it's windy I like to put the hats backwards, keep the fort down as I said. Would you start streaming on Twitch? Yeah, you know, a couple of streamers, a couple of other YouTubers have started to stream on Twitch because it diversifies their social media presence. I started to do Instagram. Instagram also has programs now. You know, I don't know too much about Twitch or how you can monetize on it. But I do make money off of these live streams through Super Chats and through ads that I put in there. And that helps also with Patreon to make up for the demonetization of every single video put on YouTube, which is getting better. The demonetization kind of stunk, but it is getting better. Twitch is something that I really don't know much about. It's for gamers, but it's switching more towards everything. But to be perfectly honest, most people and a lot of gamers are interested in Japan. So that's a market that I think is pretty interesting. But most people are still watching YouTube for content based on what I do. And I would go to Twitch, but right now I'm very focused on this. And there's other platforms besides Twitch to put your content on. These have nothing to do with knives, by the way.

00:22:00 John Daub: Why do they demonetize? They started demonetizing because they found out that terrorist groups were monetizing their videos, and sponsors were going, why are we monetizing terrorist videos? So they just started demonetizing everybody and using a manual way to check. And I understand that from YouTube's point of view we want to keep the monetization of creators. But it was so annoying that they completely went to the other side and demonetized everything. It's gotten a lot better though. They have more people verifying the videos. The time that's demonetized is a lot less. There's ways around it. We still make less money, but it's not as bad as when it was last year when demonetizing was crazy at that time.

00:22:49 John Daub: Matsumi! Hey! Here's a bit of coffee and beer. Keep up the good work. I had a coffee last... I had a couple of beers last night with my wife with the Super Chats. And Matsumi, I'm gonna go buy her coffee. So I appreciate it very much. Will you consider sponsorship? You know, that's not out of the question. I'll tell you one thing. I met with ANA Airlines for three years. I went in there and met with PR people, like mid-level people. And I gave them tons of ideas and things that we could do together. And unless you have a procession of like half a dozen people and you look big, you know, you come in with big muscles and an entourage, they won't take you seriously. And I keep this show and series simple. There's advantages to having a big sponsor like ANA, and I love their airline. I'm not gonna say anything bad about ANA. But working with a Japanese company is painful, and it's hard. And it requires never give a budget that's cheap, because they will never trust you because it's too cheap. Because how can you afford the services if you're charging such a small amount. The American mind in me says the person with the lowest budget will always win the contract. In Japan it's the person with the best service, never mind the amount of money that you're charging that gets the contract, with the least amount of risk to the corporation.

00:24:12 John Daub: I gotta be honest with you. I would love to have a sponsor, and at the same time it requires that I would have to adhere to the sponsor's strict rules, and maybe even they would influence the content that I would do. So there's a positive and there's a big negative, and there's a big positive with the financial part of it. But look, the videos are sponsored. They're sponsored by you. All of these videos on the Only in Japan channel are now sponsored by you. We have over 400 supporters on Patreon giving like $4,000 a month. That's huge! And then on this live streaming channel we get Super Chats, we get some ad revenue. And on the main channel we don't make as much as you think because I only upload twice a month. But the channel does okay. If I ever wanted a sponsor, the best sponsor would be you, the viewer, because you're the one who has to watch this, right? So if a big sponsor has a proposal, I would listen to it. And then my priority would be to weigh how that would impact the series and on your experience watching it. Would it enhance it? Am I doing this just for the money? Or is there a balance between being able to support myself and taking the series to the next level and ruining the experience for you, the viewer? That's always in my mind when I think about something big like this.

00:25:37 John Daub: Will you make any videos regarding Japan's laws and other things? Yes. I'll keep on making other law videos. This one will go into a playlist of Japanese laws that you probably should know. One of them until... I believe they repealed it was you couldn't dance after midnight. And the police didn't actually enforce it, but it was always a law that they could enforce if they thought something other than dancing was suspicious. But if there's dancing, it'd give them probable cause to go in there as a loophole. And you know that law was on the books like forever. But there's lots of weird laws here in Japan that are different from the United States.

00:26:14 John Daub: I started donating to... I'm gonna be donating to... You're the only person I would support. Thank you. Thank you. There's a lot of people that's very humble of... Wow. There's a lot of other people that are making really great content too. But you know, if you're gonna support me, I'm not gonna say no; I really appreciate it. On Twitch in order for you to be a subscriber you have to pay five dollars a month. On Patreon you can start support with a dollar a month. I'm pretty happy with Patreon. Although some people have been telling me about billing issues; Patreon has been pretty good. Well YouTube takes a big percentage of the Super Chat money, I think it's like 30% and then they blame Apple although I'm not sure it's Apple's fault. But Patreon takes less than 10% more or less. So you know and for the services that they provide although they could, it's getting better. I really can't complain and it's the best way to support me is through Super Chats here and watching and sharing the show and Patreon if you want to support that way; it will not be refused. But that way Patreon is what's really been huge, and it's not just giving me money. I'm sending out postcards and I'm designing stuff and that's where I probably saw my merchandise, and I'm sending out boxes and packages from Japan to supporters. So it is a lot of fun to have Patreon and then have a closer knit community. With the 400 people that are supporting on Patreon is pretty big to me too because I'll ask them first if what do they think about this idea or how do they feel about that, and it's pretty nice, nice to be able to go to the patrons over there and say hey what do you think of this?

00:28:03 John Daub: Google owns YouTube. Yes, Google owns YouTube since like 2009. When I first started, oh gosh that's a whole other live stream. I started not on YouTube but I started on iTunes as a video podcaster in 2006 before YouTube had started. And I should have moved to YouTube a lot sooner; I would be a lot more successful if I did. But you know I've been doing video production for mobile phones and such since before YouTube. Oh absolutely love your videos. This is from Vredisbird58. Absolutely love your videos. So much information. You're an amazing content creator. I love your videos. You inspire confidence to explore culture. Wholesome fun here. Love from Houston, Texas. Hey thank you very much. I'm not just reading all the good comments. If you send me a bad one I might read it too just to balance it out. But I appreciate that.

00:29:04 John Daub: How's married life with Kanae supporting with your adventures? Married life is good. I'm still not used to wearing a ring. She works, I work, we eat together, we talk, we travel, we laugh, we share. It's nice you know. I think I'll be able to tell you after a year of marriage some of the ups and downs but so far the cultural differences have not been much of an issue. We're both pretty patient people and we don't really get angry for more than a couple of seconds and then if there's something we don't like we take a step back, take a deep breath and then we move forward and find a way to do it together. That's the best way. That's what people have been telling me that have been married for a dozen years or more. People tell me you know be patient and work together and that's the way to do it. Aziz K, thank you. Hey John keep up the great work. I very much enjoy watching your fun and informative videos. Thank you very much Aziz. I appreciate that.

00:30:00 John Daub: Only bring underwear. Alright this is back to the knife question. What do you bring to Japan then? Alright 30 minutes into the video finally a question on this. What do you bring to Japan? There's a TV camera. This neighborhood in Tsukuda is filmed a lot for TV shows. It's such a beautiful neighborhood. In fact I'm gonna take you back over here and show you a little bit. They're setting up for a festival that's gonna happen around I think it's this month and if I come back to this area I might show you the festival which is really cool. TV? Okay it's TV. So yeah bring money, bring underwear, bring socks. If it's summertime bring very light clothes. It's super hot. Japan has laundromats everywhere. Many hotels have washing machines. Don't bring more than you need. Don't bring a knife. Don't bring a gun. Don't bring too many clothes. Don't bring too many things that you think you might use. What I do and how I pack is that I pack the suitcase with all the stuff that I think I want and then I go back and I take out half of it. I do this every time. I take out half because I end up buying half the stuff and then my suitcase is full anyways. If you need clothes go to Uniqlo and get it. It's super cheap. It's kind of fun to come back with some Japanese clothes. Uniqlo is everything that you probably need for that season.

00:31:43 John Daub: Medication-wise there's some medications that are illegal in Japan. I've heard of stories. I don't want to get too much into the specifics, but there's certain medications that have ingredients that are illegal in Japan. If customs stop and check your suitcase and you're found with some of these medications, that's your job to find out what those illegal medications are before you get on the plane with them. That's up to you. Same as if you go into the United States or you're going to Europe, you have to know what the laws are, what you can and cannot bring. This is another live stream on the laws of Japan on things that you cannot bring into Japan. I'll make another one on this. The pocket knife is one that everybody seems to have. Backpackers that I've talked to always have a pocket knife and they definitely shouldn't. What type of fruit can you bring into Japan? No. You can't bring any fruit into any country. You have to declare it and they're going to take it and then they'll probably eat it in that back room. I know that's what they're doing.

00:32:45 John Daub: What about surfboards or mountain boards? You know what? You can bring surfboards. When I was in Bali last week everyone was trying to bring surfboards. I was like I'm going to bring a surfboard. Like every other person had a surfboard that they checked in. You might have to pay a little bit extra. That's between you and the airline but you can bring a surfboard. And Japan has some decent waves at the beach on the Chiba side and down in Kanagawa there's some decent waves. John please say hi to my husband Ryan. Hey Ryan, we watch you nightly. We would love it if you would cover some New Japan Pro Wrestling. You know wrestling has been something that's on my list for things to live in for a long time. And a friend of mine I might do it this year. A friend of mine said if I wanted to wrestle, if I wanted to do something on this. And I said sure and we're still working it out because there's also like permission and copyright issues and things like this. But here's the thing. There's a women's professional wrestling league and some TV stars have gone on there and they thought it was a joke. It's not a joke. Some of them are just like oh I'm just going to do it. And they take their profession very seriously. It's not an act although it seems like an act. It's very much like these ladies are hardcore. Pro wrestling in Japan is hardcore. All right. It's just you got to be in good shape.

00:34:09 John Daub: And I actually found a gym. Oh man. OK hold on a second. I can show you this. There was a comment in the last stream; they said that my streams were entirely too long. And I said in the stream I cover the topic in the first 15 or 20 minutes and then whatever extra in the live stream is a bonus. And that's sort of the way I do it. So I joined this gym called Fast Gym. You see that right there? It's backwards. I know it's backwards. Fast Gym. OK. And this gym is open 24 hours. There's a campaign right now for it's like three thousand yen a month, which is like 30 bucks a month. It's really cheap. And I'm sorry to get back into shape; I had this like double chin and belly on me but now that I can go to the gym almost every day and keep up running I'm trying to get in shape to do some sumo wrestling episodes or to do some more physical stuff you know. My friend Dean who was in an episode before he's an awesome shape and I used to be half as in shape as him but he's in like phenomenal, he's a model. He is a model shape and I'm a beer drinker and I'm proud of it. No shame; I got no shame in that but we'll get back in it yeah. Dean Newcomb is his name and he does a show called Runaway: The Soul of Japan and he introduced me to this water Mirai's which is really good.

00:35:39 John Daub: Any more questions? None of them about knives. I also need to find a gym in Japan that allows tattoos. They asked me if I had any tattoos when I joined the gym and I said no but to be perfectly honest with you you don't only have to worry about it if your tattoos are visible and then you have different problems but if you always cover up you shouldn't have any problems. They'll just tell you to cover up but that was one of the questions that they asked if I had tattoos. Do you stream on 4G connection? Yes I can't control the connection that I have but quite often I'm using Docomo and I'm getting 4G LTE and the signals have been pretty good just depends on where I'm broadcasting from and depends how many people are watching. How do you combat mosquitoes? I'm in Tokyo and getting eaten alive. I combat them by not... I wear pants in the evening and long-sleeve shirts even though it's hot and they don't really bite me you know.

00:36:23 John Daub: On this topic this has nothing to do with Japan but I had a friend of mine from Sweden. Thank you for the nosh; I'll get to a second. A friend of mine from Sweden I was in Norway this is a while ago and he said that in the summer some crazy people would come and go up to the very north get completely naked and lay outside at night and let the mosquitoes bite them everywhere and then it's like lightning doesn't strike twice; after that for the rest of the year the mosquitoes won't bite them. So they get bitten like crazy for one night and then the next day no mosquitoes will touch them for the rest of the year. That's what he told me so maybe getting bitten is a way your body getting used to it and then you build up a resistance because I don't get bit that much. My wife she's like a big sushi tray for the mosquitoes; they just fire like crazy but I don't get bit that much and if I do get bit it itches for like 30 minutes but if I don't touch it it goes away real fast. I'm like the Wolverine in that way; I can repair mosquito bites pretty fast.

00:37:37 John Daub: Let's go our moderator nosh here with a Super Chat. Thank you nosh. Please don't cave to people complaining about free content; you have two channels for a reason. PS I had another Super Chat thank you. Okay this is sorry I'm sometimes when I go off on the talking I miss stuff. See here nosh head oh no shit okay California does not allow knives over 7.5 centimeters thank you for that. California also has laws; also the knife cannot have mechanical opening switch blades like the things that you see in movies you know like this. You can't have that. Same in Japan; they have to be locked; you have to have a locking mechanism and not something that can just like pop open to 7.5 centimeters. That's not very big; that's only like three and half inches right something like this that's three and half inches right so it's not very big. Once again the laws in Japan for knives is some laws say eight centimeters and some laws say six centimeters and I'm not sure which one is the most up-to-date one but I always go conservatively with six centimeters or 2.7 inches okay. No knives over 2.7 inches or six centimeters; just don't bring any knife how about that. If you need a knife you can buy a butter knife or something. Japan has convenience stores everywhere; you usually you're given a knife when you buy food at the convenience store or chopsticks right. You can pretty much cut anything with chopsticks.

00:39:14 John Daub: They are setting up for the festival here; that's what was the noise in the beginning of the video. I'm going to go on for another couple of minutes just to answer your questions. How do people use for protection in Japan? What do you mean? Piper Rooks same as everywhere else pray for the job interview communal power of prayer yeah. Pray for Gretchen who's going through surgery; she sent me a message that she feels really alone and I wish that she would reach out and give her email to you guys or something but you know if you're feeling alone. And she's counting on me a little bit too much for her support. But if you guys want to give a shout out to Gretchen you can write it in the comments below. She did see that in the stream yesterday and she is pretty scared about her surgery. She has cerebral palsy and Crohn's disease and a whole laundry list of problems. And this one surgery I believe they're fusing something in her arm because she needs a kidney and she has to do all of these things. It's really intense reading her emails about it. But Gretchen if you're watching we're all thinking about you. So yeah if you want to leave a comment and help her she does feel alone.

00:40:36 John Daub: Debra could you do a video and explain more about phone cards? Interesting. Like for dummies. Phone cards do you mean like the cards that you put into the phone booths or SIM cards? I really don't understand at all. And if you buy knives or swords in Japan wouldn't it be better to ship them back than try to take them? Yes it would. You can try to ship them but not all of the... Here's the thing. Before you buy the knife make sure you can take it home. Sometimes if you buy an expensive knife you can pay a little bit extra and have them ship it for you. That way it's not really in your... It's not you sending it to yourself and you have like deniability a little bit saying they packaged it and they shipped it and they probably would know how to ship it better. But before you buy an expensive knife make sure you have the ability to take it home. You know that's something that I think you have to really consider before you buy it right?

00:41:44 John Daub: And could you do a video to explain about phone cards? At the airport you can get several... There's several options for SIM cards. And my brother and my father when they came for the wedding we had to go through this as well. And the cheaper option was instead of buying a SIM card was to get a pocket Wi-Fi router. I'm not sure Deborah if this is what you mean or the phone cards for the telephones. But not many people use those and they're available at the convenience store still. But the pocket Wi-Fi router is something that the entire family could use. They could connect their iPads to the router. Just you need to always keep it charged which is hard to do. And I gave my brother an external battery charger so whenever it ran low he could charge the portable battery, the portable Wi-Fi with another battery. And it usually lasted all day. I think it was something like $7 a day.

00:42:42 John Daub: Check out this neighborhood. They deliver packages on foot like this. That's the UPS called Kuroneko. And right there in the distance that's where the portable shrine or omikoshi is for the neighborhood. And if they do do a festival here this month I'll try to cover it. They're starting to put it up right here. Here's some of the sponsors for the festival. It's pretty cool. And here's the post box. Japanese post service is pretty efficient. They pick up the mail four times a day: 8, 1 p.m., 4 p.m., 6 p.m. So there you go. Nobody asked that question. What else you got? Last question. Are streets always empty? Here they are. They're almost always empty. This is a very quiet neighborhood.

00:43:36 John Daub: What about the percentage of Japanese able to communicate in English? The percentage of Japanese able to communicate in English? I really don't know. Everybody learns English. Here's the festival poster for the Tsukuda Festival. When is it? It's August 3rd, 4th, and 5th. And so August 6th. Here's the thing with speaking in English. What's the percentage of Americans that can speak another language in the United States? I don't expect anybody... I don't think we should expect anybody to speak English here in Japan. I think we should be expected to speak a little bit of Japanese like arigatou and konnichiwa and be able to count to 10: ichi, ni, san, shi, go. It doesn't take that long.

00:44:31 John Daub: I really don't know what the percentage of people who can speak English is. But I'll tell you one thing: when people see my foreign face and automatically start to speak in really bad English I get a little bit upset. Because you know what if English wasn't my native language? It's sort of like this. If a Japanese person goes to New York and the New Yorker goes ni hao to the Japanese person they get a little bit upset because I'm not Chinese. But they have an Asian face and most people that have Asian faces speak Chinese in New York these days. So why are you getting so upset for? It's sort of like that. So when people... I picked up a lady's hat that blew off her head yesterday at an electronics store and she said oh thank you very much. And I said why would you say that? How do you know I even speak English just because I'm a foreigner? I could be from India and I speak Hindi only. I don't know. Why not just say arigatou gozaimasu instead of trying to speak English and being polite? When people in Japan maybe should probably speak in Japanese and English. And if they see that you can't understand it switch to their limited English. That just seems to be the best thing to do.

00:45:57 John Daub: Most people can speak English actually. They don't have to. They don't have confidence to do it because they don't use it. That's the honest answer okay? Most people can speak English. They can't because they never use it and they don't have confidence in it so they're afraid to make mistakes and even use it. And that's the most Japanese trait: to lack the confidence to use something because you might look bad. So that's a good question to end on.

00:46:29 John Daub: Best place to stay in Satoyama? I really don't know; I haven't stayed there. So is English taught in every country? Is there an additional language? English is taught in Japan now from elementary school. So there's not really an excuse but it's not taught speaking. It's taught grammatically. Japanese people learn how to write. They learn a little bit. They repeat after the teacher but they don't have a muscle to reply, to listen and reply. But they have a muscle to say the words. And if you write something down there's a higher percentage chance that they're going to understand you than if you speak it. Do you understand? If you write down whatever you're requesting you might have a higher chance of being understood because they're used to in Japan seeing the grammar and not so much hearing and listening and responding. So conversational English not that much. But written grammatical English maybe better than us. Because they know rules and they know laws in Japan. I remember when I taught English there were a lot of grammatical questions that they asked me that I had no idea about, that I hadn't studied since fourth grade, that I just don't think about. And yeah they're pretty... I'm like why do you guys want to know the rules for this? You're never going to use it. You're taking my lesson just to speak English. But they really want to know the rules. They want to know how the language works in Japan.

00:48:07 John Daub: Alright so great questions everybody. Don't bring a knife. None of these had to do with the knife. Don't bring a knife. Thanks everybody. Have a great day, a great night wherever you are. I'll be back tomorrow for another livestream. Thanks for watching and supporting. I really do appreciate it. Bye everybody. This neighborhood's called Tsukuda by the way. T-S-U-K-U-D-A. Bye-bye.