Japanese Business Doesn't Want Foreign Tourists...the Truth

00:00:01 John Daub: It seems like every couple of weeks I see something on the Internet talking about how Japan is racist, how somebody made a sign in English saying that they hate tourists, they hate foreigners. This is not the case. You have to sort of understand Japanese culture. But again, we don't expect that people from North America, usually where this kind of talk comes from, to know exactly what they're talking about. I'm talking about this in particular. I saw this come through here.

00:00:32 John Daub: I don't know who this person, the creator is, but the message that was apparently on the door of a hair salon says here: "Sorry, we only speak Japanese, therefore we're not able to understand your order properly. Since we can't"—this is like Google Translate—"since we can't understand what you're saying, we aren't able to cut your hair. As a professional, we want to make our customers satisfied. This is our shop's rule. We decided as a team," meaning there's more than one person that's working there.

00:01:04 John Daub: Thank you for understanding. The team probably had a really difficult situation with somebody who got their hair cut not the way that they wanted to, and they decided, well, this is bad for multiple reasons. We're just not going to cut anybody we can't understand. And the feedback was incredible here. I'm just going to go through this really quickly. I think it's good to talk about this stuff because for me, I'm like somebody who lives here. I don't understand how this could actually be misunderstood at all.

00:01:37 John Daub: "Why is it okay for Japanese people to be openly xenophobic and racist, but it's a no, no for any other country in the world? The Japanese refusing services to foreigners in bars, restaurants, hair salons. And everyone seems to justify this, justify this. I never see any of the excuses or justification when it comes to other countries." Imagine that's like, blah, blah, blah. I mean, okay, let's just keep going here because again, the majority of people who are commenting on this—this is like one of these posts where it's meant to outrage the Internet, right?

00:02:13 John Daub: It's literally made people actually get it. The majority of people think that this is some sort of racism. And that was like—what, you know, I gotta put it into—and there's a lot of people that are fighting that are trying to explain it, but again, it gets lost on the Internet. The fact that this post has got so much traction just shows you how much like these outrage type of posts, even if they're misunderstood, can cause a lot of damage here. "Why did you write that in English and not in Japanese?"

00:02:46 John Daub: I'm going to go through it, but what I want to talk about is why. I'll let the comments speak for itself. So why you guys can read it as it goes along if I'm not interesting. But why, why would—why was this posted at all? And what was—what's the big deal? Like, I can't quite kind of figure it out. And the reason why is because, look, in Japan, people want to give the highest—this is the truth—with the highest level of service possible. There's more than one thing.

00:03:16 John Daub: That's the first thing. If they cannot give the highest level of service possible, then they believe that they have failed in their job. You are under no obligation. In fact, you are not supposed to tip in Japanese culture. Don't tip. So why are they doing such an amazing job in Japan? It's not for the tip. They're doing it because they want to. Deeper than I think the services in the United States, they want to do a good job. So Americans in particular—I say that as an American—I want you to understand where Japanese come from when they're doing this kind of service.

00:03:53 John Daub: Whether it's cutting hair, serving you at a bar, any kind of service at a hotel or a ryokan, a family run business—if they feel like you can't understand them and they can't give you that same level of service, which is why they're doing the job in the first place, then they ask you like maybe this isn't the place for you. The reason why they want to avoid that situation. Now I've talked with my barber—I've been going to the same place for well over 15 years. Like there's Alvin writes in here, as always, "Japan's race, Japanese is racism. This is so not true. Why not learn Japanese if you want to visit Japan? Yes. It's not their job to speak your language." Yes. So there's a lot of people that are sticking up for it, but a lot of misunderstandings here.

00:04:28 John Daub: Look, the first thing is that you want to do a very good job. And if they can't do that, then they're going to discuss it as a team—what kind of policy should they have? Second, you are not the only customer going to this place. If you come in there not being able to speak Japanese and they give you some service incorrectly and you get upset—a lot of people would if they cut your hair wrong—this is basically for some people like surgery, you know. If you if you're not gonna go to a doctor and try to get surgery from a doctor who does not understand your language and you don't understand their language, you're gonna go in there and have surgery? I think cutting hair is pretty much the same thing, except for hair is a very intimate thing for people.

00:05:04 John Daub: If they can't understand what you want, then it's going to be—it could come up very badly. Maybe 90% of the time, it's going to be perfectly fine. But those 10% of the time, it is awful for the Japanese because again, you're not going there. You don't tip them for the service. They're doing this out of something deeper than I think that Westerners understand. And if they do a very bad job with it, they see you upset—that has a bigger impact on them than it does than you do. This outrage, you're being upset type of thing doesn't work very well here.

00:05:34 John Daub: So they probably had that happen on multiple occasions and said, look, we can't give that kind of service. And around them are other Japanese that are coming for their haircuts, and they see this. And the other customers don't want to go back to this place because, oh, wait, what happened here? Somebody gave them very bad service and they're getting outraged. I'm gonna go to another barber place. I'm gonna go to—it's really bad for that shop's reputation. It's like they just feel they couldn't do it and they don't want to have to learn English because maybe they've just got a lot of Japanese customers.

00:06:06 John Daub: This is the same thing we've been seeing in Kyoto, and we see the same signs here—having foreigners who come who know nothing about Japan come in and then complain or make a scene or have misunderstandings or think it's like racist if they're just sold out or the restaurant is reserved and they push them away. And then you go, oh, it's racist. You don't like it? Yeah, they're probably going to say, don't come back here. In fact, we're just going to ban everybody because that's what they do with tattoos in the onsen.

00:06:45 John Daub: In order to keep gangsters away from the onsen, anyone with a tattoo—not just foreigners—are prohibited from going to certain onsen. They just do a blanket ban of everybody. And that's what's going to happen again with any kind of an issue that has to do with language barriers. Now, this is going to be solved over time, but I would expect over the next three to five years, there's going to be more of this—selective outrage over this kind of quote unquote racism that people perceive it to be.

00:07:19 John Daub: It's not. It's just—they didn't say anything about the color of your skin or where you're from. They just said if you can't speak Japanese. And that makes a lot of sense. Black hair, not good at braiding, couldn't do it either. Christian, what are you talking about? I want to look at some of your questions. Michael Sassano, thank you so much—even while I'm in Maryland. Hey, sending the super chat from 30 Degree National Harbor. Oh my gosh. Are you in Baltimore? We used to sail in the Chesapeake when I was a kid, going to Baltimore's Inner Harbor. It's not the same place as it was 30 years ago, 40 years ago, but we used to anchor inside of the Baltimore Inner Harbor and take a dinghy in and get some of the fudge inside of there. They have a very famous fudge factory as well. Some good stuff over there. Thank you, Michael. I always appreciate it. Stay warm, buddy.

00:08:22 John Daub: Why are people stereotyping Japan? It's not fair. This is a great one. It's not fair for the Japanese people or us. I have visited Japan and I enjoy conversing with Japanese people. They, you know, when one of these signs comes out and they probably just trying to stop a confrontation before it happens. Somebody takes a picture, puts it on the Internet and then they blame all Japanese. And this is where it gets really bad. And this is where things—it starts to break my heart and why I get involved in this kind of stuff.

00:08:52 John Daub: Look, first of all, if I'm talking to the tourists here—so I kind of given you the understanding—if they can't give you the quality of service that they think that they want to give you, they're going to say if you can't—if we can't understand you, even with translation, which can make mistakes, they're not going to be able to give you the haircut. Now, there was a comment in here that was talking about—let me see if I can find it here—it was talking about her husband going in there and they gave him a photo. I love this comment here. Like they're gonna ask you—the stylist always asks questions in Japan.

00:09:44 John Daub: Here's one: "So my husband once needed a haircut while I was in Japan. We went to this 1000 yen cut hair salon—that's where I usually go. And he would be okay without knowing any Japanese since he has a photo on his phone of what he wants to cut." Not even five minutes, and he came out to call me because the barber was telling him something that he obviously did not understand. I went inside—so he came in with a picture of his face with his haircut that he wanted. Explained to me that the photo of my husband's was only the front view, so he was asking about the backside of his head and the guy simply could not understand it. So I mean, how is the guy going to give a very good haircut if you can't understand this? Seems like common sense to you, but in Japan, the amount of confirmation (kakunin) that they do is on the next level.

00:10:19 John Daub: The comment continued to go on here. It just went by a little bit too fast here. I thought it was interesting. So eventually he—he went in there to get a haircut, was able to get. But it puts the barber in a really difficult situation beyond just cutting the hair. We get into culture. The worst thing that can happen. And I've gone in to barbers in Japan—I've lived here for like 27 years. Of course I've had bad haircuts here. Of course, I didn't go back to those. I've had bad haircuts in the United States too. I don't go back there. I just don't go back there. Like, how can it be so hard to cut a hair? Because—you know how to cut hair, right? But you know, people get nervous because in Japan, one, they probably—there's a lot of places out in the countryside that had never cut a non-Japanese person's hair. They're going to get nervous. They got scissors. Not a situation I want to be in. I'm just saying probably they're really good with the scissors. But look, get the haircut when you're back home.

00:11:28 John Daub: Don't get any here in Japan, first of all. And second, in the city of Tokyo, there's tons, tons of places to get a haircut where they speak English. If they don't speak English, don't go to that place. But you know, the fact that the guy took a picture of it and he had to put it on the Internet and made him sound like those people were racist really kind of makes me upset. There's a 1% chance that maybe that's the case, but I seriously doubt it—just knowing it. The truth is what I just told you: they want to give the best service possible. And they felt after probably multiple cases that their team who cannot speak English can't do it.

00:12:00 John Daub: My barber cannot speak English. My barber does have people who come in who cannot speak English. And he says every time he's kind of nervous about it, he's worried that they're going to give him a bad haircut. What do they do? It's easier just to cut the hair because nine times out of 10, it's going to be okay. But if you're coming to a foreign country, you can't speak the language and you get a bad haircut, whose fault is it?

00:12:34 John Daub: All right. "His post speaks volumes about him and not about the Japanese." I love that. That's really it. Audio for headphones only comes in through the right ear. There's not a lot I can do about it. It should be—it should be in stereo. Sorry, I'll look into it. I don't know why that's happening. Maybe it's something from the Mimo app. I'll try to fix it. Sorry, guys. The feedback's really important. I want—in the comments below—yeah, just the right audio. I'm sorry about that.

00:13:08 John Daub: In the comments below, let me know your thoughts on what you think about this. If you've had a bad experience getting a haircut and what you think people can do about it. If this is—is this something that's going to become an issue for the next couple of years? Let me know your feedback. I know that 95% of the people watching this are like, not this again. And I'm like the same way. But it's really important to kind of get in front of this and sort of unplug and try again.

00:13:39 John Daub: Writes in somebody. Apparently the audio seems to be okay. It's a live stream. Let me know what you think about this below because I think it's kind of a—it's kind of an important topic to talk about. I think we're going to be seeing more of this. And the last thing I want to do—somebody who's lived here for such a long time—is to—for me not to correct the impressions that this stuff happens. And it's nine times out of 10 completely misunderstood if somebody says that's—

00:14:09 John Daub: And nine times out of 10, it's North Americans who blame somebody for racism. I'm just saying—there's the brutal, honest truth. The amount of—things like that—that word is thrown out so much in American politics on both sides, it almost has no meaning anymore, which is a shame. So before you throw that out, think about it really carefully because it's a really big word to throw out there—accusing somebody of something like that. Japanese people are not racist. They're not xenophobic.

00:14:40 John Daub: This is an island nation. They want to give you the best service possible. And if they can't, then it's their right to say that we just don't want to serve them. Now, if a foreigner came in there who spoke Japanese, I bet you—if I went in there to get a haircut, I would be completely fine. They would have—I could guarantee you something. We're gonna have a really good time. Because I usually make a lot of conversation with my barber. I usually get a lot of lessons from my barber. It's usually a really fun experience.

00:15:11 John Daub: So yesterday I went to go visit Kotakesan, some new friends that I made in Tochigi. They grow strawberries. I really had a great time there. I did a live stream about this. They can't speak any English, but they tried really hard to be really good guests to me. And I hitchhiked the entire country of Japan not once, but twice. I've had situations where just there was misunderstandings. But if you have this feeling that everything is racism because you're a foreigner, because you bring your Western culture with you to Japan, you're not going to like traveling at all anywhere in the world.

00:15:42 John Daub: And usually they're North Americans who haven't left the country. That's why they say it. They haven't left the country much before. Or they're comparing apples to oranges. Right. People don't know the term racist. They really don't. They really don't. They throw it around too much, and it's a really harsh word to say, and you really should—nobody should be throwing that around, accusing somebody of something like that. It's a really harsh term. Yeah, I have had situations that I could consider to be racist, but my approach to them was to find solutions to it.

00:16:24 John Daub: Because I just don't think that when there's something like this that we believe and we feel to be racist, that's not the case in Japan. I've used this example before. Everybody knows that I was working for NHK for a very long time as a freelance reporter for NHK World. Loved the job. The experience really impacted me greatly. I remember I would go in for auditions for certain things, and one of the producers, he just flat out said, sorry, we're looking for somebody of a different color, you know, and that's the reality of it.

00:17:00 John Daub: Like, they had my picture, they knew what I was, but I didn't take it as being racist. You know, this is just—I didn't fit the part or his image, and he was honest about it, and I appreciated it. But after talking with a foreigner, there was somebody who was sitting behind me and he was—he's a halfer. He's like Leo, half American, half Japanese. And we just said it wasn't a racist thing. It's just, you know, we were looking for somebody who was different for this part.

00:17:34 John Daub: And I can read between the lines. I felt really bad about it. But the more time passes on, it just—he didn't understand that he would be perceived as being like this, because in America, that's exactly what it would be. And maybe that is what it is. But I didn't go in here and say, you're a racist. I'm going to sue you and you're going to get in trouble. I'm going to put this on the Internet, although I am right now. But in hindsight, though, I think it's a good story.

00:18:05 John Daub: I think it's a great story. It really comes down to your attitude when you see a sign like that. When you see a sign like this, all right, are you going to take a picture, put it on the Internet and do an outrage post? If you do, then I think maybe you are the racist. I'm just saying—I would never do that. You know what I would do? Everybody who's watching this, I think you're the same. You would say, okay, you get up, walk out, go to the next barber who says, okay, sit down and get your hair cut.

00:18:36 John Daub: And you wouldn't even remember the sign. So why the fact that this has 40 shares, 2,000—probably a lot more—2,000 likes, and all these comments, I don't understand it. It's like this out—what do you call them—like rage posts. It gets you upset. Like, the news is the same way. CNN and all the other networks are the same way. They try to get you upset about something, tell you something that's really negative to get you upset about it. And then you are more engaged.

00:19:08 John Daub: It's the Internet, but you guys know that. You guys know better. Pretty sure. Rage bait. Yeah, exactly. Rage bait. Rage bait gets a lot of views, I gotta be honest with you. So the purpose of this post is don't be rage baited into believing that Japanese, all Japanese are racist. I have hitchhiked the entire country twice getting picked up. If Japanese were racist, they wouldn't stop to pick up a foreigner who looks suspicious like me. Would you pick me up? Would you pick me up?

00:19:38 John Daub: Probably not. But people did. And they took me to my destination. Many of them let me stay in their home. Many of them took me out to dinner and thought I was broke for hitchhiking. I was just looking for adventure. I wasn't broke. But that—this is suspicious faces or—I don't know. The point is, though, that Japan is the opposite of a racist nation, in my opinion. That's my opinion. But if you come in here with your Western beliefs and try to apply them to another country, you're going to be disappointed as a traveler over and over and over again.

00:20:09 John Daub: That's my 20 minutes on this topic. I could just talk endlessly about anything. Wow. That would not happen in Florida, I think, you know, if this happened in the United States, it's a completely different thing. You know, America is a place where—if a foreigner who—imagine somebody going into a barber shop out in rural Ohio, because that's where I went to school, Ohio State, and they could only speak, let's say, Japanese because I live in Japan and they couldn't understand any English and they went in there trying to get a haircut.

00:20:45 John Daub: I think they might call the cops. Not because they can't—because they just want it because like, this guy's coming in with a foreign language and he's probably pointing and making a fuss or something. I would call the cops. I don't know. Like, dude, what do you want? All right. I think it would be the same situation. But the fact though that there are people who get outraged about this worries me. And the Internet worries me. Rage baiting worries me. I think you guys know better.

00:21:19 John Daub: I don't know—maybe. Probably. Big shout out to Ellis and David, who have helped me quite a bit. This is a soft announcement, but the store, OnlyinJapan TV has a store. I guess we got goods. So finally put up our fireworks project stuff if you—if you missed out on it and something you wanted, they put together. We actually—we put together such a beautiful package. It'll be sent from inside of the United States. And I'm really happy to announce that the store has gotten some love and we'll be putting other merch in there, T-shirts and whatnot over the next few months.

00:21:51 John Daub: Several months, as soon as possible. But you can get some stuff on there. Again, there's a place marker there. Don't order that. But yeah, let me know your feedback on this stuff and anything having to do with it. There's the Blu-Ray—it's a Blu-Ray in HD, so go check it out. I'll promote it a little bit later on as the site gets better and better. Yeah, you know, also, like, if you're gonna go get a haircut or you want to do essential services and you're gonna be here for a month—

00:22:27 John Daub: Japanese give great haircuts. They really do. They really do. And I think it has to do not so much of the skill—I got good haircuts in the United States. Michael Susan is already on board there. I've gotten great haircuts and I got—I got a great haircut on the street in China. I remember it cost me—what was it, like 10 yuan? Yen? Yan yen. I don't know how they say it in China. I just went on the street and I told him—but guys are easy. Maybe he just like buzzed it and then he gave me some bangs.

00:22:59 John Daub: It was like a bowl cut. But I couldn't have—for like, for like less than a dollar—I couldn't have asked for anything better. And it's really awesome to get a haircut on the street with the guy with clippers. As probably unsanitary as that was. It's just hair. He didn't wash my hair, give me shampoo afterwards. But I thought it was great. And a picture of it. Getting a haircut on the street, that was fun. That's China. I've gotten bad haircuts, but I'm a guy. My hair grows back. I could live with it. It's all good.

00:23:31 John Daub: But in Japan you can get what is the equivalent to a $7 haircut. And it could be one of the best haircuts that you get for guys. They usually do it in like 10 minutes or less. QB Haircut is one of the first 10-minute haircut places. They were called something else. They originated in Kanda and then another company bought them. I think that they're in Singapore now. I used to teach the CEO English of that company way back. Way back when they had a pretty interesting history.

00:24:02 John Daub: But like, the quality of the haircut is going to be really good. They want to give good service. And you don't tip them. You don't tip them. So, you know, consider that when you—when you go to get the haircut here. I only speak a small amount of Japanese right now. In Chan, who's stuck in a trunk, but everyone is welcomed in the trunk space might be a little tight. Chan, thank you for that. If I was there, I would definitely try my best to pry it open just a little bit, but not enough to let you out.

00:24:35 John Daub: Maybe a little bit more air. I know summer in Australia is kind of hot, Toxic. I'm trying to—I'm trying to explain the fuss, but I think the fuss is—these rage bait posts. I like that term—it's going to continue for some time. I think for the next three to five years until everybody has earbuds or Bluetooth earphones. That through AI, I think it's like less than three years away where you can talk to anybody and you'll be able to get in real-time translation, like having a translator in your ear.

00:25:07 John Daub: All this goes away. All this goes away. We can already see the future. Probably it starts up as a paid service and then Apple buys them and then puts it into the iPhone and Android buys it and puts it into Google stuff. Google will have a free version. It'll start off as a paid service probably. And then somebody will buy the best one, put it into Apple. That's what always happens, right? Earbuds are bad for your health. I know. I heard that too. I only wear them if I really have to. I got over-ear headphones for editing. But the point is though, this stuff's gonna go away in three to five years.

00:25:39 John Daub: But for the next three to five years, just be wary of rage baiting on Japanese—hate international tourists. It's not true. There's gonna be few people, but it's probably less people than in your—less people in Japan than in—you know what I mean? Maybe not. Babelfish. Yeah, there's a couple of really good services. I speak Japanese conversationally, so like I understand about 85% of what's going on. I fill in the blanks like, you know, Wheel of Fortune, how you kind of know what the letter is most of the time. So there's some words I don't get, but I can kind of figure it out through the context of it.

00:26:11 John Daub: You know, I could expand my vocabulary in natural ways now, but it's really—if you can't speak any Japanese and I didn't for the first several years here in Japan, it is hard if you are an expat, you just moved to Japan. And this is—this is the fallacy. And this is what I want to end to—because I didn't—I don't want this to get over 30 minutes. Hey, Greg's here. It's great to see you. Sometimes putting in the work to learn the language of the places we visit can greatly improve our experiences. Yeah, exactly. Or you can end up with a clean shaving head, which I have had. I've had some buzz cuts here that I did not want probably to fix.

00:26:44 John Daub: I get a pretty good attitude about it. If I get a bad haircut, I never complain. I just say okay, let's fix it—cut it. Cut it all off. Just cut. Cut the rest of it off. That's what I'm gonna say if I get into that situation. It's happened before. Talk about the new merge. Yeah, we want to get some Hoppy in there as well. Yeah, don't make Joy mad, by the way. She's serious. She'll shave your hair off. The thing is, if you do learn Japanese, if you do come to Japan to live here, and that's something you want to do, start learning Japanese. Don't expect the Japanese to speak English.

00:27:16 John Daub: Expect everybody in the country you're about to live in to learn that you're going to learn their language. So I did not start to learn Japanese, really, until about three years into living here, because I had Japanese girlfriends that spoke English. Right. So there was little incentive for me to learn Japanese. And if I wanted to get a haircut, I could do that myself after a while. Because, you know, if you have—here's the greatest thing about haircuts in Japan, about any barber.

00:27:46 John Daub: I'm talking about this for the guys in particular. If you find a good barber, and this is how you know it's a good barber: you go in there, you don't have to tell them a thing. I don't say to my barber, I want my hair cut like this, this, and this and this. I go in, I sit down, he cuts my hair, and it's perfect. I mean, this is all I wanted. He knows what I want. I don't have to tell him. That's why I go to the same place. It's amazing. He's Japanese. He's like a samurai with the scissors.

00:28:17 John Daub: And the scissors are like these handmade scissors, like that shape for his hand. It's like Edward Scissorhands. He's awesome. So, like, I never tell them what I want for my haircut. Oh, I want, you know, sideburns up to here. He just does it. I sit down, chip, snip, snip, snip. All right, thank you. See you next time. Matakimasuyo. And then he like—he's like, okay, see you, John in Japanese. Matane. I've never had a bad experience. I've had bad haircuts, but I've never had a bad experience.

00:28:48 John Daub: You want to know why? Because when you complain, you get upset. You upset the people around you, and you just give off bad vibes. You're like one of those negative people. You make people around you feel bad. That's not good. You want to make people feel good. So even if you get a bad haircut, nothing you can do about it now. Find a way to fix it. Think of solutions. Don't storm out. Take a picture and put it on the Internet. I might make a video about it. It's not that funny, is it?

00:29:20 John Daub: I went to Japan last November and had an amazing, amazing service in places I'd spoken—didn't speak English. Do your research. If you want to visit English-speaking businesses in Japan, do your research. Exactly. Avel Avalandial. Sorry if I messed that up. There was a Japan earlier this week and wife lost her glasses. Was able to get new glasses with an eye exam in less than an hour. Didn't have any issues. I think if you compare Japan now to 25 years ago, it's a totally different world.

00:29:52 John Daub: Like nobody really spoke English. And that's what was—that was—that's what was awesome about it. I think there's a lot of people watching who've been to Japan like 20, 30 years ago. Vern, I know you're there. Japan was more of an adventure. A country is more of an adventure. If you can't—if you don't know anything at all, but you have a good attitude about it, that's gonna be an adventure because then it really becomes one. No one spoke English 1998 when I got here.

00:30:23 John Daub: Not no one, just—you know, English teachers spoke English, not a lot of other people did. And you went around and everything was—you didn't know what was going to happen, but it was always an adventure. I had bad stuff happen all the time. But I see it as a good story or a good experience. You know, it's the way you got to think about it. And that's, I think, the biggest takeaway from all this. When something bad happens to you when you travel, unless it's your physical well-being, you have to take it as a good story is coming out of this, take something positive away from it.

00:31:25 John Daub: It's always going to be a good story. Let's say you missed your flight and you had to stay at a hotel and you know, blah, blah, blah—that's a good story. It ends up making it turn a positive, a negative into a positive. And that's, I think, the way you should always look at stuff. So these rage baits put a happy ending on it. Okay. Yeah. And I don't know how long I'm going to have—have my hair sticking around, but I think even if I had just hair on the side, I'd probably still go in to get a haircut because it's nice to go and talk to because, you know, guys make friends with their barbers typically.

00:32:03 John Daub: Right. It's the way the world works. I'm just kind of hanging out right now. If you're still watching, credit to you. Thank you. I had an American housemate when I lived in Japan. He kept complaining that Japanese toilet paper wasn't the right to—some people adopt and some people complain. Oh, my God, I love that. That is kind of true. I remember when I first came to Japan, the toilet paper sucked here. And I think it was more like that—like cheap toilet paper, one-ply.

00:32:42 John Daub: It's gotten better over the years, but people just—they just needed it to dry their bum. They had washlets back then. And by the way, even though you have a Japanese toilet, you're still supposed to use toilet paper. I'm just saying a lot of people, maybe this is a completely different live stream, but if you have a Japanese toilet and you like—and you think the washlet is the cure for your toilet paper, think again. You're supposed to use toilet paper. A lot of people who make that mistake anyways.

00:33:13 John Daub: Seriously. It's kind of a thing. All right. Yoda Jedi is like, noted. You're supposed to use toilet paper. I'm serious. So what my wife told me is you do a preemptive pass with the paper and then you can wash it out and then you do another pass with the paper. The reason is because you don't want some splashing—minimize the risk for other people. It's nasty. I think—I think some of the Westerners who don't understand Japanese toilets might need to have this discussion sometime.

00:33:45 John Daub: All right. Eggs are not very—eggs are—I get the premium eggs, so I pay about 350 yen for six. So that's about—for six eggs for $2.50 maybe, but that's just me. You can get 10 eggs—they don't come in a dozen here. 10 eggs in Japan right now in Tokyo, you can get them for about 200 and I'd say 300 yen on average. So 10 eggs for 300 yen. So what is that, 30 yen an egg? So it's at 25 cents an egg roughly. I'm sorry to hear about the egg shortage.

00:34:19 John Daub: We also—we don't have a strawberry shortage. Go check out yesterday's—the day before yesterday, I was at a strawberry farm. I went into Tochigi and I found a variety of strawberry that was just massive. They let me go into their greenhouse and everything and film them picking. And I'm so thankful for the Kotake family. Such nice, nice people. I contacted them online. They said invited me out to their farm to film a main channel episode. So we'll get something on the—

00:34:50 John Daub: And I went to JA Japan Agricultural to interview them about the Tochi Aika, which is a brand new variety of strawberry that they have, as well as the Tochi Otome which is the most popular strawberry in Japan. So it's really great episode coming on the main channel. I might have a release tomorrow. So my Naked Man Festival coming soon. I'm editing it right now. So I'm gonna go back and do that. Gotta get on my bicycle. But guys, if you have any questions, leave in the comments below. Don't fall for the rage bait. I know you guys don't, but—racism Japan. Probably a lot less than it is in other places around the world. Although it might not seem so. People just avoid confrontation.

00:35:33 John Daub: They don't like to—like to talk about it. But I sure do—the way things work here. All right, everybody, take care. Rage bait. I know—it's it. I like that term. It really does sum it up. People put things on the Internet just to make you upset, which engages people and gets so many comments. It's not good. Matane.