Hello!

Today I'm here with Sharla!

Everyone always talks about

how awesome it is living in Japan

and it is really awesome but today we thought we'll talk about

some of the things that are harder for us, living in Japan,

especially maybe us - foreigners, coming from other countries.

The number one thing that I think is difficult in (Japan)... This is always gonna depend on a person but for me

it's being so far away from my family. -Yeah

I miss my family a lot. And that's not something I actually was worried about, the first time I came to Japan.

I was a lot younger then and I was like: 'I'm so ready to move away from my family'' I was like

''Yeah, I'm gonna start a new adventure somewhere else!''

But then, now that I've been away from my family for like five or something years already... I started understanding more... -Yeah, it started going on you

And I realised that you know, we are all human and they are not gonna be here forever

And sometimes I think like ''what if they get sick while I'm gone?'' -Exactly

''Will I be able to get there on time?'' -Yeah, I'm always thinking about that.

I'm missing my family's lives right now. -I feel like we are missing so many important things!

That's so hard living abroad cause like of course, there are benefits to living here that's why we are here but

then you start thinking about all the things you're missing back home... -Riiiight and now that I am in an inernational marriage too

no matter where we live, one of us is always gonna be away from our family so it's kind of difficult. -It's soo difficult.

Okay, one other thing that is not hurt for me personally because I absolutely love walking and I really enjoy it is walking everywhere!

You need to walk everywhere and a LOT! When you come to Japan. -If you might live in a city where you walk a lot right now, I mean

if you're from New York or something then that's probably normal for you but -Right, right!

I'm from cities when you drive and you don't walk a lot -Taking a bus or something

Yeah, I enjoy walking but you walk SO MUCH, if you in cities here. And Japanese girls wear high heels -I don't know how they do it! How do you do it?!

And it's so cute! And I love high heels but I can only walk like half an hour in really high heels -Yeah, I at MOST maybe ten minutes really!

But if you're in the city, especially when you're travelling- you're walking like hours and hours a day.

Not even exaggerating- hours!

So if you're visiting make sure you wear really comfortable shoes and if you're living here, you have to get used to like carrying your groceries...

Yeah, that's something you don't really think about because like back home you'd always like have a car or maybe like a bus system or something

Right.

But in some areas there is no like bus that would be convenient for you to take home so you need to either take the train or walk

And you never see people on the train carrying groceries so I'd feel so silly to take groceries on the train so I'd probably walk even if it was super far

Yeah, if you're in the city, living in a city then your grocery store might be like fifteen minutes walk or bike and then you have to like get all that back to your,

your place without the car so. -Yeah.

Even though Jun and I have a car now, when I moved first here we didn't. -Yeah.

And we had to ride a bicycle to the supermarket which was twenty minutes away

and if it's raining, you have like your groceries under rain. -And they go wet!

You need to think about like ''Oh, what can I buy that's okay if it gets soggy'' like ''this package is okay'' no cardboard boxes -Right.

There's so many different things you have to think about that you never like really considered or really so I didn't.

Right? You don't really expect those things.

The benefit to like this kind of thing is like with the walking- it's really healthy.

It's awesome! You get so much exercise without even thinking about it. It's just... yeah, you could eat lots more food because you burn so many calories that you didn't use to burn.

Yeah, you're like- this is why Japanese people are so skinny!

Yeah! I know, honestly if you think about it like of course gene is a part of it but they walk soo much and walking is so great for you so.

Yeah. It's a benefit but your feet hurt.

Another thing that like comes to mind when we're talking about weather and stuff you don't really think about is laundry, cause they don't really use dryers here.

Yeah. They have them but unless you get one unsepareted, if it's like the combined washer-dryer, they don't actually dry very much.

They like remove the water, I guess it spins it really fast or something. I don't even know how they work but they don't completely dry your clothes.

You have to do it several times and it's still not... might not be completely dry when you pull it out so most people hang their clothes outside.

Yeah, they hang them outside which is awesome!

Probably I'll do it even when I move back to Canada.

I did it in America, it's better for your clothes. -Yeah, exactly, they don't shrink. And it's cheaper, it's free the sun.

But when it's raining you're kinda screwed.

You gotta hang your clothes inside and you need to buy like one of these machines, dehumidifier to remove the water from them.

If you get a nice apartment or like a nicer house then they might have like the systems set up in the bathroom where it removes...

Oh, yeah! Those are cool! My new house has that. I love it!

So you can hang your laundry in the bathroom. -Yeah.

A lot of new places have that set-up.

But if you're moving in for the first time you'll probably be living in a really cheap apartment and it might not have features like that.

Another thing that might be a little bit abstract in trying to explain is that rules here are stricter then they are I think in North America in some cases.

And in a lot of cases I really like that because I like how polite society is here, I like how everyone thinks about everyone else, is organised.

Yeah, everything works really well together. -The trains are like always on time, if they aren't they'll announce it. Its very like, yeah strict! Everything is by the books.

But if you're from America,

-Or Canada!

where you used to be like more hapy-go-lucky and carefree and like loud or maybe 'My friend is really loud!!' in America.

-Yeah, we're pretty loud too.

Then you have to learn how to tone yourself out

and um like in the first place I sometimes felt like America was a little too open in some respects for me like

I don't personally go around making fart jokes but I mean like that's really common for a lot of people in America amd that's fine there

so I didn't always fit in to like how loose some rules were there but I don't always fit in to how strict some rules are here.

-I feel like I'm the same.

I feel like I'm in the middle.

And if I'm in America sometimes people might think I'm too uptight and in Japan sometimes people might think I'm -Too loud

I think I prefer the Japanese side of things because I like being polite most of the time but then when I go home

But then I mean, when I go home I just wanna like on my couch and just like slouch around you know, stick my feet up on the table, I don't care

It's not that big of a deal for me.

But like if your friends come over or something -No, I -you cannot do that! -I wouldn't do that!

And um, some of it it's probably the people you hang out with in Japan, so some people are more strict about rules then other people are.

So like I have people that I'd hang out with and I'd be very proper and more polite with them.

Whereas I have other people in Japan I'd hang out with and they'd just go crazy and it's totally like being in America. -Yeah, they'd be like similar to like.. yeah, yeah!

I've got those friends too. Many of them have like studied abrodad where they could've picked up those like mannerisms.

Right.

So it depends on the people.

Our gestures are more open and like our facial expressions are more extreme.

Yeah, you'd be able to tell what people are thinking by those things but in Japan they don't do them.

It's more subtle -Yeah

It's a lot more subtle and I'm not yet to that level of subtlety.

Sometimes I feel like if I can find myself to the Japanese like norm, that it's gonna change my personality so much, so I find that difficult.

I think that's the hardest for me in business situations when we're working with Japanese businesses for example for like youtube videos. -That's so hard.

Um, the way we do our meetings is different from the way I'd work with people in America. -Ohh, it's SO different!

Like in America I'd just joke with people, we'd talk about current topics like we might even talk about Game of Throns or something. -Yeah!

And that's totally fine.

Whereas here it's definitely more like business. Like people make jokes and you could have fun but it's not as...

It's definitely more like proffesional. -Yeah

And also like telling your ideas, you wouldn't go into a meeting and tell them like 'Oh, I have a list of cool ideas! We should do this, we should do this...''

If you [?] like listen to the other side and you're like think carefully about how you answer and how you like wanna express your opinion...

It's really different. Like the processing of things, we could talk about that for hours. -Yeah, so it's not a bad thing at all, -It's just different.

it's just something that takes a lot more effort and so sometimes at the end of the day I feel more drained and tired because I put so much more effort in that day to making sure I was being

okay around everyone that I wouldn't have done in America. -I agree.

Oh yeah, another thing regarding like rules and being a little more strict here, I don't know if it's more strict- it's different is clothing.

In Japan it's very normal for girls to show their legs, lots of legs sometimes some buttcheek -Yeah

but upper body is very like covered most of the time. Shoulders, cleavage, um this area is often like... this is even like I feel like this would be more than you'd see. -I'm very low cut for Japan right now!

-Rachel is like WOW! -Wooow!

We should give this video a rating! -Censored!

But it's so diff... I feel like it's the opposite of North America -Right

Cause for us we would... it would feel kind of scandalous to have a really short skirt or something, right? -Yeah like mini skirts

Whereas we'd wear striped tank-tops and like don't worry about it. -Cleavage is normal, you wear cleavage to the office.

Yeah, right?

So that is kind of something to get used to and it's difficult if that's the fashion that you're comffortable in and then all of sudden you have to switch to being more covered up.

Right.

I mean if you have bigger boobs if you're coming from the [?], it's harder to find clothes that don't like emphasize that.

Yeah, it's harder to find clothes that are flattering for that when you're used to wearing like the tank-tops and you have to switch to wearing like T-shirts...

Yeah, it's really hard to find flattering clothes I find. -Yeah

Yeah, for our body shapes, our body shapes are different so. -Right.

And when I first came to Japan, I mean this is a whole different topic like 'how I changed since I first coming to Japan' like um

I was definitely more careful with rules like that but over time I've realised that it's, I don't think it's that big of a deal -I don't either.

Like if I'm going to a temple or like a business meeting I'm gonna dress way more um conservatively but

I mean a body is a body, everyone has a body and -For everyday like going shopping like Harajuku or something

Yeah, I do feel slightly uncomfortable when I wear a tank-top here because I know that not many people are and I'm kinda looking there in the crowd like

Uhh, I'm the only one like showing all of this shoulder but... -Right.

You kinda get away with it a little bit being a foreigner. -Because you're a foreigner.

Like they expect you to be different, they don't expect you to um, be here at the same rules

And I'm not saying that so you can be like ''I don't have to pay attention to anything in Japan, I'm a foreigner!'' -Yeah, definitely like, yeah, yeah!

Like I mean- definitely no! -Please, don't do that! Try to follow

I mean, definitely think about this situation, what you're gonna wear, like lower-cut shirts

but like I'm just hanging out with friends today and -And I feel like it's not being offensive to people.

Right.

It's not really that you're offending somebody by showing your shoulder, it's just that it's not common here so.

Yeah.

People might look at you a little more than they normally would when you're showing like a little bit of skin here. -Right.

But I don't think you're hurting anybody -Noo

if it's just in a casual situation like that, like shopping with you friends. -Yeah.

So those are some of the things that are a little bit more difficult for us living here.

It's not like anybody's like ''I have to WALK today!'' -''Uh, this sucks!''

It's not THAT bad.

But it's just some more difficult things that you guys might not have taken into consideration so maybe we can kinda like help you prepare

in case you're planning on living here.

Yeah, and um let us know if you have any other things that come to mind for you down in the comments and thank you for watching!

And if you aren't subscribed to Sharla, please check out Sharla's channel!

She makes lots of...

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If you aren't subscribed to Sharla, check out her channels too! -Aw, thank you!

She makes videos about Japan and she has a lot of different perspectives on things that I don't talk about in our videos. -Yeah, yeah.

So um, check her out too and thank you for watching!

We''ll see you guys later!

Bye!

Bye bye! :)