Today, it’s just me making a video by myself.

And I have another issue that’s in the news

to talk to you guys about.

You may have heard of it.

If you have not,

the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan,

a.k.a. GSI,

which is essentially just Japan’s, like, map makers,

have released a new set of icons to be used

on Japanese maps for foreigners.

And you may be wondering, like,

“I don’t care, Rachel. Why do I care?”

At least one of the symbols that they’re changing

is kind of controversial in a way.

And I was going to talk to you guys

about it at some point,

and I figured, now is as good a time as ever.

So, to give you guys little a bit of background

on why they’re doing this,

Japan is hosting the Olympics in 2020,

so they’ve really been trying

to globalise the country more

and make it more foreigner-friendly.

Some of the symbols that they use on maps

right now are very Japanese-specific.

So, one thing that they’ve been doing

over the past couple of years is,

they‘ve been conducting surveys and interviews

of foreigners, who are, like, exchange students, or

people who work at embassies here

or even just tourists.

And they’ve been showing them several different

symbols on the Japanese maps and asking them

how easy it is to understand them.

And so, that’s where they’ve come up with

these new symbols that they just released.

They didn’t just make it out of nowhere

and be like, “These are the symbols we’re picking!”

They’ve actually been doing a lot of work and research,

trying to figure out what the absolute best symbols

would be for foreigners.

You can find the whole report on their website,

and I’ll link to it down below

if you guys want to check it out.

They go into great detail on everything they have done.

Obviously, it’s in Japanese,

so if you don’t speak Japanese,

you can still understand some of it just by looking

at the pictures and numbers and stuff.

So, for example, one symbols that Japan

has traditionally been using on their maps is

an H in a circle, which stands for “hotel”.

However, for a lot of foreigners, we may

see that as something like “hospital”,

or, for me personally, “helicopter pad”!

That’s what I imagined.

They have conducted several levels of surveys,

but the most recent survey

they showed the original symbol plus a new one,

which shows a person sleeping in a bed with a lamp,

and asked,

“Which one of these is more understandable

as meaning a ‘hotel’?”

And overall 61% of people said,

the person sleeping in a bed is a much easier

symbol to understand, whereas only 18% of people

said, “Oh yeah, I can get ‘hotel’ from the H in a circle.”

Still, the little sleeping man symbol is the one

of the new symbols that they are proposing be used.

Another symbol, probably one of the most difficult

symbols for non-Japanese people to understand,

is the original police box symbol in Japan.

It’s just an X.

So, if we saw an X on a map,

I would think, like, “Treasure?

Is there a buried treasure here, or something?”

I wouldn’t really know what it was.

Actually, I didn’t even know, this was a police box symbol, so

I guess I suck at living in Japan

because… I never learnt that.

Here you can see that only 4 % of people said,

they understand an X, whereas they have a little

sheriff star. 27 % of people said that was okay.

And then, like, a little police officer, and

33 % said that was the most easily understable symbol.

One thing they have done is write down comments,

so, of course, they have a more complete understanding

of why people voted the way they did.

So, for this police box symbol,

someone from Sweden said, “X makes no sense.”

Someone from Germany said, “No. 2 is better,

but it’s kind of complicated.

Another one of the symbols they are changing

is the symbol for postbox.

And the symbol for “postbox” here is the katakana “te”

in a circle, which we obviously don’t use abroad.

So, they have proposed changing it to just a letter.

Most people make comments like, “Foreigners who

haven’t been to Japan aren’t going to understand

the symbol.” Which I also think is true.

So, let’s move on to the number one symbol

that people are debating right now.

Whereas all the other symbols, that they are proposing

changing, I completely understand the new symbol

that they have proposed, and I think, honestly,

a lot of those will really help foreigners

who are coming here.

This symbol is debatable.

And that would be the ‘swastika’.

I’m sure most of you know this,

but if you don’t, the swastika was originally

a Hindu-Buddhist symbol.

It may have been used for other things even before that,

but it’s thousands and thousand of years old.

So, this is a very, like, sacred, religious symbol

that has been around for a long time

before it was adopted by Nazis, and, then,

like, the whole image of it was completely destroyed.

But whereas in the West, we don’t have a lot

of Buddhism and Hinduism,

so we’re not familiar with that history of the swastika,

here in Japan there are a lot of Buddhist temples!

And a lot of Japanese are personally Buddhists,

so they are extremely familiar with the symbol

and if they see the swastika, their first thoughts

are going to Buddhism and not to Nazism,

like a lot of foreigners’ would.

If you have been to Japan and you have used

Google Maps to look up temples to go to,

you’d have seen this symbol all the time.

Sometimes you’ll actually

see it at the temples themselves.

And so, if you are not familiar with it,

some foreigners can get confused and

maybe kind of… offended?

But this is the one symbol that I personally…

I think it’s really sad that they would have to change

this symbol because it has such an intense

religious history to it!

I mean… I feel like we are losing

to the bad guys, like, why should

the Nazis still be winning at something?

It’s not fair that they took the symbol

and then made it something horrible.

I would prefer that they left it as a swastika

because if a foreigner comes to Japan

and they don’t know what it is,

then that is a really good opportunity

to educate them about it.

And that way we don’t have to

lose the symbol to the Nazis.

I can understand why they would want to

change it for foreigners who don’t know about

Buddhism or Hinduism.

Because even if you put a huge sign

at every swastika in Japan that says,

“This is a Buddhist symbol!

It’s a sacred symbol that has

been around for 2,000 years.

It has nothing to do with Nazism, or anything”,

you’re still not going to teach everyone about it.

I mean, you guys probably spell my name incorrectly

more often than correctly,

and it’s the name of our channel!

So, there’s no way to teach everyone something.

But still, I don’t think it would hurt to try.

And either way, you know, it’s their decision to make,

and none of these symbols have actually

been finalised yet.

These are still just the proposed symbols.

So, it will be later this year that they actually

make the announcement, which symbol, for sure,

they will be adding to maps for foreigners.

And, by the way, these are all just symbols

that they are changing for maps for foreigners.

They are not using these on maps for

Japanese people yet.

All in all, they have proposed 18 new symbols

for foreigners, and they have also looked at

things like how they should spell things

on maps to make it more easily understable.

So, for example, they are trying to figure out

the best way to label a shrine.

The word for “shrine” in Japanese is “jinja” (神社).

So, they have been saying, “Should I call it, like,

a ‘jinja’ and shrine? Or should I just call it

shrine? Should I just call it ‘jinja’?”

So, they have really been doing their due diligence

on conducting research to figure out, what the absolute

best way to label maps for foreigners is.

And I give them a hand for that

because that’s a lot of work that goes into that.

So, I think they have been doing a really great job

Despite of how controversial some of these changes

are, I understand what they are doing

and I appreciate all the work they are putting into it.

And I do think it will be helpful for

new foreigners, who will be coming into the country,

who don’t have a lot of background knowledge

about Japan, especially as we get closer

to the Olympics.

So, anyway…

Let me know what you guys think about these

new symbols, and especially what you think about

the swastika because that’s kind of the big one here…

I’m still kind of hoping that they might leave

the original one.

But I understand both sides to this, so…

Anyway, thanks for watching guys,

I’ll see you later!

Bye!

“If you have ever been to Kyōto,”

“you have probably noticed these things”

“up against a lot of the shop walls.”

“But just what are they?”

“The most common, widely known usage,”

“which they are named after,”

“was traditionally to prevent…”