Camp Gagnon - Japan Expert Explains Laws of Samurai, Masculinity, & Anime | Dr. Walker

Episode Date: July 11, 2024

🏞️ Sign up to Camp for exclusive updates: https://camp.beehiiv.com/Japan Expert Dr. Joshua Walker is the President and CEO of the Japan Society. He visited the tent to unpack the rich tapestry of Japanese culture. Dr. Walker breaks down the laws of the samurai, the anime phenomenon and his experience growing up in Japan. Whether you're a seasoned Japanophile or just dipping your toes into this captivating world, this episode is for you. Hope you enjoy and welcome to camp 🏕️Japan Society...

The problem is I speak Japanese. There's any Japanese people listening right now? Could you speak to them? Hadima, Joshua Walker, to be a very weird, do Sanco of Americanian. And so, this podcast, I'm going to be very much. So you really are Japanese?

It's a hard area to start with. Is it fun to surprise them? So it's funny. You say I'm from Japan, people are like, yes, and my name is Mickey Mouse. I'm like, no, no, seriously. So many Americans are like, oh, you must love BTS.

And I'm like, that's Korea and not Japanese. Can you explain anime? Why it has become so prevalent in America? In America, animation or cartoons are for kids. In Japan, anime is for everyone. The storylines in anime are so much better than anything else we have. I mean, Japanese are fascinated by why, particularly dudes like us, are into anime. What happened to the samurai?

They still exist. What are the laws of the samurai that I can apply to my own life to conquer all my enemies? This is what's called Bushido. They did things by the way of the sword, the Bushido way. Killing itself is not kind of wrong. Post-World War II in Japan, like I've always wondered if there was like a negative sentiment. The current prime minister of Japan is from Hiroshima, and he gives these very impassioned speeches about never let this happen again.

He doesn't make it about America. He doesn't make it about how unfair it was. And so let us be the last. Let us never be the ones to say that we didn't do everything we could to stop human suffering and human tragedy. And I think one of the challenges we have in this world is... Thank you so much for being here, brother. Thanks for having me, man.

I really, really appreciate it. I just told you that I watched episode one of Shogun and absolutely loved it. I've always been deeply interested. interested in Japanese culture. I find it fascinating for a bunch of reasons. I personally have been to Japan, and that was where I really started where I was like, oh, there is something very unique happening in this little island.

So, obviously, I had to track down a white dude to explain it all to me. So I'm really excited for you to be here, man. I would love for you to kind of explain your relationship with Japan. You obviously live there for many years. You grew up there. Could you kind of explain just how you came to grow up in Japan and how you came to grow up in Japan? and how you became the president of the Japanese society. Awesome.

Well, first of all, I really appreciate being here. It's always fun to get outside of your comfort zone. This is clearly not my normal vibe. You will visit me at Japan Society. We will sit in my office, and it will feel very different. Amazing. It'll feel much more like you're in Manhattan than anywhere else. So my relationship with Japan began in a very interesting way.

My parents took me Japan when I was one. I like to joke that I was taken as a hostage. because my parents are Southern Baptist missionaries, and they moved to Japan. My dad at the time had been a soccer coach in Taiwan. My mom had been a nurse in Tanzania. They met, fell in love, and they said, we want to be missionaries together. That's great. My mom says, we're not going back to Africa to raise a family.

My dad said, great, we're going to Asia. Let's go to Taiwan. My mom says, we're not going any place where you speak the language. So that gave two options at the time, Korea or Japan. As you probably know, Korea is a very Christian country. A lot of Christians in Korea. Japan, not so much. Japan has a much more distinguished set of religions, and being a missionary in Japan is tough.

And so my parents moved there. When I was one year old, I lived in Japan from 1 to 18. My parents have been there for 42 years. And as you said, Japan is an island nation, and it's got many different islands. I went to the furthest northern part of Japan called Hokkaido, which is amazing. We can talk about some of the amazing areas, very different than Kyoto. It's the newest part of Japan. It's much more got a Montana-Alaska vibe to it, cold all the time.

We had the 1972 Winter Olympics. But yeah, it's a hard area to start with because when you say I'm the president of Japan society and you say I'm from Japan, people are like, yes, and my name is Mickey Mouse. I'm like, no, no, seriously, I'm from Japan, but the name Joshua Walker doesn't translate that right off the bat. Particularly when your dad's side of the family is from Virginia on the Jamestown side of the side. My mom's side is from Kentucky and the Plymouth Rock side of the side. So, you know, despite the fact that I grew up in Japan as probably a living embodiment of what white privilege looks like, that's not my lived experience so you know Japan society is a whole

another can of worms we can talk about but it's great to be able to be here in this moment I think there's a lot going on in the world you mentioned Shogun you know what amazing cultural phenomenon it's really reawaken people's interest in Japan and just how unique this island nation is we I think in America when you look like we do we know a lot

about British history right we know a lot about what happened and European imperialism and colonialism all that good stuff Japan not so much you just don't learn about it. The only stuff we learn about Japan is usually in the negative sense, right? Like, we beat them in World War II. They were the first Asian people that beat a European empire in terms of the Russo-Japanese War, but you don't learn much else. And I actually think that this generation, I have two small kids, they're learning a lot more about Japan, but not through the textbooks,

more through culture. And if you go anywhere here in New York, you're going to see Japanese culture everywhere. So there's a lot to unpack, a lot of discussion points we can go in any different direction. You're the maestro. I'll handed back to you. Yeah, I'm really, really excited. And I do also just want to point out, like, the racial component of all this is so funny because if you told me like yeah I grew up in England from 1 to 18 I'd be like oh yeah obviously you're English yeah but just

genetically you were just a strong looking white dude yeah and also I'm 6 3 I don't know if you can tell by standing here sitting here but you know it really is you can't think of a more different place to grow up and also Japan is so distinct right like there's really no you know there is no racial component in the Japanese context and when you get a driver's license or a passport in Japan

it doesn't say eye color and ethnicity or hair color because that would be a ridiculous question. It's so funny. So it's just like in America, we take that stuff for granted in a way that maybe it's not that way the rest of the world. Yeah. So your heart is omacase, but your outside is chick-flay. There you go.

I like that. And you know what's funny about that, omacase? Like, I love that. That word has become Americanized. Just like, how do you say it, karaoke and futon? Because it's Fhton and Karolka is how you say in Japanese? Yeah, that's what Japanese sleep on, right? Like, it's not at all what we think of as a, you know, you go to IKEA and buy a futon mattress.

Like, that's, a futon is what Japanese would traditionally put on the tatami mattress and would sleep on. So it's very Japanese. It's just been olive garden-ized to the American taste. Hey, what's up, guys? Sorry to interrupt this amazing program, but I need a little bit of help. If you're watching this on YouTube, you can probably see our subscriber number right down here. And if you're able to, it would mean the world if you could subscribe. That is the best way to support this show.

Because when you subscribe, I'm able to show it to potential guests or to different brands and stuff like that. And it really, really helps grow the show, get us cooler guests, have cooler conversations. and it helps everything so, so much. So if you don't mind, thank you so much. Let's get back to it. Okay, we have so much to talk about, but I would love to start with the samurai. Yes.

So I would love it if you could just tell me, this is a broad question, but I don't know if there's an answer to it. But what are some of the philosophies or the laws of the samurai that I can apply to my own life to conquer all my enemies? That is an amazing area.

There's actually a great Netflix series, Age of Samurai, that I would highly recommend you check out. It's very wonky. It's got historians, but it was the number one Netflix show during the pandemic, because I think a lot of people had that exact question. So unfortunately, there is no one right answer. How you conquer your enemies is probably like how you conquer your demons.

Like that's something that, like, I can't touch. And certainly as President of Japan society, I can neither be seen as endorsing any of these things. But I think there is a principle and a set of kind of philosophies that guide the samurai. And this is what's called Bushido, right? Bushido is the way of the warrior. There's actually a book by that title. It's become very popular.

You know, this is about the 18th century. What's interesting is samurai have been around for much longer than that. to put it in the kind of a European context, you know, knights and, you know, the feudal lords have been around for a long time, but they weren't codified until a certain period of time when the British or the French or whatever your flavor of the month in Europe is. And in Japan, very similarly, the period you described, the Shogun series that's taken off, which really describes a Tokugawa period of Japan, is when a lot of this gets codified. And the idea is it kind of loosely translates from the Buddhist philosophy of being mindful about everyone's intentions. So, you know,

Killing itself is not kind of wrong if it's done for the right intentions. If you're, you know, killing for pleasure or just out of some sick, seditious view, that's bad. But if it's in defense of your family, it's in defense of what you believe to be a core truth. There are ways of doing it. And when you do, you need to do it with like fervor. It needs to be done with intentionality. The word do, which means the way. So Bushi is kind of the warrior, dough, the way of the warrior, is something you find in a lot of Japanese.

So there's lots of different ways. So Shodo is the way you do calligraphy. There's different yudo, the way you take a bath. All these things have intentionality behind it. But I think Bushido and the way of the warrior takes a Japanese view of what life is and also what it means to be a warrior at spirit. In Japan, in many ways, the Buddhist warrior monk was like the highest pinnacle. And the idea is it's not just about vanquishing or killing all your enemies.

It's doing it with an intention and also facing your own fear. So I think a lot of folks are intrigued by a culture in which when you lose a battle, you don't actually get killed by your enemies. You do it to yourself. You commit Sepuku, where you, you know, disembow yourself because your inner spirit has to be released to the next world. And you have to do that at your own hand. So many times when a battle happens and one side wins and the other side loses, the other side that loses, the top people would actually, you know, commit Sepuku to be able to honor their family, to be able to honor a tradition so that there might be life after. feet, if that makes sense. Oh, wow. So that's the philosophy behind Sapuko. Sepuku, yes. Sepugo, is that you are trying to release your soul? Yes. And is this, is Bushido like that warrior ideal? Is it imbued with

Buddhism or Shintoism? So it's interesting. So Buddhism and Shinto are very alive and well in Japan. Shintoism is kind of the indigenous Japanese population's religious belief. That's very aniministic. It's very similar to Native American beliefs. And you can find God and everything. In this wood there is a god and the tree itself is a god right Buddhism has a much more you know kind of an idea or philosophy it's very different than having you know kind of a you know a jesus christ or a mohammed or a very linear tradition of a god it is much more of a way of life so i'm not going to tell you what you have to do to be a good person but when you do these things you will find nirvana in many ways and so i think that there's in many ways a very japanese way that these things come

together. So the respect, the harmony that comes in Japanese culture in many ways comes from the Shinto side of the house. I think the Buddhist side of the house really informs how we treat one another the way that we first have to look within ourselves before we start poking and prodding other parts. And there's a cyclical nature of kind of karma that will follow you throughout life and that sense of kind of a circle of life or a more Zen way of understanding the world. And so the samurai were, which religion were they predominantly? Predominantly they came from the Buddhist side of the Right? I mean, again, being a samurai doesn't tell me your religion. It tells me that you're a warrior and it tells me that you're going to use your sword to protect. And you know, again, some people have, you know, made this like their mercenaries, kind of like pirates are to, you know, naval officers. But I think a true samurai would be serving their lord and would have some familial loyalty connections there. And depending on where you lived in which part of Japan, there are different islands, but the main island, Honchu, there are different regions that are controlled by the Shogun, which is kind of the military leader of the time, and then you have the Daimyo,

which is kind of the feudal leaders, that depending on how many Daimyo support who or what, the emperor remains constant. That's the one constant in Japanese culture. You have the emperor. But who makes those decisions is very different. And I think the European kind of separation of church and state happened in a very different way in Japanese history, which is why the Shogun series is so interesting for Americans to understand, wow, it's totally different than the way we do things. Interesting.

Yeah. The Sapuko idea is just, is, as a. Americans, I think, we find it very bizarre. I remember there's a funny story of a, I think it was a French military officer that I think had conquered Japanese samurai in a battle. I think this is like round

early World War II, maybe World War I I don't know exactly, some conflict, and the samurai were basically like, okay, we lost, you beat us, now we're going to disembowel ourselves. And the general was like, what is that? And then one of the samurai did it, and the

general was literally like, all right, no one else has to do it. You guys will just be prisoners. And literally like at one point was going to rescue them, but after seeing the brutality of this ritual was like, all right, no more. It's also conflated with haricari. These are the same word. Do they mean the same thing? No, they're very different, right?

I mean, they're similarly inspired, right? The idea being that, you know, Sepuku is probably the most painful way that you can imagine dying, right? Number one, you know, a bullet to the head your lights out, right? Whereas with Sepuku, you're literally cutting. And so you're not killing yourself.

basically opening up your innards and when you're literally guts and your spirit begin to come out, you're going to die a slow and painful death. And so, you know, sometimes in Japanese battles when things would happen, if somebody is doing Sepuku, usually you do it under your own terms. You don't do it usually in front of the master that you're, you know, that you've just lost to. In some ways, if that's the case, the master would be more generous and would just cut your head off because it's one fail swoop. It's a generous way to do it. Whereas Sepuku in some ways is taking your own life in that ways. So it's a very, there are different iterations of this.

There are different ways in which they could be doing it. That's one particular kind of very stylized way that the samurai would, you know, pay for their sins. Wow. I mean, just hardcore. Yes. Are you familiar with this book Five Rings? Yes.

Who's the author of that? But that's very much based on the, the, the, Bushito concepts and the, yeah. I cannot remember his name Miyashu or something. I cannot remember exactly. He was one of the most feared samurai, basically, killed, like, 62 men in one battle. Yes. I'm curious if you know any other stories of, like, famous samurai, or if there's, like, famous, like, Japanese folklore around the samurai that many Japanese people know that we don't know in America.

Yeah, there's a lot, right? And it's beginning to come out. If you're a big anime fan and you've seen some of the Kurosawa films, you know, the 47 Ronin is probably the most famous, right? These are the guys who basically their master gets defeated, but they go out on their own. And it's kind of a Robin Hood style story. And in Japan, if you grow up in Japan like I did, you literally turn on the TV at night. And the NHK, the main TV broadcaster like the BBC, has these period pieces.

And that period of time, even the Japanese, is particularly intriguing to them. And there are these stories of these Ronin who would kind of fight for honor and valor. And really, you know, they were not fighting for this life. They were fighting for the afterlife. And so they would rob from the kind of corrupt daimyo or the bad people of the time and try to help the villagers. But they would never, you know, they never tried to completely defeat them because you can't replace a lord or a shogun with one of these roanings. They just are not from the right hierarchy. And so they would support the different lords and the different alliances.

And so, you know, the way that Japanese culture of this period worked was very much based on familial ties. And so you would have daughters marrying the enemy of someone else and the princes. and the princesses would begin to intermarry, oftentimes that didn't work out for the average person, and they'd be these horrific battles. And, you know, because you had these very particular centers of civilization, I mean, when America had no civilization, you know, in terms of major cities like in New York or other things,

Japan had these very developed major cities like Osaka. And, you know, Tokyo in many ways, the current capital, one of the largest metropolises in the world, was not one of the major areas until the period that the Shogun period describes in terms of the Tokugawa period, when Edo becomes the capital of Japan. Before that, Kyoto, Osaka, some of the places you visited in your youth

were the main imperial areas. Just like nowadays, certain parts of Europe are not at all what they used to be. Interesting. What happened to the samurai? So they still are around. I think if you ask my grandparents both fought in World War II,

and so the story you talked about with the French general, probably in the World War II period, you know, they still exist. In terms of a class, in terms of a profession, just like the cowboys are not necessarily, you know, all that in practice here in New York, but they still exist if you go to Montana and kind of the way of life there. They exist, but I would say that in many ways they've assimilated to current Japanese culture.

And so there's a very clear hierarchy in Japan. Everyone can trace their families back. And if you're from a samurai family, you absolutely bring that out. And whether it's being a sumo wrestler, which in some ways comes from. from that tradition of kind of showing your strength and your might and you talked about the religious elements, you know, sumo wrestlers are very much based on the Shinto religion, where you kind of, everything that's done there is ritualistic, whether it's karate or whether it's Japanese martial arts that are still very much alive and well, and certainly here in New York

and across the U.S., people are major fans of it, you'll find. And even in terms of the swords, the samurai swords, the traditions, in some ways, I think craftsmanship is back in the country and back very much in a global context. So they exist. They're not going to wear the garb that they wore in terms of the warrior outfit. And they had something called the chomage, which is kind of the cool hair style, kind of, you know, Mohawk style, Japanese style. You're not going to find those folks anymore. But they very much exist. And that spirit of the samurai culture, you can find in all aspects of Japanese life, I would argue. Interesting. So what do you mean the warrior culture exists in every aspect of Japanese life? So I think that the spirit behind Bouchier's

is that intentionality. I keep on using that word because I can't think of the English translation of what somebody would look at themselves to do. So, you know, you have World War II that happens and kind of the outward facing Japanese militaristic empire is defeated by America after World War II. And so as a result, you know, the military and all the outward signs of militarism are gone from Japan. That then is imbibed in many other ways. So whether it's something as peaceful as a tea ceremony, whether it's things like art and culture that you would say that has not. nothing to do with the samurai. Actually, a lot of these samurai, and you described the Five Rings book, a lot of those guys were philosophers. They wrote amazing poetry. And being able to write a good haiku

was equally as important as being able to cut off somebody's head. Because in some ways, to be a great leader, to be a great warrior, ease to be kind of the same way that Europeans would talk about a Renaissance man. In Japan, that would take that same characteristic there. And of course, there's a gender norm here, right? Because there are no female samurai because of the gender norms. but that spirit of Bushido, I think, can be lived regardless of gender and regardless of generation. It's still, to this day, is something that people go back to. And I think in Japan, particularly when it comes to the quality of things, whether it's having an amazing sushi chef who's using that knife to perfection to cut the specific areas of the fish

to make sure that it's the best cut for you. And in that exact moment, that freshness is preserved and makes it taste in a way that you're never going to experience outside of Japan in some ways, or in the way that you arrange flowers in Ikebana, that's very much that precision, the detail that I think is taught in Bushido and from the samurai culture is very much president in Japan in all aspects of its culture. That's really interesting.

Yeah, I want to talk about that as well, like how Japan has basically created a perfect version of everything. Yes. Like I always say, like, if you want the best pizza, go to Japan. They might not have the most pizza. They might not just have like the most casual slices, but like the best single piece of anything, is probably found in one of these islands.

100%. One million percent, I believe that. So you picked up on that from one trip to Japan. Oh, no question. Yeah, they're like, oh, do you want a grilled cheese sandwich? I was like, yeah, I mean, what do Japanese people know about grill cheese? And it was the best. Oh, you want a steak?

It's the best steak. Everything is just the finest thing. And this idea of God existing within all things and doing all things for the purpose of serving God. And that there's nothing flippant. Everything is intentional. Yes. I think is really, really interesting and specifically unique to. Japanese society.

And there's a dichotomy, I think, that a lot of Americans have about Japan where there's basically like an inflection point after World War II. Pre-World War II, at least for me, I view Japanese as like fearsome warriors that are like chopping people's heads off. They're kamikaze.

They're, you know, they're going and invading people and they're just like just kicking ass. And then post-World War II, there seems to be like this, it becomes much more docile. And I've heard this story. I don't know if it's true. The Japanese emperor at the time, right at the end of World War II, basically gave a speech and was like, okay, the war is over, we're going to move on, da-da-da.

And then gave a, in the same speech, basically spoke in what was, I guess, referred to as like traditional Japanese, like an ancient Japanese, and basically said, the war is not over. The war will never be over. Our new war is no longer on the battlefield. It is in commerce and the economy. and basically all of their effort and production moved over to creating, like, amazing products and just basically becoming like an economic force in the world. Yeah. Is that a true story?

Have you ever heard that before? Yeah, no, I've heard it and I've listened to the speech. And so you got to remember, there's a few things going on here. Up until that moment, so on August 15th, 1945, when Japan is officially defeated after two atomic bombs are dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese people have never heard the voice of the emperor. because it was, you got to remember, the emperor is God, literally. Like, not just the high priest, but is God. The living embodiment of the Japanese spirit and the highest of all Shinto gods is the imperial

family. And so the emperor, you do everything in the name of the emperor. So the Shogun and all these Daimyo are doing everything in the name of this, you know, it's a crazy concept. For Christians, it would be like, okay, Jesus is both son, man, and God. Like, that's crazy. But this is like, no, he's actually God. So when he speaks for the first time, no Japanese had ever heard this before.

And his voice is not what you would traditionally think of as like a booming, powerful samurai voice. It's something that's different than what Japanese had expected their emperor to sound like. And so what he actually says is very much, you know, in line with what you said. He didn't say the war is not over. He said the war is over now. But he uses language that kind of helps Japanese to deal with this defeat. Because remember, up into this point of time, as you described earlier about the French general, they're going to fight to the death. You're going to have to kill every Japanese person to

win the war, which is not what Americans wanted. We're already, we're already beyond World War 2 at this point. We're already beginning to think about what do we do about the Russians and the Cold War that's coming. We've defeated Japan militarily, but we can't defeat their spirit. How are we going to defeat their spirit? And I think General MacArthur made a smart move at America at the time to say, we've got to work with the emperor and we got to work with the Japanese. And so the emperor is giving people a reason to say, look, I know that you fought the war on my behalf, and for me and you were dying for me, that wasn't in vain. Like that's not what it's about anymore.

Now it's about providing for the nation and for the future of this country. To do that, do it with excellence. And to your point, that's why everything in Japan is focused on the excellence. And it's not just the things that you can get paid a lot of money for, right? Being the best basketball player, being the best baseball player that now the face of MLB is Japanese obviously, in Lutani. That spirit is alive and well, but it's alive and well in areas that you'll never find anywhere else. Cleaning toilets. There's literally an Oscar-winning movie right now that's about

cleaning toilets. And it's very uniquely Japanese story. It's the idea that in everything you can find perfection. Again, that does go back to Buddhism. Like you don't, there is no such thing as perfection, but you continually seek that perfection. And so if you're going to make a steak, if you're going to make a burger, if you're going to make a fish, you know, kind of cut in a certain way, make it the best you're ever able to do it. And let's celebrate that together, which I think often in American culture, it's the opposite, right? The fast food nature of America, like, let's just get it fast, let's make it taste really good in that moment. But the moment that McDonald's fries, like five minutes later, you're not going to touch that stuff. Like, you would never eat that stuff

later because it doesn't taste that good, right? Whereas Japanese food, it stands the test of time. Literally, you have food that you're like, wow, this food could, like, be prehistoric. It's like from the original keto diet, right? Yeah. And now it's taken over the world. So I think that that focus on excellence is I think what the emperor was talking about. And it's something that still imbibes the Japanese nation today, which to your point, Japanese don't think it's exceptional. They don't think it's very unique. But I think when you look at it from this side of the world, you're like, that's amazing. And I want more of what that is. Interesting. So you don't see it as a as sort of like a change going from like this military power to this economic power.

No, there definitely is a change. But I think that, you know, the pursuit of what's the great quotes often that like, you know, kind of businesses, the pursuit of warfare by other means. I think that that would be slightly controversial in Japan because the feeling there is, well, war itself is not being, you know, you described, and I think very accurately, kind of a Western view of Japan as kind of this barbarian nation before World War II that is out there to just like colonize and kill and all that stuff. And there was brutalities and I'm not going to sit here and defend things that happen in that war.

But there are also things that happen in the war on our side. We won the war. We got the right history in many ways. And so when you're on the losing side, like the Japanese and Germans, obviously the history is very different. And I think Japan has come to terms with that in a very different way. And I think the way that they've often come to terms is to kind of forget about that. Let's just not talk about what happened. And let's focus on a new area for the future, which works very well when you're talking about the islands of Japan. But of course, there's a lot of

history that goes beyond that and goes to other parts of the world that continue to have an impact in terms of the Indo-Pacific in terms of U.S.-Japan relations. You know, I mean, the prime minister of Japan's going to be visiting the White House. That conversation about its relations with Korea, which are extremely good right now, its relations with China that are not so good. Its relations in other parts of the world are influenced by that history. And I think Japanese would say, look, our history is much longer than a four-year war. So how can you reduce all of our history to that moment? Think about what we did to each other during the Civil War period in Japanese culture, which takes place in that 13th, 14th, 15th century that the Shogun period talks about.

That's really interesting. Yeah, I mean, in terms of like an economic power, there's no doubt that Japan has, is, like, for the size and the population, I mean, there's this old quote, like in economics. Like, I studied econ in college. I think it's inflation, deflation, but basically, have you heard this? There's four economies in the world. There's inflated economies, deflating economies, and then Japan and Argentina. Like, it's like this old thing. It's like, like, those two basically are just anomalies that just exist outside of any economic model.

And, like, Japan, if you just look at the companies, like Sony, Mitsubishi, Subaru, I mean, like, Nikon, Toyota, Honda. Yep. I mean, like, there's so many. Yep. And that's just, like, a couple. If you look up the whole list of, like, major Japanese companies, it's unthinkable that one little island could have all of this. Yeah. The island is basically the size of, like, East Coast of United States, roughly.

Yep. It's crazy. Yes. What's up, guys? We're going to take a break really quick because it's 2024. And it's time to talk about something important. When you are seriously hurt, your injury could be worth millions. Yes, that's right.

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F-O-R-the-people.com slash gagnon or dial pound law, pound-five, 29 from your cell phone. This is a paid advertisement. Now let's get back to the show after the short disclaimer. Can you explain the role of salary men and what they are in society, who they are, what they look like? Like if someone listening went to Japan and they saw a salary man, what would they see and what do they do? Yeah, it's fascinating. So the word salary man comes from English, right? But in Japanese, Saratiman is the way it's put out. In some ways, it's the backbone of the economy you just described.

Like what makes Japan tick in many ways and is able to produce so much more than what it has is a salaryman. but it's also a concept stuck in time. In Japan, you think about imperial periods of time. So this is a Shoah era period. So, you know, this is the period right before the emperor that we were talking about, Hirohito, die. So this happens right at the end of the Cold War, 1989-ish, is when you have a new period come in. But the Showa period basically tells Japanese, you have to do everything to the best of your ability and perfection. And so a salary man basically gives his life to his company.

And in many ways, if you want to use the military analogy, you're basically sacrificing your own happiness. So you have a family, but your wife takes care of everything at the home front. You're in charge of everything at the office. And it's not 9 to 5 in kind of the American, and particularly this generation's concept where you want to have something called work-life balance. That doesn't exist for a salary man. You go to work, you provide for your family monetarily, but you do whatever your company needs. So you work, let's say, eight to six, and then afterwards you have to go out and entertain and you've got to go out with your colleagues. You have to go drinking.

There's a whole culture part of it. And basically, you may or may not see your family or your kids or anything else. And so the salary man was very much celebrated in the show area and said, look, this is the way that the new Japan and the modern Japan is going to rebuild itself because it was absolutely devastated after World War II. You know, its economy was completely toast. There was nothing there. And then by the 1980s, here you have Japan competing with America, which is, you know,

10 times its size. And even though the geographic spaces, like you said, the East Coast or like California, it's population is like, you know, 130, 120 million people. Like if you had that level of density, every part of the East Coast, every part of the West Coast would be like New York City, right? Which is just not fathomable. And when you think about the majority of Japan, something like 85% of Japan is uninhabitable because it's volcanoes, right? It's these huge mountains. And so the parts of Japan that are inhabitable are crazy to an American standards. The idea of living that close to your neighbors to an American is downright un-American in many ways. And so they have to come up

with the cultural norms. And I think that the salary man is the kind of symbol of that. That's changed a lot in the current period because after the Showa period, you have the Heiwa period, which is kind of means peaceful, peaceful period. And I would argue actually that the Japanese economy, which is amazing, particularly based on size, in many ways, has been replicated in other parts of the world. Korea is a great example, right? I think Korea today has a higher GDP per capita than Japan does, even though size-wise Japan is still the third largest, maybe now it's the fourth largest economy, because you got China and America as the big boys, but then you've also got India right there.

You got Germany, European Union, et cetera. I think in many ways, Japan is entering a new phase of its own existence where the population demographics are on the way down, partly because of the celebration of the salary man, right? That does not sound like a recipe for building strong families to have a completely bifurcated system where the men go to work and work and the women stay home. And that's a very traditional style of society.

How do you adapt that to the current era? And I think there's been a lot of struggle in Japan with the generations. So do you actually see that the families have changed in sort of how, like, children are raised? Like, it's primarily from the mother. Yes. And the salary men, how many salary men are there? Like, are most people's dad's salary men? Yeah, I mean, if you're close to our age, your dad is certainly a salary man.

I mean, the difference is you're either a salary man or you become somebody significant. But when you're in the hierarchy of Japanese culture, to be the CEO. or to be a minister or to be a top, fill in the blank, those guys, monks, samurai, are not salary men, right? Like, salary men or your average middle class, you know, version. So think about kind of- Soldiers in a way. Exactly, exactly, in that context.

So I do think there's a big difference. And there has been generational, I mean, every generation in every country goes through kind of this period of like the golden years. Oh, it wasn't like that in my day, et cetera. Everybody lives in that world. And I think all of us, depending on your generation, kind of look back and are like, yeah, I don't know if that's true. I think it's just the way my dad saw things, right? And, you know, the 1950s in America was a very different place too, right?

But I do think that the Japan of today where certainly women are far more empowered than they have ever been. They are absolutely necessary. Without women getting involved in the economy, there's a whole movement in Japan called Womanomics, which is basically saying, look, the demographic reality is like the number of kids being born in Japan is well below the replacement rate. You got to have at least two kids per family to keep the country just stable, right? Japan is well below that. Most Asian countries are below that, certainly far east Asian countries, China, Korea as well. There's a big difference.

And I think the way that, I mean, my own experience, right, like looking at how my friends grew up, you know, my dad was at home most of the time. He's a pastor. So, like, you know, he was available. He obviously had work. And on Sundays in particular, he was busy. But I grew up with a father who was very active in my life. Most of my Japanese friends didn't have that. but it was built into the society

because their grandparents were actively involved. So oftentimes the grandfather will have even more influence. And Japanese fathers stereotypically are not known for being kind of cuddly or having conversations. They kind of let their actions speak for their words. And, you know, the mothers are the ones who kind of filled in there.

And so I think there's a very different relationship between Japanese mothers and Japanese sons. And oftentimes there's kind of a babying that goes on. And so when you think about, okay, what generation are we in now? like you're my age. Like, why are you having so much trouble with women? It's like, well, this was not modeled very well.

And, you know, unlike the U.S. where the divorce rates are extremely high now, I think in Japan, there was kind of a sense of gaman, or let's just stick it out. Let's just work this out because family is everything. Family matters. And it's not just your immediate family. It's like, well, I don't want to disappoint your mom and dad. So we'll live in a loveless marriage and we'll sleep in two separate rooms because this is a corporate environment that we need to produce and, you know, fulfill different needs.

And so it seems very transactional in a way, like a lot of marriage because you are trying to keep the society moving. Like, is there a social pressure that's happening in order to, like, sustain relationships? And like, is it different than America in the sense that, you know, in America, there's a lot of loveless marriage, right? Like, and I guess divorce is more acceptable. But in Japan, what is holding that together? Is it just family pressure? Yeah, you know, it's interesting. So in America, a lot of the change in generations is related to religion, right?

because if you're coming from a majority Christian group where divorce is not a good thing, right, whether you're Catholic or evangelical, like it's a failure. Like, it is absolutely a failure that you did something wrong in this relationship. And you promise before God and man, for God's sake, right? Right. And I think in Japan in general is a much more consensus-driven society. In America, it's all about you. Individualism, freedom.

It's about my rights, right? In Japan, it's not really about you or about my. It's about our. It's about the collective. And so while I think that the family has gone through a major change and dynamics are there, there's definitely that social pressure, but it's not coming from like Catholic guilt or like, you know, my mom will be disappointed and I can't go back to church or show my face. It's like, well, no, we need to do this because it's right for our kids.

And I do think that the more difficult conversation isn't about the older generation. It's about the current generation because if you are getting your fulfillment and you don't see the need for a partner. So there's a lot of people in Japan. There's no reason to get married. like Europe, right? It's like there's, it's kind of a postmodern family. It's like, we can have kids. We can do all those things together. We'll do that. But why do we need to get married? Like, there's nothing. And that's been a struggle because Japanese bureaucratic society has been very much based on where you've got to take your father's name. You got to do all these things. Without that,

it's like, okay, well, what is that now? Is this like, I want to file, you know, to get my tax benefits just because we're married? So what is marriage as an institution if you take away the religious element? What does that mean? Now, is the collective? mindset is that because it is just such an ancient homogenous culture, like, is that ultimately what drives it home? Is that this is just how we've been doing this for, you know, a couple millennia? Is it rooted in like language? Is the language created in such a way that it's like, oh, every, like the way that the verbs and adjectives are structures is like very collectivist, like what psychologically is happening in Japan that in America we don't have? You know, I mean,

I think a lot of it, I mean, all of the above, right? I don't think there's any one answer, but I do think geography matters here, right? In America, where you're, this expansive continent where like literally the concept of manifest destiny lives in all of us. Like the American dream is that you pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you just keep on going west and you'll discover your own purpose because we came from a very rigid kind of, you know, imperial kind of, you know, kingdom world where we don't want a king anymore. We want to be able to have our own. And what's in my house, as for me in this place, I'm going to protect it. That's my own, right? Whereas in Japan, you're talking about thousands of years in a very small area of

islands that have to protect themselves against some pretty crazy things, right? Whether it's Chinese invaders, Mongolian invaders, like Japan has gone through a lot of history. And that's why you have a whole samurai culture that builds itself up to be able to defend itself. But at the same time, you can't live in such a highly dense population without having a very clear hierarchy. So I think that in many ways, that tension between hierarchy and meritocracy of kind of like ability and kind of loyalty and kind of the tradition and modern, which is what I love about Japan. It's a juxtaposition, right? It's an ancient civilization as a modern nation to this day.

And so there are things that are through lines in Japanese history. And one of those is a collective sense of responsibility. So no matter who the ruler, I mean, you talked about the words, in Japanese, a lot of the words that are used to describe rulers or leaders is not based on hubris or about look at me and how strong. I mean, think about American concepts of like strong men, right? And it usually is men. it's kind of like that kind of strong machismo kind of cowboy who like can kill everyone can do all that stuff in japan it's more about how can i get the most out of the population that i serve and so it might not seem as masculine to an american audience to say why is that guy in shogun tournaga you know or

tokugawa is the real name for that leader he's cunning he's able to kind of be part of the imperial court and really show his sophistication and understanding of the world and at the same time when he needs to be he's as strong as steel and strong as samurai sort. So I just think those concepts and norms are in many ways rooted in the history of the country, but also in the geography that they represent in terms of an island nation versus a continent. That's interesting.

That is very, very interesting. Yeah, I'm kind of one of these people that's like geography dictates everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, if you look at like the voting population of America, it's like geography has like so much to like play into like how all of politics works. It's very, very interesting.

That makes a lot of sense to me. is if you have all these people living in such density, living so close together, collectivist mindset, and sort of this group responsibility becomes way more important. And so now people are now operating, trying to take care of their brothers,

trying to take care of their countrymen for generations, and that just gets instilled in the culture so deeply. And then you go through wars, and then this economic boon, it's all is just going in that direction. That makes a lot of sense. That's really interesting. And in America, we just do not have that.

Everything is me, me, me, me, me, very. individualistic because we can be. Yeah, absolutely. Interesting. And even in New York, I would say New York is more collectivist. Yes. Like, you know, perspective to the other parts of the country than Wyoming. You know what I mean? Like, we kind of exist in this collective kingdom. Yeah. Whereas if you have a ranch out west, like, you are your own kingdom. Yeah. I mean, it's literally, it's funny because North Korea is called the hermit kingdom, right? But it's hard to be a hermit kingdom in Japan. Because either you're like the richest dude and the most powerful guy who's able to like hire everyone to keep everybody off your mountain. Or like in New York,

you can't afford that. Even the richest guys in New York have to walk on the street at some point in time. And even if you're getting into your car, I mean, most of us ride the subway and are part of that world. It's just a very different world in many ways.

So I think that there's a big distinction, big difference there. Yeah, it's really interesting. You touched on, you know, mothers raising the children and grandparents kind of helping. Can you explain sort of like the interpersonal relationship dynamics

in Japan and kind of why there's a declining birth rate, why it's difficult to kind of get the younger generation to be having romantic relationships. I've also heard of this concept of Cabedon. Yeah. This is fascinating to me. Can you just kind of explain like sex and relationships as it exists right now in Japan?

Yeah, well, I'm certainly not the expert on this because I've been gone from Japan since I was 18 and I'm happily married and have kids. It's a conundrum within a conundrum, right? I think that in general, this isn't just a Japanese problem. I need to be very clear about this. This is something that I think across Asia, you know, there's a generational kind of stacking that goes on

where it's just kind of expected that as, you know, I'm the oldest child of my parents. I'm expected to take care of my parents. And at some point in time, they're supposed to move into my house because owning a home is much more difficult in Japan than it is in the States, for example. And so oftentimes what will happen is it's not that my parents move into my home,

I move into their home, right? And as they get older and don't need as much space, they kind of diminish and have smaller areas and then my kids get bigger and they grow up in the house. Like that's the traditional way of life in Japan in some way. So you would have a house that is owned in the family. you know the whole sexless marriage thing and and you know kind of the you know i mean it is such a fascinating whole another conversation about the underworld in japan and where uh people go to be

able to release and to be able to experience pleasure and whatever form that takes for you i think oftentimes you know in america you know it's kind of like well in a puritanical kind of of christian way like you know you got to get married before you can have sex right it's not the same in japan there's not the same taboos that we have here and so when you're you You can buy anything, and I mean literally anything in a vending machine at whatever age in Japan, it creates a very different relationship. And so I think that what's happening here is going back to the kind of generational change that's happening. You have the Shoah era of kind of a certain generation.

And the new generation looks at that generation, says, I don't want that for myself. Like, I want to have pleasure for myself. The family, I don't want to disappoint my family, but I'm okay not doing that. So people are getting married later in life. women are not necessarily growing up to be who want to be just like their mothers, right? The guys may grow up wanting to be like their fathers and having success in the career place and the workplace, but then they're not going to find women like their mothers anymore because the women want flexibility.

They want to have families. They want to work outside of the house. They want to be valued in all senses of the word. And I also think that kind of privileging motherhood is something that we're struggling with in the U.S. as well, right? And it's not just about mothers. It's about parents in general. Like, as a young father, it's hard.

to be able to balance these things. And I think the pandemic and COVID laid that bear. And so if you're young and living in the States and you're like, hey, I want to start a family, okay, well, do you want a career or do you want a family? That same struggle is real in Japan. But now you add the layers of what do I do about taking care of my parents, right? And I think my generation is kind of a sandwich generation. I got to start taking care of my parents.

They're retired and beginning to think about what's next. And like they got 20, 30 years, hopefully to live. But what are they going to do with that life? Is my family and their grandchildren the most important thing? Do I want them to live in my house? Is my wife going to be happy with that? It's not a very American way of doing things, but that's very much the Asian way of doing.

It's kind of expected. So I think you have a collision of kind of the modern lifestyle with a traditional set of values. That depending on who you are, there's no one size fits all. I can't sit here and say this is the Japanese way of marriage or Japanese fatherhood or whatever else. But there are certain clear demographic trends.

And when you look at kind of where, where we are in that cycle, Japan is kind of on the forefront. I like to think about Japan as kind of like a country of the future in all senses that work, both in the positive sense, technology and animation, et cetera, robots, et cetera, but also because they're going to have to find a way of adapting without as many birth rates as they had in the past. That's why robots are so popular in Japan. There's not this, in America, there's kind of this weird, like robots are going to take it. It's kind of like Terminator is like the American view of what robots are going to do.

like robots gone wild and gone wrong and like taking over the world in Japan they're there to help you like robots are controlled by humans it's used to help people and so as you have an older population you let the robots take care of it why do we need to bring in immigrants when we can have robots to take care of a lot of these things so there's just a very different way of thinking and there's just you know it's not right or wrong it's just that this was one way of doing it there's another way over here when you're when you're an immigrant nation like america interesting so yeah there's a convergence that's happening there's a historical kind of traditional way of doing things and then a more modern way that then is influencing Japanese culture and this new generation

is kind of seduced by. Can you explain kind of like the older way of doing things? You mentioned like there's a family house and the parents would kind of diminish and things like that. But in terms of like sex and attitude towards sex in, you know, even like early parts of the 1900s in Japan. Yeah. Was sex much more accessible?

Were there arranged marriages? Like how did relationships kind of blossom pre-modern era? Yeah, I mean, so I think the main difference was matchmaking. So it's still a very accepted part of all Asian culture, I would argue, right? Where like, it would not be weird for your mother to be like, you're going to marry her. And you're like, what? Because she's from a good family. She'll provide good children. She's from this. It's an alliance that works for our family. This is the dream come true. I raised you so that you could help your own family. So it's not about you. I don't care if you're attracted to her or not. Like, she's going to be a good wife. And what it means to be a good wife is not necessarily. you know, based on love. In some ways, a loving marriage would be seen as selfish, right? Because is marriage really only about love? Well, I would argue marriage in many ways is about family. It's about procreation. It's about building that. I mean, I think from a business point of view, you would say that your marriage is your most important partnership, your most important strategic alliance. Who you pick to marry is probably going to determine more things about your

life than almost any other decision you make in your entire life. And so I think sex is only one part of that. And as a result, I think there is a different relationship with it. Just to go back to the Shogun example, because that's a factual one I can point to, that whole story in many ways is about the different alliances, the different familial connections. And it's not frowned upon as long as sex is done in the right way. So you would never fall in love with a princess or somebody from the imperial family. Like that's just taboo. You can't do that. You don't, that is not, what are you doing?

Whereas, if you need, you know, you have a sexual appetite, you need to be able to go out and have some. sex, we'll go and go to the prostitutionary, go to the red light district. I mean, there's always been that in human history and wherever civilization we're talking about, whether port cities otherwise. So Japan was no different, but there was a way things were done. And so whether it's like the bathing scene in Shogun where, you know, it's a very sensual experience and that's kind of expected that, well, she is his cortisant. So that's expected. So you can have a wife and a mistress, as long as those things are understood. And there's a very clear understanding that the wife is the highest thing. And in some ways, the wife would be happy that she doesn't have to, you know,

be reduced to a, you know, a sexual creature and be able to say, well, it's actually better that my husband is taken care of by the mistresses that he has. And I'm okay with that. As long as he pays respect to the hierarchy of the way things are here. So there is a tradition there, but I don't necessarily think it's all that different that may be the European way of doing it too, right? Yeah. Historically, if I'm the Lord and I'm entertaining you to visit me, I'm going to hire the best looking women in my group to serve you and particularly the highest person because I want you to leave with a sense of hospitality. And so I'm not paying her to sleep with you at all. That's not at all what it's about.

But they're going to perform, right? They're going to perform musical acts. They're going to perform kind of like cultural things that show off my group versus other groups to show, to show my strength and my power. And that's what the gaysia about. I mean, Gashas wear a very particular makeup, right? where in some ways it protects their face. Like you're not actually seeing the real woman in front of you. You're seeing a white, almost like a ghost version of that woman, right?

So there's two different elements where once you put that makeup on, you're performing. You are taking on, you're kind of stepping onto the global stage. And so the geisha, in many ways, their main function is to make sure that you're taking care of. The whole point is to make them feel like this was the greatest night of their life. And oftentimes that's when you have somebody who, like, you know, there's a desire there, but you don't fully cross that line. And so I would often think that, you know, kind of the, what is it,

memoir of the geisha or the Madam Butterfly type of ideas that have become popularized. Like that's kind of an extreme, and it's the exception, not the rule. I'm not an expert on geisha, obviously, but I do think it's such a fascinating area. When you go to Kyoto, there's entire regions where that's where the geisha are.

But most of that region is very high culture because you're going there to learn about Japanese tea ceremonies, about flowers, about arrangements, about, you know, cultural elements that just happened to be part of the geisha's repertoire of ancient culture. Are gaysha respected? Yes, very much so. And so if your daughter became a gaysha, your family would be okay with it. You know, it's interesting, right?

I think that the modern version has become very different, obviously. It's a regional thing where, you know, they're not gaysia everywhere. The same way the samurai are not everywhere, right? I don't know what the answer to that is. I think the difference would be if you are a family from a certain. class and your daughter becomes a cortisone or becomes important to a very high nobility and they're used in that way. I think there's at least some part of that that's transactional a good thing for your family

to say, okay, well, great, now that she's close, we can use that access for other things. You know, it's hard to say, I mean, I have a daughter myself and I can't imagine that that would be something I would want my daughter to grow up to do or be, right? But I also have pretty high expectations. Like I expect her to be the first female president in the United States or something, right? Like I have very high and nobody will be good enough for my daughter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's interesting.

Yeah, it's interesting to see that it's not, because I guess, yeah, over here we kind of see it as prostitution. Yes. And that is not the case. Yes. Even though it is the case sometimes. Yes. What's up, guys? We're going to take a break really quick because you are a man who needs a personal shopper.

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You know, there is such a thing as Japanese Americans, because that's just like way America is. There's no such thing as American Japanese. So I'm like, I'm a very weird group where, you know, I look very white American on the outside, but very much culturally grew up in Japan. So I have a kind of that appreciation and sympathy of trying to connect the dots on these things.

Yeah. Because it's like, why else would a white dude be the president of Japan society? But there have been many before me as well. But I think that, you know, the guy right before me who was president in Japan society was one of our most honored and revered, and he happened to be our first Japanese president of Japan society. He's the first. First, first Japanese.

I'm the 20th president of Japan society, but he was the first Japanese, and I like to say that I was the second Japanese, basically was like the second grew up in Japan, because that's a factual statement. I can't call myself Japanese, right? Because there's an ethnic component to it that's pretty clear in America, and also there's a nationalistic component. Like, I can't, the only way I could become Japanese is if I had some amazing cultural talent or the Japanese government designated something.

So if you're like a sumo wrestler, we have a lot of sumo wrestlers who are from Hawaii or Guam or other places. Soccer players, like if you're like really needed for the Olympic team, they'll make it. I mean, look at some of the marathon runners or look at some of the major athletes. But otherwise, my brother, I was born in America and moved to Japan when I was one. My brother's born in Japan, he'll never be Japanese because it's based on your mother's lineage, right? Wow. And so like if you're ethnically Japanese, you can go back to being Japanese. But if you look like me and grew up in Japan, no matter how much I spent time in Japan, I never going to be a naturalized citizen.

Interesting. Okay. Yeah, I want to get into that. But first, can you explain anime why that is so prevalent in Japan and why it has become so prevalent in America? Yeah. Like, I'm curious if you have any theories as to why it's like that specific piece of culture has touched over so much.

I mean, I think about this all the time because the truth is, and, you know, Japan society is a very cultured institution. And I think historically, anime is not something you associate with Japan society. But increasingly, I'm like, why wouldn't you do this? Like, anime's taking over the world. So there are no easy answers, but let me just be as simple as I can be. So anime has a long tradition in Japan because going back to like the woodblock prints of Ukioye, which are very famous now with the great waves, you know, hoaxi prints, that's essentially

anime, right? Like you're printing something that communicates an entire story. So that's basically a comic book, right? And now it may only be one picture, but that has translated. And I think what's special about anime is, you know, in America animation or cartoons or for kids, in Japan, anime is for everyone. It's to communicate something much larger that you can do through an artistry, through a form. And going back to the Japanese concept of perfection or excellence, the idea that anime artists

have really perfected the form of communicating stories that are really, I mean, you have literally hundreds of these books where every, you know, a couple of months, a new series comes out, and you are vested in the lives of this. And no matter what you're fancy is, robots or, you know, kind of futuristic things or traditional stuff. There's something for you. And, you know, something as mundane as Japanese basketball players, slam dunk was one of the biggest animation films of last year in all of Asia, not just Japan, by the way. And it became huge here. In America, a lot of stuff have taken over the world, boy and Heron, right, which Studio Ghibli and Miyazaki have taken over the world. I think the theory

of why anime has taken over the world, I think because it's good. I think because it tells a story in a way that sometimes we don't take the time to perfect, right? I mean, Walt Disney and Disney World and Disneyland and kind of the Mickey Mouse's of the world have conquered the world. Like, nobody in the world doesn't know who Mickey Mouse is at this point of time. And that's because there was an excellence behind it and a sense of fantasy that was there. And I think anime does that, but in a less PR, less promotional way, where it doesn't really, you know, Japanese culture is one. You have to really want to appreciate. You have to want to step into it.

They're not going to hit you over the head and say, hey, look at us. that we're Japanese, like, come and worship us. No, it's like, they're almost kind of weird. They're kind of like, okay, why do you find this fast? I mean, Japanese are fascinated by why Americans, particularly dudes like us, are into anime. No, actually, this is a great storyline. I think that's what most people will tell you.

Like, the storylines in anime are so much better than anything else we have. Because, like, you know, with my kids, I watch some of the stuff. And, you know, when I look at Disney stuff, Moana and Frozen, being the particular favorite of my daughter, those are great stories, regardless of medium. They're good stories. and you think about the different stories that Disney selects, that's to another level.

I mean, some of what we think that Disney copied might be from Japanese animation, right? Yeah, I've seen this with Lion King. Yes. Yeah, I forgot what the Japanese version was. Yes.

But there's so many, like, so many areas of connection. That are like, oh, this is very similar. Yes. And to the storyline point, I mean,

I've heard that, again, I don't really watch a lot of anime. I never really did. It's never clicked for me. Yep. But, like, attack on Titan, I've heard is, like, unbelievable.

Yes. Like, Death Note, I've heard. It's like, I mean, you could write a thousand books. Yes. Like, that could try to come close. Like, I've heard that these specific stories are just transcendent. Yes.

But there is something, I think, that's unique, specifically in America. And I don't know why. Anime has touched black people in America in a different way, in my opinion. Like, this is almost like a new stereotype that I don't know if there's consensus on. So many of my black friends growing up were just like, I like anime. Like, that was the first time I ever heard of anime. It was not for Japanese people. It was from my black friends.

I'm curious, do you think there's, maybe it's the animation component? Is there something with the storytelling that it transcends and connects with the black American experience? It's a really good question. I don't have enough evidence points to point to that, right? I have a PhD, so I like to try to keep things, you know, analytical, especially when you're talking about these very sensitive topics. But I think anecdotally, I feel exactly what you're saying. When I look, I mean, we're having the premiere of Gundam at Japan Society.

When I look at the audience, just purely from a demographic point, of view. The traditional person that comes into Japan's society to come to our gallery or other places tends to be kind of the upper east side, you know, stereotypical group of people. When I see anime folks, it's very different crowd. It's Harlem is represented, Upper East Side, you know, it's the Lower East Side, Brooklyn's in the house. It's interesting. And I don't know exactly because I don't have that lived experience. I grew up as a minority in Japan, but a privilege right? I do think there is something about the story in anime that allows people to escape whatever they're coming from because it's meant to take you out of the environment you're in and put you

in a new fantasy world. And there's not the same racial dynamics. In America, everything is racial at a certain point in time. Whereas in Japan, that's just not part of the experience. There are no, there are no races. It's you're Japanese. Full stop, right? And so as a result, I don't think that the layers are there as much. So it's easily accessible. And so I, I hear you, and you see it. clearly, even in terms of the business of animation, when you look at the top Americans who are out there doing a lot of these different things, it's disproportionately African American, right? There must be something that's being touched.

And so I think that growing up as a minority, particularly an African American experience, must resonate with the storylines that are not told in the same way. I mean, take Disney as a great example, right? Up until a couple of maybe years or decades ago, all the princesses look like my daughter. They were not looking like whatever Tiana and the frog and, you know, Moulon and all the new, you know, women of color that have come out of the princess movement. Whereas in Japan, I think people can kind of project and say, well, yeah, everybody looks Japanese, but like I can see my own self in the robot or in that basketball player because they're all the same.

They're not different in anyway. So you can project and you can enter that fantasy and that perfect dream world and however you want to experience. So you can project your own experience in a way that I think it's hard in American pop world. culture. That's really interesting. It's an accessible, non-racialized hero story. Yeah. It's a great way of putting it. That's interesting. Yeah. So if you're a blackhead American, you feel disenfranchised because of all the racial problems we have here and you're like, oh God, there's this medium I can watch where I can just, I can be the hero. Yeah. And I can be the person that's saving the day and I can feel like powerful by watching this story and like this person being an avatar for me. And there's no racial component where all of a sudden

my fantasy is broken. Yeah. Because I even, I'm trying to think like so many American cartoons. not by like any I guess like explicit purpose just become racialized in some way either explicitly you know like the Simpsons there's like they're yellow but like there's yellow characters

then there's black characters you know what I mean so like there's racial components there which is a comedy I think it's different but I don't know I'm trying to even think like cartoons with like animals and stuff might still have like characteristics of like white culture

instilled in them whereas anime is just something completely foreign that is a completely blank slate that anyone in a America can just jump into. Yeah, no, and I think it's, think about it, like, up until a couple years ago, if you didn't have, like, Black Panther, who was your superhero, right? Like, as a black kid growing up, like, is it Captain America?

As a Superman? Like, that is a very particular projection of a certain view, right? Whereas in Japan, it's like you take Doraemon, you take, you know, you take, you know, you take, you know, Goku from Dragon Ball Z. You take Pikachu. Like, those are all, any, any kid can take hold of those things, right? And I think what's interesting is, you know, I think that as Japanese close, you know, becomes more globalized, right?

I think Japanese are fascinated. I mean, look, the Macy's Day parade here in New York, this last Thanksgiving, I was astonished because obviously I paid pretty close attention to when Japanese culture kind of goes mainstream. And when I look at the balloons in the Macy's Day parade, that's about as high cultures you can get, right? You know, you're used to seeing Smokey the Bear

and Snoopy and all these kind of iconic American figures. There were, as far as I could count, only four or five international figures that made that. One was Bluey from Australia, I guess, some penguin from Korea. but the other three that made it were Goku of Dragon Ball, Pikachu of, you know, of Pokemon, and then the new one, Luffy, like monkey, one, you know, the monkey piece, one piece.

And I was surprised because it's kind of like, wow, like there were no Japanese bands playing music or anything else. But of those blimps, like they were like 30% of that. And that means that that culture is resonating in a deeper way and it's gone popular where, you know, our kids are going to grow up with that being the norm, Whereas when I grew up, it was like whether Sesame Street or, you know, Flintstones or these kind of very stereotypical worlds that they lived in, there's components that maybe were not intentional, but are subconsciously built into it.

Whereas in Japanese, I do think there's a reason that video games have also conquered the world, right? Like I think in many ways it allows you to escape. And I think particularly in the current period, the world's a pretty dark place right now. So if I can escape into, you know, some of the video games that allow you to have role playing and allow you to do things that are beyond. I mean, think about it. Like, the most iconic Japanese video game is an Italian plumber, Mario Brothers. Like, that's got nothing to do with Japan, right?

But the concept that unleashed this idea that I have control and I can punch these mushrooms and I can get these things. Like, that was pretty empowering at a time where, like, all you had was a ball going back and forth and pong and stuff, right? And now that's been taken to the whole other level where you can live an entire metaverse and an entire world that's, you know, inhabited by a digital world that you don't ever have to interact with the rest of the human world. You can focus on that digital world. Interesting. Yeah, Super Mario, I think, is the best example of, like, you know, these are

Japanese icons that I don't think people even see as Japanese anymore because they're global. Yes. Pikachu is not Japanese to us. Pikachu is just Pikachu. It is like just an icon in its own right. Yes. And I think are ultimately, like, the greatest ambassadors of like Japanese culture, probably in terms of reach. Absolutely. Mario is a specifically interesting one. Have you heard the story of like how the creators of Nintendo created Super Mario? Yes, I actually read a book to my son about it. It was crazy. I didn't know anything about it.

Honestly, like, because, you know, you grew up in Japan, you're just kind of like, it just is, right? It's just like, in the same way you take certain things about your own culture, like, growing bad as an American in Japan, I learned a lot about America that I would not have learned if I'd grown up in America. And I'm from Richmond, Virginia, which is the home of the Confederacy. You don't talk about the Civil War and the part of the country I'm front of the war of Northern aggression that some people refer to it as without knowing.

about it, whereas if you grow up here, you don't talk about it, because why do you need to? So I didn't know much about Mario at all. And Nintendo, I didn't realize began as like a card company and like this gaming company that was like, you know, doing like these weird game things and then became this huge hit. And I'm like, that's crazy. And like even looking at the Mario Brothers, the movie that did pretty well here, it's crazy to me. But I think it's a generational thing, right?

If you grew up, that was like such an amazing experience. I never understood why. Like, why did he pick? I just never asked the question. Just like what you were saying with Pikachu. you're like, I don't know why the electrical, you know, animal made this. There's a whole story behind Pikachu and Pokemon, but like, why would you need to know that? Because it's just cool.

I like the games. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's interesting. And one of the reasons I love doing what I do, which is like, you know, Japan is not just about promoting Japanese culture, right? It's about bringing the U.S. and Japan together and, like, American and Japanese culture. Like, if it had been about a Japanese character, that, that Mario Brothers may not have taken over the world, right?

Because it wasn't ready in the 1980s when it took over. But taking a funny, like, Italian plumber that was like a little bit overweight and had a funny beard and said funny things and, like, was fighting against like Cupa and all these weird mushrooms. And then his weird skinny brother who was green and red. And like, that was fun. And it was just more like, because I think there's an innocence to Japanese culture of like, let's just appropriate this. Let's just do it. There are so many things in Japan that are better done in Japan than the native area. You mentioned the idea of best pizza or best whatever.

Like, that happens a lot. And I think that story of kind of the interaction, whether it's here in New York or other places, is why I think it's amazing to not celebrate just like one homogenous culture, but the connection between them. Because America and Japan, on surface, look very different, right? One is a very individualistic culture. One is a very collective. When you bring them to conversation and when you put a mirror up to Americans and say,

hey, is this the only way to get things done? Look at Japan. Very different. You begin to have an interaction and a conversation that I think makes both of us better in many ways, which is why I think, you know, what Japan society does is not just to promote Japanese culture here in New York, but to think about what the U.S.-Japan relationship can do globally. And I think anime is a perfect example of that. Japanese culture, I mean, I call Japan a cultural superpower.

Like, its ability to kind of promote its products in terms of Seiko watches or Toyota cars or PlayStation or, you know, all the different cultural assets is unparalleled in my mind. In some ways, it's gone more Hollywood than Hollywood, right? Where Hollywood now is only churning out things that they can kind of, you know, stress test and think would be appealing, but they're not on the front edge anymore. Now I would argue Bollywood and a few other things are doing way better. And I think Japan is still chugging along, but people are discovering and appreciating Japanese culture in a new way that I haven't experienced in my lifetime.

Yeah, it's really interesting. And I think anime and video games are probably the two biggest, like, cultural exports of the last, I don't know, maybe 20 years. Yeah. I'm curious, you mentioned both of those are kind of escapeism. Yes. Both of those are kind of like a fantasy world that you can escape into. What is happening within like the hearts of like younger Japanese people that they're wanting to escape, you think?

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They go from this military power in the 1930s and 40s. They crash up against America. They get defeated. And they basically have to find a new identity, as we talked about. And so the idea of Japan as this economic superpower is on the rise. You know, this great book by one of my mentors, Ezra Vogel, Japan is number one, is basically like the story of how the Japanese way of doing business and economics is like unparalleled, as we talked about. That kind of comes crumbling down in the 90s.

And for the last three decades, Japan has kind of been going through the, this kind of crazy economic world where the prices have stayed the same, but they're not growing. And they just now, this year, their stock market has reached what it was back in the 1990. So 40 years it took to get from the high of the 1990s to where we are today at 2024. Oh, I didn't know that. And the reason that worked is because the Japanese population put up with it, right? They continued to save money even when banks were giving them negative interest rates. When they're getting zero to put your money in a bank, people still did it because that was what was needed.

and, you know, banks were continuing to chug along. Now Japan is growing again, and I think it's a pretty exciting time, even culturally in Japan, and why I think things like Shogun or anime or games are exploding. At the same time, the lived experience of the average Japanese guy in particular is not as good. They don't have the same ability that their fathers did to make it. And the fact that their fathers were successful salarymen who, you know, fulfilled their obligation to their company with dignity. They had lifetime employment.

When they retired, they were taken care of by their company. And then they had this family structure that was in place, not just with the wife and the children and the grandparents, but like all those things are beginning to fall apart because you don't have the money to do that anymore. So you can't as a man provide in the same way that your father was. And so that's a dark period. And so you can provide for yourself in a fantasy world and you can eat ramen and kind of live off of the convenience store and live in your mom and dad's basement. And so I think that's where there's this big kind of conversation taking place now. I mean, don't get me wrong, there are some amazing Japanese leaders.

out there and you see them in some of the places we've already discussed. And, you know, it's not just anime and video games. It's also Japanese food and Japanese architecture and Japanese visual arts that have taken off, right? And so I think that there is a lot of energy and a lot of excitement there. But anytime you have that, there's kind of the, I don't know what the Japanese of the Yang and Yang is, but there is the positive and the negative, the white and the dark that's there. And so as Japan begins to take off again and its economy begins to grow and all the cultures being appreciated. Tourism is back in a really strong way.

I think there is a sense of, well, I don't, I'm scared. Like, this is a world I'm not familiar with. Like, what does that look like? It's not a carbon copy of what my dad went through or what the show-up period was like. What does that look like for me in the Raywell period? I think there's a lot of, you know, you see this playing in the political sphere as well

in terms of how that plays out in Japanese politics, the way that it plays out in U.S. politics, that we're all going through. It's not just Japanese. Yeah, the escapism idea of men not being able to kind of live up to what their fathers had done and the society that their fathers kind of created in the 80s and 90s

didn't really exist for young men in the 2000s, 2010s. Yeah. Did the same thing happen for women? Like, did, like, it seems like anime and video games very much catered towards men. Obviously, women are going to be using it.

Maybe. I don't know in Japan if it's to the same rate. But I'm curious, did women have a different type of escapism? Like, what were young women drawn to? Or were they able to live up to the expectations of their mothers? Obviously, we talk about the career component,

but outside of that, Was there a medium that they were drawn to or something that they used to escape? So I think to corollary, there are actually anime that are targeting women, right? Like there are Sailor Moon's a great example of this or even things like Hello Kitty, which in many ways is the female version of Super Mario Brothers, right? Where there's not a whole video game empire, but there's a whole kawai or cute culture built up around this. And so if you go to Japan, you know, you'll obviously have the anime and the video games. And I think it is more normalized.

There are a lot of women who are into these things in Japan, but you're right. It is probably more geared towards the male side when you think about who the creators are and who the main visionaries in that field are. But on the other side, you've got these fashion icons. You've got these visual creators and people who are creating the kind of kawaii culture that makes Japanese women want to kind of escape through their clothes or through music. And kind of the boy band phenomenon is something that is particularly unique in Japan as well. J-pop, unlike K-pop, hasn't gone global in the same way. There have been a lot of scandals recently in Japan about some of the boy groups. Yeah, I've heard so many different stories.

Specifically around K-pop, which I understand is different. But, like, you know, if you're like a boy band lead singer, like, you can't have a girlfriend publicly. That's right. I don't know if this is in Korea or if it was in Japan, but I heard there was a famous singer that came out as gay. and the whole audience of girls that were like in love with this guy were like heartbroken. Of course. And like have you seen this or have you heard this?

They were like crying. Yes. It was like such a bizarre phenomenon. I mean we saw the phenomenon of Otani, right? So now we're talking about Otani's gambling scandal. But before that it was about his wife, right? And like for he'd been dating this woman for two years and nobody knew who she was and he kind of kept it quiet.

And then he publicly announced it right before he went to Seoul for the Soul series. And it turns out his wife is this, you know, basketball player who's, you know, she's not a normal Japanese woman, as he said. She's like a pretty powerful woman in her own right. But like all the social media memes and the news reports were like all these, you know, fans who are devastated that Shohei Otani could marry someone. He's 29 years old. Like obviously he's going to get married at some point in time.

So I think that there is even that escapism in terms of the idols that people want to focus on. And the word idol in Japanese doesn't mean like worship idol in the U.S. context, but it's like that's what you call a celebrity in Japan and idol. And so I think as a result, there's this whole phenomenon. that like you don't, they may have their own life in terms of being a human being, but you want them to represent. This whole Tatemi and Honone thing we talked about, you want them to present as a clean slate that I can project my desires onto. And so if you're that boy band person and I'm a woman, I want to imagine that you could become my boyfriend, you could be my husband. When you tell me

you're gay, you just ruined it. Like you ruined the whole thing. That's an interesting phenomenon. The idea of masculinity as it presents in Japan. Yes. I guess Korea the same way. Like, BTS, Yes, these are like the most sought after, you know, like sex icons in the country. Yes. And if you watch them, like, I went to a BTS concert. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you like BTS music?

I wasn't really familiar with it. I thought that butter song was kind of fine. Yes, yes, yes, yeah. I thought that shit. That one went crazy. But the band itself, like they, as from an American perspective, they present somewhat femininely. Yes.

What is that and what is the Japanese understanding of masculinity? Yeah, that's a whole other, there's so many good questions. We got to just do a whole one. We need a whole episode on each of these. We'll see what, we'll see what your viewers want to go down the path of. But I think this whole concept of masculinity, and I think even in terms of what it means to be a man and be a desirable man, I mean, BTS is a perfect example. And it's very similar in Japan. They present as an androgynous, right?

Like, you think about it, like, they're not, you know, they don't have the beautiful beard you have or the long hair. Like, they are like, they look like me. They're boy, they kind of boy baby faces, right? And that's the concept of beauty in Japan, right? And in Korea as well, you think about, like, Japanese and Korean beauty products are very similar in this way. They are meant to kind of soften, and men have entire, you know, kind of, you know,

facial lines of things. It's only now in America that, like, the Rock is coming out with his own beauty products sold and Target or whatever. Like, that's not normal in America. Like, that's not, like, there's, like, the girls aisle, which is the cosmetics aisle, and they do that stuff. Like, guys, like, we don't need that. Like, we're rough and tumble.

Just give me a bar of soap, and I'm just going to wash whatever needs. I don't need, like, special stuff. Now, New York's a little different, obviously. We got keels and a few other things that are going here. But in Japan, it's pretty common. These are well-tested products that are being sold in a public way, whereas in the U.S., oftentimes, they're very different.

Like, why did Taylor Swift become this huge phenomenon? Why did others? Like, yes, obviously they did testing and all these things. There's something individual about a Swifty or something about that rapper that captures your attention. Whereas, BTS in some ways, I mean, to be fair, it's a, you know, in some ways, both a positive and a negative that my kids' favorite music is BTS, which is embarrassing as a president of Japan society because everyone's like, oh, and, you know, so many Americans are like, oh, you must love BTS, and I'm like, that's

Korea and not Japanese. But you know what? It's obviously appealing, right? It is something that it's hard not to pay attention to, just like Britney Spears, I don't particularly like, but it gets stuck in my head, right? So I think it's kind of interesting to see. And also to see it from an outside point of view, what is it about BTS? that can transcend Korean culture that can be appealing to Americans.

Like when they're singing in Korean, like, how the heck is that being popular? But as you said, butter and, you know, all these other songs, like dynamite. Like, they use these catchy American English lyrics that get you going in a way that when they start seeking Korean in between. You're like, whatever. I don't know what they're saying. But it's kind of cool, you know. Yeah, that's a good point. I'll almost hear some people use like K-pop or J-pop almost as like a barb or like a weapon against the culture.

Like, oh, like this culture is feminized. and there's a softness and they don't appreciate machismo like what's happening in these countries and I guess you could flip it and be like what's happening in America like these are the biggest bands in America also

yes you know what I mean these are globally some of the biggest groups like ever so I don't know if you could look at just Japanese culture or Korean culture

and say like oh there's a lust for feminine men and say well there's a lust for feminine men here like why are these shows packed yes I think that's a really interesting yeah kind of counter perspective

and yeah, I guess this idea of Cabe Don. Have you heard of this? I don't know if I'm even pronouncing it correctly. You're going to have to explain it to me because the problem is I speak Japanese so oftentimes I'm like, is that in Japanese words? So what does it mean?

This is this idea, again, I don't know if this is true or not, but apparently there was a push from the Japanese government to teach men how to flirt. Huh. And this, I think it means like wall slap. Okay.

Or like wall smack? Yeah. You can correct me. Again, I had no idea. Don is the sound that kind of a wall slap. makes when you hit it. Okay.

Or kind of like a gong makes too. Okay. Is that, okay. So, Don sounds right to me. Okay, so something in here. Cabe Dong, I'll go with it. Okay.

Someone's going to help us look it up. I'm going to look it up right after this and be like, oh wow, what was I doing with that? And apparently there's a thing in anime where like the male figure would go up to a woman and he would like smack the wall and he would like whisper into her ear in a very deep voice. And he would kind of be like, hello, like my name is Steve. Yeah. Let's date.

And like that would be how you would seduce a girl. and the Japanese government was kind of trying to teach men how to do this and it kind of became like a meme like oh they're teaching men how to flirt and I think in the West we don't have any reference for how that could happen

once you kind of instill like the culture of matchmaking and things like that it makes more sense how you might have a society that loses out on like sort of the nuances of flirting but I'm curious if you have heard of this or if you've seen this or if you've seen like government pushes to try to get men

to try to be more flirtatious. Yeah I mean there's There's a whole phenomenon in Japan. So I'm from Sapporo and Hokkaido, and there's a whole thing that when they did an advertisement for Sapporo beer, which is pretty popular, it was like the men's beer. And the advertisement was very much like the Marlboro Man, right? Where it's like, this is what masculinity and this is what it means to be a man.

And so there have been cyclical pieces where, you know, Japanese have fretted and worried about what this means. And, you know, the traditional Japanese samurai warrior, it's very, I mean, that's about as masculine as you can get in terms of, like, you know, cutting your own stomach open when things don't go right. cutting someone's head off. And yet, on the other hand, the kind of the more feminized modern Japanese man, where, like, you know, they don't have to really do anything.

They don't even have to cook for themselves. They can literally go to the convenience store and buy everything that you wanted. And you don't even have to leave your house because everything. Like, you know, in New York City, you can get anything. But when you're living out in Wyoming, as we said, you're not going to get Uber Eats out there. Whereas in Japan, everything is so accessible. So it does not surprise me. I'm not as, I don't know this exact term.

It doesn't surprise me at all. because I think that there is this cyclical fretting of Japanese culture. Like, what have we lost? Or like, how do we bring this back? I mean, even the whole concept of Bushido, as I mentioned, came out in the 18th, 19th century. That predates that period of time. But there was a feeling during the Meiji Restoration period that we got to like teach our country how to be civilized. Like, you know, even though we have this amazing civilization and all this great stuff that grew up to compete with the Western powers.

Look, they're taken over the world. Like they just humiliated China. they're colonizing China and India and all the other places around the world. Like Japan was the only country in that part of the world that was never fully colonized, right? It was only after World War II that American forces came in and occupied. Before that, there were foreign folks. The Mongols tried to fuck with it. Couldn't even touch it.

Touch it. That's where Kamikaze comes. Kamikaze means the wind of the god. And so it's like the Mongols couldn't do it. Like the Chinese couldn't do it. And it took like a world war to finally subjugate in many ways. And even then you could make the case because of the conversation about how, the emperor was incorporated and how General MacArthur understood Japanese culture in certain ways

with the team that he put together, that maybe Japan wasn't fully colonized, right? And as a result, that's why its culture is so unique in many different ways. In other parts of the world, there is that feeling, whether in China of the hundred years of shame of where that period of time that they kind of, you know, were being beaten by other countries, now it's time to reassert ourselves as the great Chinese empire and the Middle Kingdom that we are, or whether that's in other parts of the Middle East or even in Europe in some way. So, you know, I think that there is, that that goes hand in hand with your country's history with this concept, I think, of what it means to be a man. Because oftentimes, like very few cultures have the kind of, you know, the kind of women warrior phenomenon

that maybe is going to become more common going forward, but something that historically, it's been the men's job to go to war. And I think that concept is an interesting one. But I think that what you're describing of slamming in Japan oftentimes, there's an expression because Japanese in many ways are not as emotional in terms of the way they express things, right? They're gonna really keep it in and they don't want to show that you've affected them in some way.

But when you reach that breaking point, it's usually something pretty like a rice cooker, it explodes, right? And so you slam your hand down on the desk. I mean, all the animas have a scene like this. We're like, you slam your hand on the ground and then you kind of take what's yours and you just like, go for it.

And like, that's very different than like in America, you just like, go for it every time. Like, you get a chance, like you got an opening, you go talk to the girl. Like you're in a dance club. You just go right up to her and talk. You never do that in Japan, right?

There has to be a whole cultural phenomenon where like there's a dance that's going on of how you approach that person, et cetera. So it does not surprise me at all that there's that kind of that sense of like, you know, kind of expressing yourself and then like showing her who's in charge. Like that's a pretty common phenomenon

in Japanese culture. Interesting. Yeah, this desire to not show emotional expression that you haven't affected me emotionally. Yes. Would this contribute? to the idea of like covering your mouth when you laugh. Yeah, no, it's very much that.

There's definitely that. And I think it's also that it's also impolite to kind of show those expressions, right? Like part of the whole imperial court in Japan is to have a facade, the window dressing. You need to keep decorum at all time. Don't ever let somebody know. I mean, as someone who goes to Japan a lot now professionally as well, and I give speeches and stuff, it's devastating if you need energy from your crowd, right? Because in America, I mean, you've done comedy.

as well, right? If you sat and were giving a comedy club and no one was allowed to laugh or everyone just sat there like this, I mean, literally in Japan, it is a sign of respect to close your eyes and hold your head down like this. So I'm giving a speech and there is a bunch of, you know, people sitting just like this. Imagine what that's like. It's devastating. You sit there and you're talking and you're like, you're trying to connect with your audience. You're getting nothing. Zero. And it's devastating. So, you know, I think that things are changing slowly but surely. but if you are in Japan and you're doing, you know, I mean, comedy routines in Japan are very different.

It's slapstick, right? It's about physical comedy. And it's also about being word plays, which is really hard to do in English versus in Japanese. Just different style of comedy. To me, comedy is the highest form of human expression because to be able to actually get people to laugh about something, you have to fully understand it,

and you have to try to understand the intellectual roots of it. You may not fully do a PhD on it, but you know what you're doing when you're, telling that joke and in Japan it's hard man and it's just you know there's that general keeping your face and never letting someone know I mean even in shogun right where you have that scene between the kind of the western man and the kind of you know mariko son the lady mariko like she never lets on like and after they have their whole thing after the bath you know she makes a comment to him and kind of a very underhanded way and he's kind of like I don't get it like what do you mean

did I have a good time it was with you right she's like like, oh, I'm glad you found her desirable. So it's his whole subtext. And so, again, going back to the geisha or anything else we talked about, like, you're kind of like, oh, that was good. I really appreciate it.

Let's do that again. And she's like, I have no idea you're talking about. I was on the clock yesterday. Right? I'm not that person. If you try to approach a geisha outside a character,

not going to work for you. Wow. Yeah, that's so wild. I'm curious about your time growing up in Japan. Yeah. Like, your experience specifically. I know you mentioned in an interview that while you were living there,

you obviously were not ethnically Japanese, so they did not see you necessarily as fully Japanese, despite speaking Japanese, living your entire adolescence and basically all the way up until adulthood, being in Japan. And then you come to America and you're not necessarily fully American. So much of your customs and cultures, even though you look American or not really American. So I'm curious, your time in Japan, what were some of the things that you noticed that your parents did that were different, that you kind of saw the differences between American culture and Japanese? culture. What stood out to you in the time where you were growing up? Yeah, you know, you don't know what you don't know. So looking back now on it, I realize how weird I am and my childhood is, right?

But in Japan, like, literally my nickname was the American because, like, I was the only American going to the church that I was going to, and I went to a Japanese kindergarten and preschool system. And I was the only one. And what's funny is my mom tells these crazy stories because I was like, you know, a foot taller in everybody, right? but people did not really treat me all that differently. Like they didn't like worship me or like get out of my way or anything. Because I grew up in a part of Japan where there's very few foreigners, people just accepted me for who I was. And so it was funny.

My mom tells a story when I was in kindergarten. And, you know, one of my friends, you know, is talking to his mom. And she's trying to get him to say, is there a white kid in your class? And he doesn't, he? He's like, what are you talking about? She's like, is there somebody who has a different name? Yeah, Joshua? Because Joshua's not a Japanese name.

And he said, yeah, isn't he different? He's like, well, he's a little taller. but isn't he different like his parents look different well yeah he has blue eyes and she's trying to get him to say like he's an American but he just won't do it because he's like Kenji's like well

he's Joshua and I think that is like that childhood innocence is something I'm very grateful for because my parents raised me in a way in a culture that really didn't focus too much on differences it focused on similarities and if I had grown up in Tokyo

where there's a large expact population I don't know if I'd be the same person I am today I wouldn't speak Japanese nearly as well I don't think I have a deep appreciation for Japan because it wouldn't have been my culture, right? I'm American, you're Japanese. I grew up in Hokkaido. Hokkaido's a frontier part of Japan. There's Ainu population there that, you know, are not ethnically the same version of Japanese

as people from the Jomon period in Honschu. As a result, I was allowed to be both Hokkaido, the person from the Hokkaido is called the Dosanko. I'm a Dosanko and I'm American. There's no contradiction there. Whereas when you try to make that Japanese and American, it gets one. weird, right? Because I'm not Japanese-American, but actually I'm pretty American-Japanese. And I think that I was very fortunate in that experience. Now, I have to be honest, when I left

Japan when I was 18 years old, I didn't think I'd do very much with Japan. I kind of felt like Jonah and the whale in the biblical context where like God's like, you're going to go to Nineve. And I'm like, yeah, no, I'm going to do my own thing. I'm going to go and I went to Turkey. I was working in the State Department. I was doing a lot of geopolitical stuff, partly because I was trying to find something that was my own. Because Japan was kind of forced upon me. I moved there when I was one. I don't have a choice in that matter.

I discovered the Middle East and Turkey. And part of what drew me to that part of the world was a lot of the similarities I could see through Asian culture and this sense of hierarchy and meritocracy that we talked about. And so I just absolutely fell in love with Turkey and it's a dynamic country. It's an amazing place.

We can have a whole other conversation about that. And so a lot of my friends in Japan were like, okay, Joshua's gone. He'll never come back to Japan again. But it was really after 3.11 on March 11th, 2011, those was huge devastating earthquake in Japan, huge tsunami, huge devastation earthquake, and then also a nuclear disaster. And my parents were in Japan at the time.

I couldn't get a hold of them because, like, you know, cell phones weren't working. All I'm seeing on CNN on repeat over and over again are these horrible, devastating waves. I assume because my parents are missionaries, they were on the front lines working with the population to help people that I lost my parents. And I think it's like a lot of things. As you get older in life, you appreciate more about where you come from and something you might have taken for granted. And in that moment, I saw the world just come together and just appreciate Japan. And Japanese themselves didn't know what to do about it. They were like, wow,

why are people helping us so much? You know, like, what do you mean? Why are you helping so much? Like, you're an awesome civilization. You're an awesome country. Like, you're more than just that horrible period of World War II. And to me, I was like, well, looking around being like, well, how can I help? Here I am growing up in Japan, speak the language fluently. How selfish am I not to do something to help Americans fully experienced Japan and be connected. So from then, my journey changed in many ways. And for the last at least, you know, 13 years, I've been on this journey of trying to be a bridge builder. And that's what led me here to Japan society and being able to help people experience, you know, from a Mario Brothers game to watching the Shogun movie to say,

okay, there's something that's appealing there. You're interested in it. How can I help? And, you know, the word Omakase that we talked about earlier means the chef's choice. But it's very different. I think that in New York, omacase means very expensive, right? Like if it's omacase, it's the most expensive. Kind of like organic has become, you know if it's organic, it's double the price, right? That's just the way it is. But omacase actually in a Japanese context, it's my choice as a chef to provide what I think you would want. That's probably not going to be golden caviar in your tuna because who eats golden caviar on a tuna?

That's not a Japanese thing at all. I'm going to take the best version of the fish that I think you're going to like. And I might pair it with a special type of noodle that's super low class, but it goes really well in the pairing. I want to create that experience for you as a casual observer who says, I'm interested in anime. What else? Like, should I learn Japanese language? Should I learn about, you know, Japanese art of fill in the blank? Literally, there's so many different does, right?

Bushido, Aikido, all these other things we talked about. So that's where I kind of look at my own experience. And I think that the way I grew up is kind of a reflection of what I'm doing now. I don't think I'd be the same if it was not for Hokkaido in that experience. I think that's what's unique about the experience that I'm now and this journey I'm on now. That's really interesting. And Hokkaido, is it pretty rural? Yes.

So Japan, you know, it has four major islands. It's got thousands of islands. But the four major islands, Honshu is where Tokyo, Kyoto, all the major things are. And then the other three islands, Hokkaido is 25% of the landmass of Japan. So it's huge,

but it only has 5% of the population. So it's like the only part of Japan that you could pretty much describe as rule. Now, I grew up in Sapporo. It's the capital of Hokkaido. It's got about a million and a half, two million people. It's a huge city by American standards.

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and things like that. I imagine in America, like there's some Americans that have resentment towards Japanese people to this day, despite there never being a war here. Obviously there were attacks here, et cetera, but in Hawaii, not even mainland America.

So did that carry over in Japan at all? Yeah, it did, but in a very different way. Again, I was very privileged because, number one, there's almost a reverence for America in Japan. And my grandparents, my maternal grandfather, was a B-29 pilot. So, like, he was involved in a lot of stuff

the Air Force was doing, not so great in Japan. We never talked about it growing up because he knew, I think, instinctively, how torn I would be about that legacy to know that my own grandfather had killed the very people that my parents are there to save and serve. Would have been devastating for me. And my paternal grandfather, who was a little bit younger, signed up early, you know, signed up early, you know, kind of without his mother's consent, went off, and he was part of the occupation force with Douglas MacArthur.

He was an army officer. So to know that my two grandparents were doing that. And in some ways, my church family in Japan, I remember vividly, I had what I called my Japanese grandfather, who, you know, was kind of like the church person who was around the same age. He met my maternal grandfather for the first time. And somehow in the course of translation, I'm translating for both because neither speaks English or Japanese, we start talking in some way. I was like, oh, you guys are similar.

You guys both fought in World War II very innocently. And both of them kind of get pretty stiff and don't really talk about it. it turns out that they had fought probably against each other at some point in time. And that realization was something that even at that, I was like 10 years old or whatever, I have this vivid memory of just being like, oh crap. And my Lewis Graham, my maternal grandfather, who was about the same height as me, who was 6-2, Tamaki Oji-san, who's like 5-0. Like Lewis gets up.

He's a man of very small word, doesn't say much at all. He comes over and he embraces. And my Japanese grandfather is sitting there in like Long John's, like underwear, receiving us, which is pretty unusual and very un-Japanese, but it shows that your family, right? And my granddaddy Graham and Tamakio-Jusan embrace. And to this day, I still get chills because I can visualize what that experience was like. So in some ways, I was a recipient where Japanese actually often would thank me and say thank you, because if you had not defeated us, we would have killed ourselves. Going back to the SEPCA concept, if America had not devastated Japan, and

That's why there's all the controversy with Oppenheimer and all these other things about whether or not America needed to drop the atomic bomb. Was it really about Japan or was about the Cold War and about the kind of releasing? It's the only time in human history that we've released these two bombs. But at some point in time, they're going to be released. And we had to learn somehow. And if there was any country and any population in the world that I think dealt with this in the way that it has, like Japan is just an exemplar in many ways. So for me, it's like I feel this enormous sense of guilt and response. oftentimes, knowing that my own family has done these horrible things to Japanese, even though I understand the necessary need for the end of a war and to be able to help the Japanese emperor and the warriors at the time understand that there was no, fighting was futile.

And the fact that they did accept defeat and embrace defeat in some ways that the Japan did is pretty amazing. Yeah, it's really interesting. We actually, we went to Hiroshima as well. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I forgot to mention that. And that was like a really moving experience. Yes.

The way they have it set up is just beautiful in its own right. Like there's like a religiosity to it. Like the town you can still see like the that main, I forgot what was building it is. That's still half. That's still there. Blown apart. And every time there's any nuclear testing, I think it's the mayor of some government leader in Hiroshima will write a letter to that government ruler and say, hey, please reconsider. this test. And there's thousands of letters that you can see on the walls of the memorial,

which is just, it's beautiful. And the attitude that they have is, is, I think is unique. Yeah. I don't know. As an American, I feel like you can see, like, American memorials for, like, tragedies or wars. Yeah. And there's a little sense of, like, not vengeance, but like, it's, yes. There's a little, like, yo, there's like, going to be get back. Yes. You know what I mean? Absolutely. We want to honor the people that died here, but also like, it's not, there's no moral, I feel like. That's how I feel personally. But you go to Hiroshima and there's very much immoral.

It's like this was a tragedy for humankind. Yes. Not only the Japanese, not only the residents of Hiroshima, but for all humans, that this was like a really huge shortcoming that we all experienced. And if there's any way that we can prevent this from happening in the future, we are more than happy to, you know, write to people to petition to, you know, become politically activated. And it's really beautiful to see how they've dealt with, I mean, something so, I mean, unthinkably tragic, right? And yeah, just being there, just kind of, yeah, really, it changed my perspective on Japanese

culture and how they deal with indignity. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm really glad to hear that. I wish more people had that experience. And I think in some ways you've only been there one time. And yet it seems like you've taken on a lot of that wisdom, which takes people, including myself, many more visits.

The current prime minister of Japan is from Hiroshima. And so, you know, when he speaks about this, he comes to the United Nations right across the street for Japan society all the time. And he gives these very impassioned speeches about never let this happen again. And as a son of Hiroshima and as a family that was affected by this human tragedy, he doesn't make it about America. He doesn't make it about how, you know, how unfair it was. But it's this very karma sense of like what goes around, comes around.

And so let us be the last. Let us never be the ones to say that we didn't. do everything we could to stop human suffering and human tragedy. And I think one of the challenges we have in this world is, you know, our generation doesn't know what a full-scale war looks like. And so as people flippantly talk about the conflict between the U.S. and China and World War III, we don't know what we're talking about. Like, our grandparents did. They fought in the war, and they never talked about it. And it's still something that it scares me to death because I think that it's very easy, particularly when you're fighting with guns or you're fighting with drones or you're

fighting with atomic weapons to push a button. Whereas when you're fighting with a sword, you look your enemy in the eye and you have to defeat them. You have to ultimately respect and honor that culture. And so, you know, even with that samurai culture that we talked about, and even in the yakuza, where in some ways they were the biggest mafia of the time, they did things by the way of the sword, the bushido way, not based on guns. And when guns were introduced, which in Japan, guns are just not a thing. Like the only people have guns in Japan are policemen and Yakosai. Even the police don't carry guns around. Like in New York, it's like literally anywhere you go. Like even right now in the subway, you've got guys with huge guns walking around a patrol

the thing. Like I feel like those guys could do more damage, like get one crazy guy going around and just shooting a bunch of people. Whereas in Japan, it's an incredibly safe culture in that that sense. And I think it comes from that sense of kind of karma of just making sure that we don't have to go through that again. I think the Hiroshima experience is a perfect example of that. Yeah, that's interesting. Even in, I always thought about this, like post-World War II in Japan. Like, I've always wondered if there was like a negative sentiment. But yet baseball becomes like this massive explosion.

Why did baseball take over in Japan and why is it so popular? I mean, it's huge, right? So baseball comes to Japan in like 1872 with like a main American, you know, high school teacher. He was trying to teach his student something. I think there's something uniquely about baseball that appeals. And to be very clear, Japanese baseball in some ways, is his own thing, right? When you go to a Japanese baseball game,

there is not the same level of, like, obscenities and, like, screaming in the empire. Like, it's a very choreograph thing. Like, everybody knows the dances and the songs and stuff. It's more like going to, you know, a college game where everybody knows the certain fight songs of Yale or whatever else in school you go to. And so I think that there's something about that collective sport.

And, you know, to an American baseball sometimes can feel slow and there's not as much action as football or not as much excitement as basketball. And so baseball hasn't been doing as well in the States. But in Japan, it really appeals. And the sense of repetition and perfection and getting better has really taken off. And when you see the way that Japanese players, I mean, I think Japanese players were the first major foreigners in America that were doing so amazingly well. And you think about the Dodgers now with Otani, that was done because of Hideo Nomo back in the day.

And of course, you know, you have the imports from Cuba and Dominican Republic. and it's a way of getting out. That's not the same in Japan. There's an entire Japanese baseball league that is doing very well in Japan that in some ways used to be seen as inferior. It's still, you know, MLB because of money is going to be the most important

and the most powerful league. But Japan and Korea are doing pretty well. Korea is doing pretty well and baseball as well. There's something about baseball. I don't know the answer to this. I don't know why baseball versus soccer, which conquered the rest of the world and something that still hasn't come to America

all that, you know, strongly, even though like at my kids level, Like, it's huge, like, everywhere. But, like, Little League is still triumphant, and baseball is still way more popular among Americans. But baseball in Japan, I think that sense of discipline, the sense of collective sport, and the sense of being good at all of your individual jobs,

as a pitcher, do a good job pitching, as a catcher, as a first baseman. Whereas I think in basketball, there's more of a fluidity to that. Interesting. Yeah, I guess baseball is a little bit more rigid, I guess. Like, there's different jobs that's kind of compartmentalized. And I wonder, if that appeals to like Japanese craftsmanship in a way.

Where it's like, I'm going to swing this bat as good as I possibly can. Yes. And then I'm going to catch as good as I possibly can. I'm going to throw as good as I possibly can. And there's like a, yeah, there's like game mechanics that are kind of built into it that I wonder if appeal in a specific way. Everything that they do when it comes to sports is disciplined. And so, you know, you think about basketball. The best thing to do in basketball is to shoot a shot, lay up, right?

You don't get to touch the ball in Japan. I mean, it's like dreams of sushi jiro, if you've ever seen that on Netflix. You don't get to actually cut the fish until you've spent like five years perfecting an omelet or something like very menial, right? In the same, you run suicides and you condition your ass off, you know, in all these sports until you get to the point. And when you are young as a freshman, you don't get to start in the starting line up. It doesn't matter how good you are. Only seniors. And so hierarchy.

Hierarchy. Hierarchy. Exactly the same thing. And so I think that that actually works pretty well in baseball. in a way that many other sports, it wouldn't work that way. Yeah, that's really, really interesting. I'm curious when you came to America, what things from Japan did you miss the most? Food.

Easy. Food. When I first came to America, this is back in the 1990s, obviously, right? People thought I was so weird, right? Like, what type of food are you eating? And, like, even the bento box phenomenon, right? Where, like, now it's taken over the world. Like, we literally go out here in New York.

Like, people are going to double charge us for bento because it's so artistically appealing, and it's got, like, the perfect balance of things. food back in the day when I would go to school and I would take a bento with me, I got made fun of. Like, I was totally mocked. Just like I'm sure that different generations of Italian Americans or whatever who showed up with like prosciutto and mozzarella were made fun of. Now we're paying out the wazoo for that stuff. And peanut bear and jelly is like, oh, that's so passe or whatever. Maybe that's just New York. So food is definitely what I missed. I also did miss that sense of hierarchy, of understanding what I was up against. And, you know, I got beat up as a kid growing up in

Japan, mostly because I was different and like I wasn't fighting with kids my own age. I was fighting with kids who were older. My parents much to their chagrin. We're not raising a peaceful Southern Baptist like they should have been and, you know, as a heathen or whatever. I miss that because in America it was dangerous, right? Like you don't get into a high school fight in America because we came back every four years for about six months and I'd get thrown into a new school environment. Kids are vicious, man. And when you're in like high school and you're in these cliques and you grew up with the innocence I grew up in that I described in my island, there's a sense of safety. Like I never really worried about my physical.

environment and maybe that's because like I'm the size I am and I have a black belt in Aikido and all that stuff but I'm in America I sometimes didn't feel safe in my own skin because no matter where I went it felt to me like people were always watching for you to make a mistake on something whereas in Japan it was kind of like okay you're an outsider you're a guy gene or foreigner so play your role but don't worry like everything's going to be okay and like if you know how the place works everything fits really well and I'm sure it's not that way for many other people growing up in their experiences but I think that that sense of understanding, a sense of collective understanding that I had coming from Japan was something

I missed, but of course it was also exhilarating to be able to live in America and to do whatever I wanted, to not have the rules and expectations placed on me, certainly living outside of my parents' home and going to college and discovering yourself and all that. But yeah, the things that I missed, and I also miss Japanese culture in lots of different ways, not just in the anime way or the video game way. I mean, in Japan, it's not weird to go to, like, an arcade and just, like, you know, veg out with your friends and play video games. That was not a thing in America. Like, you had to do these very, like, manly things, like, go hunting or play football, which I didn't do. You know, I played basketball and at least basketball as an American sport, but then soccer and judo and Ikeed on these things.

So, yeah, but I'm not going to sit here and cry me a river for my experience. I think I had a pretty good upbringing. Yeah, but even in the time you came over, these things were not as mainstream. At all. Like, you know, so many, like, like, like, um, so many, like. Japanese martial arts are like in the mainstream. You have UFC.

you have guys that are training in different styles. And in the time that I'm sure you were coming up, it was like, we know about karate. Yes. And that's it.

Yeah. It's like, even that movie, it kind of was like, okay, wax on, wax off. It's kind of like a weird exotic thing.

Now it's like, I would wager that martial arts are probably more popular in America right now than they might be in Japan because it's like, this is awesome. It's so cool.

And, you know, I think it might have been different in New York, right? If I had come to New York in the 1990s, New York's been, yeah. And it's also like ahead of the curve. Like Japanese food is not exotic in New York anymore. Now people ask me about different regional cuisines of Japan because like ramen is so mainstream.

And like sushi is so normal. Like you can get that in Dallas. You can get that in Richmond now, right? Whereas back in the day, that was not the case. And I wasn't coming to New York. I was coming to Kentucky and Virginia and other places where it was weird. Food was weird. And that, you know, I think food is a pretty cultural marker where, you know,

it's kind of like, well, I like noodles. But it doesn't have to be just mac and cheese. I like ramen noodles. I like udo noodles, like Soba noodles. Like I love all that stuff. And you just couldn't get it. There were no Asian markets where I was growing up, right? Whereas now, like literally Asian markets like, you know, is where everybody goes.

Like H March taken over the world. Whole Foods is half Asian now. It's kind of a crazy phenomenon everywhere you look. It's like you find Japanese food, you find Japanese influence, which I'm excited about. And it's awesome. It may be a little different. Just like Olive Garden may not be exactly Italian food. Some Japanese food in America may not exactly be originally from Japan.

But I appreciate the inspiration. and I don't look down on any of that. Is it fun when you go to a sushi restaurant and you get to speak Japanese with the chef? Well, the problem is most of the sushi restaurants, the head chef. And here in New York, you know, when you go to Nobu or Masa, yeah, those guys are great guys,

but they're selling stuff. I can't afford, man. I'm a nonprofit. I can't go to the... I'm not an investment, bro. I need to have, you know, I need to have you or somebody like that taking me to one of these places.

But yeah, it is fun. I mean, but what's more fun is when you know the owners of a place, right? It's just like anything. It's like you feel like you belong. And so just like that, neighborhood bar or that neighborhood restaurant you go to, there is a sense of connection. And of course, it's not what they expect, right? When you look like I do and you bust out Japanese, it's not the

same as me speaking Russian or like German, which might be expected. It's like, whoa. And especially the way I speak Japanese, it's very colloquial. So it is clear that I grew up in Japan the moment I opened my mouth. But it's also clear that my education is not nearly where Dr. Walker should be, right? Like my education ends at 18. And it's more of like the high school slang that I remember. It's very much captured in a particular moment in time so that people find it particularly amusing and also because I grew up in Hokkaido, that particular parlance is what I pick up. Oh, interesting. But I'm sure you can go talk to a guy.

Oh, yeah. And just like, and is it fun to surprise them? I mean, so it's funny. So because Japanese don't like to show emotion, you know, I speak Turkish as well. And in Turkey, if you even say like, Mehaba, they're all like, holy cow, you, and it's almost like, you're a dumb white guy. How can you possibly speak our language, right? But with Japanese, they don't ever let on.

So they just kind of roll with it. And it happens to me all the time where halfway through a conversation, Japanese person says, whoa, stop. Are you speaking in Japanese? And I'm like, yeah, we've been speaking this whole time. And he's like, I just didn't realize. Man, your Japanese is good. You're like one of us.

And I'm like, oh, well. And it's weird because Japanese fully accept me. And, you know, it's like, well, yeah, you're one of us. Whereas in America, I have to be very careful because I'm white. I can't change that. It doesn't matter what my inside feels like or this is what matters, right? And if I try to present as anything other than a white southern male, I'm going to get myself in trouble. And so I always start by apologizing.

I'm sorry for whatever sins I've committed, right? I'm the living embodiment of all that's evil in the world. Just get it out of the system right now. I'm so sorry. Now can we talk about like real stuff? Can we talk about like I grew up in Japan? Oh, you didn't see that one coming? Oh, you don't think that I'm speaking Japanese fluently.

So yeah. And, you know, again, it's different the parts of the country company. And again, it's not just about New York being metropolitan or whatever. There are certain places in New York that are as back. in many different ways and people just expect you to play to type in any way. So it's not about regional differences. It's also just about being part of a community and being familiar with what the rules of that community are. Do you still dream in Japanese?

So it's interesting. I don't dream very much, which my wife and kids think is weird. I don't remember any of my dreams. So that probably means I'm really dumb or something. I think they're like, when you dream, you have this vividness. But it's interesting. When I was growing up in Japan, almost all my dreams were in Japanese. Then when I moved to Turkey and started learning Turkish, I started dreaming.

in Turkish, which was weird, because I'm not fully fluent in Turkish the way I am in Japanese and English. But I dream in all the languages. So if the person in my dream is Japanese, they speak Japanese, right? And if the person's American, they speak English. So it's weird. I don't, I don't, like, I've heard a lot of people say that, like, their entire dreams are in one language or the other. Mine are, like, multilingual. Like, I have dreams with different languages. But I don't, I wish I had more dreams. I'd be more fun, but I don't have that many dreams. But when I do have dreams, they're pretty vivid and they're very multilingual. Oh, that's so interesting. If there's any Japanese people listening right now,

could you speak to them in Japanese in just a specific way, just deliver any message that you would like to speak to them in? Hajimeashi Woka, do you know. It's a very weird, do sanco of Americanian

and I'm just like, thank you, thank you, so you really are Japanese. So you really are Japanese. Well, and you notice, even when I speak Japanese, I joke that, like,

you turn into a different person. Like, you probably noticed when I was speaking, like, I wasn't looking at your eyes, right? I wasn't allowed to. So I almost defer, and then you see me bowing,

just like ever so slightly. And there's a rhythm to it, right? And so when I'm talking in Japanese, instead of my hands doing what I'm doing right now, my hands go down and my head starts bobbing because that's the way you communicate. It's a level of respect. And so like if I'm showing deep respect

because you're the host of the show, I got to get down and grovel and get my head down here. So, you know, I'm sure your listeners would love to see that as well. But that's just the Japanese way. And it's like part of, it's like, in my DNA, it's part of the way that I was raised in many ways.

to show respect and to do that, which doesn't, I can't explain it from a, well, I don't need to bow. Like, you don't care if I'm bowing or not. You just think it's weird. But, you know, the same way that you like handshake or like high five. Give someone a business card? Exactly. Oh, yeah. The very, I should do that.

We should do that. Yeah, yeah. I can give you a business card. I also brought you a gift that I have to give you at some point as well. Did you? Yeah, I did. Do you want me to get it? I would love that.

Yeah. Okay. Let's do it. Is it relevant? I mean, it's relevant. I hope that you find it interesting. Oh, this is so cool. Oh, hell yeah, dude.

Oh. This makes me so happy. You have no idea. Well, it's a Japanese cultural phenomenon, right? You got to do it. You have to bring a gift. Yeah, so in Japan, if you don't bring a gift, then you're showing some serious disrespect, right? And in America, it's really hard because you're like, okay, like, what are you trying

to get for me? What do you want for my gift? If I'm giving this or I'm trying to get, like, a viral rating. But it's just like, it's the way I was raised. So this is my gift. The outward cover in many ways is more. similar to me because it's my kids like, you know, but you can't bring a gift by itself. It has to be in a package.

Because if I just give you what's in the package. That's also just a struggle. So this is, you know, the form of the gift that I give. Thank you so much. I appreciate this. Oh my goodness. Oh, hell yeah. Is this Japanese whiskey?

It is Japanese whiskey because I think the other cultural phenomenon we haven't actually described and talked about, we talked about Japanese food, but Japanese whiskey is taken over the world. And I think that if there's one thing. that any of your listeners or viewers should be doing is they should be trying some Japanese whiskey. Now, the problem is Japanese whiskey has got really expensive, right? It's crazy expensive. Like, I don't know what that would be. You can look it up on the internet. I got it from Japan. But this is one of my favorite varieties. And it's actually one of the more normal. Like,

it's not that expensive in Japan, but it's gone crazy. And you'll notice it has Fuji and it has, like, the great wave. It's kind of like tongue and cheek. This is what, like, when you're done from a long day and you're like, hey, I just need, like, a little bit on the rocks. It's 5 o'clock somewhere. This is what I want. That's what you go to. And, you know, the favorite drink mix that they recommend with this particular one is what they call highball. Have you heard of this?

Highbor. I've heard of a high ball. Yeah. So that's what you mix it with. You mix the whiskey with the rocks and then you put a certain amount of soda water in it, depending on your taste palate because it's a very, so I think it tastes really good by itself, but certain whiskey snobs will say, well, no, it doesn't have as much of this, you know, peat flavor or whatever else.

So I love it. So I thought I would just bring you something I like so you could experience it and enjoy it as well. Thank you so much. I really appreciate this. Do you drink sake? Yeah, I do. And what does sake's role in Japan? Is that drank regularly everywhere?

So it's interesting. So sake goes incredibly well with Japanese food, right? Like Nihon Shu is what it's called in Japanese. Sake is basically rice wine, right? Unlike wine with grapes, which have a very strong kind of regional connection, You know, it's all about the quality of the rice. And so sake has taken off in America because it has a lot of similarities to, like, wine that Americans can understand. I love sake.

I didn't know I loved sake until I left Japan because my parents don't drink. They're Southern Baptist missionaries, right? We don't drink at all. They're not allowed to as missionaries, right? I drink a lot now. My wife and I were married on a vineyard. So, like, you know, but sake, the different varieties out there and the different regions. So I love having sake with Japanese food.

But if I'm having just a drink by myself, it's going to be whiskey because I love whiskey. And, you know, as I said, my mom's side of the family is from Kentucky from the bourbon area, so like bourbon trails. So like my two go-toes are bourbon and sake in different ways. But sake, for me, it's weird to drink sake by itself. Like it needs to be paired with something. It's almost like, you know, the same way some people love wine without pairing it. Some people love it with certain types of cheese or certain type of cuisine. Whereas whiskey's a little harder to pair with things, right?

It's more of a singular thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, that type of thing. Well, Dr. Walker, thank you so much. Genuinely, this is so cool. I really, really enjoyed learning about Japan, and I really appreciate you answering all my dumb questions. They're not dumb at all.

And next time I'll have you come to Japan Society, so you can see the living embodiment of some of the things we talked about. I would love that. It's like, it's kind of like this place, right? Like, this is not what I expected in New York, right? It's like I stepped into another world and, like, your camp, right? You can step into my world, and it's literally, it's on the far east side of Manhattan,

but it's like you're stepping into Japan. Like we have the building itself was designed by the very first Japanese architect to like build anything in New York City. Now everywhere you look, it's like Japanese architects, right? But this was the first one and it got a landmark status back in 2011. So you should come and check it out.

If you liked your experience, the last time you went, which was a while ago, I guess, come back to Japan site, and then you definitely need to get back to Japan. A lot has changed, but there's still that enduring quality that I think you've picked up on and one of the things that I love so much

and I'm sure many people watching and listening to this will pick up on as well. Yeah, I think I'm going to go with my wife. Okay. I think that's the goal for this year. I know some people there. I mean, I look like I know people there, but I know people there.

So we'll get you good night. I can't wait. I'm going to link it with your parents. Awesome. That will not be a fun experience. I got to tell you. I love my parents and dearly and you can talk to him all about like, how did he turn out this way?

But like when it comes to like going drinking and having the food, they're pretty, they're pretty, they're pretty, they're pretty, they're pretty. They're pretty. Oh,

absolutely. You're Catholic, you're like, they're coming after you. Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much, brother.