October 10, 2018 • 36 mins
Why is Japan's adult adoption rate so high? Why don't American car dealerships succeed in the country? And why did Colonel Sanders put a curse on a beloved Japanese baseball team? Plus, Will and Mango discover the shortest escalator in the world! (Just take the stairs, guys.)
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
I guess what, Mango, what's that? Well, I know we've
been competing this week to see who could come up
with the best what's big in Japan? Thing? But I
actually have saved one for you. And did you know
that adult adoption is actually a pretty big thing in Japan.
In fact, most adoptions in Japan are adult adoptions. So
I don't think I even know what that means exactly. Well,
(00:23):
you know, sometimes it has to do with inheritance. So
say you've got a business owner who wants to keep
his business in the family, but I don't know, maybe
he thinks his kids are too lazy or not smart
enough to take it over. So the owner might select
an executive from that company and just adopt them, you know,
like to keep the business in the family. That's pretty funny.
I mean I have heard of people joking about adopting
(00:45):
college grads so that you have someone to take care
of you, you know, when you're older. But I mean
this is kind of surprising to me. Yeah, it is, well,
and and sometimes it's also just like this kick in
the pants that the business owners kids need to start
working harder, and it gets complicated. I guess with the
new sibling rivalry. But you know, Japan is such a
fascinating place and we thought we'd just take a deeper
(01:06):
dive into some of the customs and culture you might
not usually hear about. So let's dig in ya. Hey there,
(01:32):
podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson
and as always I'm joined by my good friend man
Guesh Ticketer and on the other side of the soundproof glass,
super focused on his latest origami creation. That's our friend
and producer Tristan McNeil. So, so what's he working on?
Mangoes trying to look? Is that? Is that a bear?
I think it's actually a sailboat. Oh okay, well it's
(01:52):
a very interesting sailboat. Keep it up, Tristan, it's looking
really good. All right. Well, today's show is all about
Japanese society and culture. But rather than taking a deep
dive into the nation's long history, or maybe focusing on
a single aspect of its culture, we're going to share
some of the strangest, most surprising things that we recently
learned about Japan. So where do you think we should start, Mango, Well,
(02:14):
I mean, something I think we should address up front
is this incredible balancing act that Japan does between the
past and the present. All right, so give me an
example of what you're what you're talking about. Well, one
simple example is that their smartphones are actually waterproof, and
this has existed in Japan for over a decade at
this point. Really, I feel like that's such a recent
technology here in the US. Like all the commercials last year,
(02:35):
we're so focused on that. Yeah, it really is. And
I actually saw this guy at the beach last summer
and he kept accidentally dropping his phone in the water
then like wiping it off and taking a picture, And
I guess he was doing it to like impress the
women around him were like some of the other people
he was with, And at first I was kind of
impressed too, But after like the third or fourth time
he dropped it, I was just rooting for the ocean
(02:57):
to take that phone away from No kidding, I would
have done the same. But back to Japan. So, the
first waterproof smartphone rolled out way back in two thousand five,
and according to a number of electronics companies, the reason
waterproofing was introduced so early is that manufacturers quickly learned
that Japanese consumers were fond of taking phones into the
shower or bathtub with them. Wow. You know, you always
(03:19):
hear about screen addiction and how people are finding it
increasingly harder to disconnect from their phones, and this kind
of feels like the extreme of that exactly, So that
that's what I thought it was at first. Two, especially
when you hear like these reports of gamers and how
addicted they are the video games. But that's not actually
what's going on there. So waterproofing is really the industry
standard in Japan of all smartphones sold in the country
(03:42):
or waterproof and it's because of Japanese tradition. So as
you might have heard that time is really important in Japan,
like public bathhouses called cento. They've they've been pillars of
Japanese society pretty much from the start, and thanks to
the country's many volcanoes, they also have like I want
to say, it's like twenty thou natural hot springs around
the country for people to soak in well, And are
(04:04):
their traditions around these or what? Yeah, I mean, partially
it's just the health benefits, right, like the warm water
improved circulation and it relieves stiff joints. But there's also
the social intimacy that comes from sharing a bath, you know,
with other members of your community. So today, most Japanese
people still take frequent hot baths as a way to unwind,
and the waterproofing was basically a compromise to bridge the
(04:25):
old traditions with the new ones. Basically, most Japanese citizens
were on board with having this new type of technology,
you know, something that you carry around with you all
the time, as long as they could take them into
the tub with them. That's pretty interesting. And you know,
that's something I actually came across while doing my research,
and that's the idea of big companies having to bend
to old Japan, you know, and and find a way
(04:46):
to operate within that existing social framework. So how do
you mean exactly, Well, one thing is that Japan places
a high value on hospitality and that extends the company,
is not just individuals. So you know, there's this expectation
among Japanese consumers that companies are going to go above
and beyond just to accommodate them and any of their needs.
And there's a great example of this, and that's the
(05:07):
Japanese auto industry. So, according to the country's automobile dealers, Association.
Japanese brands account for nearly n of the cars sold
there in Japan, and all of that's thanks to the
hospitality services. Well, it actually is a big part of it. Yeah,
you know that the relationship between car dealers and their
customers is very different in Japan than it is here,
(05:28):
and as a result of that, Japanese consumers are used
to this high level of service that American dealerships have
yet to really invest in, either at home or even
over there. Now, The Atlantic did an article about this
last year, and it included this great description of a
typical car buying experience in Tokyo, and it really kind
of explains how deep this custom goes. So the author
(05:48):
of the story rights, the last time Shujiro Urada wanted
to buy a car in Japan, his phone happened to ring.
It was the local Toyota dealer on the phone asked
him if he was thinking about buying a new car,
and we replied in the affirmative, and the dealer and
a co worker showed up at Eada's doorstep an hour
later with two demo cars, which Urada and his wife
test drove around the neighborhood. Theoradas decided to buy a
(06:11):
car from this dealer. The dealer also handles their car insurance,
coming to their home whenever the insurance contract needs to
be renewed. Theorada is bringing their car to the dealer
every few weeks for a free car wash, or they
hang out and talk to the employees, who kind of
become their friends. Japanese customers also expect to receive services
like free maintenance from their dealers after they buy their cars.
(06:33):
When their cars need to check up, the dealer comes
and picks them up, does work on them, and then
returns them. I mean, I kind of want that service, right.
It's insane, But is that why American car companies haven't
taken off their like because of that service element. It's
a bigger part of it than you think. And these
added services are just too costly and I don't know,
maybe complicated for American car companies to even bother with.
(06:56):
In fact, Ford pulled out of the Japanese market altogether
back in two thousand and sixteen. That's because they've sold
like five thousand cars or so on average in any
given year then, and General Motors now has fewer than
thirty dealerships in all of Japan. All of this despite
the fact that Japan is actually the third largest auto
market in the world, behind of course, the US and China.
(07:17):
Oh that's crazy. I had no idea is that big?
So is this just a U S thing? Like, is
it a problem for the U S? Or is this
a problem for other manufacturers around the world as well? Well?
Not exactly. I mean European car dealers and Mercedes and
BMW in particular, they've made significant strides in the Japanese
market over the past few years, and as you might expect,
they pulled this off by embracing this idea of hospitality. Now.
(07:40):
BMW spent like seven hundred million dollars updating its dealer
network in Japan back in two thousand and sixteen. And
this was also that customers are treated to a lot
of the same services and perks that they're used to there,
and the company's sales are actually on the rise as
a result of this. So I've got to say I'm
pretty envious. And it's not just the service, Like I
kind admire how the culture makes huge companies work for them.
(08:03):
I mean, can you imagine getting that kind of service
from like your cable bill provider or your cell phone provider. Yeah,
and it's pretty incredible. So the American cars haven't been
a hit with the Japanese, but there is at least
one American export that they have taken to, and that's baseball.
That Japan is not one, but two professional baseball leagues,
as well as countless high school and university leagues across
(08:24):
the country. So all sumo wrestling might be the sport
most closely associated with Japan. Baseball is actually the most
popular by far, and it's watched and played by more
people in Japan than any other sport, which is insane.
So I I knew Japan love baseball, but I didn't
think it had gotten that big, and I do want
to hear about it, but I can't pass up the
(08:44):
chance to share one of my all time favorite Suma facts,
which I jogged down in my margins with an asterix
of my notes. I think I have a feeling I
know which one this one is. Is this the crying
babies thing? Manga spoiler alert? But yeah, I've got to
share it. So for listeners, there's this four year old
ceremony in Japan where once a year, parents bring their
(09:06):
infants to shrines so that Suma wrestlers can try to
make them cry. It's amazing, But the ceremony is part
of the naki Zumo festival and it's believed to bring
good health to the babies and help ward off evil spirits.
I feel like maybe I block this out because I
don't remember. But but how do the wrestlers try to
make them cry again? Well, each wrestler takes a baby
(09:30):
and ideally gets the kid to ball just by kind
of bouncing them up and down in the suma ring.
But everyone has their own techniques, so like a wrestler
might make funny faces or even growl at the baby
a little bit, and then after a few seconds, if
nothing's worked, a referee will actually step in wearing a
traditional face mask, and that's what does the trick wait
(09:50):
a referee. So is this more of a ceremony or
a competition? Well, I mean it is an event that
happens all over the country, so the exact rules vary
from region to region. So at us One shrine in Tokyo,
they call it on baby chry Sumo that it's strictly
a ceremony. In some places, the babies actually do compete
against each other to see who will cry first, and
(10:10):
whoever cries first is declared the loser. I still can't
believe Japan has this competition where babies are pitted against
one another by sumo arrest. I do love that there
is such a thing, but it's still pretty nuts. Yeah,
I mean, it does make you wonder why they even
bother with baseball. Well, I do want to get back
(10:31):
to exactly how and why baseball has becomes so big
in Japan, but before we do, let's take a quick break.
You're listening to Part Time Genius and we're talking about
(10:51):
some surprising features of Japanese culture. So well, I know
you're itching to explain the origins of Japanese baseball, but
first I just have to tell you about a story
I found while researching KFC in Japan's Love Affair with It.
But don't worry, because it's actually a baseball story too.
So you know how in American baseball we have these
curses that crop up from time to time. Yeah, of course,
(11:13):
you've got the Cubs and their Billy Goat, and the
Red Sox and the Curse of the Vambino and all
sorts of curses like this. Exactly, and and apparently that
baseball tradition carried over to Japan because they have the
same kind of thing. And probably my favorite curse of
all time involves a team called the Hanshin Tigers and
a statue of KFC founder Colonel Sanders. So the story
(11:33):
goes back in the Tigers won the Japan Championship Series,
which is the Japanese equivalent of the World Series, and
to celebrate big wins like that, Tigers fans had this
tradition where they would gather on a certain bridge in
Osaka read the names of all the winning team members
out loud, and then as each name was called, a
fan who resembled that player would actually jump off the
(11:54):
bridge into the river. I mean, this is already weirder
than the Babe Ruth curse. And I'm a little confused here.
So is the whole fan base made up of guys
who just look like these players or what? Yeah? I mean,
I think it was more of a close enough thing.
But the problem was in eight five, none of the
Japanese fans looked anything like the team's m v P.
Who's this American guy named Randy Bass? And so this
(12:18):
is where KFC comes in because the fans were desperate
to find a Randy Bass look alike, and when they
couldn't find when they spied the statue of the KFC mascot,
it kind of looked close enough, so they snatched the
colonel dressed into Randy Bass jersey and chucked it off
the bridge into the river as they spoke his name
out loud. Wow. And if you were trying to just
make up, like, what is the most American name you
(12:41):
could come up with just like Randy Bass just the way. So,
so I don't understand who put the curse on the team.
Is it the owner of the KFC or Randy Bass?
I mean, actually, by the way, I just googled and sadly,
Randy bast does not look much like the colonel at all.
I mean that makes it better actually, But the curse
was from the colonel himself. So the real Colonel Sanders,
(13:03):
I want to say, like, passed away five years earlier,
and so, according to the legend, his spirit was so
pissed about the Tigers fans desecrating his statue that he
cursed their beloved team to never win a championship again.
And it must have been a potent curse because thirty
three years later, the Tigers have yet to win, despite
making it to the playoffs multiple times. Wow, So has
(13:24):
anybody ever tried just putting the statue back, you know,
just to a peace Sanders. Yeah. So, once a few
years had gone by and it became clear that, you know,
the team had been cursed by the ghost of an
American chicken salesman, Barents tried all kinds of ways to
affuse them. So they apologize to the KFC manager. They
they mounted a few failed dives to the bottom of
(13:47):
the river to try to find the statue, and then
in two thousand nine, divers actually found and recovered the
Colonel statue. I mean, his glasses and left hand were missing,
but otherwise he was pretty intact. So so of the
Tigers were hopeful once more, and in fact, the manager
of the team held a press conference where he told
the press, when I heard the statue had been found,
(14:08):
I felt that losing history had ended. I do think
if the Cubs could win a series, I have to
believe the Tigers will get there sooner or later. But
all right, Well, if the KFC curse tells us anything,
it's that baseball is this unexpected source of overlap between
Japanese and American culture, of course, and so I did
some digging to find out how the Japanese first fell
(14:30):
in love with baseball, and the story actually goes all
the way back to the eighteen hundreds. I now, this
was during the Meiji era, and this was this period
when Japan was moving away from its isolationist roots and
trying to adopt these more western customs as a result
of this. Now, one person often gets credited for introducing
baseball to Japan, and that's Professor Horace Wilson. And he
(14:52):
was an American who taught English at the university in Tokyo,
and at some point, I think it was in the
eighteen seventies, he started introducing his students to baseball because
he decided they needed to get more exercise in their lives.
But I mean, isn't there plenty of sports opportunity to Japan,
like martial arts and winter sports, and you know we
talked about sumo. Yeah. I had thought the same thing,
(15:13):
but there was one part of this that I had
not really thought about. So so here's the thing that
sports native to Japan or super popular in Japan or
that sumo or karate or several others. You know, they're
mostly one on one activities. So despite the fact that
Japan is a pretty highly group based culture, for whatever
weird reason, the country actually hadn't developed that many team
(15:33):
sports of their own. That's crazy. I actually never thought
about that. So is that one of the things that
helped baseball catch on? Definitely? And like I said, so
much of Japanese culture is built around this idea that
the group is the central unit of society. So whether
it's your family, your neighbors, or your classmates. So a
team sport like baseball was naturally appealing to many people
(15:54):
once word of it spread, and actually spread pretty quickly.
So in eighteen seventy eight, just a few years after
Horace Wilson taught his students how to play baseball, the
Japanese railway engineer organized the very first Japanese baseball team,
the Shinbashi Athletic Club Athletics. That's an amazing name. Yeah, well,
Japan did get better at naming things than today. There
(16:15):
are several professional baseball teams there and it's not that
different from the American mascot name, so to go along
with the Tigers, you've got things like the Buffaloes, the Hawks,
the carp as well as you know a few mythical
creatures like the dragons and the giants. But there is
something interesting about the naming there. And we mentioned earlier
that the team was called the Hanschen Tigers. But Hanchen
(16:37):
isn't actually a city, so I mean, is it a
village or a hamlet or something. No, So that's one
difference between American and Japanese baseball. Hanchen's actually a railway company.
So while American teams are privately owned and name for
cities that support them, Japanese teams are named for the
corporations that own them. So while we have the San
(16:57):
Francisco Giants, Japan has the Miori Giants, which are named
for the Yamori newspaper company there. That's pretty interesting, though
I do feel like I'm missing a piece of the
history here. So how did Japanese baseball go from being
a college sport to a national pastime that has these
massive companies bankrolling the teams? Well after eighteen seventy eight
you started to see these other teams popping up in Japan,
(17:18):
and for the next ten years, baseball continued to gain
popularity at these Japanese universities. The game mostly stayed on
campuses until well after the turn of the century, but
then in the early thirties, and American ballplayer named Lefty
o'duel started touring these Japanese universities with a small team
of American players. How baseball of a name is that
Lefty o Duel. So they were giving lessons to Japanese
(17:42):
players and holding these exhibition games every year from nineteen
thirty three to nineteen thirty seven. And these exhibitions could
be massive, so sometimes they played the crowds of more
than sixty thousand people. Wow. And so nineteen thirty four
in particular was this very important year for Japanese baseball.
And this was the year that left he brought over
this all star American team. That this team included players
(18:04):
like Luke Garrig, Lefty Gomez, Earl white Hill, Babe Ruth himself,
And so Japan organized its own dream team to face them.
But Lefty's crew handily defeated them in all eighteen of
the games that they played. I mean that sounds awful, right, like,
like why would you want to take up a sport
after that sort of humiliation. Well, so there was a
moment during those eighteen games when something truly special happened.
(18:28):
There was a Japanese picture named Agi Sawamora, and he
managed to strike out Charlie Garringer, Babe Ruth, Luke Garrick,
and Jimmy Fox all in a row. So even though
the team ultimately lost, Samamember became this national hero overnight,
like the country saw what was possible, and baseball became
more popular than ever. In fact, organizers rode that wave
(18:49):
of public enthusiasm and just two years later they formed
Japan's very first professional baseball team. And as a thank
you to Lefty o'duel, the New York Giant who helped
spark the base ball fire in Japan, the newly formed
team named itself the Giants in his honor. I love that.
And there's actually another unexpected big in Japan craze that
I want to talk about. But before we do that,
(19:10):
let's take a quick break, all right, Mango, So it's
my turn for a quick tangent. So we both heard
the phrase big in Japan, but I just wanted to
take a second to talk about where the phrase actually
(19:33):
comes from Yeah, I mean, I think it's like a
music industry term, right, Like I remember bands growing up
who didn't hit the charts in the US but would
always point to their number ones in Asia saying they're
big in Japan. Yeah, that's right. But there's actually an
origin story here, and so the idea goes back to
the fifties and the sixties when Japanese youth started getting
hooked on British and American music. So, for example, there
(19:55):
was this rock band from the States called the Ventures,
and by the early nineteen sixty the band was, you know,
less fashionable in the US, so they tried touring Japan,
and to their surprise, the country went crazy for them,
quickly becoming the group's most devoted fan base. In fact,
the Ventures continued to tour Japan every year until two
thousand and fifteen, and today their albums have outsold the
(20:18):
Beatles two to one. There isn't that crazy. That is crazy. So,
I mean, I guess big in Japan started out as
kind of a compliment. Well I don't know about a compliment,
but it definitely started out the way you and I
have been using And it's just to acknowledge the fact,
like this band is big in Japan. But you know,
by the seventies and eighties, the phrase was just being
used more mockingly, and it kind of came to represent
(20:40):
the snobbish perception that Japanese consumers were maybe attracted lesser
artists or something like that. But there's actually even a
joke at the end of this is spinal tap. I
don't know if you remember this, but the Washtup band
reunites for a second chance at fame and goes on
this Japanese tour. You know, I've forgotten that, and I've
always thought of that line as more of a lie,
(21:00):
like it's the guy who claims to have a girlfriend
at camp in Canada. You know. It's like, I guess
I never even considered all this cultural condescension. That's pretty interesting,
And maybe that's partially because they're all these great musicians,
especially jazz artists, who are a little overlooked in the
States but have been super popular in Japan for decades.
And I looked into this a little and it's kind
(21:22):
of amazing. So unlike rock music, which was this late
import to Japan, jazz actually came up in the country
around the same time and emerged in the US. Well,
I knew Japan had a thing for jazz. I mean,
it comes up all the time and Murakami's novels, and
I think was a big inspiration for him to become
a writer in the first place. But but I actually
figured it's had something to do with like World War
(21:44):
two and it catching on after that. Yeah, so that
would have been my guest too. But I read this
great interview that NPR did with the jazz historian named E.
Taylor Atkins, who explained that the music actually made its
way to Japan as early as the nineteen tens. Oh wow,
that early. So so how did it get there? Well,
so you've got to remember this is the decade of
the Titanic, right, and so they're these luxury ocean liners
(22:06):
that are already taking wealthy passengers back and forth across
the Pacific, you know, from West coast ports to places
like Manila and Shanghai and of course Japan. And it
was common for these ships to have orchestras on board
as entertainment. So when a Japanese ocean liners stopped at
a port in San Francisco or Seattle, the musicians would
hop out and check out the local music scene. They'd
(22:27):
buy sheet music or records and even visit clubs to
hear the locals play. And so what you had were
all these Japanese musicians who were learned to play music
that was popular in major US cities. And at the time,
nothing was more popular than jazz oh wow. And so
so how did the music make it off the boats
and into the country. So a lot of these cruise
musicians also worked in hotel lobbies or restaurants in the
(22:48):
off season, and that gave them plenty of opportunities to
practice what they'd picked up abroad. So you know, they'd
play in these locations and and then they were simultaneously
introducing the country to this new sound. That's pretty cool,
all right. So I want to switch gears and go
back to something we touched on at the top of
the show, and that's this idea of Japanese culture as
this balancing act. So far, we've talked about in terms
(23:10):
of like new technology versus these older traditions, as well
as like the western influence and the country's own culture.
But another place we kind of see this balancing act
is about the young and the old, and so we
alluded to this earlier, but Japan potentially has a crisis
on its hands because more than a quarter of the
countries a hundred and twenty seven million people are sixty
(23:32):
five or older, and that proportion is actually only expected
to rise. Some researchers are predicting that forty of Japan's
population will be over the age of sixty five by
the year twenty sixty. So, just to put that in perspective,
a Japanese diaper maker name Unan Charm reports that adult
diapers now out sell baby diapers. That's crazy, and you've
(23:52):
got to think the impact on the labor market alone
is pretty scary. Yeah, it definitely is. But you know,
it also provides this rare chance to see how an
industrialized nation addresses that kind of population shift. So, for example,
in late two thousand and sixteen, Japan began launching programs
aimed at coaxing elderly drivers to hand over their driver's license.
And that's because even though the overall number of traffic
(24:15):
accidents in the country has actually gone down in recent years,
the number of accidents involving drivers over the age of
seventy five has seen a dramatic increase. I think it
went from about seven percent to over the past decade
now that's almost double. And of course, Japan being Japan,
they're not about to forcibly strip the elderly of their licenses,
so instead they've had to get a little creative. So
(24:37):
how did they convince people to stop driving, Well by
doing something that would probably work on us too, and
that's to give them discounts on Roman noodles. I mean
that sounds kind of like a joke, right, It sounds
like a joke, but it's not. So this is coming
from a district in central Japan and and basically this
restaurant chain it started to provide these lifelongent discounts at
(24:58):
all one d seventy six of their locations and this
of course to anyone over the age of seventy five
who's turned in their license. But this isn't the only one.
So there's similar incentive campaigns that have launched all over
the country. Some offer discounts on public baths or haircuts,
or bus or taxifairs. And the plan seems to be working.
So they've had over a quarter million people in Japan
(25:20):
that have given up their licenses and two thousand and
sixteen alone, and this is all thanks to this Ramen
noodle discount, which I'm sure more of these will follow. Well,
I mean, I found another way that chefs are helping
Japan cope with its aging population, and that's what's something
called choke proof food. So this is something I hadn't
really thought about before. But swallowing becomes harder and harder
(25:42):
as you age, and obviously this becomes an even bigger
problem when such a large portion of your population is elderly.
In fact, according to a report in The New York Times,
more Japanese people now die from choking than they do
in all those traffic accidents you mentioned earlier. Oh my gosh,
that's crazy. I mean, I can definitely see you why
there'd be a market for choke proof food, but how
(26:03):
exactly does it work? And what is it? Yeah, so
it starts out as regular food items, so you're thinking
about things like grilled salmon or dumplings. But once the
food is prepared, it's thrown into a blender. And I
know what you're thinking. This is way less gross than
the story I told you about Lizzie's grandmam who was
having like a toothache. So she blended her salad and
pizza into a shake and just kept telling everyone it's
(26:24):
all going into the same place, so don't worry. She's
not wrong about that. That to taste gross. But here
the food is kept separate and mixed with a new
kind of jelling agent, so the gel actually allows the
food to be reshaped so that it resembles the way
it originally looked. So basically, choke proof food is this
new way of making puade food more appetizing. It isn't
(26:46):
like flavorless mush. Instead, you've got something that looks and
actually taste normal, with the added bonus of being easy
to swallow. And if it catches on, like the hope
is that Japan's elderly will be able to hold onto
their meal time independence for a little bit longer. Like
they can simply head to a restaurant and order their
good food prepared in this style and it's called young
I guess, which is Japanese for swallowing. That is a
(27:09):
pretty great idea and I hope that that works for them.
But you know, one of the things I like about
these campaigns and how Japan looks out for its elderly
is that it reflects the group base mentality that we
were talking about earlier. You know, that kind of all
for one approach to society. That's something that's instilled in
Japanese citizens from the start. I was actually reading this
interesting article in the Atlantic about the high level of
(27:30):
independence that Japanese kids seem to have, and apparently it's
really common to see kids as young as six or
seven out on their own in Japanese towns and cities. Yeah,
so we talked a little bit about this in our
education episode, where there's a system to help kids walk
alone to school from I think it's from first grade
on and they're actually walking a few miles, right, Yeah,
that's right, And you know, sometimes they're heading to or
(27:51):
from school, but other times they're actually out running errands
for their parents, and it's kind of this right of
passage in Japan. In fact, you know how the country
is fame is for his outrageous game shows and all
these weird reality shows. Well, there's actually a popular show
that translates as My First Errand, and it's basically this
hidden camera show where kids just as young as like
(28:12):
two or three are sent out to run an errand
for their family that sounds crazy. So I'm guessing the
kids have no idea they're being recorded at that age. Oh,
of course not. I have no idea. And I mean
the cameramen are right out in the open at some points,
but the kids are so frantic or anxious that they
never noticed the supervision. And so I actually watched an episode,
(28:32):
and sometimes it's funny, but it can be brutal. But
the one I saw how this little boy and his
younger sister out on an errand to pick up groceries,
and they had to go to a few different shops
and already you can see how hard this is right
for these kids, and they can barely remember the names
of the items. I mean, they're tiny. And this little
boy that was watching, he was so cute, but he
had this melt down once they were like a block
(28:54):
away from their house. He actually had to stop and
compose himself in an alleyway and then keep going. And
meanwhile there's this laugh track and a panel of not
judges but commentators, I guess, and it all feels like
some kind of surreal psychological experiment. But my first air,
and it isn't some new reality TV thing. It's been
on air for almost thirty years now, So I mean
(29:17):
this sounds equal parts hilarious and bizarre. But how does
it relate to being group minded? Like, if anything, these
kids seem independent, right right? Well, that's the thing. I mean.
According to Dwyane Dixon, who's this cultural anthropologist, it's it's
not self sufficiency that we're seeing, but group reliance. As
he puts it, Japanese kids learned early on that ideally
(29:38):
any member of the community can be called on to
serve or help others. And as you see on the
show I watched, they are grocers and shopkeepers, even regular
people on the street, and they're all eager to help
the kids with directions or counting coins. And the idea
is that whether you're a family member or a stranger,
young or old, we're kind of we're all in this together,
you know. I like that. I can actually see why
(30:00):
it's popular. So I guess we saw that in the
school's episode two, right, like where students take turns serving
lunch their classmates, or that there aren't any janitors there
because all the kids devote twenty minutes each day to
cleaning up. That's pretty amazing. Yeah, And I love that
there's this personal responsibility for shared spaces, and it's one
of the most pleasantly unusual things about Japanese culture and
(30:22):
and definitely when I wish we'd emulate more in our
own lives here. Yeah, although that that discount on ramen
noodle sounds pretty good too. I would do whatever it
takes to get that, but including trading in my driver's license. Yeah,
but before you head down to see if the restaurant's interested,
why why don't we work up an appetite with a
quick fact off. So one thing that's cool about Japan
(30:52):
is that they have all sorts of escalators. Right there
are massive and beautiful spiral escalators. There's the world's highest escalator.
It's it's a little terrifying. It's between two skyscrapers and Osaka,
I believe. But my favorite of the escalators, and the
one I traveled to use, is actually the Pucci Culator.
That's what's called it's the world's shortest escalator and it's
(31:14):
just outside Tokyo. But do to some weird construction flow,
it's only about four or five steps tall, so it's
super short and it's uh, I guess it's like half
a short flight of stairs, But when I looked into
why they even bothered to build it, it was because
of this concept of service. So like helping people not
have to walk down four stairs, even if it's only
(31:36):
four stairs, is still important to the culture. That is
so weird. I've never heard of this thing before, but yeah,
well here's the thing that feels unimaginable. So do you
know what happens when teachers are sick in Japanese secondary schools.
The school actually doesn't bring in a substitute. Instead, the
kids are just expected to stay there and quietly spend
(31:57):
the day study, and it were I mean, the kids
actually do this. Can you imagine that ever happening in
US schools? Absolutely not so so I think you know,
I love the bullet train, and I didn't realize this,
but it's actually been around for fifty years now. And
part of the reason I love it is that's so efficient.
It's rarely more than I think twenty six seconds late,
(32:18):
like it makes the whole country super accessible for tourists.
But I especially love how safe it is and it
never seems to crash or have any fatalities like the
trains in the US. And that's partially because of Doctor Yellow.
Have you heard of Dr Yellow? I have not. So
it's a yellow train that travels at full speed, but
it actually monitors the rail conditions for safety. And because
(32:40):
it doesn't have a published schedule, people just love seeing it.
They go wild for it. It's like a lucky charm
and and sometimes they'll actually cheer for it or just
smild wide when they see it passing by. That's pretty great.
All right, Well, here's a quick one I think you
might like. So did you know that scientists in Japan
have come up with a banana with an edible p
If you love bananas, I know we both like bananas
(33:03):
but hate all the time it takes to peel them.
This is perfect for you. Apparently the process involves freezing
and thawing the plant, so you do need to have
a pretty cool climate there, of course, but the benefit
is that there aren't any natural predators, so you don't
have to spray the banana with a ton of pesticides.
That's pretty amazing. So, speaking of strange fruit, did you
know that they sell individual strawberries in Japan. It's a
(33:26):
really popular gift to give someone for Valentine's Day and
they come beautifully packed in these individual cases, but they'll
set you back ten or eleven dollars for a single fruit,
or like forty or fifty dollars for a cardon. So
you might be wondering what kind of strawberry is worth
that much money? And at least one of the varieties
is a kind of strawberry peach hybrid that kind of
(33:46):
looks like a giant strawberry, but it has notes of
peach and the bipe. And there's actually another one that's
completely white but supposedly has kind of a pineapple taste,
Like I kind of want to taste all of these,
Oh me too? All right, well, I think you're going
to lie this one. I know both of us love
following what comes out in the Ignoble Awards every year,
But did you know that Japanese scientists want of two
(34:06):
thousand sixteen Ignoble Prize for realizing that when you get this,
when you bend over and look between your legs, objects
look further away. And this is some real science, but
apparently your perception changes even though you're at the same distance.
But what's funny is that Japan has embraced this scientific victory,
and there are some tourism platforms in front of mountains
(34:27):
and scenic areas where their handrails for you to bend
over and look at the landscape through your legs. I'm
not kidding about this. I mean, I guess it's so
you can appreciate it from even more of a distance
or something. I don't know, but I've got to go
check these out. That is amazing. And you know I
love anything that embraces real science. So right, I'm gonna
give you this week's trophy. All right, well, thank you
(34:49):
very much, and listeners, if you think we need to
know any great science as ridiculous as this, or any
facts that we forgot to share about Japan today that
you love, feel free to share those with us part
Time Genius at how stuff works dot com. We always
love hearing from. You can also call our seven fact
hotline that's one eight four four pt Genius, or hit
us up on Facebook or Twitter. Thanks so much for listening,
(35:24):
Thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production
of How Stuff Works and wouldn't be possible without several
brilliant people who do the important things. We couldn't even
begin to understand. Tristan McNeil does the editing thing. Noel
Brown made the theme song and does the MIXI mixy
sound thing. Jerry Rowland does the exact producer thing. Gave
Bluesier is our lead researcher, with support from the Research
Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams and Eve.
(35:46):
Jeff Cook gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves.
If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe,
And if you really really like what you've heard, maybe
you could leave a good review for us. Did we
forget j Jason who did differ by the b
I guess what, Mango, what's that? Well, I know we've
been competing this week to see who could come up
with the best what's big in Japan? Thing? But I
actually have saved one for you. And did you know
that adult adoption is actually a pretty big thing in Japan.
In fact, most adoptions in Japan are adult adoptions. So
I don't think I even know what that means exactly. Well,
(00:23):
you know, sometimes it has to do with inheritance. So
say you've got a business owner who wants to keep
his business in the family, but I don't know, maybe
he thinks his kids are too lazy or not smart
enough to take it over. So the owner might select
an executive from that company and just adopt them, you know,
like to keep the business in the family. That's pretty funny.
I mean I have heard of people joking about adopting
(00:45):
college grads so that you have someone to take care
of you, you know, when you're older. But I mean
this is kind of surprising to me. Yeah, it is, well,
and and sometimes it's also just like this kick in
the pants that the business owners kids need to start
working harder, and it gets complicated. I guess with the
new sibling rivalry. But you know, Japan is such a
fascinating place and we thought we'd just take a deeper
(01:06):
dive into some of the customs and culture you might
not usually hear about. So let's dig in ya. Hey there,
(01:32):
podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson
and as always I'm joined by my good friend man
Guesh Ticketer and on the other side of the soundproof glass,
super focused on his latest origami creation. That's our friend
and producer Tristan McNeil. So, so what's he working on?
Mangoes trying to look? Is that? Is that a bear?
I think it's actually a sailboat. Oh okay, well it's
(01:52):
a very interesting sailboat. Keep it up, Tristan, it's looking
really good. All right. Well, today's show is all about
Japanese society and culture. But rather than taking a deep
dive into the nation's long history, or maybe focusing on
a single aspect of its culture, we're going to share
some of the strangest, most surprising things that we recently
learned about Japan. So where do you think we should start, Mango, Well,
(02:14):
I mean, something I think we should address up front
is this incredible balancing act that Japan does between the
past and the present. All right, so give me an
example of what you're what you're talking about. Well, one
simple example is that their smartphones are actually waterproof, and
this has existed in Japan for over a decade at
this point. Really, I feel like that's such a recent
technology here in the US. Like all the commercials last year,
(02:35):
we're so focused on that. Yeah, it really is. And
I actually saw this guy at the beach last summer
and he kept accidentally dropping his phone in the water
then like wiping it off and taking a picture, And
I guess he was doing it to like impress the
women around him were like some of the other people
he was with, And at first I was kind of
impressed too, But after like the third or fourth time
he dropped it, I was just rooting for the ocean
(02:57):
to take that phone away from No kidding, I would
have done the same. But back to Japan. So, the
first waterproof smartphone rolled out way back in two thousand five,
and according to a number of electronics companies, the reason
waterproofing was introduced so early is that manufacturers quickly learned
that Japanese consumers were fond of taking phones into the
shower or bathtub with them. Wow. You know, you always
(03:19):
hear about screen addiction and how people are finding it
increasingly harder to disconnect from their phones, and this kind
of feels like the extreme of that exactly, So that
that's what I thought it was at first. Two, especially
when you hear like these reports of gamers and how
addicted they are the video games. But that's not actually
what's going on there. So waterproofing is really the industry
standard in Japan of all smartphones sold in the country
(03:42):
or waterproof and it's because of Japanese tradition. So as
you might have heard that time is really important in Japan,
like public bathhouses called cento. They've they've been pillars of
Japanese society pretty much from the start, and thanks to
the country's many volcanoes, they also have like I want
to say, it's like twenty thou natural hot springs around
the country for people to soak in well, And are
(04:04):
their traditions around these or what? Yeah, I mean, partially
it's just the health benefits, right, like the warm water
improved circulation and it relieves stiff joints. But there's also
the social intimacy that comes from sharing a bath, you know,
with other members of your community. So today, most Japanese
people still take frequent hot baths as a way to unwind,
and the waterproofing was basically a compromise to bridge the
(04:25):
old traditions with the new ones. Basically, most Japanese citizens
were on board with having this new type of technology,
you know, something that you carry around with you all
the time, as long as they could take them into
the tub with them. That's pretty interesting. And you know,
that's something I actually came across while doing my research,
and that's the idea of big companies having to bend
to old Japan, you know, and and find a way
(04:46):
to operate within that existing social framework. So how do
you mean exactly, Well, one thing is that Japan places
a high value on hospitality and that extends the company,
is not just individuals. So you know, there's this expectation
among Japanese consumers that companies are going to go above
and beyond just to accommodate them and any of their needs.
And there's a great example of this, and that's the
(05:07):
Japanese auto industry. So, according to the country's automobile dealers, Association.
Japanese brands account for nearly n of the cars sold
there in Japan, and all of that's thanks to the
hospitality services. Well, it actually is a big part of it. Yeah,
you know that the relationship between car dealers and their
customers is very different in Japan than it is here,
(05:28):
and as a result of that, Japanese consumers are used
to this high level of service that American dealerships have
yet to really invest in, either at home or even
over there. Now, The Atlantic did an article about this
last year, and it included this great description of a
typical car buying experience in Tokyo, and it really kind
of explains how deep this custom goes. So the author
(05:48):
of the story rights, the last time Shujiro Urada wanted
to buy a car in Japan, his phone happened to ring.
It was the local Toyota dealer on the phone asked
him if he was thinking about buying a new car,
and we replied in the affirmative, and the dealer and
a co worker showed up at Eada's doorstep an hour
later with two demo cars, which Urada and his wife
test drove around the neighborhood. Theoradas decided to buy a
(06:11):
car from this dealer. The dealer also handles their car insurance,
coming to their home whenever the insurance contract needs to
be renewed. Theorada is bringing their car to the dealer
every few weeks for a free car wash, or they
hang out and talk to the employees, who kind of
become their friends. Japanese customers also expect to receive services
like free maintenance from their dealers after they buy their cars.
(06:33):
When their cars need to check up, the dealer comes
and picks them up, does work on them, and then
returns them. I mean, I kind of want that service, right.
It's insane, But is that why American car companies haven't
taken off their like because of that service element. It's
a bigger part of it than you think. And these
added services are just too costly and I don't know,
maybe complicated for American car companies to even bother with.
(06:56):
In fact, Ford pulled out of the Japanese market altogether
back in two thousand and sixteen. That's because they've sold
like five thousand cars or so on average in any
given year then, and General Motors now has fewer than
thirty dealerships in all of Japan. All of this despite
the fact that Japan is actually the third largest auto
market in the world, behind of course, the US and China.
(07:17):
Oh that's crazy. I had no idea is that big?
So is this just a U S thing? Like, is
it a problem for the U S? Or is this
a problem for other manufacturers around the world as well? Well?
Not exactly. I mean European car dealers and Mercedes and
BMW in particular, they've made significant strides in the Japanese
market over the past few years, and as you might expect,
they pulled this off by embracing this idea of hospitality. Now.
(07:40):
BMW spent like seven hundred million dollars updating its dealer
network in Japan back in two thousand and sixteen. And
this was also that customers are treated to a lot
of the same services and perks that they're used to there,
and the company's sales are actually on the rise as
a result of this. So I've got to say I'm
pretty envious. And it's not just the service, Like I
kind admire how the culture makes huge companies work for them.
(08:03):
I mean, can you imagine getting that kind of service
from like your cable bill provider or your cell phone provider. Yeah,
and it's pretty incredible. So the American cars haven't been
a hit with the Japanese, but there is at least
one American export that they have taken to, and that's baseball.
That Japan is not one, but two professional baseball leagues,
as well as countless high school and university leagues across
(08:24):
the country. So all sumo wrestling might be the sport
most closely associated with Japan. Baseball is actually the most
popular by far, and it's watched and played by more
people in Japan than any other sport, which is insane.
So I I knew Japan love baseball, but I didn't
think it had gotten that big, and I do want
to hear about it, but I can't pass up the
(08:44):
chance to share one of my all time favorite Suma facts,
which I jogged down in my margins with an asterix
of my notes. I think I have a feeling I
know which one this one is. Is this the crying
babies thing? Manga spoiler alert? But yeah, I've got to
share it. So for listeners, there's this four year old
ceremony in Japan where once a year, parents bring their
(09:06):
infants to shrines so that Suma wrestlers can try to
make them cry. It's amazing, But the ceremony is part
of the naki Zumo festival and it's believed to bring
good health to the babies and help ward off evil spirits.
I feel like maybe I block this out because I
don't remember. But but how do the wrestlers try to
make them cry again? Well, each wrestler takes a baby
(09:30):
and ideally gets the kid to ball just by kind
of bouncing them up and down in the suma ring.
But everyone has their own techniques, so like a wrestler
might make funny faces or even growl at the baby
a little bit, and then after a few seconds, if
nothing's worked, a referee will actually step in wearing a
traditional face mask, and that's what does the trick wait
(09:50):
a referee. So is this more of a ceremony or
a competition? Well, I mean it is an event that
happens all over the country, so the exact rules vary
from region to region. So at us One shrine in Tokyo,
they call it on baby chry Sumo that it's strictly
a ceremony. In some places, the babies actually do compete
against each other to see who will cry first, and
(10:10):
whoever cries first is declared the loser. I still can't
believe Japan has this competition where babies are pitted against
one another by sumo arrest. I do love that there
is such a thing, but it's still pretty nuts. Yeah,
I mean, it does make you wonder why they even
bother with baseball. Well, I do want to get back
(10:31):
to exactly how and why baseball has becomes so big
in Japan, but before we do, let's take a quick break.
You're listening to Part Time Genius and we're talking about
(10:51):
some surprising features of Japanese culture. So well, I know
you're itching to explain the origins of Japanese baseball, but
first I just have to tell you about a story
I found while researching KFC in Japan's Love Affair with It.
But don't worry, because it's actually a baseball story too.
So you know how in American baseball we have these
curses that crop up from time to time. Yeah, of course,
(11:13):
you've got the Cubs and their Billy Goat, and the
Red Sox and the Curse of the Vambino and all
sorts of curses like this. Exactly, and and apparently that
baseball tradition carried over to Japan because they have the
same kind of thing. And probably my favorite curse of
all time involves a team called the Hanshin Tigers and
a statue of KFC founder Colonel Sanders. So the story
(11:33):
goes back in the Tigers won the Japan Championship Series,
which is the Japanese equivalent of the World Series, and
to celebrate big wins like that, Tigers fans had this
tradition where they would gather on a certain bridge in
Osaka read the names of all the winning team members
out loud, and then as each name was called, a
fan who resembled that player would actually jump off the
(11:54):
bridge into the river. I mean, this is already weirder
than the Babe Ruth curse. And I'm a little confused here.
So is the whole fan base made up of guys
who just look like these players or what? Yeah? I mean,
I think it was more of a close enough thing.
But the problem was in eight five, none of the
Japanese fans looked anything like the team's m v P.
Who's this American guy named Randy Bass? And so this
(12:18):
is where KFC comes in because the fans were desperate
to find a Randy Bass look alike, and when they
couldn't find when they spied the statue of the KFC mascot,
it kind of looked close enough, so they snatched the
colonel dressed into Randy Bass jersey and chucked it off
the bridge into the river as they spoke his name
out loud. Wow. And if you were trying to just
make up, like, what is the most American name you
(12:41):
could come up with just like Randy Bass just the way. So,
so I don't understand who put the curse on the team.
Is it the owner of the KFC or Randy Bass?
I mean, actually, by the way, I just googled and sadly,
Randy bast does not look much like the colonel at all.
I mean that makes it better actually, But the curse
was from the colonel himself. So the real Colonel Sanders,
(13:03):
I want to say, like, passed away five years earlier,
and so, according to the legend, his spirit was so
pissed about the Tigers fans desecrating his statue that he
cursed their beloved team to never win a championship again.
And it must have been a potent curse because thirty
three years later, the Tigers have yet to win, despite
making it to the playoffs multiple times. Wow, So has
(13:24):
anybody ever tried just putting the statue back, you know,
just to a peace Sanders. Yeah. So, once a few
years had gone by and it became clear that, you know,
the team had been cursed by the ghost of an
American chicken salesman, Barents tried all kinds of ways to
affuse them. So they apologize to the KFC manager. They
they mounted a few failed dives to the bottom of
(13:47):
the river to try to find the statue, and then
in two thousand nine, divers actually found and recovered the
Colonel statue. I mean, his glasses and left hand were missing,
but otherwise he was pretty intact. So so of the
Tigers were hopeful once more, and in fact, the manager
of the team held a press conference where he told
the press, when I heard the statue had been found,
(14:08):
I felt that losing history had ended. I do think
if the Cubs could win a series, I have to
believe the Tigers will get there sooner or later. But
all right, Well, if the KFC curse tells us anything,
it's that baseball is this unexpected source of overlap between
Japanese and American culture, of course, and so I did
some digging to find out how the Japanese first fell
(14:30):
in love with baseball, and the story actually goes all
the way back to the eighteen hundreds. I now, this
was during the Meiji era, and this was this period
when Japan was moving away from its isolationist roots and
trying to adopt these more western customs as a result
of this. Now, one person often gets credited for introducing
baseball to Japan, and that's Professor Horace Wilson. And he
(14:52):
was an American who taught English at the university in Tokyo,
and at some point, I think it was in the
eighteen seventies, he started introducing his students to baseball because
he decided they needed to get more exercise in their lives.
But I mean, isn't there plenty of sports opportunity to Japan,
like martial arts and winter sports, and you know we
talked about sumo. Yeah. I had thought the same thing,
(15:13):
but there was one part of this that I had
not really thought about. So so here's the thing that
sports native to Japan or super popular in Japan or
that sumo or karate or several others. You know, they're
mostly one on one activities. So despite the fact that
Japan is a pretty highly group based culture, for whatever
weird reason, the country actually hadn't developed that many team
(15:33):
sports of their own. That's crazy. I actually never thought
about that. So is that one of the things that
helped baseball catch on? Definitely? And like I said, so
much of Japanese culture is built around this idea that
the group is the central unit of society. So whether
it's your family, your neighbors, or your classmates. So a
team sport like baseball was naturally appealing to many people
(15:54):
once word of it spread, and actually spread pretty quickly.
So in eighteen seventy eight, just a few years after
Horace Wilson taught his students how to play baseball, the
Japanese railway engineer organized the very first Japanese baseball team,
the Shinbashi Athletic Club Athletics. That's an amazing name. Yeah, well,
Japan did get better at naming things than today. There
(16:15):
are several professional baseball teams there and it's not that
different from the American mascot name, so to go along
with the Tigers, you've got things like the Buffaloes, the Hawks,
the carp as well as you know a few mythical
creatures like the dragons and the giants. But there is
something interesting about the naming there. And we mentioned earlier
that the team was called the Hanschen Tigers. But Hanchen
(16:37):
isn't actually a city, so I mean, is it a
village or a hamlet or something. No, So that's one
difference between American and Japanese baseball. Hanchen's actually a railway company.
So while American teams are privately owned and name for
cities that support them, Japanese teams are named for the
corporations that own them. So while we have the San
(16:57):
Francisco Giants, Japan has the Miori Giants, which are named
for the Yamori newspaper company there. That's pretty interesting, though
I do feel like I'm missing a piece of the
history here. So how did Japanese baseball go from being
a college sport to a national pastime that has these
massive companies bankrolling the teams? Well after eighteen seventy eight
you started to see these other teams popping up in Japan,
(17:18):
and for the next ten years, baseball continued to gain
popularity at these Japanese universities. The game mostly stayed on
campuses until well after the turn of the century, but
then in the early thirties, and American ballplayer named Lefty
o'duel started touring these Japanese universities with a small team
of American players. How baseball of a name is that
Lefty o Duel. So they were giving lessons to Japanese
(17:42):
players and holding these exhibition games every year from nineteen
thirty three to nineteen thirty seven. And these exhibitions could
be massive, so sometimes they played the crowds of more
than sixty thousand people. Wow. And so nineteen thirty four
in particular was this very important year for Japanese baseball.
And this was the year that left he brought over
this all star American team. That this team included players
(18:04):
like Luke Garrig, Lefty Gomez, Earl white Hill, Babe Ruth himself,
And so Japan organized its own dream team to face them.
But Lefty's crew handily defeated them in all eighteen of
the games that they played. I mean that sounds awful, right, like,
like why would you want to take up a sport
after that sort of humiliation. Well, so there was a
moment during those eighteen games when something truly special happened.
(18:28):
There was a Japanese picture named Agi Sawamora, and he
managed to strike out Charlie Garringer, Babe Ruth, Luke Garrick,
and Jimmy Fox all in a row. So even though
the team ultimately lost, Samamember became this national hero overnight,
like the country saw what was possible, and baseball became
more popular than ever. In fact, organizers rode that wave
(18:49):
of public enthusiasm and just two years later they formed
Japan's very first professional baseball team. And as a thank
you to Lefty o'duel, the New York Giant who helped
spark the base ball fire in Japan, the newly formed
team named itself the Giants in his honor. I love that.
And there's actually another unexpected big in Japan craze that
I want to talk about. But before we do that,
(19:10):
let's take a quick break, all right, Mango, So it's
my turn for a quick tangent. So we both heard
the phrase big in Japan, but I just wanted to
take a second to talk about where the phrase actually
(19:33):
comes from Yeah, I mean, I think it's like a
music industry term, right, Like I remember bands growing up
who didn't hit the charts in the US but would
always point to their number ones in Asia saying they're
big in Japan. Yeah, that's right. But there's actually an
origin story here, and so the idea goes back to
the fifties and the sixties when Japanese youth started getting
hooked on British and American music. So, for example, there
(19:55):
was this rock band from the States called the Ventures,
and by the early nineteen sixty the band was, you know,
less fashionable in the US, so they tried touring Japan,
and to their surprise, the country went crazy for them,
quickly becoming the group's most devoted fan base. In fact,
the Ventures continued to tour Japan every year until two
thousand and fifteen, and today their albums have outsold the
(20:18):
Beatles two to one. There isn't that crazy. That is crazy. So,
I mean, I guess big in Japan started out as
kind of a compliment. Well I don't know about a compliment,
but it definitely started out the way you and I
have been using And it's just to acknowledge the fact,
like this band is big in Japan. But you know,
by the seventies and eighties, the phrase was just being
used more mockingly, and it kind of came to represent
(20:40):
the snobbish perception that Japanese consumers were maybe attracted lesser
artists or something like that. But there's actually even a
joke at the end of this is spinal tap. I
don't know if you remember this, but the Washtup band
reunites for a second chance at fame and goes on
this Japanese tour. You know, I've forgotten that, and I've
always thought of that line as more of a lie,
(21:00):
like it's the guy who claims to have a girlfriend
at camp in Canada. You know. It's like, I guess
I never even considered all this cultural condescension. That's pretty interesting,
And maybe that's partially because they're all these great musicians,
especially jazz artists, who are a little overlooked in the
States but have been super popular in Japan for decades.
And I looked into this a little and it's kind
(21:22):
of amazing. So unlike rock music, which was this late
import to Japan, jazz actually came up in the country
around the same time and emerged in the US. Well,
I knew Japan had a thing for jazz. I mean,
it comes up all the time and Murakami's novels, and
I think was a big inspiration for him to become
a writer in the first place. But but I actually
figured it's had something to do with like World War
(21:44):
two and it catching on after that. Yeah, so that
would have been my guest too. But I read this
great interview that NPR did with the jazz historian named E.
Taylor Atkins, who explained that the music actually made its
way to Japan as early as the nineteen tens. Oh wow,
that early. So so how did it get there? Well,
so you've got to remember this is the decade of
the Titanic, right, and so they're these luxury ocean liners
(22:06):
that are already taking wealthy passengers back and forth across
the Pacific, you know, from West coast ports to places
like Manila and Shanghai and of course Japan. And it
was common for these ships to have orchestras on board
as entertainment. So when a Japanese ocean liners stopped at
a port in San Francisco or Seattle, the musicians would
hop out and check out the local music scene. They'd
(22:27):
buy sheet music or records and even visit clubs to
hear the locals play. And so what you had were
all these Japanese musicians who were learned to play music
that was popular in major US cities. And at the time,
nothing was more popular than jazz oh wow. And so
so how did the music make it off the boats
and into the country. So a lot of these cruise
musicians also worked in hotel lobbies or restaurants in the
(22:48):
off season, and that gave them plenty of opportunities to
practice what they'd picked up abroad. So you know, they'd
play in these locations and and then they were simultaneously
introducing the country to this new sound. That's pretty cool,
all right. So I want to switch gears and go
back to something we touched on at the top of
the show, and that's this idea of Japanese culture as
this balancing act. So far, we've talked about in terms
(23:10):
of like new technology versus these older traditions, as well
as like the western influence and the country's own culture.
But another place we kind of see this balancing act
is about the young and the old, and so we
alluded to this earlier, but Japan potentially has a crisis
on its hands because more than a quarter of the
countries a hundred and twenty seven million people are sixty
(23:32):
five or older, and that proportion is actually only expected
to rise. Some researchers are predicting that forty of Japan's
population will be over the age of sixty five by
the year twenty sixty. So, just to put that in perspective,
a Japanese diaper maker name Unan Charm reports that adult
diapers now out sell baby diapers. That's crazy, and you've
(23:52):
got to think the impact on the labor market alone
is pretty scary. Yeah, it definitely is. But you know,
it also provides this rare chance to see how an
industrialized nation addresses that kind of population shift. So, for example,
in late two thousand and sixteen, Japan began launching programs
aimed at coaxing elderly drivers to hand over their driver's license.
And that's because even though the overall number of traffic
(24:15):
accidents in the country has actually gone down in recent years,
the number of accidents involving drivers over the age of
seventy five has seen a dramatic increase. I think it
went from about seven percent to over the past decade
now that's almost double. And of course, Japan being Japan,
they're not about to forcibly strip the elderly of their licenses,
so instead they've had to get a little creative. So
(24:37):
how did they convince people to stop driving, Well by
doing something that would probably work on us too, and
that's to give them discounts on Roman noodles. I mean
that sounds kind of like a joke, right, It sounds
like a joke, but it's not. So this is coming
from a district in central Japan and and basically this
restaurant chain it started to provide these lifelongent discounts at
(24:58):
all one d seventy six of their locations and this
of course to anyone over the age of seventy five
who's turned in their license. But this isn't the only one.
So there's similar incentive campaigns that have launched all over
the country. Some offer discounts on public baths or haircuts,
or bus or taxifairs. And the plan seems to be working.
So they've had over a quarter million people in Japan
(25:20):
that have given up their licenses and two thousand and
sixteen alone, and this is all thanks to this Ramen
noodle discount, which I'm sure more of these will follow. Well,
I mean, I found another way that chefs are helping
Japan cope with its aging population, and that's what's something
called choke proof food. So this is something I hadn't
really thought about before. But swallowing becomes harder and harder
(25:42):
as you age, and obviously this becomes an even bigger
problem when such a large portion of your population is elderly.
In fact, according to a report in The New York Times,
more Japanese people now die from choking than they do
in all those traffic accidents you mentioned earlier. Oh my gosh,
that's crazy. I mean, I can definitely see you why
there'd be a market for choke proof food, but how
(26:03):
exactly does it work? And what is it? Yeah, so
it starts out as regular food items, so you're thinking
about things like grilled salmon or dumplings. But once the
food is prepared, it's thrown into a blender. And I
know what you're thinking. This is way less gross than
the story I told you about Lizzie's grandmam who was
having like a toothache. So she blended her salad and
pizza into a shake and just kept telling everyone it's
(26:24):
all going into the same place, so don't worry. She's
not wrong about that. That to taste gross. But here
the food is kept separate and mixed with a new
kind of jelling agent, so the gel actually allows the
food to be reshaped so that it resembles the way
it originally looked. So basically, choke proof food is this
new way of making puade food more appetizing. It isn't
(26:46):
like flavorless mush. Instead, you've got something that looks and
actually taste normal, with the added bonus of being easy
to swallow. And if it catches on, like the hope
is that Japan's elderly will be able to hold onto
their meal time independence for a little bit longer. Like
they can simply head to a restaurant and order their
good food prepared in this style and it's called young
I guess, which is Japanese for swallowing. That is a
(27:09):
pretty great idea and I hope that that works for them.
But you know, one of the things I like about
these campaigns and how Japan looks out for its elderly
is that it reflects the group base mentality that we
were talking about earlier. You know, that kind of all
for one approach to society. That's something that's instilled in
Japanese citizens from the start. I was actually reading this
interesting article in the Atlantic about the high level of
(27:30):
independence that Japanese kids seem to have, and apparently it's
really common to see kids as young as six or
seven out on their own in Japanese towns and cities. Yeah,
so we talked a little bit about this in our
education episode, where there's a system to help kids walk
alone to school from I think it's from first grade
on and they're actually walking a few miles, right, Yeah,
that's right, And you know, sometimes they're heading to or
(27:51):
from school, but other times they're actually out running errands
for their parents, and it's kind of this right of
passage in Japan. In fact, you know how the country
is fame is for his outrageous game shows and all
these weird reality shows. Well, there's actually a popular show
that translates as My First Errand, and it's basically this
hidden camera show where kids just as young as like
(28:12):
two or three are sent out to run an errand
for their family that sounds crazy. So I'm guessing the
kids have no idea they're being recorded at that age. Oh,
of course not. I have no idea. And I mean
the cameramen are right out in the open at some points,
but the kids are so frantic or anxious that they
never noticed the supervision. And so I actually watched an episode,
(28:32):
and sometimes it's funny, but it can be brutal. But
the one I saw how this little boy and his
younger sister out on an errand to pick up groceries,
and they had to go to a few different shops
and already you can see how hard this is right
for these kids, and they can barely remember the names
of the items. I mean, they're tiny. And this little
boy that was watching, he was so cute, but he
had this melt down once they were like a block
(28:54):
away from their house. He actually had to stop and
compose himself in an alleyway and then keep going. And
meanwhile there's this laugh track and a panel of not
judges but commentators, I guess, and it all feels like
some kind of surreal psychological experiment. But my first air,
and it isn't some new reality TV thing. It's been
on air for almost thirty years now, So I mean
(29:17):
this sounds equal parts hilarious and bizarre. But how does
it relate to being group minded? Like, if anything, these
kids seem independent, right right? Well, that's the thing. I mean.
According to Dwyane Dixon, who's this cultural anthropologist, it's it's
not self sufficiency that we're seeing, but group reliance. As
he puts it, Japanese kids learned early on that ideally
(29:38):
any member of the community can be called on to
serve or help others. And as you see on the
show I watched, they are grocers and shopkeepers, even regular
people on the street, and they're all eager to help
the kids with directions or counting coins. And the idea
is that whether you're a family member or a stranger,
young or old, we're kind of we're all in this together,
you know. I like that. I can actually see why
(30:00):
it's popular. So I guess we saw that in the
school's episode two, right, like where students take turns serving
lunch their classmates, or that there aren't any janitors there
because all the kids devote twenty minutes each day to
cleaning up. That's pretty amazing. Yeah, And I love that
there's this personal responsibility for shared spaces, and it's one
of the most pleasantly unusual things about Japanese culture and
(30:22):
and definitely when I wish we'd emulate more in our
own lives here. Yeah, although that that discount on ramen
noodle sounds pretty good too. I would do whatever it
takes to get that, but including trading in my driver's license. Yeah,
but before you head down to see if the restaurant's interested,
why why don't we work up an appetite with a
quick fact off. So one thing that's cool about Japan
(30:52):
is that they have all sorts of escalators. Right there
are massive and beautiful spiral escalators. There's the world's highest escalator.
It's it's a little terrifying. It's between two skyscrapers and Osaka,
I believe. But my favorite of the escalators, and the
one I traveled to use, is actually the Pucci Culator.
That's what's called it's the world's shortest escalator and it's
(31:14):
just outside Tokyo. But do to some weird construction flow,
it's only about four or five steps tall, so it's
super short and it's uh, I guess it's like half
a short flight of stairs, But when I looked into
why they even bothered to build it, it was because
of this concept of service. So like helping people not
have to walk down four stairs, even if it's only
(31:36):
four stairs, is still important to the culture. That is
so weird. I've never heard of this thing before, but yeah,
well here's the thing that feels unimaginable. So do you
know what happens when teachers are sick in Japanese secondary schools.
The school actually doesn't bring in a substitute. Instead, the
kids are just expected to stay there and quietly spend
(31:57):
the day study, and it were I mean, the kids
actually do this. Can you imagine that ever happening in
US schools? Absolutely not so so I think you know,
I love the bullet train, and I didn't realize this,
but it's actually been around for fifty years now. And
part of the reason I love it is that's so efficient.
It's rarely more than I think twenty six seconds late,
(32:18):
like it makes the whole country super accessible for tourists.
But I especially love how safe it is and it
never seems to crash or have any fatalities like the
trains in the US. And that's partially because of Doctor Yellow.
Have you heard of Dr Yellow? I have not. So
it's a yellow train that travels at full speed, but
it actually monitors the rail conditions for safety. And because
(32:40):
it doesn't have a published schedule, people just love seeing it.
They go wild for it. It's like a lucky charm
and and sometimes they'll actually cheer for it or just
smild wide when they see it passing by. That's pretty great.
All right, Well, here's a quick one I think you
might like. So did you know that scientists in Japan
have come up with a banana with an edible p
If you love bananas, I know we both like bananas
(33:03):
but hate all the time it takes to peel them.
This is perfect for you. Apparently the process involves freezing
and thawing the plant, so you do need to have
a pretty cool climate there, of course, but the benefit
is that there aren't any natural predators, so you don't
have to spray the banana with a ton of pesticides.
That's pretty amazing. So, speaking of strange fruit, did you
know that they sell individual strawberries in Japan. It's a
(33:26):
really popular gift to give someone for Valentine's Day and
they come beautifully packed in these individual cases, but they'll
set you back ten or eleven dollars for a single fruit,
or like forty or fifty dollars for a cardon. So
you might be wondering what kind of strawberry is worth
that much money? And at least one of the varieties
is a kind of strawberry peach hybrid that kind of
(33:46):
looks like a giant strawberry, but it has notes of
peach and the bipe. And there's actually another one that's
completely white but supposedly has kind of a pineapple taste,
Like I kind of want to taste all of these,
Oh me too? All right, well, I think you're going
to lie this one. I know both of us love
following what comes out in the Ignoble Awards every year,
But did you know that Japanese scientists want of two
(34:06):
thousand sixteen Ignoble Prize for realizing that when you get this,
when you bend over and look between your legs, objects
look further away. And this is some real science, but
apparently your perception changes even though you're at the same distance.
But what's funny is that Japan has embraced this scientific victory,
and there are some tourism platforms in front of mountains
(34:27):
and scenic areas where their handrails for you to bend
over and look at the landscape through your legs. I'm
not kidding about this. I mean, I guess it's so
you can appreciate it from even more of a distance
or something. I don't know, but I've got to go
check these out. That is amazing. And you know I
love anything that embraces real science. So right, I'm gonna
give you this week's trophy. All right, well, thank you
(34:49):
very much, and listeners, if you think we need to
know any great science as ridiculous as this, or any
facts that we forgot to share about Japan today that
you love, feel free to share those with us part
Time Genius at how stuff works dot com. We always
love hearing from. You can also call our seven fact
hotline that's one eight four four pt Genius, or hit
us up on Facebook or Twitter. Thanks so much for listening,
(35:24):
Thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production
of How Stuff Works and wouldn't be possible without several
brilliant people who do the important things. We couldn't even
begin to understand. Tristan McNeil does the editing thing. Noel
Brown made the theme song and does the MIXI mixy
sound thing. Jerry Rowland does the exact producer thing. Gave
Bluesier is our lead researcher, with support from the Research
Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams and Eve.
(35:46):
Jeff Cook gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves.
If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe,
And if you really really like what you've heard, maybe
you could leave a good review for us. Did we
forget j Jason who did differ by the b
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
Popular Podcasts
Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.