Coffee Chat: Where in the World Japan

and we are live welcome everybody for another installment of where in the world this week we're off to japan and i have four uh interesting gentlemen with me today i'll go to inter introductions in just a moment here um but just some nuts and bolts to take care of as always obviously i'm not sarah sarah murdock she's gallivanting around portugal somewhere i'm reid cohen of imprint tours i think you've gotten used to me by now i sub for sarah quite often and we do collaborate on tours all around the world so as you know where in the world is our program where we just want to connect with our travel friends and professionals and colleagues all around the globe i'm particularly excited about today's programming because i really know very little about japan it's not a country that i've traveled to i haven't even done any book learning any research about japan so i'm ready to dive in here and ask a bunch of questions and and learn about um this uh great uh this great country that we hope to be bringing tours to in the future so i think your screen is always opposite of mine so i'm just going to go in a circle here and introduce everybody one at a time first of all is hisa pisa tell us where you're where you are from where you're broadcasting from um broadcasting from kyoto and uh but my back image is it's in hiroshima but i'm reading shirt okay so you're in kyoto but your your background picture is hiroshima right yeah that's right yeah it's a miyajima island excellent and then we've got yo-yo yes yes hello and where are you i we are we're from kyoto we are we are at the office office of uh the office that we are working for yeah and um yeah we we both um are from kyoto and we live we live here okay all right so masa you're up next welcome hello in yeah office now in the conference room joining here today okay so what masa and yoyo were saying is that they are working in the office of the company that manages all of my tours abroad um but both of them were former tour managers themselves so have a lot of experience out in the field as well and last but not least we have yoshi good morning to you yoshi and where are you coming to us from good morning my name is yoshi i'm from the yokohama just south west of tokyo okay second largest city in japan i think most americans have heard of yokohama so excellent um okay well let's let's jump right in then of course to our viewers if you have uh um questions or comments as we go along today i'll try to keep one eye every once in a while on the facebook broadcast and if i see any questions i'll pass them along uh and as you're probably used to on these where in the world programs i always like to start with finding out how people got uh involved in the travel business so um so uh hesa we're going to start with you how is it that you got involved uh in in the travel industry tell us that story okay yeah um personally i always loved the travel and then i was i used to be the tour guide for japanese customer in australia for eight years yes and then uh i loved to guide the people and but then i also want to guide japanese people not just japanese people to oversee people about japan and then i just found a job opportunity uh in a peak website and i applied and that time the guy called he's also all the island he is a manager of the peak office and then i got this job unfortunately kobe 19 happened but i got the chance to guide japan yeah for the tour and then i could join the um like uh yeah some experience for guiding japan too yeah so then now i currently i just do the remote thing to uh sometime yes so covet 19 happen to all of the travel industries so we all know that's a that's a blow yes yeah um okay yo yo we're gonna come to you how did you get involved in the travel business you're you're muted right now so unmute yourself okay um after graduation of university i i traveled mexico nepal and china india and like tv and stuff and i had very much um like deep experience uh uh while traveling so i i wish i could be um i wish to be um yeah to a guy to introduce my own country to the people from around the world and i took um certificate to be a guy yeah okay is um now is everybody here have some sort of credentials some sort of guiding certificate and and yo yo you answer this question please is that a is that a rigorous type of uh of testing that happens and and you know i think that's that's something that's different everywhere we go uh i'm just guessing that it would probably be a pretty rigorous process in japan is that correct yes we have a national certificate for for two or three leaders i mean for interpreter guide and we we have to yeah take the um test um annual annual uh it's annually are held and yeah you pass some we can be a certificate to a guy yes how how long does it take how long does that preparation take um i i it took um for me about um about a year yeah and you need you need them that foreign language skill and also the knowledges on japan itself history uh geographics and stuff and also not only that politics and yeah okay all right masa how about you how did you get uh how did you get involved in the tourism business well uh for me i used to live in brisbane australia like uh so you know that was for me first time like being away from japan for a long time i used to be nearly two years and then learning english and attending a spirit to learn tourism and then realize how japan is beautiful and then you know convenient uh easy to live so you know i learned english and i speak some english at least so when i came back to japan i also attended a two-year school in tokyo to learn more about story and that's when i found out about this case you were talking and then it's kind of like a very difficult challenging exam like only held once a year and the united states took only one year but for me like uh it took like a couple years so but yeah when i got done then i started like a private journey that that's why i used to live in tokyo so like around tokyo for a coming family or like a couple like uh and then i found a company who are doing like okay all right so obviously the the certification program that's you work at your own speed that's you you go along and rather than one year or 18 months or a two-year program it's just when you are ready to take the exams i guess right right yes august every year and then you have like uh four subjects so you need to pass everything and then there's a second stage okay and finally yoshi uh tell us yoshi how you got involved in uh tourism yeah i before starting the guiding i worked for the coffee company and importing a dutch coffee system for out of home and many dutch corey came to japan i showed them around the market and our factory and many towns and also they went out at night enjoying the lincoln chat and everyone likes my guiding so i decided to go that direction after retired and that's what i started guiding uh it was first one was 1918 and 19 and no no 2018 2018 and 2019 and then commit 1980 so i currently i'm just doing the virtual tour on the online okay all right um so what is um i'm back to you now he so what is what's your um what's your what is it you like the most about this job of taking people around the country what uh what do you like most about the job and the lifestyle uh yeah yeah that many but um one thing i like talking naturally so one thing that yeah i can meet a lot of uh people from different background and then we can share experience and yeah that's uh also um many times i can learn from the customer too so when i meet the people from different background they they tell the something the new story and then of course i can see many different place different culture so that's the most uh my my most favorite things for this job yeah um are you willing to share your least favorite thing what what do you like least about the job least my opinion the traveling is fun but the most important is the safety so without safe is you know he can so don't don't want to share like some accident or like of course sometimes we can avoid natural disaster it happen but that's the the incident doesn't right one yeah yeah that's that's a job we have is to make sure everybody's safe and and to handle the emergencies when they come up everybody looks to us obviously uh i i didn't mention it to you four but um i've i worked as a tour manager in europe for 25 years but you know so um i i don't do as much of that anymore i'd much rather come to japan and let's let someone like you one of you four do all the heavy lifting for my groups but i certainly know the life and the lifestyle so yo yo how about you what what's your what's your favorite and your and your not so favorite uh parts of uh of this job um i i used to used to be i used to work as a tour guide but um i ended up being a reservation cosmetic right now office um my favorite is meeting people but i found out that i didn't like talking that much yeah and so uh yeah i ended up being um working here so um and uh yeah and well anything else well this does working in the office sounds like that's a little bit better fit for you then is that right yeah that's what i feel yeah um yes i was a little bit afraid you were going to say that that you liked people but then you found out that you didn't like them so much explaining things like to people like in general so i i yeah very much like like meeting people but yeah i i'm not good at like explaining things i'm sorry sorry to push you but that that would make it tough to be a a tour manager right if you did how about you masa what uh right yeah you know i think you can get it for free you know even you know go back to many times like many places but do you have a friend there right here you get to know each other and becoming friends so every time bring some customers and then like into this you know each other and then making like a local community that's right yeah you know like the google community and then by connecting the customer and the local people there and then you can travel all year so you get to see many different of the season in japan so like in spring sakura like i saw pink and the watermelon uh putting these like made to make your lips crimson like yellow brown so beautiful so i think yeah it's a joke but you get to travel for free but they need to be you know for me it was uh like maximum 15 a group of 15 people so the customer is telling me like your job is like having a chat you know like impossible to coordinate like uh for example i know we are meeting back here at five five pm and then we're going back to the out there but some people you know don't show up so we need to go find someone but at least like at least my favorite part but it was yeah okay yeah and that's okay okay okay yoshi what's your favorite part of this i love japanese food culture history so i'd like to talk about that with my customers that is my favorite part and this favorite part is the first meeting with the guest so i don't know what kind of people they are so i'm a little bit nervous about that but after getting to know each other it's been good but if something's wrong it might be a very tough job yeah yeah you know um i understand what you're saying about that first meeting that's such an important uh moment to set the tone of a tour and what i found you know especially in the last you know five six years that i was managing tours i i really needed a good positive energy from the group in order to to for for the best of me to come out right it was i think when i first started i was younger i could i could generate my own enthusiasm but the older i got and the longer i did the job i really needed a positive feedback from the group so on that first night sometimes you don't get that and sometimes it develops later and every once in a while you have a group that never gets there but um uh yeah that first night is is uh an important moment there um i i i thought somebody might talk about uh the on the downside of travel of being away so long that was always the hardest thing for me you know having family i'm sorry i have to leave now so okay nice to talk to you yeah okay so thank you for participating thank you okay bye bye yeah i forgot to mention that yoshi had told me that he was gonna have to break away so anyway um that was always tough for me you know my daughter's all grown up now but you know when she was little and i'd have to go on and of course working in europe i didn't just i wasn't just gone for 12 days or two weeks i was gone you know they would string together several tours because it was expensive to fly back and forth so i'd be gone for six weeks or eight weeks even not after maya came along less often eight weeks but four weeks eight weeks six weeks not at all unusual that that was the hardest part for me um okay um let's let's talk about japan let's talk about the resource uh you know this country that's obviously a long and storied history uh fascinating destination i think for americans uh and certainly great partners with the united states in the you know in the post-war era in terms of democratic institutions and and a powerful economic nation um but let's let's uh let's get more specific and and i'm going to change up the order here a little bit yo yo i'll start with you um what is your what's your favorite place in japan to take a group of foreigners a place where you really feel like you can shine and really um but also really is an important thing for foreigners to see and learn about japan what would be your number one place to show people um my i as i started my career in kyoto and this is the oldest capital of japan um i strongly recommend uh people to come visit um kyoto uh as a as um the first destination um in japan okay i mean that that doesn't surprise me i i see a lot of head nodding too with with masa and here hero um sorry but um so clearly that's okay and let's let's say this too what would be the the number one site there in kyoto for people to see so destination and site what's what's the number one site they should see ah um for me um um the rokan sun garden in luangji or other other um gardens some uh oriented uh about zen buddhism okay um because um many like uh uh a lot of cultural uh stuff uh based on zen buddhism um japanese culture a lot of japanese cultures are based on zen buddhism so i think this that's the uh that should be the first one to uh you know check out for um um you know foreign an understanding of buddhism is is pretty crucial for understanding japan and the japanese people i would think yeah yes that's the one of the uh yeah stuff you should not see him okay i definitely want to come back to this uh to talk about the gardens a little bit but but masa what would you say favorite favorite place to go favorite destination and and best site to show foreigners well uh for me it is hiroshima and there's a t-spot here so the reason why i do this because you know that is a place where like in humanity first hidden bomb was dropped in 1945 uh i was six and uh i used to take the group there every time and then i needed i must have you know explained the story of a little girl called sadako so she was a very little when the bomb was dropped and then it was okay like everything like a half house like the village was destroyed but her accuracy somebody without injury but after some years passed she had developed like leukemia because of the radiation from the bomb and then she had to stay in the school before that she was very active she liked sports and then very good at running but unfortunately she couldn't do that anymore and uh she had to stay professional and then in japan we have like uh when you know you want to making a risk you sometimes making for the origami train you hold and then we believe that if you make 1 000 of them like your wish will come together so she kept folding every day at the hospital but i was today you know even she reached 1000 but uh yukimir didn't go away and then eventually she passed away but every time i tell this story to the group i you know get very emotional and sometimes here comes down yeah it's something i need to tell the japanese you well thank you absolutely i mean a powerful moral message but but also i think a story of resiliency and this this woman's courage and and and whatnot so okay excellent um what's uh your favorite place and your favorite site to show people um one of my favorite place also in kyoto uh like um anamikoji or those are old style street in kyoto that the maiko gekko area because um like a cap the third the old capital city in japan and the capital city for more than one thousand years and then currently the people who uh like all right busy people had the image of japan probably tea ceremony or those kimono things and those cultures uh probably um mostly like laced in kyoto also so before guilt is not about capitalistic but the current uh the culture of people who know like those cultures come from like yeah there's a much become much grow in kyoto so then um japan like during war times lots of cities go home and then destroy like a old building especially that's made of the wood so usually barnaba lucky choco don't get those um big bombing things so they still keep the gold state of course kanazawa or other area has some like old style house but kyota has most that's right yeah also it's a good to see and i'm not sure you know that so he's also had the chance to see the you know gecko michael oh it's cause it's there quite there but still they come maybe they may have a chance to see them and also all that kimono culture or even food like the japanese food is very unique but especially in a coat they have really old style like a traditional way to make the food so they have their own unique way to make the food so that's why yeah i want to introduce the letters to eat in kyoto yeah and then also yeah mount fuji is famous come on if not just japan mount fuji is good to show that it's a highest mountain but also even compared with other mountain well i think one of the most beautiful shape right yeah so it's a good tool i would say that that uh mount fuji is the iconic image of japan you see it fuji i've never been to japan but i know instantly that that's what i'm looking at you know and so yeah i agree um you mentioned food let's let's talk about food because i have to i have to say that um if you go to a japanese restaurant in the united states which is my only exposed japanese food it's just you know it's you we think sushi and sashimi and maybe some noodles and stuff but maya the more i've talked to all of you and other japanese people it's it sounds like that japanese food is diverse and and you know that there's all kinds of flavors so what we're being exposed to in america is maybe just a small little bit of that um am i on the right track here um who who loves food who wants to take the ball here and talk about japanese food and yeah if it's is it regional is it is it the same all across the country who wants to kick this off for us do i am i going to put somebody on the spot okay awesome you look nervous i'm going to pick you talk tell us about japanese food a little bit i miss yoshi yeah yeah as you mentioned here we have a lot of different uh variety of foods in japan right also like from north to south japan like you know away from each other like about three thousand kilometers so taste like a base growth we say dashi is different uh north side of japan to be more like a thick and then with five ways you can say like osaka tend to be team depends on like uh where it is like i prefer different kind of taste for different things also one of my favorite japanese food is called ramen which is noodle and then also for ramen you have different type of soups like gross made from chicken like a pork or pork buns or like fish and also a kind of creamy or we saw some tomato ramen so it's just one ramen but it has different so many flavors and then restaurants often have different like a side dish uh one of those also my favorite is called the gyoza dumplings it's like any like dumplings like you can eat with one bite and they drop in like a tariff in like rice or ramen it's perfect much and then if you happen to agree i really recommend to try running here in japan although i used to live in brisbane or australia and then i tried some of the running but it's not very same as the one you can taste here so you really want to try here ramen in japan okay he said i kind of cut you off there you wanted to chime in on the japanese food go ahead oh yes okay uh yeah i want to introduce sushi in japan of course nowadays sushi is so popular so the word sushi itself become like an international language so but um yeah like i also used to live australia austin people also love sushi but uh quite different like uh normally sushi ingredients is uh samos lots of salmon so some are nice and i love salmon too but uh the ones which also call a california roll so maybe you could item it's avocado and salmon inside candle or is that is that an americanization of of sushi where i come from yeah i love california but i never tasted it before when i was in japan and they are okay california at all but then i like it actually so it's good but uh if our tourists come to japan they are the more variety of sushi actually [Music] it's not just tuna as well like they are the more yeah different type of ingredient octopus or can squeeze and yeah so if they you know come to japan i want to i want them to different more different type of sushi so actually i yeah before uh okay my country normally sushi is just a salmon tuna or something beef inside brother yeah in japan so many different so they are very curious oh like what's this what's this poryan i think americans will have to be adventurous eaters when they come to japan to to try some things that they might not normally think of to to put up um hey i i just checked the facebook page and there is a comment julie um has written when can we visit japan i heard things were not going well over there i'm assuming she means the kovitz situation i really wish to go um can you guys comment on what's going on with kovid and and what what what the next little while sounds like yo yo you're nodding your head can you bring us up to speed how are things going there in japan with koben um the vaccine situation is getting improved um day by day but especially young people still don't want to get in don't get boxing in general so i'm not pretty much sure what what the situation will be like um yeah be cleared or not but yeah um in 10 days so yes did i hear um on the news that they've decided not to let anybody uh no spectators most people watch the olympics on television but i for those people have you know one and families of the of the yeah those are the days like but you know i mean we're talking about a pandemic right that none of us situation things are just happen the way we expect sometimes does does anybody know um how uh what percentage of the japanese population has been vaccinated is that is that a figure anybody knows or even i'm sorry i couldn't catch the number 5 okay around 30 yeah 30 percent about 30 percent okay and and is the vaccine available for anybody who wants to or is it still a little hard to get it's it's available right for for everyone i believe now okay is you know you get like a ticket from local office that has a number so you need a number to make a reservation to get vaccinated and then now a big place is like kyoto or tokyo like uh the local you know minister office they stopped taking the reservation because we don't have enough like uh supplies from the government to provide the right thing so we are currently stopping but i saw the news a couple days ago like osaka started taking the reservation back from first of august or like august so getting back but still you know kind of very slow so at the moment well that's that's a tough stuff in any country um thanks for your question dude um okay i want to circle back to this idea of the japanese gardens because this i mean that's another thing that when you think about japan you think about the the gardens and i know that there's more than one kind of garden there are zen gardens and other kinds so here's my question um why what is it about the japanese character that um that these gardens are so important because it seems to be part of the culture um if anybody wants to take a stab at why gardens are important what what does it say about the culture can i put you on the spot yo-yo have you got a yo-yo because you had talked about the importance yeah that's right that's right okay well uh you know many people have different you know point of views and then in my opinion like that in the past like that you mentioned them like uh [Music] nowadays but you know making them garden it's like a kind of training for monks so if the garden is like looks not organized you know arranged perfectly or dirty so in order to show this kind of your mindness like uh to the business building a house or a temple know your garden has to be kept very clean and organized so for japanese people i think it's uh you know gardening these are cultivating their minds that something connected then i believe so that's kind of basic idea of having a guardian's importance in japan but also like sometimes japanese house is very small and we don't have a real big garden big space so and they used to be very small and they're not so many like a big window to show outside so these are only tiny space to show from the inside to the outside so they just have like a beautiful like a kind of painting of the garden so that you can enjoy while you are sitting inside a small tiny house tiny place and then you can see outside how beautiful it is [Music] to see through okay so both uh focus for celebration when it comes to zen gardens but then the other gardens are there's a real practical reason that just uh that people need some connection with nature and i i understand that that that there's a similar philosophy in europe and and of course in american cities as well that's why we have big parks uh just connect yeah this is just my opinion but uh like uh um like japanese old traditional like religious shinto shintoism and shintoism is a the concept of their ideas every nature has their own god so like the japanese say yao rosa no kami that's 8 million god so even to e or mountain or liva those natures has their own god and then um when japanese make a garden also it's of course they're the the ideas where but like japan has small content and people live in a small place and then sometimes not everyone can uh like keep you know nice view like if someone rich people maybe they have a huge space and they can't see mountain or waterfall but uh cannot so sometimes they just make a small size of the nature in the garden so they are um make actually just put a small storm by its mean meaning of river or something they just put the song by the meaning of the island so they make a kind of diorama of the you know small scale yeah then they can enjoy from there from inside their house they see that those two or like uh it's just a triple action that's a meaning of mountain yeah so near my house has a it's a one temple called daigo's temple it's a wild heritage near my house they had a nice uh garden as well but then the garden um something is just a strong but it's meaning of thailand or meaning this is actually meaning you know so they are japanese i always have a respect for the nature and then also yeah make small size of nature in mankind that's yeah that's why so you say you say the japanese respect nature is is that something that's traditional and historic yeah a traditional idea like when they especially long time ago probably even now japan has lots of natural disasters so yeah all time people you know they couldn't understand what's happened why happened they always believed some special power and they got living you know nature and maybe they got angry a historical traditional reverence yes yeah because i think in the united states i have to say we're kind of late to the game with that i mean we nature was to be conquered you know and subjugated and and respect for nature and preserving nature that's a that's a fairly modern sensibility here um in the united states um and uh you know speaking of america and american culture being different um you've all worked with americans and westerners a couple of you there you know with your your backgrounds in australia and whatnot um what's what's what's the best cultural tip you have for visiting westerners to japan to help them fit in does uh uh yo-yo do you think oh sorry but i did it to you again you know let me let me give you let me help out with an example like um i you know i've noticed just from my travels um i'm not passing judgment but um but chinese people they don't they don't line up and wait for their turn it's it's a cultural thing right and so if i were taking a group of chinese people to america the first thing i would tell them is look this isn't china we are visitors we're guests we have to wait our turn politely right um and i might say um and uh in america in in japan people are not so noisy in public may we we need to be a little quieter or you know that's that's the sort of thing i'm i'm after um what uh you know and and i don't know what your tips might be for japan um who okay i'm not going to put yoyo on the spot again oh okay okay just just a small thing but um i in contrast to the individual in in contrast uh the fact that individualism is the the key key concept uh for westerners we it's the uh the group uh for japanese so that's why that's why while um chinese people get into the rhyme uh japanese doll like b-line uh that organized yeah so the the key concept is um yeah the group for uh japanese the group the group is more important and and is more important and we we have the words to us the true true sound the meaning that the the true feeling uh the one half and uh is uh is the voice uh from the group the voice of um the group that um i i forgot the explanation of that but let me let me pass it on to masa okay that way but you tell people nicely so that you can maintain harmony within the group okay he mentioned about the group but like harmony in the group is very important in japan okay like we don't want to stand out in a group like you know we want to fit in the crowd that's kind of like a basic idea so okay yeah yeah see that would be i think a really important lesson for americans to learn day one right on you know that important first meeting that uh uh that yoshi was concerned about uh that would be a good thing to address now is is the is the concept of face or losing face is that a japanese thing i know i know in china that's a big thing is that is that the same in china do you guys i'm sorry in japan is that do you know what i'm i'm asking um japan yeah maybe not as strong as i mean the chinese people i mean losing space things but maybe maybe you wouldn't say it that way is that is there a part of japanese culture of of you know you were talking about harmony and keeping the harmony that's what made me think of this because that's what saving face is all about is not embarrassing someone not embarrassing yourself um is there is there an element to that in in japanese culture yeah i think lots of japanese care what other people look so that's the first thing they really care maybe you know what's more like oh i want to do this so that's why i'm doing this like more hindi but japanese sometime i wanted this out but maybe other people think and you know broadway then they keep so like yeah like they also said maybe lots of people still want to talk on the subway or terrain but norman japanese you know that's inside the train not allowed to talking on the phone and yeah it is quiet so sometimes you know the they don't really think why or you know but they just yeah it's rude or yeah or maybe people think i don't you know care the comment yeah so maybe surely sometime wonder the japanese rule like if i tell oh but why sometimes difficult to explain but it's just the reason is uh keep a nice harmony over the public oh i think that a japanese person wouldn't necessarily say but why when when when when given some instruction that they wouldn't question it is that am i getting yeah then of course the other reason but sometimes um not realism but they just like follow the rule it's something like uh because of that probably there's some rules that people um yeah have to say yeah but yeah the samurai is just for the made for the keeping harmony of the public so yeah so i can't think of the example but sometimes even i read i i think um it's it's okay i mean why why i can't do this but it's probably just you know keeping quiet or keeping yeah you have to go this way or that way or yes when i think about japanese people that i've encountered and that i have to admit it's it's back in the 90s there were a lot of japanese people still traveling and so we would come across when i would be reading groups around in europe and we'd come across japanese groups extremely polite that's that's the way i would say they're extremely polite so i i take it that as part of this theme of harmony that you guys have all talked about that that that it's very important to be polite um you know because again americans sometimes getting a group of americans to be quiet and listen is is a challenge um and uh you know that that might be another one of those things you got that you have to teach americans hey you need to be a little more polite and when i'm talking you need to listen all right um so we're kind of talking a little bit about this already but but how would you say how would you say that travel in japan is different than in other countries that's my question and he saw i haven't put you on the spot yet so i'm gonna start with you and again you you know you can say i don't know i you know but uh um if you have an idea or thought how how is coming and visiting and traveling in japan going to be different than other countries good thing is that probably japanese customer service is ready to even compare with other countries in my opinion like because um probably for example in u.s maybe they have more idea of the service it also costs money so that's why people are giving the tips for service but uh in japan it's already included so a lot lots of japan people have the image of services fully like so their standard quality of service and the standard of call service quality is pretty high so normally that's who is quite impressed when they go to restaurant or shop the service day let's see okay tipping is not really a part of japanese culture yeah it's not not a japan culture so i have some foods when they stay in uh ryokan uh which is japanese old style hotel accommodation and political service so you know some americans try to give the tip and sometimes oh no no no like i mean they think it's no more things so they the workers think they shouldn't receive the money for that but yeah doesn't mean they you know they don't like to receive yeah so then yeah people uh cry like yeah impress i mean so it is normally very obviously good so that's quite different ah even i of course when i travel in south east asia it's sometimes a really nice hotel food and the price is really low and it's quite good too but the japanese uh idea of service they they always think the i different uh type of customer and what they need like they are educated that way like when they work oh maybe this customer needs this so they always try to like yeah give a good service to yeah so that's uh quite different from other countries that's what i see in my opinion all right yeah guys any any ideas about how japan might be different than than traveling in other countries well uh yeah i think also like you can expect like a punctuality of japanese like services especially transports like if you at the starting time of that you know certain stations for example like uh you can expect like distance on time on schedule so of course you know almost like sometimes like by natural disasters like for example like a typhoon like to buy like iron stones and then like earthquakes but the most of the time like uh public transport like run very smoothly on time so i think very different from rest of the asian countries and sometimes like north america africa so punctuality in japan is very reliable okay all right um we're just about out of time guys so i'm i'm gonna i'm gonna toss you a softball i don't know if you're familiar with that american sports analogy i'm i'm gonna we're gonna close with a very easy question that you guys don't have to be terrified um uh just just for fun for no other reason i'm gonna go around and ask each of you if you could meet one person from history anybody from history who who would you most want to to meet if you could anybody in history i'm going to give you just a half second to to think about that and while you guys are thinking about it i'll just remind everybody that we're going to be continuing with japan this week because sarah is away in portugal and i'm actually going to france tomorrow be a little bit less programming than usual but he says going to give us a a virtual tour we're going to try for thursday afternoon which quite frankly in the united states is going to be the middle of the night so we hope that uh all of you will tune in and watch the recording of that rather than uh being able to tune in live uh and i say we're gonna attempt that because there's a little rain in the forecast and if we can't do it on thursday he's just going to try again on friday and if not on friday on saturday so we are going to have and what remind me the name of the temple he said that you're going to be giving us a virtual tour for uh yeah i said and the one place i go in uh on saturdays uh uh called fushimi nari fushimi nari kaisha it's in kyoto and then that shrine is one of most famous and popular because of they are the so many that uh totally get anymore yeah we've got for the rest of the week um so you're uh since we're already with you hesa do you uh you have someone that uh from history that if you could meet them and have a conversation who would that be uh sorry could you say again if you could meet anyone from history japanese history world history anybody oh okay just one who would you like to eat choose one [Music] yeah in a while okay we got a man who appreciates humor who would you most like to meet from history if you could meet anyone well i would say one the song i wrote called sakamoto from the 18th century century will help japan to modernize and then revolutionize okay japan used to be very isolating but he tried to open to the rest of the world okay very good and yo yo close this out who would you like to meet if you could meet anyone in history i would like to meet uh shotoku taishi uh who lived in 5th century in uh in nara and he was his his ability to be uh the one who uh created the foundation of a constitution of a japanese constitution he's um legendary but and [Music] there's some theory that that says he didn't actually exist and i just wanna uh see like if if it's um true or not yeah okay so your goal is to find that historical figure really was historical so yeah yeah i my answer changes all the time but i'm kind of like you yo yo i you know um i think about the founding of the united states and our democracy and i would love to sit down and have a conversation with thomas jefferson you know who who basically wrote you know the the declaration of independence and was part of the constitutional convention you know he was a an amazing thinker an innovator and and and you know an architect and then i mean he was an amazing person and i think he would be pretty fascinating sometimes i think uh i'm going to cheat and give to um mohandas gandhi you know in right wouldn't that be fascinating to just talk to him and say what what were you really thinking so anyway anyway guys thank you so much yo yo massa and hisa thank you so much for taking time today to talk to us about japan and japanese culture give us a little bit of a insight into what a visit to japan might be like um we hope it imprint tours to be bringing a group in 2022 of course you know covet has to be well and truly over so um everything is a little bit of a maybe but hopefully uh sometime soon we'll be bringing a group and then maybe i'll get to meet uh you guys face to face uh when we get down to coyote kyoto way so thank you again time thank you our audience thank you bye-bye everybody

2022-04-11 16:52

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