Camp Gagnon - Samurai, WWII & What the West Gets Wrong About Japan | Joshua Walker

Episode Date: August 31, 2026

What is up, campers? Gather ’round the campfire because today we’re heading deep into the culture, history, contradictions, and hidden rhythms of Japan with Joshua Walker. We kick things off with Shohei Ohtani and the question of whether he’s already the GOAT, before diving into the ideas that have shaped Japanese society for centuries—from Miyamoto Musashi and emotional discipline to the differences between rice-based collective cultures and the more individualistic societies of the West. Joshua opens up about his childhood in Japan, what it feels like to be American inside Japanese culture, and why everyday traditions—from sleeping on the floor to removing your shoes in the genkan—reveal something much deeper about sacred space, expectations, and community. We also explore Japan’s complicated relationship with immigration, Shintoism, the origins of the kamikaze, Imperial Japan, and how Japanese schools teach the events of World War II. From there, we get into what is lost when Japanese ideas are translated into English, the influence of Donald Trump and Japanese MAGA movements, Japan’s unique geography, and the fascinating business relationship between Japan and the United States. And somehow, we finish with the Unitarian Church and a Japanese chocolate called “White Lover.” This is a wide-ranging conversation about samurai philosophy, WWII, modern Japanese culture, and what the West often misunderstands about Japan. Timestamps: 0:00 Is Shohei Ohtani the GOAT? + Japanese Culture7:00 Miyamoto Musashi + Controlling Your Emotions20:03 Childhood in Japan27:49 Grain vs. Rice Society30:29 Collective Culture in Japan39:38 Floor Beds + Sacred Space in the Home42:43 Immigration in Japan48:06 Being American in Japan59:04 Shintoism + Kamikaze Origins1:03:59 Imperial Japan1:08:15 Japanese Schooling on WWII1:18:54 Losing Meaning in Translation1:22:07 Japanese Genkan + Japan’s High Expectations1:28:18 Trump’s Influence on Japan + Japanese MAGA1:35:29 Japan’s Geographical Paradigm1:39:42 Japanese-American Business Relations1:49:04 The Unitarian Church1:54:11 White Lover Chocolate Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Walker, thank you for joining me. Thanks for having me back. Of course, of course. I'm very excited to chat with you. You have a brand new book that I just read all of that I read the entire thing, despite it being written solely in Japanese. I'm very impressed by that. Yeah, but I figured it would be better to have you in here to maybe explain some of the key details.

So we have spoken once before, and it was fantastic. The audience loved it. Would you mind explaining just to the audience who you are, what your background is, and why you are a white guy that speaks Japanese? That's always the question. I feel like I should start by just saying, Thank you very much. And I should probably speak in Japanese

because some of your audience might be like, we don't believe it. His accent's too good in English. But if I flipped into Japanese, I'm Joshua Dauka, to be my Japanese, Japan's sign of Rijitio to be now.

Now that's the car I don't know but you're not, so cool. So you can have your folks check it out because I think that, you know, so I'm Joshua Walker.

I grew up in Japan. My parents are missionaries. They've been there for 45 years. I lived in Hokkaido, Japan. Sapporo specifically, from 1 to 18. When I was growing up in Japan, going to church, there was only two options, English at home and Japanese outside the home. There weren't many other options. And so I've always thought it was kind of natural and normal that this is the way people were,

and it turns out it's not. And particularly since I became the president of Japan Society, which is one of the largest and prestigious and most historic organizations that supports U.S.-Japan relations, you know, there are a lot of people like me out there, but not as many people. as you would think, and particularly people that have a real passion for trying to explain. Because I feel like my entire life, I've tried to explain America to Japanese, and I've tried to explain Japan to Americans. And I do it from the perspective of someone who's grounded in both cultures and both communities. And so I find a lot of my work is, you know, talking about all sorts of really interesting things. Like back in the day, when I was growing up, most people

had a very exotic view of Japan. And there was kind of a hostility to it of like, oh, Japan's going to take over America one day. They're going to buy Rockefeller's sense. or they're buying Columbia pictures. Like, it's a bad thing. Nowadays, like, our kids, to them, Japan is part of their culture. Right. Like, if you look at the Macy's Day parade,

you're going to see Pokemon, you're going to see Luffy. Like, my kids, honestly, could not tell the difference between Garfield and Pokemon because they're both, like, characters, and they probably think Garfield and Snoopy are old school and, like, Pokemon's new, right?

And Dragon Ball Z. So I just think it's a different world. So, you know, that's who I am. Yeah, it's really fascinating. Just a few things on Japanese culture. for one, just how fast American-Japanese relations have normalized. I mean, going from direct adversaries during World War II to now, I mean, at least from an American perspective, so much Japanese culture has been imported, just like you said, that is integral to what it means to be, you know, American.

Like, I think about, like, American games, like Nintendo. Like, that is an American game, but it's not. Yeah. And isn't it crazy, right? Like Super Mario Brothers that put Nintendo on the map is it. an Italian plumber invented by a Japanese artist that Americans have internalized as their own, right? Right. But you're 100% right.

I mean, in my own family's lifetime, and I write about this in the book, my grandfathers fought in the war against Japan. And I have an episode I talk about in there where I was sitting there with my maternal grandfather, Dr. Graham, who was a dentist, and had been a B-29 bomber pilot. And I'm sitting there with Tamaki Oji-san, someone that I grew up with in my church that I referred to as, like, my grandfather, my Japanese grandfather. and he was a small little guy and my grandfather was really big and they didn't speak the same language. So as a nine or 10 year old, I'm translating for him with my dad there as well. And it comes to the point of the conversation of like, what did you do in the past? And there's kind of this awkward, oh, we were fighting each other.

And it was just awkward. And the way the ice was broken was the Japanese grandfather actually thanked my grandfather for his service and for helping him be where he is today. and my grandfather who had very few words giving him a hug, which is very not culturally appropriate in the Japanese context. And as a nine or 10-year-old, from that moment on,

I felt that weight of responsibility. Like, wow, never again. And I don't think people in my generation and below know that side of Japan because people below the age of 40, they know Japan through anime, through video games, through food, through architecture,

all that stuff that everywhere is surrounded here in New York and certainly across the country. Right. Yeah, it's an interesting dichotomy because there's so many things in American culture that are so specifically Japanese. And even just from the region, broadly speaking, I think the number one show on Netflix around was K-pop Demon Hunter.

Yes, 100%. Which, you know, obviously from Korea, but just another sort of thread that comes through from the region, a country that we were adversaries with through the 50s that now is importing culture all the time. And I love to see the cross-cultural pollination. Like I'm someone that loves cultures

and loves people and humanity just at its core and learning about just different cultures is fascinating to me and seeing all the ways that it gets imported and kind of like reworked into the American paradigm I find fascinating

but I mean also Shohei Hotani we can't we can't ignore him I mean literally you can't ignore the greatest baseball player ever not just in our lifetime now it's like ever yeah controversial okay I don't know if you can say ever ever

I mean I don't know enough about baseball I think stats speak for themselves so bring me Babe Ruth bring me anybody else you want I'm sticking with Shohei Otani I mean show hey's game I forget which what it was in the in the world series but where he pitched yep hit yes and it was like someone explained to me that knows baseball better than i did maybe you can sort of uh parlay into this but what he did was like the greatest feat in sports ever yeah it'd be like if tom brady threw and

caught every touchdown in a super bowl it was like and and had a sack on the other quarterback right like it is literally that level right um and what's crazy is so the reason i'm such a fanatic show hey otani fan is he actually started at the Nippon fighters, which is from my hometown of Sapporo. So he was a two-way player because he couldn't do it in many other places, even in Japan in the National Baseball League there. It was kind of like, yeah, you can't do that. That's crazy. But he

did it, and then he made it over to the Angels, and now he's on the greatest stage on Earth. And that game you're talking about was literally, I was in Japan for that game. President Trump was there as well, meaning with the new prime minister at the time, and they watched that game. And so I think, you know, it took on a huge, you know, life-size

thing of its own. Because again, you know, With, like, the Super Bowl, there's only one game. But with the World Series, there's at least four games. And so that kind of crystallized in one small microcosm, the greatness of Shooyotani. Even from this overview right here, the do-it-all game, game four. Yep. And he pitched six scoreless innings, ten strikeouts, three home runs, played both pitcher and designated hitter in a five-one win over the Brewers. I mean, phenomenal.

Yeah, well, that can't be the Brewers, right? It had to be the other team. They played the Blue Jays or whatever it was, right? But this was in the national league. Oh, this is the NELUS. Sorry, I was thinking about the World Series. I was thinking about the World Series. It was the conference change.

But regardless, there's so much cultural crossover, but yet there's a dichotomy. Because I do think, for me at least, there is this disconnect with Japanese culture where I as an American look at the culture. It is so homogenous and so ancient that there are still many things that stand out as being particularly unique that I think a lot of America's don't understand. Yeah. Like, oh, are they, there's a coldness. There's maybe like a lack of romance. Like, there's little things that kind of come through that I think make Americans sort of maybe uneasy at times. And so it's interesting, there's so much cultural influence, but yet so much that's unknown, so much that's still mystical. And I'm hoping today we can get through all that. Yeah. In addition to that, also looking at American-Japanese relations through the lens of Trump's presidency and what America first means for Japan as well as other countries in the region. But before we get to that, I did a recent episode on Miyamoto Musashi. Okay. The greatest samurai ever.

Yep. The author of Five Rings. Also, the path of loneliness. This is the American translation. There's a better Japanese word for it, I'm sure. Yeah. But in your book, you mentioned that you sort of go through Miyamoto Musashi a bit and also touch on his philosophy.

And there's two things about him that are fascinating. One, like just his life story, being this young kid, basically orphaned to an extent. then it becomes one of the greatest samurai ever, going through duels, literally as like a teenager and defeating the most, just the most prolific swordsmen of the region. And it's like a remarkable story,

but then there's also a philosophical element of it that I think a lot of people miss. So what can you tell me about Miyamoto-MuSashi? I mean, you did a pretty good job there. Normally I'm used to people just being like, oh yeah, that five rings, I'm like, not the Olympics, like totally different. You know, I think that what's interesting about Musashi

is, you know, I grew up learning about him in Japanese, in Japan, And he's equivalent to many ways people like Sun Tzu or maybe even Klausowitz that are used as kind of these great military strategist. But I think you said it really well. He's more than that. You know, it's not just the fact that he defeated some of the greatest swordsmen of his time. He fought 60 duels and won every single one. Any one of those losses, you're dead.

Like that's the way that works. There's a winner and there's a loser and the loser's dead. Right. So the fact that he did that. And then he also wrote about the philosophy. in the period of time that he grew up in during the Sengoku period, which is the Civil War period of Japan, right before Tokugawa Shogunate was established and the Edo period flourish. Like, he's this mythical figure, right? So 500 years ago.

And so the question is like the man and the legend and the myth, right? And I think he is this personification because he represents so much that Japan can be proud of in terms of this warrior scholar concept, right? So he didn't kill people for the sake of just killing them. it was that his honor was challenged, and he's trying to help people understand when to use the sword and when to use the pen. And that is very interesting because to an American, it's like, all right, if you're a warrior, like get buff, get strong, be Spartagos, like just kill people. But then if you're going to rule or govern, then like do that. And there's a separation of power, right, between military, hard power and soft power over here. And he represents both of those.

He's not the most intimidating of Japanese characters. He's not this larger-than-life kami figure or God, right? He very much was a person. He very much was this philosopher. He's very much this warrior. And I think that that sometimes gets lost. Because when I think about Sun Tzu, I don't actually know what the living person was like.

All I know is he wrote some really great things that now are being used to be like, defeat the enemy without having to fight them, right? You know, these kind of phrases we use. His work, Ms. Ashii's work, is a little, little more deep than that. It's hard, number one, Japanese language is difficult. Full, full disclosure, right? Like, writing this book in Japanese with my dear friend who helped me translate. Like, I speak Japanese pretty fluently. I felt I needed a translator to get from my level of Japanese to, like, the level of

Japanese I was appealing to. And so to see what that represents 500 years after the fact, and it's still relevant and moves people today, there's an endearing philosophy. And I think part of it is because that system of governance that he's talking about is what still resonates today in Japan. Like the reason Tokyo is one of the largest metropolis in the world and succeeds as Edo is because of some of the work he did. Had he not been in those duels, had he not been part of that group that was going to lead to the unification of Japan, we may not have the Japan that we have today. We may not have Otani, who may be the living incarnate of the Musashino today, right?

Like there's a whole level. And I would argue that whether or not Shohei Otani lives by that philosophy, he would absolutely give credit where credit is due and say, yeah, going back through this period, there's this attention to detail and craftsmanship. And to be at that level of a swordsman, it's almost an artistry. It's not just violence. So I think that is what really appeals to me. And when I think about my own understanding of Japanese culture, Japanese history, he stands out in that kind of canon. of people, just like the founding myths of Japan, and

just like Tokugawa himself, the Shogun, and then the different emperors that have led to Japanese history throughout time. Right. I do think there is a romance. It's funny because in the West, we talk about the Renaissance man, right? Like, this is the man that can do everything. He can play music and he can also do philosophy, but he can also fight

and it's battle-hardened. We create these sort of myths in America and through the West. And I think maybe Marcus Aurelius perhaps would come to mind. And there's probably others. but it's interesting to me that Miyamoto Musashi is that perfectly embodied, like this artist but also a warrior. Like the ultimate man.

Yes. And whether it is wholly true or it's partially mythologized, it's just funny that it's kind of swept away from the Western record. It's not something that we talk about often. So I'm curious, what can we take away from Miyamoto Musashi? Like what could you say are some of the foundational philosophical elements that still translate that could be relatable? to a young dude in America now.

I mean, I think the number one is intentionality. The idea of Doe, the way, is something that very much I think he can take a credit for. And it's part of Japanese philosophy and Japanese history anyways, and he's following on a long path of it. But the intentionality behind it, when you take your sword out, why? And then as you're using and kind of making sure that every stroke, every kind of approach is approach with intentionality. I think in this day and age, you know, it's an attention culture. Like, we have so much coming at us, literally through screens and everything around us is loud. In that moment in time, it was very similar. Like, there was war everywhere. It was very difficult to kind of make sense

of who was winning, who was losing which group to join and who was going to come out of this civil war period. And in many ways, he asked you to look within yourself. Like, don't look at the external world. You can't necessarily control, but look within yourself. And so even the path of loneliness, that sounds weird, right? Because loneliness is this like empty space and you're trying to get rid of that feeling. But if you walk that path, then you in some ways understand from a Zen point of view of like, oh, like that actually is a way to focus on what I have control. Focus on my breathing first. Focus. You know, in many ways before you can pick up a sword, you have to understand everything else. You have to master the universe, everything else before you do that. Whereas in America,

like, really? Because I feel like I need to just pick up a sword to start swinging at stuff. and eventually I'll hit something, eventually I'll get better. And I think that craftsmanship, that intentionality is something that we all could learn from. And I think the world needs a lot more of, which I think going back to our earlier conversation, is why Japan and Japanese philosophy and even people like Shohei Otani are so popular right now because it's so unusual to see that. Yeah, I think this is partially why I love studying religion. Because to me, at the very least, even if it's all human created,

And it's all purely a, you know, this desire for humans to, you know, ascribe, like some type of reason and order to this chaotic world. At the very least, it is an amalgamation of what works for humanity. You know what I mean? Like, if you do like this cross-religious analysis, you're able to pull things together. And I think that feeling of self-mastery is something that comes up in basically every religion. And, I mean, I think Seneca even wrote, like, intend to your garden. Like that is the single most important that you can do. Mother Teresa says if you want to change the world, love your family.

And this focus on really kind of zooming in on what is within your control. Yeah. In this world of chaos where everything seems like it's out of your control, where your life, you're just on a ride and you can't get off. Taking control over yourself, and that includes, you know, the things you give your attention to, your emotional state, how you react to your emotions is all found within, you know, I think Musashi's life. and sort of his writings, that you can feel away, but ultimately, how are you going to channel that energy?

What are you going to do? How are you going to react? I mean, there's even like an adage my dad would say, like life is 10% what happens, 90% of how you react to it. And Musashi seems like he really embodied them. Yes.

I mean, even, and I'm trying to think, like his first three duels, there's like a five-year gap in between them. Like I think there's, on both sides, there's maybe a pendulum shift where it's like,

oh, he was like a philosopher that would train with swords or he was just, crazy warrior that would fight anyone. This is not the case. Yeah. He was a very disciplined, principled warrior. Yes.

And he fought once when he was like 16 and then again when he was 21. Yep. Like that was the time span. And in that whole time, he was just training and mastering himself. Yeah. And I think that that's a lesson for people to take away. Like, you know, if you are a natural fighter, if you are a natural person to stand up against injustice, it doesn't have to be constantly raging at the entire world around

you because you're going to get exhausted. Yep. It's specifically locking into your emotions. and choosing the specific battles that you need to fight when there's no other option. Yeah. And whether that's a physical fight or an ideological fight, whatever it may be. No, I really resonate with what you're saying because in many ways the reason I think that whether it's Japanese gardens or whether it's a Japanese tea ceremony, which may not feel similar to Musashi, but in many ways

are coming out of that same period. Because the way that the current Japanese tea ceremony was created was in many ways that intentionality behind it. If you think about it, back in the day, you had these different. warring groups and they would meet. How are they going to have a meeting to have diplomacy when like if all you do is fight all the time, right? But they needed a way to be able to show respect to one another and in all the movements. I think one of the things that Americans don't fully appreciate about Japanese tea ceremonies, like, hey, just take a bunch of leaves and put it in hot water and you got tea. If you've been to Japanese tea ceremonies three hours later, you're like, wow, like I don't know what I just experienced, but it wasn't just about what was in my bowl. It was the way in which I was received, the hospitality, the culture. And so when you go into a tea ceremony, you lay your sword down. And it is considered the height of dishonor if anything were to happen to your guest in your care. And so even if it's a trap, even if there's something going on, like it all happens. And I think Musashi has that

in his work as well, where there is that understanding that there is a time and there's a place for everything. There's a season for everything, as the Bible says, right? And I think that that idea of tending your own garden first and focusing on what you can focus on. You know, I think a lot of people in this day and age feel like they're just, they're not even an actor in their own life. And there's so much they can't control. But that's often because they don't focus on what they can control. You know, I think as a father, you see that very intently. And when you have that newborn for the first time, you feel that deep connection that you can't even explain. You can't even tell yourself before you had a child. And then ever, ever since after that, it is both the ultimate

form of selfishness of wanting to see yourself and wanting to do that. But it's also the greatest form of selflessness because you want to protect that little life in so many ways when they can't walk and they can't do anything. You want to hold and you want to be there. As they get older, you want to protect them for the things that you know are not good for them. But ultimately, you've got to help grow within that life, that philosophy that you can never, you're never going to be there all the time for them. And you've got to live that right and with an intentionality behind it, which I think Japanese culture gets very right. And sometimes in America, because we are so evolving all the time, we're dynamic culture, where we're constantly importing and bringing new

philosophies, the fat of the day changes based on what you're watching, what the algorithms say. In Japan, there's something that stood the test at time, that ancient civilization that we're here talking about somebody from 600 years ago. There are no Americans from 600 years ago, right? Like, that's just our country celebrating the 250th year this year. So there's a whole different level to it that I think is pretty cool. Interesting. Okay, I want to get back to Miyamoto Musashi, but what can you tell me about early childhood in Japan? How do Japanese parents raise their children in a way that is distinct from American parents? Yeah, I mean, you talked about Netflix, and certainly my children will watch K-pop Demon Hunter as much to my chagrin because I can't get the earworms of the songs out.

It's a good song. They're catchy, man. That song is amazing. It's amazing. But if you go on Netflix and you type in Japanese children, you'll get some amazing TV shows. They do TV shows where children who are younger than my kids, I have a seven and a nine-year-old, they go and get to, stuff. They just walk down, you know, street across highways. They wear these little yellow hats to be distinctive everywhere. You would never see that. You would be arrested by child services if you let your kid walk down to the corner 7-Eleven to buy something because it just is never done.

In Japan, that's part of the way it's done. And I think it starts early. You know, last year at the Oscars, there were a couple of documentary films that were made by some friends that we hosted at Japan Society about Japanese education. And that, those films really got to the core of the difference between a Japanese education system and an American one. I went to a Japanese Yocin, a Japanese kindergarten. And what I was being taught, obviously, I was a little bit different. I was pretty big for my age. And in Japan, I was huge.

Like, my nickname was Godzilla, the American. Like, I had all sorts of nicknames. And they had this, you know, so what I was being taught was more about social order. And even when it came to the food you bring, you know, in Japan, you all bring your bento boxes and you all eat together. And then afterwards, you clean up together. You know, think about the U.S. You go to a cafeteria, the lunch ladies do everything for you.

What are you being taught? Are you cleaning up after yourself? Are you helping serve your fellow students? That's just not the way America works most of the time. It's very individualistic. So I think that social consensus and that kind of collective will starts really early in Japan. And so from the age of, you know, in kindergarten into elementary school, you learn that. Now, as you get older, things change.

And I think Japan is very well known for a very disciplinary in society. Everybody has to wear a uniform at public schools. Everybody has to be kind of similar. The nail that sticks up, gets hammered down as an old Japanese saying. And so by the time you get to high school, where critical thinking is what we try to, you know, focus on here in the West and in America, especially by the time you get to college, in Japan, it really does, you know, tend to be more on the mathematical side of remembering and kind of, you know, wrote memorization, which I think in this day and age of AI and technology

is becoming less valuable, but certainly at the elementary school, if I could have a choice, I think my kids would benefit from the elementary school. I think when we get to junior high and high school, we can have an active debate. But they learned that in an early age. That's interesting. Yeah, the American system, specifically in early childhood is so individualistic and kind of like reinforces like a class idea. Like you are of this class and, you know, these people, they work for you and they do stuff for you and they clean up after you. And it really does reinforce this idea of like, I'm kind of on my own. These people are on their own. They have their job. I have my job were distinct and separate where it doesn't seem to be the case in Japan.

It seems like there's much more collectivization from an early age that we're all working together. That show that you mentioned, I can't remember the name of it. Yeah. Would you mind searching this, the Japanese kids show where like they're walking around doing stuff? It's my favorite. Yeah, yeah, it's great.

It's just like the greatest thing ever, especially as a parent, right? You're watching this going, my parents would have a, no, my parents wouldn't. They'd be like, that's normal. But like most American parents are like, you're let my grandchild do that. And it's just hilarious because they go and buy alcohol. they go in buy tobacco and like cigarettes and you're like what how is that allowed like in america you got to show your ID for anything in japan it's like oh yeah you're so-and-so son come on in and do this or that it's amazing right there's a oh yeah that's what it is old enough yeah how do you say

that in japanese what does that say hajima no ootskiai ozkiai yeah yeah or my first errand yes my first errand would you mind clicking a video of this this is just so cute but like you'll see like a little kid like holding fish in a bucket and like a fish drops out and he's got to like put it back Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's maybe like five years old. Exactly. Just walking around the streets of Osaka. He's like struggling with this huge fish and you're like, what is happening?

And it's just like part of it. Yeah, yeah, this one right here. Yeah, this is probably going to be. Oh, no, we got ads. That's what always happens. This is America after all. Ads rule our life, right? Exactly.

Yeah, yeah. But seeing this little kid, just walking into a supermarket, this little yellow flag, this indicates what exactly? Is this for the show or is this broadly in Japanese culture? I think, I mean, I think there are elements of this, but a lot of it, as I was saying, is people wear hats or something distinctive to let people know that, like, they have their parents' permission. They're not running off somewhere. And again, it's to make sure.

I mean, you see this. Look, this kid is walking across traffic. Can you imagine that in New York? Like, you would have a lawsuit on your hand. And the fact that these kids who are like two to five years old are doing this stuff, like it's just not fathomable. And again, when my, I have a seven and nine-year-old. I wouldn't even trust my nine- and seven-year-old to do this stuff. This three-year-old is doing.

And it's because they're teaching them at an early age responsibility. And it's like, look, I want you to do this. I mean, I just, can you imagine riding a bus in New York? Like, I just, you know. There's also massive levels of social trust. Yes, 100%.

That I trust my child will go out and won't be abducted. They won't be crime. There won't be some type of random scuffle. They won't be bullied, robbed. Of course, you know, crime happens. Anyway, but in America, there's much more of a social, like, isolation.

Like, I can't trust my neighbors necessarily. Whereas in Japan, it seems much more collective and cohesive. I think that actually goes back to your point about the class. You know, I think that when you look at like the genie coefficient of American society versus Japanese, there are rich people in Japan and there's some really rich people. But on average, there's kind of a pride in the middle class. Like it is not a point of contention.

You know, I think in the U.S., keeping up the Joneses of like always trying to one up. And I think part of what we're describing, even not probably in our lifetime in our childhoods, like the way we grew up where our parents would give us a certain parameter in our neighborhood, we could go to our next door neighbor's house, et cetera. That's not what we do with our kids anymore because of no. telling you go and knock on the wrong door and somebody you know misinterprets whatever's happening like you know that has changed over time and so even like our idealic childhood versus what our kids are growing up in especially in a place an urban environment like here is very different

than kind of the suburban or you know the kind of idealic you know America of the bygone days yes yeah there's a great book by jonathan height where he writes uh it's called the anxious generation yeah and he's just a great research i'm sure you've heard oh yeah um but he has a protocol for like how to deal with technology and your children. One of the things that he talks about is like, when your child is about like eight or 10 years old, send them on an errand. Yeah.

You know, like, you can maybe follow them for a little bit, but like just trust that they'll be okay. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, Jonathan Haidt writes in this book, basically a protocol for how to deal with your children interface with technology. And he says, like, when they're eight or nine years old,

send them out on an errand and just, you know, trust that they'll be okay, teach them how to deal with the streets, yada yada, and I'm sure Japanese parents would hear this and be like, eight or nine. Yeah. Like that's, it's too late. It's way too late.

Yeah. I started this when they're five, when they're six years old. And, yeah, teaching that ethic of responsibility and how to, like, operate as an adult in the society. When I also think there's kind of a generational piece here. I think, you know, the idea of your grandparents living with you is a pretty foreign concept to us in America, right? Whereas in Japan, that's the way it is.

Like, it is so expensive, prohibitively so, to have a house that many people have generational houses. And so if you grow up and your child care or your grandparents, I mean, now as a parent and, you know, my parents, you know, being away from their grandkids, that would be idyllic. Because if there's anybody I trust to raise my own kids besides myself, it's not a nanny, it's not an opair. It's not, you know, a daycare.

It's my parents because they instilled in me certain values that I want instilled in my kids. And I think that sense of collective responsibilities are pretty across-the-board Asian cultural phenomenon. You see a lot of it in all parts of Asia, not just Japan. But I think that does get back to the collective piece of this. Have you heard this is, I don't know if this is valid or not. I just saw this on an Instagram real. But it was an anthropologist pausing this idea of grain societies versus rice societies.

Yeah. When it comes to collectivization. Yeah. And as I've heard it, and I'm curious where your thoughts are, the theory that he sort of floated was that wheat societies, grain societies generally, but wheat society specifically are much more individualistic, that I have a field of crops that I'm, you know, tending to and I'm growing my wheat. And you have your own field of crops, and they're distinct. And they're completely individualistic. and my field is for my family and for my community. And yours, maybe five miles down the road, that's for your people.

And whether it gets destroyed or gets blight or gets any type of, you know, infestation, that's on you. And maybe I'll help you out, but it's for a price, da-da-da. And it creates a much more individualized sort of culture. Rice societies, because they're sharing the same waterways, and you might have a rice paddy that is connected to another rice paddy, even four or five miles away. But because it's sharing the same water, what you do to your rice affects me. Yeah. And as a result, creates more collectivized societies and over generations of reinforcing this

idea that what I do affects my neighbors and what my neighbors do affects me creates more collectivization. Yeah. What do you think of this theory? I mean, it seems to be true in my own lived experience, but I don't have the anthropological PhD that I'm sure they do. But certainly one of the things I can say about Japanese history as well is that even economically speaking, rice is in some ways the gold standard, right? where you have to, I think it's kind of undoubtedly that it takes a collective village to, you know,

kind of harvest rice because it is such an intensive process. You've got to do so much more. It's not just like, okay, it rains or not. It's like, you have to keep water at a certain level. And then in Japan, there's certain levels of gradations of rice. And so this group needs to focus on the type of rice that has served to this group of people, to the monks and the priest. And it has to be the most sacred variety. And this bushel and this variety of rice is the commodity that allows economic trade to happen and from this region is better. The same as tea, by the way, right? Like, there are a lot of commodities in Japan that have these dual purposes and meaning.

In the same way that in the West, most of it is like minerals. And nowadays, we talk a lot about critical minerals, but gold is still a huge commodity and all those things. In Japan, a lot of those things, whether it's incense, whether it's tea or whether it's rice. And you're kind of as an American, you're like, those things don't seem that valuable, actually. Like, how hard can it possibly be? It's pretty hard.

Try to raise rice one day. Try to go out there. sweet, you and I could throw that out there and probably get lucky and it would happen sometime and not. So I don't doubt it. I don't have the research on it, but I think in my own lived experience, I can definitely feel that. Okay. Now, I just want to touch back on Miyamoto Musashi. Is there anything else from his life or philosophy that you think is relevant to Japanese culture today

that Americans would learn from? Yeah, I mean, look, I go back to the Otani example because I think that this idea of being a master swordsman, right, the way in which he used the sword was really seen. as being an artisan or a craft. And I think we just don't think about things like that in the West often. If you took everything you do, your job, everything you're doing today, if you're listening to this and you're on a FedEx truck or doing a UPS run or whatever, like if you took the same level of pride as Shoha Tani does of playing in the championship game of the World Series or, you know, Musashi did as a, you know, kind of defender of Japanese culture and the faith and being a philosopher,

would that make a world a different place? Again, instead of worrying about all the customers and the people that are bad and making your life miserable and the person that's driving in front of you that's driving you crazy, but you focused in on your craft, would that make us a better place? And would we all see our lives as craftsmen? Would we take more pride? I mean, there's a great Japanese movie that came out about a toilet cleaner. And that toilet cleaner, you know, the pride he takes in cleaning every single. And these are public toilets.

These are not like some fancy, you know, Trump Tower type of toilets. These are like, you know, nasty, gross. And even that. And you can feel it. When you go to Japan and you walk around the society, you see how clean it is without there being any trash cans. We're often in the U.S. It's like, well, that's not my problem. Like, I'm going to walk outside and throw it on the ground because it's not my problem.

That's your responsibility. As the keeper, you got to go and get the snow off your area. It's your responsibility. Whereas in Japan, it's our responsibility. And I think that sense of collective responsibility would benefit all of us because we are interconnected. And the question becomes, where's that line? Because there's benefit on both sides. There's something beautiful in the American sense of individual.

individuality and that free spirit and kind of manifest destiny and all that stuff. There's also beauty in a collective way. And I think at their extremes, they both can be taken too far. But one of the things I like to do at Japan Society and my work is to show a mirror to both sides. To help Americans say, wow, there's a lot we could learn. And if I want to be as good at a craft as Shohayotani, I got to go back to, you know, Musashi's work. And if I want to be as creative and, you know, do the types of things that Americans are known for, entrepreneurship innovation, maybe I've got to color outside the line sometime. And when is the right

time? Because I think even Musashi would agree that there are times that the rules need to be broken. There are times in war. And when you're defending your loved ones, that that goes out the window. But most of the time, you stick with the katas, the way, the way that martial arts is taught. And so they've codified so many aspects of fighting and Kendo and karate and Aikido and all these other forms that have grown out of that period of time. Yeah, that's, I think that is a good thing for Americans to keep in mind that there are, you know, there's, there's a give and take. You know, American is very, America is very individualistic, which is awesome. And it creates so many amazing things. Yes. But by being a little bit more conscious of the people we live around,

and trying to be, you know, a better steward of this nation that we all share, we inevitably would benefit. Yes. But I can't help but feel like that economic pressure. And I don't want to be, like two, like, material first when it comes to, like, I've been reading, like, some left-wing philosophy when it comes to economics. But, like, I just, I can't help but think that the pride in the middle class that the Japanese have really contributes to this feeling that there's no shame in being a toilet cleaner. That's right. This is my, this is my job right now, and I'm going to do the best that I can at it, because that is what this job calls of me. Whereas the American ethic is constantly moving up. It's like, I have this job now, and this job sucks. I hate this job, but eventually one day,

I'll have a better job and I'll be rich. And the American philosophy is constantly pushing forward, climbing the ranks, trying to move up the ladder. Is Japanese culture in that way where someone might have like a regular, you know, middle class job? Yeah. And they constantly are trying to get out of it. Yeah, it's changing.

And I think that the American dream is probably more alive and well in Asia and Japan than maybe even in this country. Because I think there's something beautiful about the American concept of kind of pulling yourself up at your bootstrap. And, you know, you don't need support from the government. you can come from wherever you come from. Like that's the whole reason America was founded, right? Like my family came to America 400 years ago from Britain to escape a certain viewpoint of what religion was,

a certain class system, and they were successful here in Virginia and other places that they went. But I think over time, societies, you know, have to struggle with the evolution. And I think that Japan, which has been around much longer than the United States, certainly from a civilizational point of view, has kind of codified certain things. And I think increasingly we are in danger of that in Japan as well, where there are a lot of rich people in Tokyo especially. When you go to Tokyo now, I mean, it's a different – I didn't grow up in Tokyo. I grew up in Saoboro in the northern part, so very different. Nowadays, when I go to the parts of Tokyo I go to, there's really auspicious wealth on display.

And, you know, there's the mazoratis and the Ferraris and non-Japanese cars that are like meant to stick out, which you never would have seen when I was growing up because that wouldn't have been kosher. Like, it's not cool to rub it in someone's face. So even if you have money, you try to lower. And again, I think the Japanese idea of humility and the sense of fitting in with others versus the American, like, let me show off. And, like, it's okay to show off because you know that I could be next. Like, I'm going to get mine and I'm going to be successful.

And I'm going to keep on hustling and pushing, et cetera, which makes cities like New York so gritty and resilient and so desirable. But Japan is beginning that pattern as well. And again, I don't think you can make a generalization that all. Japanese people are this way or all American people are this way. They're good in, there are people in all cultures. But I do think collectively, the cultures value different things. And I do think that Japan has become more materialistic over time. And it is valuing that capitalistic society of like growing. But certainly in the political realm, politics continues to try to get

Japanese to think of themselves collectively and not kind of only focus on rich or poor people, where I think sometimes in the U.S., we focus on extremes and the people, and the people it are the loudest get the most airtime versus in Japan, that doesn't necessarily have to be the case. Yeah, I'm curious if you have a middle class job in Japan, could you live comfortably? Yeah. Like if you are just, like, maybe you own like a small sandwich shop or, you know, maybe you're just like working as like a waiter. Yep. Are you constantly living paycheck to paycheck, you know, getting sick and not able to pay for it? Like the things that many Americans in that kind of, you know, wealth bracket would struggle with.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's different in the sense that there are a lot more social nets there, right? I think that the health care system very different, one of the best in the world does not have all the, you know, here, you're one paycheck or one kind of injury away from disaster in many ways if you don't have a type of job that provides your health care for you. And I think that families take care of each other better because if you're living together and like you hit some hard time, people are going to collectively come together, whereas here, one of the reasons it feels like there's an epidemical homelessness sometimes is mental health crisis, people just, you know, they're not there for each other in the community. I think that is more alive and well. You know, I think that affordability, that term has probably been controversialized, has become polarizing, but that's a topic everywhere.

I mean, Japan right now feels really cheap to Americans because of the rate of the yen. And for us, the cost of living in New York versus Tokyo, you can't even compare the two, right? Like, I can get a nice meal in Tokyo for five bucks. There's nothing I can get. Even McDonald's, I can't get five bucks anymore, right? Like everything has taxes, everything is in the stuff they're giving you as kind of like filler. It's not the real good stuff. So it's a lot easier and it's a lot more affordable. But as I said, you know, it's still hard to buy land. It's still hard to buy something. Because again, it used to be back in the 1980s, the entire value of the land around Tokyo was like worth the entire state of California or something crazy back during the bubble days. That has changed, but it's still prohibitively

expensive. And the American system of mortgages and etc. is not as prevalent in Japan. You've got to have cash. If you don't have the money to guarantee that plot of land, you're not getting that plot of land. And most plots of land are like deeded to a family and you pass it from generation to generation, generation, and that used to be the American way too. We're not seeing that as much. And you see a lot of the wealth coming in, certainly in Manhattan, to buy these huge things and kind of to show off in different ways. So it is a different lifestyle. But I do think the middle class, just like in the U.S. struggle with things, but I think it's a little easier because of the social networks that are there.

That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I can see someone taking pride in having, you know, a middle class job when they feel like, you know, they're not an injury away from being, you know, just completely in poverty forever. And it also feels like the debt systems are probably a little bit different. Yeah. And that, you know, you can live comfortably, maybe in one of these, you know, outside cities, a smaller town and have a good job, but nothing, you know, insanely, you know, ostentatious. Yeah. I don't know.

It's just so different from the American ethic and what the ideal of Americanness is. Yeah. Yeah, I'm curious of just other random little lifestyle things. I don't know if we talked about this before. Remind me if we did. We can skip over it. I'm obsessed with the floor bed. Mm, aftone, yeah.

Maybe we talked about it briefly, but I've been trying to convince my wife. She's not going for it? She's not going for it. How common is that? So it's interesting. it used to be very common. These days, as I said, a lot of things are trending, I think most people may have a room because the way this works, I mean, it's a pretty efficient way of thinking about it, right? Like if you only have a certain number of rooms, so you don't get to have your own bedroom,

right? So imagine that you have a house with three bedrooms and you got a family of like four or five, then you got to, everybody's got to sleep together. And rather than having the bed that take up the entire space, why not just fold your bed up in the morning, put it away and you can use that room as a playroom, use it as a study room, whatever else. And so it's very efficient from that point of view. It is old school. And again, the reason they didn't have that is many ways, why would you use of trees for that? That doesn't seem like an efficient use of resources. Why not have, like, the to tomm mats that do the work and they allow you to stay both warm and then people are closer together. You can, you know, be more efficient with small spaces. People in New York

would feel very comfortable with this. The number of people who sleep on beds and on, you know, mattresses and everything else. I mean, it's equivalent of the new air mattresses. that are really comfortable. I love Fetones, and I think that the Yocans, kind of many Japanese in, have these for tourists who find it fascinating and are really interested in it. And it's good for your back, sleeping on the floor, right? Versus like on these really springy and, you know, all these things, I'm sure your advertisers will be happy with me when we look at sleep mattress and the NFL players will tell me otherwise.

But you know, I do think there is something to that it is not common anymore. But what's interesting is there is a subculture in Japan of return. to the roots of Japaneseness and what makes us Japanese. What's unique? And I think what's interesting is the futon, which most Americans call futon, they, they, they bastardize it. Just like, how do you say, is it. Karaoke is how you say it, right?

So, Karaoke and Futon, which you're like, you're like, those are the same words as futon. It's like IKEA is whatever is in Sweden and they sell futons. Like, okay, I think what we now have learned from that is, okay, how do we get a bed that we can fold up? But that's not actually what a phaeton is, right? The faton is actually you put it up in the closet when you're done with it. There's no furniture around.

It's just the mattress on top of the tatami mat. It doesn't work when you're talking about a wood floor. So I think a lot of Americans misinterpret that. And they're like, oh, I'll just put a photonon on top of this. You know, no, it doesn't work if it's on a wood floor. It only works when you've got this soft tatami. And again, most Japanese houses in a modern Japanese house, they'll have one room that's traditional. Often that's the room where they would have a fatonan.

If a guest comes, that's where you would offer it. that's also where you might have your traditional kind of shrines or your different pictures to loved ones who've gone and everything else. It's the traditional room of the house. And the rest of the house, it looks just like a house that you and I are used to and maybe even more modern because Japanese architecture tends to be more minimalist and much more kind of clean than certain, you know, American style. Interesting. Now, this is a controversial question. Okay.

Because we touched on this collective feeling of what it means to be Japanese and how Japanese culture is, like, very trust-based. and it's so ancient. And given the current state of American politics, a lot of people would say, well, look at Japan's immigration. Like there's no people coming in really. Like it's a very small amount of people coming from other countries that are immigrating. And so as a result, they've kept this one cultural thing so alive. Whereas in America, it has persisted on immigration.

Like the whole essence of the country has been generations of immigration. So I'm curious, there's probably people listening like, oh, well, Japan's able to operate this way because there's no immigration in America. because you have people coming from so many different countries and cultures, it creates a new thing that's beautiful in its own way, but social trust all of a sudden gets broken down. And a lot of our institutions that are held up by cohesion about what it means to be American is now diluted because the idea of Americanness is so forged in the mind, whereas the idea of Japaneseness is something that goes back so many generations.

So I'm curious, what is the Japanese, broadly speaking, the Japanese perspective on immigration, and does that interface with the American ideal? anyway. Well, first of all, I think to be an American, what does that mean, right? So even if you're born in the country, there's a certain understanding of like, I'm making a choice to follow a certain creed and to be part of something bigger than myself and to be an American. And that's what the Statue of Liberty and these different elements or symbolism of the red, white, and blue and the stars and all that stuff. In Japan, there's not as much of that because it's like you're born

Japanese and it's just you either are or you're not, right? Like, in Japan, there is racism is alive well, but it's not black and white like it is here, right? Where in America, it's like there's a spectrum, especially when you're from the south, it goes from one end to the other, and one is good and one is bad. In Japan, it's like, well, you're either Japanese or you're not Japanese. And if you're not Japanese, it doesn't make that big of a difference to me. What do you do? Oh, you're a basketball player? That's awesome. You're a jazz player? Awesome. Like, you're just, you know, a random tourist. You know, they don't see it in that way. They just like, okay, you're not Japanese. If you're Japanese, as you said, there's a class system there. And so I think what it means

to be Japanese is something that is not as uniformly spouted. Like there's not the same overt trappings of Japaneseness. Like people don't use the Japanese flag as much as Americans do. And when you see the World Cup and when you see the Olympics, it's kind of the only time I'm used to seeing people flying the Japanese flag or painting themselves in different colors. Whereas Americans, like, we do that on every Fourth of July. You know, we celebrate constantly. And I think that immigration does play into that where from the American point of view,

it's like, okay, you can be a hyphenated American. You can be whatever you want to be. Japanese American, you can be Irish American, whatever. In Japan, it's more difficult because they're not large pockets. There are Korean-Japanese. There are groups, including people from South Asia, Indians, and others that have become pretty prevalent in Japan, but it's pretty clear. I mean, I think we talked about this last time.

On the driver's license in Japan, in the U.S., it says your hair color, your eye color, your height, and everything else, it doesn't say that because how ridiculous would that be? Everybody's hair color is like black, everybody's eye color, brown. And the only people have blonde hair are. have blonde hair or blue eyes as people who are at weirdos who like change that to stick out of that culture. They don't want to be associated with it. And so I think that immigration is both necessary in Japan because the shrinking population demographics are trending the same way.

They need people to run their convenience stores. They need people to go out into the rural countryside. And it's really only Tokyo that's growing in Japan. The rest of Japan is shrinking. And there are these beautiful ancient farmhouses that are for sale that many Americans are like, oh, that's awesome. I want to retire there. I want to live there. And there's a an attractiveness to it. And I think as America goes through what we're currently going through with immigration, where many Americans are like, whoa, like, I agree with what you said about what it means to be American, but we've gone too far here. And we need to put a line in the sand on our 250th birthday about you're either here legally or you're not. And there are rules. And like,

people have not been following those rules. In Japan, the rules are much easier to enforce because it's an island nation. Like, if you're there illegally, you're not going to stay for very long. Like, there is no, like, oh, they're living here and they're just going to hide before ice finds them. Like, that's just not a thing in Japan. And also, Japan, because of that collective sense of responsibility, has had waves of different levels. And what's interesting is what people may not know about Japan also is there are waves of immigrants that left Japan at periods of time. The reason there's a Japanese American population here, which is very significant, particularly culturally in the role they played during World War II and they were interned and the history of the civil rights movement and all that. But there are many Japanese in Brazil as well.

The largest population of Japanese outside of Japan is actually in Brazil, right? Oh, wow. And I think those, it's different. When somebody from that population moves back to Japan, that's not seen as immigration. You may be Brazilian, but you're ethnically Japanese. In the same way that Israel has that same kind of philosophy where it's like, well, if you're Jewish and you come back and you do Alia, that changes things as well. So I think that is not something that Americans understand because we don't have that, right?

Like, there is no ethnically American, right? People who look like you and I may be the people that have been presidents for most of the time, but we don't have a particular claim. If you're not Native American and original tribes that are here, like, we're all kind of equal in that sense of it. My fan was Canadian. Exactly. People look at me and they're like, yeah, you're obviously American. I'm like, well, maybe.

Especially with what's going on in Canada these days. That's a whole other level of things, elbows up, right? All my cousins might actually be American. Yeah. Yeah, it's an interesting thing, just the American philosophy of what it means to be American. is that it's so unique to America because I think most other countries, Japan included, has such an ancient history of what it means to be Japanese

or what it means to be Chinese. You know, even what it means to be French. Like there's like, yes, this has been going on for hundreds of years. You either are or you aren't. And there's very much like, you know, Japan specifically, it's like ethnic based where it's like, you know, you look Japanese, you're born to Japanese parents, you've lived in Japan your whole life, you were Japanese.

People probably saw you and they were like, Like you're not Japanese, even though you've lived here the majority of your life up until you were 18. There you go, you're not Japanese. But what am I? Yeah. So, and that's fascinating. That's one of the reasons that I wrote this book, right? And you joked about reading it.

But if you look at this book, there is no way that Mark has read this entire book. But he's got great chat GPT. And it's amazing what you can do. I felt compelled to write this book partly for that exact reason. Because my entire life, I grew up as the American. Like I told you, my nickname was the American. Because I grew up in a part of Japan that didn't have that many foreigners. Now, everybody's going to Hokkaido because they got the best powder.

If you're a snowboard, you've heard of Niseko, 1972 Winter Olympics, my hometown, Sapporo, they got a great beer. Lots of great things about my hometown. But when I was growing up, it was very clear that I was not Japanese. And I kind of took pride in being the American, but I spoke Japanese. And so you assume that I didn't speak Japanese because, like, what dumb white guy could speak Japanese? And I would blow their minds. Whereas my Japanese American friends, when they spoke Japanese, they're like, your Japanese is not very good. And I'm like, what are you talking about?

Like, his Japanese is better than mine. And they're like, yeah, but you're a white guy. And you're dumb. You can't possibly get this. He knows better. He's ethnically Japanese. It's in his blood. And so that distinction about blood.

And what's interesting is what I do now. So a lot of my job is dealing with political leaders and business leaders, etc. I have been embraced. You know, the term I use that's on the front cover here, you know, it's funny. It looks a little bit like Times Square. There's too much going on here. The reason they put that picture there, which is kind of obnoxious to an American point of view, is they,

want to show that it's a white guy who wrote the book. And what it says next to it is Dosanko American. Dosanco is a term that is used only for people in Hokkaido. You would never learn that word in a Japanese school because it's only used by people of my island, right? And it means a child of the northern island or of the way. And it's so no one's ever used that term before. Dosanko American. Japanese American, I'm not, right? Like, I'm not ethnically Japanese. I'll tell you a funny story. When I went to college and they asked me where I was from and they asked me to sign some of this stuff. I didn't understand the concept of American ethnicity. So I said I'm Asian American because I'm American. I grew up in Asia. So I must be Asian American.

I went to orientation. I looked around and I was like, oh, it's like being in Japan. This is great. It didn't phase me until halfway through the thing, a counselor came over and was like, we need to talk to you. And I was like, what did I do wrong? And they're like, you don't belong here. And I was like, what do you mean? I'm from Japan. They're like, yeah, and I'm Mickey Mouse. And I'm like, no, no, I'm really from Japan. My parents are, you know, serving there. And they're like, this isn't for you. This is for Asian Americans. And I was like, Yeah, yeah, I grew up in Asia and I'm American. They're like, but you are not Asian American.

And I was like, what do you do with people from Japan? They're like, well, they're welcome. And I'm like, it was a very awkward thing, but I didn't understand the concept. So now I can laugh about it. And there's a lot built up into that, especially with Asian American hate and all the other stuff that's going on in the world. And I have to be very careful. I've learned a lot about what white privilege looks like and how I can be associated with that just by being present. But I think in Japan now I'm embraced.

People are so proud of myself calling myself a Dosanko American. People in my island have, you know, the governor himself, who has the same birthday as me, has nominated me to be the kind of a smile ambassador, ambassador for the island, to promote what Hokkaido is all about, which I'm proud to do. And I do willingly and lovingly on my own. I don't need any title to do that. But they're so proud of someone like me that is now the president of Japan society that they want to associate that. that's a different Japan than 40 years ago because when I was growing up, I knew I was not Japanese and I would never be Japanese. My brother incidentally was born in Sapporo. He'll never be Japanese. I mean, unless it becomes good at sports and, you know, gets a citizenship. But like, that's just not the way it works in Japan. But now people embrace me and often point out that some of my approaches and mannerisms and intentionality mimic Japanese themselves. And I sometimes find myself saying we and it confuses a lot of people, including myself, being like, what were you talking about? We is.

Americans or we as Japanese? Again, I know I'm not Japanese ethnically and I know I'm not Japanese national, but I do feel that Hokkaido is my heartland and I understand from where I come and I also deeply appreciate how Japan shows up in the world and that's why I'm doing what I'm doing because I think there's an abundance that we can learn from that and I also think there's a lot we can learn from America. There's a lot of bad stuff going on in the world and nobody's perfect and I find that anytime you get up on your soapbox and as a preacher's son, I'm very good at doing that, you often are pointing things out. But when you're point one finger at somebody, you've got four pointing back at yourself. And so I try to,

I try to imbibe that and learn through that Japanese philosophy of kind of taking a humble beat and also learning that sometimes it's better to listen. But again, you're 100% right. Like a white guy walking into my Japanese classroom, like all I have to do is open my mouth and then things change. But up until that point, I can't change how I present. I think it's a really interesting and unique perspective to have on the world. And I think for me growing up in America, but having had such amazing opportunities to travel the world, it has given me a different perspective

on just how humans are. And the American idea of what it means to be American is purely an idea because we're such a new country. You have these people that are like, okay, well, America is a white nation because we're founded by white people.

It's like, okay, well, whiteness, first off, what does that even mean? Yes. You know what I mean? Like, our Italians, white? Yep. You know what I mean? Like, the Greeks over here,

you know what I mean? Priestos just became white like, you know, a hundred years ago. So it's like, what does it even mean to be whiteness? So it's like, well, you have names. Native Americans here, but they're not American, but they are technically because they got reservations. Okay, fine. So it's white and indigenous. And then it's like, okay, well, slave trade. So you're like, all right, well, black people are also Americans.

So you're like, all right. Mexican-American war. You're like, okay, we got a bunch of territory. There's a bunch of Mexicans there. They're American now. They're American now. Irish immigrants, you're like, all right, they're white now. So they're part of it. So it's like, there's like, you can tell me like a Hawaiian person. They are one of the 50 states. Yeah. They are ethnically Hawaiian. Many of them are Japanese. Yes. And overnight, they just became American. Yep.

So it's difficult for someone to tell me like America's white. That's right. When it's like, well, there's a bunch of Japanese or a bunch of Japanese people in Hawaii that all of a sudden are American. Yeah. So it's like this idea of trying to racialize what America is doesn't work in the way that it might in other places. Yeah. Because the idea of what America was founded on is so fundamentally different. I had such an interesting conversation when I was in Saudi Arabia with a guy.

who I asked him, I was like, where are you from? He was like, oh, from Jeddah. I'm like, okay, so you're born in Saudi Arabia. He's like, yes. I was like, have you ever lived anywhere else? He was like, no, I traveled to England once, but I've lived in Saudi Arabia my whole life. And I was like, oh, awesome. So as a Saudi person, he goes, I'm not Saudi.

I was like, what? You've lived here your whole life. Like in America, if you're born in America, you're American, like, that's what it is. And he goes, that's not how we do it. And I was like, so what are you? He was like, so what are you? He was like, but did you ever live in Jordan?

No. are your parents from Jordan? He's like, what my great-grandparents are. But my parents were born in Saudi Arabia. I was born in Saudi Arabia, but I am Jordan. I was like, what? Like, the American brain can't comprehend how most other countries

have a blood and soil relationship to what it means to be them. So oftentimes we try to, I think, you know, overlay these older ancient cultures onto the American ideal, and it just doesn't work. And then it creates all these racialized ideas of what Americanness is,

which I think, hey, it's not that. Yeah. And I also think that the idea of America is incredibly powerful. And in some ways, we do ourselves a disservice when we start focusing on the divisive things that kind of divide us from each other versus like actually what unifies is this. Because I sometimes find it's a little bit like my parents are missionaries, right? A new convert to Christianity is like on fire for Christ. Right. And as someone who's been a Christian for a long time, you're like, man, I wish I had that level of enthusiasm. Same with Americans, right?

Like some of the most recent Americans, right? Some of the folks that I'm like, wow, like, they're on fire for America. I wish I could feel that way about my country because I'm depressed right now. Like I just, America's place in the world feels like we're under assault and we're under attack. Like everybody wants to take, you know, it's like King of the Hill. It's like, okay, you're number one. Now we're going to bring you down and tell you everything that's wrong. And we're not going to celebrate what's great about America.

And I think that's what's going on internally of this, you know, we're talking about the same thing, but in totally different eco chambers. And I think that looking at the world from an outside point of view, whether it's from Japan or from Canada, you see things about America that are so amazing and beautiful that Americans themselves may not actually see. I mean, I find that Americans who don't have passports and have not traveled the world, they just assume that things are always done this way. And I'm like, if you went to Japan and saw how our trains work and you saw how our toilets are and how our cell phones are, you would never call me a savage, right? You'd be like, yeah, you eat raw fish or whatever. And I'm like, now everybody loves raw fish. And sushi is what our kids are craving.

And like, I can't afford to keep up with the trains anymore. So I just think that that openness and that curiosity, whether it's in Jedda in Saudi Arabia or in Sapporo, Japan, like, there's just so much out there that unites us that it's frustrating that we're focusing so much on the negatives these days. Right. Exactly. I think that is what's beautiful about America is the idea. You know what I mean? And it doesn't always live up to the goals of the ideal, but the idea itself is so noble that you can come here and be the best version of you. Like, that's a beautiful thing.

And I always tell my friends that, you know, might be leery of, like, immigration. And, of course, people should immigrate legally. But the people that are immigrating here legally are the most on fire. Talk to, like, the legal Cuban migrant to America. Because we're getting all the people that hated where they were at. You know, like? We're getting people that are legally migrating from a socialist country. They're like, I don't like that.

And so we're afraid of people importing their socialism. I'm like, no, no, no. The people we're getting are the ones that left that on purpose. Yeah. Like, I have friends that are leery of, I actually don't. friends. I see people on the internet that are leery of like, you know, Iranian migrants. Yeah. That came, you know, right around the time of the revolution. I'm like, no, no, no. You understand. They're like, oh, they're going to import radical Islam. I'm like, the people that

left in 79 are the people that are the most against that. Yeah. These are people that are identified Zoroastrian most of the time. They're coming here to chase the American ideal. So to me, I'm like, if you're coming here and you're willing to leave your entire family in years and years, generations of culture to pursue the American ideal and you do it the legal way, I'm like, hell yeah. Yeah. You are buying into what the idea is just by the fact that you showed up. Yeah.

So to me, I'm like, I'm always excited. And anytime I meet someone that's like, dude, I just got my green card, just got citizenship. Yeah. Because those are the people that are the most hungry to get after. 100%. So I think that's ultimately the beautiful thing about America. But another thing that I was reading about with Japan, I recently did an episode on religion camp about Shintoism. Yeah.

And it's an interesting philosophy. I'm almost hesitant to call it a religion. because it doesn't exactly have the exact tenets of what I would perceive of religion to be. But what can you tell me about Shintoism and how it shapes Japanese culture? Yeah, I mean, look, what's so interesting about, let's just start with religion in general in Japan is, you know, I think that often religion, as you've just articulated, you've got to pick one or the other. It's not a pick your own adventure. Whereas in Japan, that's absolutely what it is. And Shintoism is very much like an aniministic, almost like a Native American view and appreciation of the world around us.

and that in everything there is a god, right? So in this wood, there is a god, right? And there's some of the most sacred things in Japan are both the trees and also the tori and the shrines that are built from that. And at the same time, right living next to it is Buddhism. And so you're kind of, well, what are you? Buddhist or Shinto?

And most Japanese would kind of not understand the question. They're like, yes. You know, which are you? Yes. Because you are either, you know, born in a Buddhist way and you go out in a Shinto way or vice versa. I always get it wrong. And I think what's it's interesting.

interesting about that is there is such a beautiful harmony that exists between. But I think Shintoism is an indigenous, uniquely Japanese thing, right? Buddhism, you find in India, you find in China. Shinto you can only find in Japan because it's rooted in the island of Japan itself. Because in that nature is where the gods come from. And from the ocean came the volcanoes, which came the trees, the mountains, fill in the blank. And I think that appreciation, and when you see the ceremonies that are kicking off the new year or some of the major things that have happened. They're all built into traditions and the nature that it's around them and, you know, kind of the cycles of life that are natural to any culture that are then codified into that

philosophy. And I think you're right to call it a philosophy in that way because if there's God everywhere, then there's not just one God. In some ways, you could incorporate Judaism and Christianity and Islam into Shinto in some ways, whereas those religions would kind of say, yeah, you can't do that. Like, there's only one way the truth in the light, and like Shintoism is not that. But I think that when you go to a Japanese Shinto shrine, most of the time they're built around natural wonders as well, right? So Isay Shrine, which is one of the most holy spots and where, you know, the different summits have taken place, it's built on these beautiful areas, whether it's the coastline or whether it's the rock formations, whatever else it is.

And so it really makes you wonder. And again, oftentimes we look at Native Americans in this country and you're like, well, what do you mean the big? sky and the big mountains and whatever, like, you know, and we're like, well, you know, that's my land. Like, no, that's not your land. That is a god in and of itself. And I think that philosophy is very much there, but I think that in Japan, religion is just a part of everyone's life and it's kind of embedded as a philosophical understanding of

being part of something collective, but you don't get to then impose it on someone else. Because of my philosophy of Shinto, you're not allowed to do that. Yes, cutting down a tree or being disrespectful to pollute water, be against the tenants that are there, but it's different than kind of like, well, I'm going to take a sword and convert you as a crusader, because if you don't do this, you're going to end up here. And it's like, well, isn't that for God to decide? Like, ultimately, God is going to be the judge of your life. And I'm simply a vessel of that.

So I do think sometimes the philosophy that I've learned in Japan might be closer to my own understanding of my faith tradition than sometimes what I hear from people in the United States using a certain terminology to define themselves as this or. were that. Right. Yes, this idea of the kami. Yeah. This is this idea that there are many commies. Yes. Perhaps infinite commies. Yes. Someone else to fact check that. But this idea that, you know, God exists within the mountain, not Fuji is like that is a kami and like the storm is a kami. And I actually, I looked this up because I wasn't sure and I'm slightly forgetting it. But the term kamikaze. Yes. I was like, oh, did they think that these guys were commies? Yeah. It's not exactly

that. Can you tell me the... Yeah, so kamikaze means divine win, God's win. Kami Kaza, wind, God. And basically, when there were Mongol invaders that were coming across the ships from the mainland of Asia to take over Japan, these winds blew the boats off course, or these major storms, and the Japanese said, that is a divine wind that prevented it. And so it was then used in the war to kind of say, well, this is going to be the thing that strikes our American adversaries down. And he's like, you know, we don't have the missiles to take them out.

So we're going to take these airplanes and just crash them into our aircraft carriers and everything else. Right. Yeah, it was kind of politicized. Yeah. Like there's an interesting, just even from the brief research that I did, that you have, oh, there isn't a fixed number of kame. Oh, but tradition states there's eight million kame, meaning countless or innumerable.

So infinite, nice. Infinite. You got it. Yeah, okay. I'm on something. Yeah. But it's just this interesting idea that it, like Shintoism was an ancient sort of tradition, a philosophy of sort of like being one with nature, that then got politicized around

Imperial Japan. and it kind of got utilized in order to, I guess, maybe fuel the spiritual essence of this war effort during World War II. And then you have this idea that Kamikaze, this sort of divine wind, being used as an actual like military operation. And I'm curious,

we talked a little bit about Imperial Japan before we rolled, but this idea of Imperial Japan versus Japan today, when I did the episode on Shintoism, someone had maybe maybe it was a different episode but someone had commented the idea of Imperial Japan is very different

and distinct from Japanese culture today and that in America I don't personally I didn't really know how it interfaced because in American society like we kind of view like all of American history as our history yeah mostly the good stuff

but like you look at like the Revolutionary War and you're like those are Americans even though it happened you know 1700s whereas in Japan you have the 40s which is kind of a different period and someone likened it to the Third Reich in Germany versus the German people today, that it's distinct.

What can you say to Imperial Japan and the philosophy of Japanese people now when they look at that period in Japanese history? Yeah, you know, it's interesting because I think that that's kind of a way that Western history defines Japanese culture, right? Because Japanese themselves do define their terms based on the Imper. So if it's about having an emperor, we're still living in an Imperial Japan, but that's not the way we're using it. Imperial in our minds usually means that you have an empire. And we today recognize the islands of Japan, and actually some parts of Japan are under occupation by foreign forces. The Russians still have four islands that they have not given back since World War II, and they're still negotiating over that. In the same way that the Korean War is still ongoing, right?

And so I think that that definition of imperial Japan is usually defined kind of from the 1890s to about the end of World War II, because that's when Japan, the island nation, began to conquer other parts, where the imperialist Europeans that had before that conquered parts of China and other parts were falling apart and Japan was beating them, right? And whether it was World War I that led to the League of Nations, which led to Japanese being, you know, asked to take over or they volunteered to take over. And then, of course, leading to fascist and imperial Japan that we talk about. But in Japanese, you would not refer to it as that. Because again, Japan is a nation, but it's also a concept of something much bigger. And the emperor is the living embodiment. He's the head Shinto shrine, right? He's a,

head Shinto priest and he's a living embodiment of the Japanese people and nation, which I think is different than like an elected president or like a king, right? Because a king, how did he get appointed? Like he just was. And I think with the emperor, there's a sense that, well, you can trace the lineage back. It's the longest lineage of any human history that goes back to the sun god that led to the islands of Japan, right? Like 200 whatever number there is. We should fact check that. I don't know how many numbers there are of descendants, but it's crazy the numbers. And we define Japanese history in these terms, but the terms are not the name of the emperor. Because like, you know, in Roman times, you'd be like, okay, Caesar this and Augustus this. In Japan, they pick

terms. So the current generation we're living in is called Rewa, which is basically beautiful harmony to represent the current emperor. Before that, you had Heise, which is peaceful generation, and before that you had Shoah, right? And so those different periods are not defined by kind of when did Japan conquer this island or do this. It's more about, well, that's when the emperor was reigning. But in the modern context, it's not the emperor that's making the laws or determining. He's a symbol. Just like the king of England is a king, the emperor of Japan serves in that way. But I do think that, you know, it haunts Japan. I think that even 80 years later, we're still trying to understand and dissect what happened in that period of time, which may be unfair

because there were a lot of horrible things that happened 200 years ago, 300 years ago, that we don't talk about because essentially we're looking at the last World War and the losers, Germany and Japan, don't get to be part of the UN Security Council. There's a lot of ramifications, whereas the United States and China and the Europeans ended up on that other side of things. So I think it's a different world. What is the average Japanese student taught about World War II? So it's a really good point.

So I did my dissertation and totally could geek out on this for days. The way I look at, oh, 126. And that's pretty impressive, you know, 126 emperors in terms of you think about how many generations, like it goes all the way back to like 160 BCs. Starting with Emperor Jimu. Yeah, yeah, which is a whole thing. The period of time when Japan is talked about. So here's how Japanese history usually goes.

You have a textbook and you start with that period of time and you go from the Jomon's, the first recorded Japanese in there, and then you work your way through. They talk about World War II, but it's a very small area. What they really don't talk about is what happened before World War II, right? It's kind of like Japan, after the Meiji period was modernizing as a nation, It was growing. It became this power.

And then it got into a war with America. Bad things happened. And then we start talking about post-war. So the level they talk about it. So in my dissertation, I talked about empires. And when they collapse, how do they remember their history? So in Russia, for example, people glorify the imperial period of Russian history. And in Turkey, for example, they glorify the Ottoman period of time.

Because that was the zenith of Turkish power. It was when they were the caliphate. They ruled the Muslim world. So they glorified it. In Japan, in particularly Germany, they reject their history. They basically say the Third Reich does not represent us and the furor and that was complete an abomination. If we had stuck to what it meant to be a German nation and we didn't try to conquer all

of Europe, we might have been okay. Similar things are happening in Japan, but I wouldn't call it rejection more. It's just ignoring. It's not that they are disputing the history. They're not saying these bad things didn't happen, but they're like, that doesn't need to be the focus. Let's focus on something else. And I think that's true.

Victor's right the history. And so the defeated people have to learn how things came out of it. And I think in many ways, Germans of today, when they look back to that period, they don't see themselves in what Hitler was representing in terms of that racist, Holocaust, you know, thing. And I think similar in Japan, but there is because the emperor and the line is uninterrupted, it wasn't like they removed the emperor. One of the big debates in U.S.-Japan relations was after the war, America occupied Japan for seven years. and Douglas MacArthur was the supreme leader. He controlled every aspect. He chose to leave the emperor because he said,

if we take away the emperor, it could be chaos, right? Something I wish we'd learned in Iraq when we got rid of Saddam Hussein as easily as we did. Something that, you know, we're learning throughout history. Constantly, we go into places and we, you know, kind of colonize, we occupy, and then we learn, oh, wow, the system that was in place, even if it was authoritarian,

might be something we need to work with. And so in the Japanese context, it was a choice that was made. And it was something that seemed to be right for the time and certainly today, there's not an imperial system, as we talked about. But I don't think that Japanese in many ways really relate to that period in the same way. Interesting. Now, the emperor's current role politically, is it how we would look at the King of England?

Yes, very much so. It's very much ceremonial and on behalf of the people. So in the New Year's, the greeting, the only time that a public member can go into the imperial court, which is in the center of Tokyo, is then. and they all cheer for the new year. Usually the emperor reads a poem of some sort. He goes on diplomatic missions, a 300-year history between this and that. I think this year is a 400-year history between the Netherlands and Japan, constantly being

part of that imperial family and the conversation. You know, at the UN, oftentimes the head of state, prime minister versus president, or head of nation. So the emperor never comes to the United Nations because that's a policy shot. But if the emperor were to come on an official visit to United States, that would trump whoever the prime minister is, because ultimately that is the most important thing. And we haven't had an imperial visit by the current emperor. We've seen the emperor go to England because he went to school in Oxford, and he's actually

a very learned scholar of water, believe it or not. And so I think he has a PhD. I need to fact check that as well. But he went to a really great school. And so when he did his first visit as emperor, he went to England and had an amazing state visit that we rarely see. I mean, in our parlance, we talk about state visits, but technically speaking, a state visit is only between the head of a nation, which is emperor.

So he's very much used in the same way that the royal family is in England. Oh, that's so interesting. I wonder what his experience at Oxford was like. I know. Like, was he in class with just like other kids? And he's like, I'm technically the emperor. So the thing is, like, this happens a lot, right? There are quite a few, you know, royal family members that are probably in the United States right now

from all sorts of places, whether European or in the Middle East. And so it is fascinating because, remember, the emperor is considered God. So there are these great stories. So Japan Society was founded in 1907, but it was refounded in 1952 because we had that bad period between Pearl Harbor and 1952. And the Rockefeller families were very involved. And the Rockefellers were very close friends with the imperial family. And the emperor's father came to the United States and actually stayed with the Rockefellers and would play tennis with them. Which is a huge controversy because if he's God, he must be the best ever, right?

But obviously he's a human being. And so they played tennis. And so the stories I've heard from that family of the conversations, and that would be scandalous in Japan to acknowledge that, even though you're like, okay, well, clearly he's a human being, right? He made a mistake. Yes. It's like, what do you mean he didn't serve every single time, right? He's not like the champion of this. So, you know, they would tell stories where they couldn't let anyone watch those matches.

And it was only between, you know, the current, the Senator Rockefeller and the emperor who played those matches with each other. And only they could see. Like, no one could ever see him fault. No one could ever see him do anything that wasn't that. So imagine the pressure that must feel. So I can't imagine what growing up as that. I mean, the good news is I think people in England or America probably couldn't tell a difference and wouldn't even know.

And unless you said, oh, that's the heir apparent, that's like the prince, then like no one will know any difference. Like that guy, like really? Like it seems just like a geek over there, you know, whatever. Interesting. Yeah, I mean, I mentioned to you before like the massacre of Nanjing. Yeah. And it seems like it's just sort of ignored.

And, you know, in some places in official capacity, like acknowledge but never apologize. for and Americans I think we have a similar relationship probably with slavery in America I mean there's probably a bunch more if you want to consider like regime chains and coup de taz that America has been involved with but I think

slavery is probably the most pointed example because a lot of Americans are like yeah we acknowledge it yeah it happened but we don't need to focus on that that doesn't need to be the only thing and Americans I think generally are like yeah George Washington was a great guy and he had some slaves short and like it's kind of

hush hush it's like why does this need to be the focus. And it's become like a big political point of contention where it's like, do we need to teach this in school as the primary sort of, you know, character trait of this person? Or is it a sort of tertiary thing that we can kind of ignore a little bit? Yeah. And when it comes to like, you know, state craft and nation building, these are decisions that people have to make. Is this something that we can kind of conveniently ignore? Is this something that we need to confront? I think in America, we probably have to confront it because the nature of how our nation was literally crafted in the fact that there's so many descendants of enslaved people still living here,

where other countries probably have a little easier time, being like, ah, we don't need to get into all that. Yeah. Well, and also, it's kind of like when, when does history stop? So if World War II is when history stopped, then, yeah, Japan's on the wrong side of that history. And certainly if I'm Chinese or Korean, I have a lot of grievances. But there are many other people, people in Taiwan, people in Southeast Asia and other parts

that have a very different memory of that because they had recently been colonized by European powers. other problems. And so, of course, I'm not at all trying to whitewash history. I think it's important that Japanese know their own history so that when they travel the world and when they go to Nanking and they go to that museum, they understand like the trauma, the tragedy of that absolute massacre that took place. At the same time, understand the context. Just like with slavery, understanding what that looks like and why today as a white man, there are levels and history that's there, even though these are things that happened 150 years ago during the Civil War

or even 50 years ago for civil rights, it still has a shadow. Like I talked about my dissertation, I called it shadows of memories because I think those memories linger. And every people tells a story, a national founding and a myth. And in some ways, I think some of the things that happened in World War II, particularly to China and Korea, have led to the founding narrative of the Chinese Communist Party that was the brave fighters that did this versus Chiang Kai Shek, who as actually the one who fought in many ways against the Japanese. They've gone on to a different history in Taiwan, and they have

totally different memories of that period of time. So Japanese, in my mind, should just, it's not about embracing it. It's simply acknowledge it. Because if you ignore it, it's going to fester and someone else is going to put it in your face. But I think there's a feeling where at some point in time, you say, look, we've acknowledged, we've apologized, how much more do we have to do? Like, the Korea-Japan relations have never been better looking at them today, but there have been moments in time where political leaders have kind of reached into the nationalist toolbox and pulled out these things that made everyone angry at Japan during the World Cup or people were rioting, etc. Right now we're going through another moment where China is absolutely upset at the current

prime minister and is really going after her. It's really working in her favor. You can see by the election results what that means. And so I think that that history is never fully dead. It's always alive. But is it about the facts of the history and what actually happened? Or is it about your interpretation of it and as a political leader manipulation of that history? Yeah, I guess someone that, you know, myself personally, I'm very fascinated by history and I love reading history. One thing that I always come away with is that, you know, people say history is written by the victors, of course, that is true. But it just exists in different perspectives depending on what side you're on or even if you're involved at all. Yeah. So like, you know, we look at Pearl Harbor

in America and we, as Americans might have a very specific image of that, but then you could look at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan and they probably have their own specific imprint of that. And it's like, all right, what actually happened here? Well, your perspective and your worldview and the culture that you belong to is going to massively shape that. Yeah. And, you know, it doesn't necessarily make it like

from good to bad, but it maybe changes the spectrum and the shade in which you look at something. Yeah. And I don't know if there's a way to fix that. I don't think there is such a thing as like objective history. It's like it all is kind of blurred

by the perspective that you're looking at. Yeah. So in that regard, I'm like, I have somewhat of an aversion to certainty. Yes. Maybe when people are like, this is what happened and this is bad. I'm like, I can agree it's bad, but like the level, the amount of intensity, it's going to depend on what side you were on and how it immediately it affected your family. I mean, one thing you probably can appreciate this as well, when you study history, studying it in a different language, because language has a huge, I mean, there's so many things embedded when you learn a language.

So one of the things Japan society does best is teach Japanese language. We teach more Japanese language students here than anywhere outside of Japan. And when you're learning Japanese and you learn Japanese history through the Japanese language, there are things that you've never thought of before that you're like, whoa, like that hit me a different way. Because even the way you phrase it, right, and all the stuff you just said can be embedded inside of a language. And you learn culture through that. And I think what you do in terms of comedy is the ultimate form of it. Right.

Like, it's really hard to get a laugh in Japan. Like I would be fascinated. Like, so I used to have to translate. And the hardest thing for me to translate was, a joke because the joke is so tied to everyone having a similar understanding of something and understanding what that punchline is, right? And so Japanese humor tends to be more linguistically based, like making word plays and things that just are not all that funny in English. And you're like, why is that funny? It sounds the same. But that's what's so funny about it, right? And so I think that there's those

different levels. And again, like history is about like facts and about, well, this is what happened here and this is what happened then. But then you layer on that, the cultural understanding. And then on the other into the spectrum, you have comedy, which is like, okay, let me tell a story that will amuse and entertain you. How would I do that if I was doing this in a different language? And how would I do that? It's just a different world. So I have just like a huge level of respect. I don't know how you do it when you go to Saudi Arabia and you try to tell those jokes. Like, it's totally world. Fortunately, that there's a selection bias that happens. When people that come to the shows are like, we like American comedy. You know what I mean? I've never entertained an audience

in a different country in that language. Yeah. So, but I have friends that do multi-linguistic comedy. Yeah. And it's interesting because they always say the same thing that I'm like, oh, well, you just translate your jokes. And they go, no. Yeah. I have my Brazilian set. Yep. Like, I was talking about my buddy Rafi Bostos.

And he was like, I do my Brazilian jokes. And I do my American jokes. Yep. And they're fundamentally different. Like, even outside of wordplay, just like the things that they would find funny culturally are so different. Like, I always remember, like, being a kid reading joke books. And you get an old joke book and it'd be a whole section on Polish jokes.

Yeah. And I remember as a kid being like, what, like, why is this funny? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. But it was created in a time where Polish people were migrants and then the stereotype was that they were dumb. And so it was Polish. But I was like, I literally asked my parents, I was like, why is it Polish? It made no sense for me because I had no relationship with Polish people in that way. The stereotype didn't exist anymore. So it all made no sense. Which is why comedy is an interesting art form because it is so temporal.

Yes. It is so culturally confined and then temporally confined. Yes. Like even the greatest comedians, with all due respect to the legends, most don't really hold up. Specifically, in cultural commentary, sometimes like wordplay stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, you can listen to like an old Borshbell guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I get the misdirection. Yeah. But, like, Lenny Bruce. Like, I listen to Lenny Bruce now and obviously I have respect for an OG,

but I'm like, oh, I don't really. Yeah, yeah, it doesn't hit me in the same way because I just, like, he's talking about like, oh, yeah, you can't say shit. Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean? I do it all the time, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It doesn't have the same resonance because it's from such a different time and comedy just ages so quickly. Yeah. I mean, it's funny you mention that because literally when I wrote my book, I did not think I'd be writing two separate books, right? And it's interesting, when you were talking about how Americans experienced Japan, the title of the book for Japanese is Alliance at a Crossroads, right? It has this kind of like dark foreboding. Like, we're at a crossroads.

Which direction are you going to go? My English version of the book is beyond the Genkan. And Genkan is an entrance way. It's where when you walk into a Japanese house, you're directed to see what they want you to see. You know, Americans don't have Genkans. the best translation for a Genkhan is probably threshold or lobby. So when you walk into an American house, you almost, you walk right in. Like, you don't take your shoes off, you go straight.

In Japan, you stop, you take your shoes off, you put on the slippers, they transition. They open the door, you then are welcomed into a certain thing. And they have a sitting room, they have a tea room. Like, you never get to see the whole place. Whereas most American houses are designed where you walk in and you're there. And whatever your kids have been doing that day, whatever, like if you don't clean up your house, you're in trouble. Whereas in Japan, it's like, no, we can contain you.

We can keep you in the box, right? And so that concept of the Genkan is when I find very useful. Because as an American who grew up in Japan, in many ways, I've gone beyond the Genkan. I couldn't help but do that. I spent 17 years of my life growing up there. And as an outsider, I've ultimately become the ultimate insider, where now I'm the guy that gets to meet with, you know, political leaders, the ambassador, and help try to translate culture, society, and everything else. And so I think in many ways, you know, I wrote the English book because I wanted, you know, people kept on asking me, like, what book should I read about Japan? And I gave all sorts of advice, embracing defeat, long, great history book, bending adversity.

But those are books from like at least 30 years ago. And to your point about comedy, like, you've got to update it. So I wrote this book through my own prism. And it's hard to crystallize U.S. Japan relations. Usually they're defined as a president and a prime minister. That relationship defines U.S. Japan relations. I tried to use my own life to make that experience. And I used the lessons learned.

What we were talking about with Musashi going back to say, okay, what are some of the lessons I've learned? and some of the things that as an American who grew up in Japan, that resonates today. Because I think there's a reason we're going through this cultural moment. There's a reason that Japanese culture resonates so much. And as I was doing that, and then I tried to translate, I was like, Japanese people don't need to learn about their own history. They don't need to learn about green tea ceremonies. But what they do need to know is how they are seen in the world. How do Americans think about their culture and how do Americans think about Japan?

And so this book is very much that. And it really does address the questions of like, could Japan do a better job? could soft power have a different role. It's never going to be a military power again. It's just not in that space. And you know, I thought the thing I'd get criticized the most for in this book, Alliance at Crossroad, was my critique of political leaders and the way I've seen certain things play out. No one has criticized me on that.

You know what the biggest criticism I received is? You have two high expectations. You have too high view of Japanese. You think that we can actually do some of the things you're suggesting. And, you know, as a father, I'm like, I guess that's a pretty, fair thing to say. Like my son one day may come to me and be like, Dad, you had such high standard. I never quite reached that. I mean, like, I love you no matter what, son. But if I had low expectation, you're going to meet them. So why of course would I have high expectations? Again,

I think Japanese have two high expectations of Americans right now. Americans are not interested in leading the world. We're interested in our own stuff. And we don't want to be responsible for being the policeman around the world. I don't want to take care of what's happening over there, right? Like, I'm okay with focusing on this. And what happens in Ukraine and what happens in Taiwan? Your problem. And guess what? Japan's close to Taiwan? That's your big problem. And China, you've dealt with them for a long time. You're up. Take care of them. You pay for your own thing. Take care of it. And I think Japanese are really confused by that. They don't understand the transactionalism they're seeing out of Washington and Americans. And I'm trying to explain that. But on the other hand,

they have agency. They're the largest investors in this country. People love Japanese culture. People are practicing martial arts. They're doing all these things. Why aren't they being more engaged? If they're in America, do things the American way, right? You can do things the Japanese way. you're going to be politically engaged, many Asian Americans are absolutely using their voice and their power in a way I don't see the Japanese doing. And certainly Japanese companies want nothing to do with. And they take a huge step back when things are happening. Every American company is taking a stand on this or that.

Japanese companies are like, we can't do anything. It's political. You cannot do it. Well, guess what? As a corporate citizen, you have to take a stand sometimes. So my advice in there is not to be political. It's to understand the moment we live in and to address that. And so the criticism that's come at me is like, yeah, you have two high expectations.

You hold us, you think we actually have agency and we just don't. We are an island nation that can't handle when there are divine winds or there's earthquakes. We don't have agency and we just live in the world we live in. And I just fundamentally think they could do better. Does that come out of post-World War II? Is it reconstruction? Is that what you would call that time? Yeah, it depends on how you call it.

But yeah, I mean, there's kind of modernization reconstruction from 1952 until the Tokyo Olympics. I mean, I think it actually goes deeper than that. I don't think that there have been moments in history. One of the things I focus on is there are these moments where these outside forces, one of them is the Kamikaze, the divine winds that protected Japan from Mongol invasion, right? Another time was during World War II when America defeated Japan. Another time was when the black ships of Commodore Perry showed up to open the Tokugawa pier and in the Edo period to Meiji period.

Because on its own, Japan was not ready to open up to the world. And these Europeans were coming in and trading and forcing them to do it with these ships. It was the Americans that came in with big guns and said, you've got to do it for everyone. It's got to be fair for everyone. Give us the same deal. You're given the Dutch. Give it the same deal. You're giving the Portuguese. And that led to it. That's what the Shogun movie series is all about as well, that period of time. And then another one was 311, the big disaster and kind of earthquake and tsunami and nuclear disaster. It takes those major moments to literally shake the foundation of a country and to open it up and to say, sometimes there's a word in Japanese

Gaiatsu, outside pressure. I could never do that myself. But if America said we have to do it, we will do it for you. And I think that is what in some ways that book is meant to do is to give Japanese the courage and the ability through the eyes of both an outsider who grew up in Japan, but an ultimate insider to what we can understand about the experience between the U.S. and Japan. Interesting. Yeah, I'm curious what you could say about the geopolitical landscape, about the world right now, specifically in Trump's second term. Yeah. being very America first. Yep.

I mean, regardless of what's actually happening politically, I guess the, you know, the optics. You know, America first, much more isolationists or geopolitical moves, putting large tariffs on, you know, foreign countries just to, you know, as like a leverage tool. How does that affect the Japanese people? How does it change their perspective on America? And what is the response from the Japanese politicians? Yeah. Well, you know you've asked me a really good question when I have to start by with a caveat. which says this doesn't represent anything Japan society.

I say it on my own behalf. But this is part of who I am, right? As somebody who worked in government, somebody who's kind of taught this international relations, I think America first has been interpreted in Japan as America alone, which I think is a misinterpretation. I think that every country has the right to put their national interests first. I would hope for Japan to have a Japan-first philosophy.

But what's happened in Japan is not Japan first, but Japanese first. There's a party in Japan that is currently vying, that is on the extreme nationalist end that wants to make Japan only for Japanese. And so someone like me would not be considered part of that. People that have spent generations living there from the Korean or Indian other origin would not be considered part of it. Now, in some ways, that might be nationalism in a normal sense. But I think what Trump has done in the second term is very different because Japanese

like predictability. They like stability. And so actually, in some ways, as a political scientist, what Trump is doing is imminently predictable. We know exactly what he's going to do. He tells you what he's going to do. I want Greenland. I'm not backing off. I want it. Give it to me. One way or the other, I'm going to come back to this over and over again. I know that economic tariffs may not be the flavor of the day among economists, but guess what? It's what I got and I'm going to use it. Liberation Day, we go after you. Economists, you know, in some ways were wrong, right? It didn't destroy the entire

economy. It's working in some ways. And I would predict that whoever the next president is, Republican or Democrat is going to live with that legacy because it's hard to wean yourself off of free money when you're putting terrorists. But the world that grew out of after World War II, the post-war America that really became the leader and created the United Nations and led the free and open system is now changing. And it's becoming more inward focus. We're fighting among ourselves, more than we're fighting enemies abroad. We're our own worst enemies in some ways. And so I think for Japanese, they look at this and they're worried because their ultimate security rests on our health as a nation. And so if America is going through a crisis internally and we're

fighting ourselves in Minneapolis and all the other places we see around this country, Japanese are worried because they're not able yet to protect themselves. If America's distracted and China decides it's going to take Taiwan, Japan's next. I mean, if the world we live in is a sphere of influence where America is saying America first means we are going to take care of the Western Hemisphere, China can have Asia and Russia can have Europe, that's a big problem for Japan. Japan's always lived in a bad neighborhood. And it's always dealt with a Chinese aggressor. And it's always dealt with China as not an equal. You know, Japanese culture in many ways has a lot, a lot of connections to China, but it also is in many ways in opposition to China. And so I think that

Japanese are worried about the state of the world. And they would like to see America, you know, first. They would like to see America being the global leader because the alternative is unthinkable from a Japanese point of view, because the alternative is not Japan leading the world. And in the question is what's the alternative that's not China or America? And is there a middle power strategy the way that the Canadian Prime Minister posited at Davos? It feels like that's premature. I'm interested in seeing what Canadians do about this. I think no one likes being picked on. They don't like being bullied. So they're going to rally. But economic reality catches up at some point in time. And at some point, you're like, okay, like we got to appease the bigger power here and we got to

work around great power politics. That's been human history from the very beginning of time. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Japan sees America as this great ally, that they are. are specifically where they're positioned geographically. You know, if it's, you know, China versus America, they're taking America because of obviously, you know, the history between Japan and China. And the more unstable America is, and if America is like, yeah, you're on your own now, that's a massive threat to the Japanese way of life. That's right.

So I could see them in that moment being like, what do we do? Where do we go? Is there a contingent of people in Japan that are pro-Trump? Like, is that, do you see, like, maga-hats? Yeah. Is that a thing that's come up? So it's not as extreme as we've seen in certain European places where right-wing populists, particularly in Hungary and others, have really adopted it.

You know, I would say that by and large, the media in Japan tends to be pretty critical of Trump, a little bit like the American liberal media has been, particularly in this city in New York, right? But I don't think there's been a movement that spawned. The group I was referring are other before, Japanese first, the San Saito. They mimic Trump. The guy that runs that party was a YouTube. and he knows how to use social media very effectively.

He has a lot of those Trumpian qualities of the populist and nationalist. But because the LDP, the ruling party, is so successful at kind of staking out a middle position and being a big tent party, it's been able to avoid that. And the question has been, Takaichi, son, the current prime minister, the first female prime minister we've ever seen in Japan,

is a protege of Prime Minister Abe. And Prime Minister Abe knew how to get along with Trump better than anyone. And so there's a, in polite company, in Japanese, they will say some pretty direct things about President Trump. But in English, you're never going to hear nasty stuff. I mean, Japan is the most proper, polite society in the world. And even as a, you know, ugly barbarian, you and I can go in and stomp around in the

photon rooms and do everything wrong and destroy the tea ceremony, they're probably not going to scold us. They're going to give us looks and they're going to do very subtle things that let you know that you're not there. But if you're not in tune with it, it doesn't matter. And so when Trump visited Takaichi for the first time, within a week of her purpose, Prime Ministerhip, you know, it was a love fest like I've never seen. I mean, everywhere in Tokyo when I was there was the red, white and blue, the Tokyo Tower, the TV tower, the buildings were all lit up in red, white, and blue. The emperor and Trump met, Takaichi gave Trump a bunch of things from the late Prime Minister Abe. And so that personal relationship seems

to be there. We're going to see shortly in March a visit between the Prime Minister and the president in Washington, and we're going to see how that goes, right? And that's going to happen going back to Otani, the World Baseball Classic at the same time. So in some ways, the win-win for all of us is a great match between the U.S. and Japan, but ultimately both sides are going to rally for their team. But I think we're living in a really moment of change, and partly because everyone doesn't know where to look anymore for leaders. Is it Trump still the leader of the free world, or does he not want that mantle anymore?

He only cares about America. And America first means he doesn't care about the rest of the world. And so I think Japanese are beginning to cope with that reality and say, okay, we got to be strong on our own. We got to start increasing our defense budget, which they've already done. And they've got to start finding ways of aligning themselves with Korea or Australia or India, like-minded countries to deal with China that is so much bigger and more powerful in many ways than Japan will ever be. What an interesting position to be in.

There's a great book. I talk about it all the time of the show. Prisoners of Geography. Yes. By Tim Marshall. Yes, yes, yes. I think it's fantastic. Yes.

I try to hedge and not call myself like a geographical determinist. But it just is such the case that Japan's geographical sort of positioning in the East puts them in a very precarious political position. Yeah. And that, you know, their size, the size of their military, they're forced to make compromises and kind of choose. Yeah. America doesn't have to choose in the same way. China doesn't have to choose. That's right.

But Japan does, and most other countries do. Yeah. Basically any country without nuclear capabilities has to. And it creates such an interesting paradigm where I don't know if Americans are always sympathetic to that. Yeah. Because even in America, obviously, there's so much discourse of like, yeah, we need to be America first and take care of our people. But then at the same time, it feels like those same people sometimes say, but we also should be the global leaders. Yes.

And it's like, well, you can't really do both. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you're going to do these massive funding campaigns to go help a nation, that's going to take it out of the American coffers. Yeah. So we kind of got to choose a little. Yeah. And it seems like the American people have chosen with their vote. at least in the last election,

about how they feel about America taking priority over, you know, American citizens taking priority over citizens and being a global leader. But at least for me, I never put myself in the position of someone in Japan. Yeah. Or, you know, someone in Cuba, right? Like, I wonder if Cuba's almost in a similar but different position,

specifically during the Cuban missile crisis. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You have this small island directly next to this massive empire. There's already been so many regime changes. And now the Cuban politicians, Fidel specifically, after Batista is like, all right, well, I got to choose. And it seems like America is pretty hostile towards us, so we're going to go with the Soviets. And they just kind of picked.

Yep. And obviously communism is built into that, et cetera. But it's an interesting moment where where they were in the, you know, on Earth's geography, they had to kind of choose aside. Yeah. And Americans, I don't, at least for me, I don't ever consider what the citizen over and, you know, some random island nation has to deal with. Yeah. No, I think you're exactly right. Like, continental powers generally have an abundance of natural resources, and they don't

have to think in those terms. Whereas an island nation, particularly an island like Japan that is completely volcanic and does not have many natural resources. The greatest resource they have are their people and their seas, where they have abundance of, you know, seaweed and fish, whereas America, it's like, we've got oil and gas popping up wherever we don't know and with fracking and everything else. So I think there's a totally different viewpoint. And you're right.

I mean, when you were as big as America, you don't have to think about somebody else. But I think that when you are Japanese, you grow up with an appreciation from a young age, as we talked about, of looking at someone else and to think about putting yourself in their shoes. I mean, the concept of omotanashi, Japanese hospitality, I write in the book about geopolitical omelanashi, which is very similar to what we were talking about, like geographic determinism, realism, as we would say, in international relations theory. You always have to anticipate the need, not just because you're being nice, but because it's the best thing to do. Because if I understand the American mentality, the Chinese mentality, then I can anticipate what your moves are going to be. Whereas if I'm American, and I'm not really thinking about anybody but myself, we do stuff. And then their reactions are like, well, how did that happen? Like, what do you mean?

Like, they didn't like that. I wasn't trying to be offensive. I just walked into the place and threw the table up in there and had a good old Western, you know, American Cowboy Fest. And so I think it is very different. And you can see that action. And sometimes in the case of world wars that America has won, it works really well in our face. when we become single-minded and determined in our focus, but it takes a really hard, nasty approach,

like what happened with Pearl Harbor? Hadn't Pearl Harbor not happened, would America have joined the war in the way we had? It would have been hard to mobilize everyone, right? Just like it was really hard to get Americans behind Vietnam or behind any of the wars we've had since then. That was such an easy and egregious attack that came out of nowhere from an American perspective,

whereas from a Japanese perspective, you guys had been trying to keep us from getting natural resources in Southeast Asia. You were preventing our empire from spreading, So we had no choice but to strike first. And I think Americans are like, that's a crazy way of thinking about things. Like, we didn't attack you and you attacked us. Like, well, game on.

Right. And I think that's something that Japan has definitely learned from in its history. And then even on the economic front, I mean, I think we spoke last time just about what a powerhouse Japan has become from, you know, considering just the population, the size of the island and just how much GDP, the amount of corporations exist multinationally. Yes. Like, it's sort of shocking when you think of like. car companies, tech companies, chip companies, I mean, clothing, it's like just so massive. But something I never considered that you touched on a little earlier was how does a Japanese company interface with American politics?

Yes. And obviously there's the economic side, but then there's like the social side. Yeah. Like I couldn't even imagine if I had a company that was in Japan. Yeah. And there's some type of outbreak where protesters and the police are battling against each other. Yeah. And every other company in Japan is taking a stand.

And some are on one side, some of the other. I have no idea. Yeah. How do I... Yeah, how do we even reconcile it? No. Because the police are good. Yeah.

But wait, the protesters had a point? Yeah. Like, how do you even wrap your mind around that? And have you had to consult for Japanese companies to be like, hey, this one you sit out? Yep. Hey, this one, you should make a public statement as a company. Yeah. And how do they respond to that?

So look, Japan society is nonpartisan, non-political. So I never am coaching them to deal with the political stuff that lobbyists and others have to do. But certainly, they are asking me to be a cultural translator for them. And that's kind of been my role throughout my life. Take the best example that the last time we met, we probably didn't talk about, but now is a big deal. Nippon Steel, right?

It bought U.S. Steel, like literally like Pittsburgh, the Steelers, like Superman, like Man of Steel. Like that is like iconic company. And they basically were told by the President of the United States, President Biden, you can't do it. Like it's national security. You're not going to do it. And Nippon Steel didn't take that one on the United States.

the chin and just leave. It actually doubled down. It got lobbyists. It got lawyers. It got involved. It got engaged in the American system. And it got everyone in Pennsylvania excited about the investment it was going to make. It made every politician want to come on their side. And by the time that a new president came in, President Trump came in, they found a way to negotiate. Now, we're still, we don't know exactly what the golden share means. And President Trump says they can't do anything without my approval. But what I'm saying is that Nippon Steel in the past, the most traditional of all Japanese companies found a way to do something I've never seen. It sued the President of the United States and it forced the U.S. to change because it was the right thing for the U.S. in terms of the

amount of investment. Now, in full disclosure, Japan Society is honoring Nippon Steel at our annual dinner this year. So I'm a little biased here. But I was really impressed because when I saw the original way in which this played out, I was like, wow, this is going to be a disaster, a PR disaster for U.S.-Japan relations. I'm going to be spending all my time trying to explain, And just like in the 1980s, how Toyota is not bad and people are bashing their cars in and, you know, Rockefeller Center and all those other stuff. So we've come a long way, but we're still not there yet. And I think Japanese companies, as I write about in the book, need to take a stand on certain things.

Like I can't necessarily recommend Japanese companies getting involved in domestic politics. But the American political system is pretty clear. It's a pay-to-play system. And if you're going to create a pack like Toyota has done and all of their local dealers are involved in kind of the types of regulatory environment that help them? Like, why would you not get engaged? That's not a Republican Democrat thing. That's just like being an American and not being an American

or being engaged or not being engaged. All of us as citizens have certain rights and certain responsibilities and corporations have similar areas. And many of these Japanese companies that are based out of Japan have become global companies. They hire more Americans than they do Japanese to make a Toyota car these days. Look at every single sporting event, right? You're going to see the Toyota Center.

Like, look at the Super Bowl. Look at the Olympics. going to see that everywhere. Nowadays, Toyota doesn't necessarily conjure up the old, stuffy Japanese mentality, the 1980s of the show. It actually represents something new with hybrid cars and Lexus and everything else that's there. Have you ever heard of a guy named Claude Rappai? I don't think so. He was a brand consultant for a ton of multinational companies that basically, he wrote a book called The Culture Codes, and he kind of would basically consult for these companies to tell them how to enter different markets. And he would basically do a comprehensive brief on the culture

and what it means to be Japanese or American or Mexican or Saudi. And he would really understand it so that different companies could enter into the markets. And it just made me think it just, you know, like he would come up with like branding campaigns and pitches. And one of them, maybe I mentioned this to you before about Japan. This is a separate one. But about like the Jeep in America. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that he said like the Jeep is not a car. It's a horse. Like make it feel like a horse. Like call it a wrangler. Like this is something you need to control. Like it's American power. It's based on the military. Like this is what it means to sell to Americans. Like how do you market the Jeep? And then he would do this in Japan with like coffee.

Yep. And he introduces coffee into the Japanese market to say like the Japanese people don't drink coffee. They drink tea. Yes. So how do we sort of assimilate them to this idea of coffee? Yeah. He had this whole campaign where he created like a character, almost like an anime, then started selling candy that was coffee flavor to create like this taste for coffee. And it's just an interesting thing when it comes to companies

trying to enter into global markets. You know, how does Toyota feel about, you know, this protest or, you know, this political agenda to make this type of, you know, like push in just any, any of them, whether it's gay rights, any type of justice campaign,

how does a company deal with that? And it just creates so many interesting questions that Americans, again, we don't really think about. Yeah. Because for us it's like, yeah, I feel like we just push our stuff out. We're like, yeah, just buy it. Yeah.

But other countries, specifically Japan, Japan is so interesting because it is such an outsized power that. Yeah. That militarily is confined. Yes. Like, I almost wonder if Japan's relationship with Germany in World War II is kind of a predecessor to that, where they saw this moment in, you know, European chaos that they could utilize this force to create an ally so that they could continue their imperial mission. and it's not the exact same, but in this modern paradigm, they're teaming up with the Americans

in order to sort of achieve their economic mission. And they're constantly, because they produce so much, are sort of forced to choose up. Do you think the, I mean, that's a crazy example. Yeah. You don't have to entertain me if you're in hot water. No, I mean, there's so much there. It's hard to even unpack it.

We should do a whole other episode on this, right? There's just so much there. But I think you're right. I mean, starting with the first point, Japanese are really bad at marketing themselves and telling their own story. I think the French are the opposite. They're really good at telling their story, and they're really good at kind of being imperialist with their culture, right?

They've not been very successful militarily, right? Like since Napoleon. And the Japanese in some ways could appreciate that. I do think there is something to what you're saying, which is that I think that Japan reads the room. There's a word in Japanese, Kuki or Yomu, read the air very well. And certainly, you know, there was a kind of a alliance of convenience with the access powers and it was the wrong choice for them because they thought they could keep the

Americans out and the Americans were content in being out but they were not okay with Japanese imperialism in its form coming down too close to the Philippines getting too far into the oil and resources they need to fund their engine. That's the problem with imperialism. It always fails at some point because trying to subjugate people. And again, going back to the analogy of the companies, I think Americans sometimes underestimate how the brand of America, which has been so strong since in the World War II, where what Coca-Cola represents to people, what Levi's represent, what Hollywood movies represent is modernization and achieving success is what many people associate with that from Saudi Arabia to Japan. And nowadays, that may not be the case anymore. And maybe

the brand of the U.S. is not what it used to be. And actually, I would argue that brand of Japan, all the surveys I see show that Japan is one of the most popular countries in the world, because how can you be mad at Japanese? Like, they're not an imperialist power. like the Americans or the Chinese are, and they have so many great things they've contributed. And Korea's in the same boat is that. So I do think there's something there, but there's a whole other area of like,

oh, is Japanese strategy strategically trying to bandwagon with the U.S. and hide behind this or that? Because at some point in time, if there's a war, there's only one ally that Japan has. America has a lot of allies. Japan only has one. And so if America goes to war, Japan is going to be dragged in.

And if America goes to war on something that doesn't necessarily affect Japan as much, Japanese history is filled with, okay, during the Iraq war, we have to support this, and during the war on terror, we have to do this, and, you know, what about when we have a problem? Is America going to be there for us? And I think that has been called to question. The trust that has been there for 80 years between the U.S. and Japan is beginning to get question, partly because I don't think it's Trump's fault. I think Trump is representing something that is coming out of Americans of like, hey, that post-war consensus is broken. And we don't actually want free trade

anymore. Like, I want to be able to protect my society, and I want it to be America first. I want Americans to get those jobs, and I don't want anybody else. And, you know, as long as you play by the rules and as long as you invest in us, we'll be fine. But otherwise, you're up your own. Yeah. The transactionalism is very shocking. Okay. Last thing before we go. I'm going to ask you about the Unitarian Church. Yes. This is kind of a diversion, but also, I think, relevant politically and then also to our, you know, religion and conversation about Shintoism. What is the Unitarian Church, and how does it show up in Japanese culture? Yeah, I mean, so look, the Unitarian Church is in some ways probably most analogous to the Church

of Scientology or, you know, kind of the Moonies. They, the word church has resonance to me because my dad is a pastor, and church is a safe space of worship. It's not a cult, right? I would describe the Unitarian Church as a cult because there's a very clear system, and the reason that we're even talking about the Unitarian Church is because their actions, led to the person that ended up killing Prime Minister Abe feeling like they were being subjugated. Their mother had gone into serious debt because they were contributing so much to the Unitarian Church.

And now that church has lost its status as a nonprofit. It's lost its status as being a recognized religion in Japan because of the scandals. Part of what it did was attach itself to the political system. It'd be the equivalent of any group, like I mentioned, whether it's the Church of Scientology or Mormons or any denomination, basically saying we're going to pay off these politicians to not do these things. Let us have our own way of things just stay out of this part of our life. And I think that is a very uniquely Japanese phenomenon in some ways, but it's something that's universal.

We see these around. And it's not just the Unitarian Church or other groups in Japan that have those similar statuses, but that Unitarian Church has become wildly famous, not popular, because of the fact that the grievances that the killer had were directly related to that church. And they were direct connections between that church and the ruling party. in Japan. Would you say on the aggregate, most Japanese people contribute the death of Prime Minister Abe to the Unitarian Church, or is that a little bit of a conspiratorial thread? No, I mean, you can draw a direct thread. I think most people would say that the killer is responsible,

and whatever he said his motivations were, we understand the grievances, by the end of the day, he killed someone. And especially in Japan, how hard it is, he had to make his own gun, he had to show up at the rally, he had to do all these things. Like, he is singular responsible, and I'll never utter his name because he doesn't deserve that that that you know kind of deification he's not a victim he he did this to himself but the investigation subsequently and what has come out through the trial was that the unification church led to his sense of disgruntledment and the reason he connected it the reason he targeted prime mr abe was directly related to unification church so in that case how do you define that is there a cultural pressure to ban the unification church yes i mean there's been there's been a lot of

political pressure as well. And even now, politicians that had taken things in the past when it was perfectly acceptable, just like it's perfectly acceptable to take donations from any of the churches or houses of worship here, now it's kind of a, it's like taking money from the mafia. It's not a positive thing, and it continues to have ramifications. But the fact that they're banning the church from being able to operate the way it has in the past, the political status is in question. The problem is it's having implications because other legitimate churches are now under a threat because it's like, well, let's just get rid of all churches. Like forget Unitarian. Just get rid of all churches. And, you know, that seems to be unfair when, like, you have so many other styles of worship. Like, just because they

use the word church doesn't mean that every Christian congregation needs to be kicked out of Japan. That seems extreme and also getting ready and revoking their nonprofit status is way too far. Because, again, like, the only reason we're talking about this is because of a mentally unhealthy demented human being that did some really, really bad things. Is there a stain on the politician that accepted money? Absolutely. So even after everything happened, they looked through all the donations, they said, oh, you took money, you took money, you took money. Did those people face challenges politically? I mean, many of those people were kicked out of the ruling party. Now, increasingly, they're coming back because it was so widespread. It's like, well,

were those people really, like, supporting the Unitarian Church? I think there are distinctions. What level of support they had. Do they actually know the belief structure? Do they know what was going on? Or were they just taking money because it was expedient and easy because they can mobilize? And that you can see across Japanese politics. Interesting. Yeah. Now, were they connected to the sarin gas attacks? No, that was a different. It's Om Shiniko. That is an offshoot, I think of Buddhist. Do you have to check me on that? But it's called Om Shiniko that did that. But there are many groups like that that have done that. You know, that group was kind of like the Waco, Texas type of, like, the day is going to end and the world's going to end. And so we

must do this. Whereas I think the Unitarian Church has, I don't want to call it more standard, but a little bit more, you know, normal philosophies that are there. Whereas Om Shinniko was just very much out there. From the beginning, that was classified as a cult. It never had anything beyond being a cult. Whereas I think, you know, Unitarian Church had a very legitimate, you know, role, and it was clearly accepted by Prime Minister Abe and politicians that were there. And now we're beginning to dig deeper in that way. Oh, I see. Okay. So if Unitarian Church is Scientology, the sarin gas attacks, that group would be a way farther fringe. Yes. Interesting. Whoever did the Waco thing. Right. The Branch DeVidians. Yes, yes, exactly. I haven't heard that in a while.

Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. Well, I can't end on that note. And you know, the last time I came, I told you that in Japanese culture, you always have to bring a gift. So I did bring you a gift. Again. And it's not just my book, by the way. You can't read my book. So when my English book comes out, I'll give you that. But I had to bring you something from my heartland.

So this is, please. Thank you. This is. Yeah, I know. You did it. You know, we're learning. We're good. So this is actually, the translation of this is hilarious.

I promise it's not racist. In Japanese, it says white lover on the outside. It's white chocolate with this amazing cookie on the outside. They only are made in my island of Hokkaido. They're the most delicious thing in the world. I'm very biased, but they are one of the most popular souvenirs from Japan, whether you're from Hokkaido or not. And so last time I brought you whiskey because I thought whiskey is like, you know...

Which is, I finished it. Oh, good. Oh, good. Good. That you can, you know, taste it with it. And maybe even your son might enjoy that as well because he can enjoy that. And so it's basically like French-style kind of white... cookie with white chocolate inside, and it's just in Japanese because my country, my area has so

much snow, they mean white in the sense of snow. So, you know, white lovers is more of a that. It's nothing to do with ethnic thing because in Japan, we don't think in those terms. I thought you were flirting with me. Oh, sorry. Sorry to disappoint you, you know, you're an attractive man, but I think your wife is in good hands. Yeah, that's true. So these are just lovers of the pal. Exactly. They love the snow. Yeah. And, you know, they love it now? Please, please, please. Is it rude? No, not at all. Okay. It's funny. There's like a whole ceremony. any of its attachment. But like, you know, you wrap the outside, you have the whole thing,

and every single cookie is individually wrapped. So it's a whole other thing. And this is only in Hokkaido. Only in Hokkaido. There are many things from Hokkaido that are delicious, Royce chocolate, but this also, this brand is very popular. And Japanese, it's immediately associated with my island. And so everybody knows they're obnoxious now. They're like, you know, so you have to open that little. I should show it off. I should show off. Here's the front. Okay. Okay. And then you crack it over, oh, since 17, 1976. Yes.

And it's interesting that it is French. So that's the point. So in Japan, French things are considered high quality. And so they made the confectionery like it's a French cookie. But it's, you know, when you taste it, a lot of Westerners prefer this to the kind of Japanese-style sweets. Like, this feels more, you know, Western. I love the packaging. Yes.

Isn't it great? That's great. I mean. You got to have it. No, no, no. I can't. No, no, you have to eat it. because I have to watch you enjoy it

and then that's the rule yeah now I am flirting with you but that's okay okay alright I crack this we're gonna see how long it takes Mark to open this this is actually part of the gag we're going on here somebody one of your listeners told me I think the your sound guy told me that so yeah my fat dumb American fingers

can't figure it out oh here we're blame the Canadian side yeah exactly yeah my my fat dumb mounty fingers oh oh oh here we go okay you cracked it on the way I know, I know. This size is perfect. Yeah. Are you getting to chew? It was like an ASMR video.

I need to have like a bowl of tea there with you, a little like English breakfast that has Japanese style. Dr. Walker? Yeah. This is fantastic. Good. Thank you for having me as always. Thank you so much for joining me. Truly, it is a pleasure and you are welcome any time in the tent.

Awesome. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much.