00:00 John Daub: Hey everybody, welcome to Tokyo on a beautiful sunny autumn day in September. Technically it's still summer. And that is the Tokyo Skytree in the distance with the Chūō Bridge. Usually I'm over on that side, but today I'm on this side.

00:19 John Daub: Today we've got a very interesting topic to discuss because it is one that is going to be on a lot of people's minds over the next month. It was just in the news yesterday as the mayor of Shibuya-ku (Shibuya Ward) had a press conference telling people, please don't come here for Halloween. Please stop. And I can understand the sentiment because for the last several years I've seen this as a really bad idea. You have to think about it now in the light of what happened last year in Seoul, Korea. We had 159 people fatalities as a result of not really good traffic control of people, and they got crushed. When you have this many people in one area, in particular the streets of a city which should not be shut down like this to do something that is quite often alcohol infused, where there are a bunch of bars around, it's just a recipe for disaster.

01:34 John Daub: I was always wondering how they could let this go on. They were pretty much openly promoting this back in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018. Japan was starting to boom. Then the pandemic hit, and of course they didn't want people to come because of that. But 2019's Halloween party was a little bit not great. There were lots of issues. They did ban public drinking.

02:01 John Daub: Let me show you really quickly before I get too deep into this. This comes from our friends at TokyoCheapo.com, which has an incredible guide for events. They probably update theirs more than any of the other Japan travel sites. Once again, Shibuya will ban public drinking from October 28th to Halloween around the station. Meaning, if you have an open container and you're drinking alcohol outside, the police are going to do something. Maybe they'll tell you to put it away and then you don't. And then they'll ask you again and you don't. And then they probably will arrest you or fine you. You can be held in Japan for, I believe it's 21 days without any cause. So I want you to consider that before you think about how polite Japan is. It's not that polite when you enter the legal system. Bad people enter the legal system, all the s*** is gone. The point is you don't want to test Japan's legal system. Follow the rules. You know what they are now. No excuses. The times of the bans are from 6 p.m. to midnight on the 28th, and on the 29th to October 31st, midnight to 5 a.m.

03:41 John Daub: I think they're banning it this year. I don't see anything good with the Halloween. They don't need to do it on the street. For years we've been having Halloween events in Tokyo. They should hold it in a square or open area. Go to Odaiba. Take Big Sight and make that an event hall where people have to get metal detectors and checked out before they enter. There's just too many things that can go wrong with people outside in a city street in masks and costumes, play guns and things like this. I just see this being a huge issue if not now, in the very near future. Because you have a lot of people that don't understand Japanese culture, that don't respect it, probably too immature to handle alcohol.

04:51 John Daub: In Japan we have these checks and balances where your reputation is quite important. If you're sitting outside drinking a beer and getting drunk in public, you're pretty much shamed, especially in the countryside. Everybody in your neighborhood knows you. That's why you don't see a lot of people out there. Now, salarymen workers, yeah, they are getting drunk and they pass out in public. And that's a real black eye on Japan and the culture here. Public drunkenness is, I would say it's on the decline here thanks to the pandemic. But it's a part of the culture that will die out. It was very much Showa era where the bosses had to do that with their bosses. If the boss didn't want to go home because he didn't like his wife, he would make the staff go out with him to get drunk in the bar. And you can't say no to the boss. You wouldn't get a promotion or a raise. It's led to a lot of alcoholism and many problems in the home. I can't imagine Kanae Daub waiting up for me every night because my boss is making me go drinking with him.

06:25 John Daub: The Tokyo police are out patrolling the streets here, making sure that everybody is safe. They have these DJ police officers that are up above ground making announcements in Japanese, which Westerners have no idea what it even means. You can see the traffic patterns have really changed. Not crossing Shibuya Scramble—maybe it's an experience in itself to be moved efficiently by police officers using yellow tape. They're very much in control. Every year fights break out. Problems happen. And I understand why the mayor doesn't like it because the residents of Shibuya don't like it. It's not fun for locals. Often the next day, in particular at night, there's just so much trash. But a lot of citizens, residents, and even foreign expats that live here will go in the morning and clean up. And you can hardly see that an event has taken place the night before. That's just Japanese culture. But the fact that there was a disaster left behind every year, most of the trash does not come from the locals. It comes from visitors that are visiting that can't find trash cans.

08:00 John Daub: I'm kind of happy that the mayor of Shibuya-ku yesterday said, if you're coming for Halloween to Shibuya, don't come. Tokyo is a metropolis with 23 wards—Shibuya-ku is one of them, and ku means ward. The economic impact for Shibuya, I don't know what it's going to be. But I think the downside might be greater than the economic impact because people are going to go to Shibuya anyways. Now you know why it's banned. We've seen the dangers of it in Korea. We've seen the fights, alcohol, the bad instigators. There are some IRL streamers here that are just dopes looking for anything to get their community riled up so that they can make money off of it. As somebody who does live streaming, I can understand that, but I don't do something bad to get money back. We have a responsibility here, at least because I live here.

09:41 John Daub: I've seen over the last year in particular, there was one YouTuber who got on a train and started to yell at people about Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and all this really bad stuff. He's not welcome here. If you see IRL live streamers in real life, you better confront them and tell the police as well. When they're doing bad things, they need to be reported because you can't let that stand. It brings in more bad actors that are hurting. Japan is very reactive to what happens. You have some bad Western tourists that do some bad stuff. Logan Paul has since apologized and we've moved past that. But there's always somebody new who comes, and Japan reacts to that. The reaction is usually quite harsh, and who does it impact? Me and us who live here. So I do my very best to tell you guys where to avoid and where not to go. You can still wear a costume—just do it at a club. There's places that have all-you-can-drink, entrance fees. It's a controlled environment. There's music. It's fun.

11:23 John Daub: People are going to still do it, and there's going to be some trouble. I think that next year it's just going to be worse. I went to the American Marathon for Halloween in 2018. It was great, way less people. Tokyo is also going to be doing a countdown party. Imagine going to an intersection in the city like Times Square. Nobody in the city has said that we're going to do countdown parties. It's still an unofficial thing. The police are there, it's kind of chaotic. Shibuya Hachiko at New Year's is an official thing, but people still go there so the police make sure it's safe. In Japan, sometimes the information is not clear, and sometimes it's better that way because it leaves some gray area. But when it's gray, a lot of misunderstanding can come when the leaders are not committal for political reasons. The mayor yesterday came out full force and said, don't come. So that's easy to understand. The question is, will people listen?

13:24 John Daub: Why don't you and other expats set up a safe and fun Halloween event? Number one, I don't particularly like Halloween. I like it for kids. Every day is an adventure for me, so I'm not really into it. But I would like to see other YouTube influencers—there's a big market for it. I think the city should close down Yoyogi Park and do something there, perhaps, and have police officers there. It needs to be done. It's a very important experience. We need a safe place to be off of the city streets in a large area. That's really going to make it safer and easier to control and fence it in so people can't come in from the outside. Then you can check bags and keep it safe, because we still have threats from dangerous idiots out there who want to do harm. That's another reason why I don't want to go to Shibuya at this time. There's too much risk for harm to happen. We had a prime minister who was assassinated a couple of years ago, and we've had some close calls with the other prime minister. There's political issues domestically. The world is not safe. Tensions are high.

15:10 John Daub: I call on the mayor: okay, I understand to ban it, but I think it's bad to also not have a second option for people, because they're going to come anyways. Other options could be to have it on the riverside, but then you'd have people drunk or falling in. I see too much risk. But you need to give people an alternative. There's smaller towns, other places. It does not have to be in Tokyo. I think that it's crazy that it's in Shibuya. Shibuya does not need it. Everybody's going to go there anyways. Why would you add this dimension to it? It's not necessary. Hold it somewhere else. Another town should be that Halloween town. I call on the local regions of Japan. All you small towns that say nobody ever comes—your towns are so retro. A lot of the streets look spooky at night. I could see a town where they bus in people for an all-night event with DJs and stuff. The economic impact for a small town—you would make all the money that you would make in probably two years off of the economics of your small town. It would bring back younger people into the fold.

17:20 John Daub: Think about something like Thailand's full moon party where this was just a word-of-mouth thing. When something gets banned that's popular, there's a vacuum and another area can take advantage of it. Do Japanese hand out candy in Halloween? No, they do not. There's no trick-or-treating unless it's set up beforehand. If you want a conservative town to hold an event for young progressive people, yeah, I can't see that working either. You never know. It's not a political thing. It's just an issue of do you have ideas to help your town? The question is really if you want to revitalize your town, you're going to have to have ideas and find opportunities and vacuums. There's thousands of towns. There's always going to be a progressive mayor—as in somebody who wants to lean forward into economic growth with ideas that'll attract young people. The towns need it. You could do trick-or-treating in that town. Japanese would go there too. You can go to the U.S. Naval base at Yokosuka for trick-or-treating.

19:46 John Daub: When I go back to visit my parents, the culture of trick-or-treating in the U.S. is not the same as it was when I was a kid in the 80s. Like with Elliott and E.T. going trick-or-treating, it doesn't really exist like that anywhere because there's too many sickos out there and people are worried all the time. Japanese kids, they only dress up for Halloween for school, especially like an English language school. There's no Halloween culture here except in marketing to candy and certain confections. There's no holiday in October, so they use Halloween as that big marketing push. Same with Valentine's Day—they've taken international marketing things. This happened in particular during the bubble era in the 1980s. Japan had accepted a lot of Western holidays and incorporated them mostly for marketing because it was a brand that they knew abroad that they could use to shore up sales and it worked. Christmas is another one. Christmas here stinks, but you have illuminations.

21:14 John Daub: The whole culture of cosplay, that's something that's in Japan, but cosplay is not normal. Ninety-nine point nine percent of the Japanese are not cosplayers. Japan is one of the most conservatively dressed countries in the world—black and dark suits, boring tie, white shirt. It's like 99% of the morning traffic on the trains in Tokyo. Maybe less jacket in the summer. It's a conservative place, so people dye their hair maybe brown to stick out, but there's no blue-hair people unless you're under 20. I see a lot of foreigners coming here and cosplaying. That's cool. I love it when people come that look different. I love the fact that it feels more diverse walking around the streets of Tokyo with more international tourists. But Japan is not a walk around during the daytime cosplay place. Keep your cosplay to a love hotel or something with your significant other. Cosplay is not a thing that you do out on the streets.

22:45 John Daub: I'm against holding these parties in Shibuya because it's dangerous. It's not necessary. I see the potential risks. I've been in Japan too long. This is my home. I see a mess afterwards. I see a lot of people who don't respect the rules. I see the reaction to Japan. If somebody were to get killed, holy smokes, everything would change day and night. A lot of the rights that we enjoy would be gone just because of some idiots that wanted to have some fun and somebody got killed. It could be somebody who's Japanese that was young. A lot of the issues that happen are not just international tourists. There's a lot of Japanese that are not doing the right thing either. Please never think that I'm picking on Western tourists. Most of the misunderstanding about culture probably comes from that. But trust me, there's a lot of bad actors in Japan who also get arrested or are under the scrutiny of the police all the time. No one is an angel, including me.

24:51 John Daub: I'd rather celebrate a more Japanese festival on occasion than Halloween. There's going to be a lot of debate on this on the TV news here in Japan over the next few weeks. Halloween is not a Japanese custom. Japanese kids like to dress up because they think it's cool. Because a lot of people from international are doing it too. Because it's a party. I bet you there's going to be a lot less Japanese at the festival because the mayor has said don't come. And it's going to be more Westerners than Japanese this year. And that's kind of a problem. If there are issues, especially with these IRL people, then not only is live streaming going to be banned, which would break my heart. Already there are places that won't let you live stream in places that I used to be able to. Bad actors change the culture for all of us. Don't go. Think of something better to do. You're going to Japan for Halloween? A country that doesn't even celebrate it?

27:03 John Daub: The clubs used to be really good for that. There were events at hotel ballrooms. You could rent them out. People paid to get in. You'd have all-you-can-drink. They were all indoors for a reason. Or the big outdoor place was Roppongi because that's where they held the events. And then everybody after the events would be out on the street a little bit but then got shuffled home. And then that somehow in 2015 it started to change to Shibuya. Before that, the history of Halloween in Japan—it was only expats. Somebody would put an ad in a free paper for foreign residents. Cryptic message about what time, which car of the Yamanote Line people, Westerners, foreigners would dress up in Halloween costumes and attack a Yamanote train line. And go around it once before the authorities got wind of this. And then they would get off and go to a bar together.

29:39 John Daub: Typically, it used to be Shinagawa. People would get on at Shinagawa because there's a lot of expats in that area. They'd get on at like 11 p.m., board a train. All the Japanese would see this and get out. Some would just stay and they were subjected to foreigners sometimes removing their clothes, laying down on the luggage racks above, trying to do gymnastics on the bars that you hold onto for safety. Spilling beer and alcohol in the cars, leaving a massive mess. Destroying and vandalizing the inside of it, ripping down ads. Within that, I bet you it was only like three or four people. But there's enough of them where it's an uncontrolled situation where damage happens. And now, move ahead to the early 90s. The police clamp down on this very strongly. There was a police presence on a few days before and after Halloween. If they were to have this again, the police would just jump on you. That's one of the reasons why the Yamanote Halloween bootleg parties ended.

31:04 John Daub: Older YouTubers like TKYOSam knows exactly what I'm talking about. Kevin Cooney probably does as well. This is going before all of the current crop of YouTubers. Ericster6 probably does. But I'm sure he's mature enough not to have participated. Now fast forward to 2015. Now you have a semi-larger event that's somewhat sanctioned by the city government. And you've seen that it's uncontrollable. Even with all those police, I could see another Seoul happening in Tokyo too. I think the mayor saw it too. As forward-thinking as Shibuya Ward is, I think it's worth it.

33:15 John Daub: I would heed the warnings. It's just not worth it. We can see the images of what Halloween is like. It's not a lot of fun, guys. It's too crowded. There's a lot of drunk people. Half the people are just wanting to get home because it's still a place where people work. For me, I'm somewhat embarrassed when I see it. The police are doing their best to keep you safe. They shouldn't have to do that. It's not a real event. And I hope it ends. I'm a party pooper because the best parties are the ones that are out of control. But if it's your house, you don't want that to happen. The people who are saying I'm a party pooper probably are the people who don't live here.

34:25 John Daub: We're going to end this live stream by me walking down and showing you some culture because I have something I want to show you. There are going to be other places that have Halloween events and I'm pretty sure you're going to have your favorite live streamers down there live streaming all of the events because they always get like 20,000 people watching live. You know why they're watching? Because it's madness. And it's pretty interesting. But it's madness. And one of those live streamers is going to get in big trouble one of these days and I think it might be this year. There's no reason to watch. I won't be watching because Halloween for me is, I'll probably be editing videos or go to sleep.

35:21 John Daub: This is the old Tsukuda neighborhood. And this is my backyard. This is my home, Chūō Ward. Under the bridge there's lots of parking spaces if you're looking for a place to park in Tokyo. It would be affordable and usually open. And then over here in this alley, we have one of the old remaining neighborhoods. You can see the houses and the neighborhoods that are located in the center of the street. If you go down the street, you can see the old Tsukuda of Tokyo, which is getting knocked down more and more. But some of them still exist. These pumps are still around and they're getting removed. During the Edo period and before, this was the community meeting spot where everybody in the community would constantly have to go and get water because it didn't have plumbing. These pumps still work. Don't drink it, says here. No me masu. More and more of those pumps are starting to leave as they're tearing down more and more buildings that look like this because they're not earthquake proof. And that's kind of sad.

37:40 John Daub: If you're in Tokyo, if you're staying in Shibuya, Ginza, Shimbashi, Tokyo Station, come to this neighborhood. I'm telling you, put it on the map. It's called Tsukuda. And it's a place where you're going to get a slice of the old Tokyo residential life before it's gone. I have a feeling that these are all going to be knocked down soon to make way for buildings like this. Most of the tourists that come to this neighborhood are from France because the French guidebooks have this as one of the attractions. By bicycle, it's five minutes to get to Ginza from here. One of the most expensive real estate areas in the world. And there exists a place with these low old buildings. Just recently, they knocked down an old building and they put these cement buildings in. And then inside there, do you see this tree? That tree is growing in between a bunch of row houses in the middle of it. It's an extraordinary tree. And it's a secret shrine that if you go to, you'll be blown away. You have ducks and fishing and it's just quiet. And it's a wonderful neighborhood to walk around in. There's some nice restaurants. It's a really strong contrast to the center of Tokyo even though this is the center of Tokyo.

39:39 John Daub: Here are the rules. If you go, go to our Discord server and send pictures there. Share with us your experience on Discord. I'll probably be monitoring that. We have 17,000 people on our Discord server, a lot of them exchanging information live here in Japan. So if you're looking for friends or people to meet up or you're a solo traveler, you can get local up-to-the-minute help from people that had just traveled to those places.

40:28 John Daub: This month is this postcard. This is the Hibakusha-sha (atomic bomb survivor tram). This is an episode I've just finished editing. I'm having Hiroshima City take a look at it and they're checking out any inaccuracies because this is something I can't make a mistake on. This train was heavily damaged during the atomic bomb and back online. It was completely blackened and burnt out and people died on the train. And it's still running on the line in Hiroshima. There's a few trains and they're called Hibakusha-sha, which means atomic bomb survivor cars, trams. And this one is going past the Genbaku Dome. On the back is a picture of the lady. She's 92. She was 14 years old at the time and not only just survived the bomb from like a mile away, she also was three days later the conductor of the train. They reopened this line three days after the bomb. It's an amazing story and it'll be coming on the Only in Japan main channel in two weeks. She talks about the flash, the heat. She hurt her back. The people that she saw outside. She's walking around a mile or so away from the hypocenter. And then she goes back to work three days later. And she's still alive to tell the story. It's an incredible episode. I think it's going to be one that really leaves you having a different way to look at Hiroshima. It really does impact you.

42:30 John Daub: Any questions? No? Thanks everybody. I'll see you again tomorrow in a live stream. If you have any questions, you can DM me on Patreon. That's probably where, if you need some travel advice or help, itineraries, I would highly recommend you join Patreon and send me a direct message there because I'm checking it all the time. And I will be more apt to help. For the next 30 seconds, enjoy the walk through this alley as I take in some sunlight and collect some vitamin D. Stay healthy.