Forum - View topicTales Of The Industry - Wanna Go To Tokyo In 3 Days?
|
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Polycell
 Posts: 4623 |
|
|||||||
|
I remember reading somewhere that apparently Israelis were consistently some of the worst tourists, with it credited to them usually being fresh off their tour of duty with the JIDF. Apparently martial discipline sticks with conscripts the way parental discipline does with college students on their way to their first kegger with Delta Iota Kappa.
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
noblesse oblige
 Posts: 279 Location: Florida |
|
|||||||
|
Those people remind me of pretty much 95% of the people know in my age group (18-27). I feel like these are the same people who get out of college (or high school) and have an emotional breakdown over having to do things for themselves for the first time. It's like they put zero thought into what life was going to be like outside of their little bubble.
I've never seen myself as especially reliable or responsible, but when I look around and see people my age that have no idea how to read a rental agreement or even their own social security number, I'm quite frankly astonished. Well maybe not so much anymore, since it seems like adolescence has been prolonged an extra decade. But it's interesting how the people in this story were actually competent at their jobs, but nothing else. It's almost as if they were borderline savants, lol. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
|
|||||||
|
Germans are great tourists. I've met heaps of them as they seem to enjoy coming to New Zealand, especially for the hiking and mountaineering. They are polite and friendly and on average stay longer than other groups. The only real issue with them is their tendency towards freedom camping, which is disgusting. (Rubbish and human faeces on the side of the road: yay.)
The Chinese are probably the best group though, as they are usually on well-organised bus tours and so rarely cause any trouble.
Here's the thing though: English is the global lingua franca, and is the official (or in some cases at least a major) language in areas like international business, education, science, technology, diplomacy, entertainment, radio, seafaring, and aviation. It is also the official language of sixty countries. Given this fact, is it really so unreasonable to go to a first-world (or even second-world) country and expect that someone there can converse with you? |
||||||||
|
||||||||
Joe Mello
 Posts: 2256 Location: Online Terminal |
|
|||||||
|
This wasn't culture shock, this was an electrocution.
When I went to Japan, my plan was to dress in plain clothes with little to no branding or lettering. The goal was simply to not stand out (as much). |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
mewpudding101
Industry Insider
 Posts: 2206 Location: Tokyo, Japan |
|
|||||||
|
Yeeeeah when there any kind of other westerner tourists in Tokyo, I try and separate myself...
Of course, I read that the French are the worst. Hahaha But geeez. Having problems with the McDonalds menu in Tokyo... That is bad. There is so much that is similar to the American menu. You shouldn't even have a problem. On an unrelated note, the sakura nori shio (cherry blossom seaweed salt) french fries from McD's here were delicious... Real cherry blossom leaves and petals with salt and seaweed flakes to shake on top of your fries. 
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
mirorin
Posts: 7 |
|
|||||||
|
Ethnocentrism + culture shock + homesickness. Otaku or not, visiting a foreign country means stepping into another world. They definitely were not prepared and had little regard about their social behavior... Good to know they were at least professional to the people interviewed.
@noblesse oblige: It's called being babied... I guess with increasing longevity and education, people are treated like children for longer. Decades ago you were expected to be an adult by the age of 16. Now it's more like 26+... honestly most people don't realize they live in a small bubble until after they finish school. It shocks them when they face the real world of responsibility and different cultures/people after experiencing 20+ years of doing nothing and having things their way. Anyways, riot police? What?? Were they summoned just for him or happen to be passing by? |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
CandisWhite
Posts: 282 |
|
|||||||
Try this experiment: Go to your local airport and walk through the wrong door; See how much fun you have. Airports have been shutdown because someone said the word 'bomb'. Thousands of people, from all over the world, go through airports everyday; Staff don't have the time to sift the idiots from the legitimate threats. As for the group of schmucks in the article, Whew! Way to miss the point of going to a foreign country, especially one that is pretty different from your own. They had it perfect: They were being paid to travel; They had a knowledgeable guide; They had free time to do some things. I've met up with friends in Mexico who live there during the winter. Live, not reside. It's amazing to know where to go, and be able to go there without issue, when you travel. These jokers threw away their opportunity to have a great time and make some incredible memories. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
belvadeer
|
|
|||||||
|
Ugh, another "memorable" experience that you'd rather want to forget I'm sure. I can't believe those two girls actually cried when you told them to wait five blasted minutes.
This basically sums up my feelings about today's generation. These entitled idiots expect their parents to handle everything difficult they don't understand (looking for a job being number one on the list) while they go off and play around with their smartphone or on Facebook while hanging out with their equally responsibility-ignorant friends (we're talking folks who are in their early to mid 20s as you pointed out, though today's teenagers largely fall into the category too). They eventually realize the real world (employment, bills, etc.) is full of responsibility they don't want to deal with because it's too hard for them or it terrifies them not to rely on Mommy and Daddy for once. I blame poor parenting, but part of the blame also falls on the individual, as they should attempt to learn independence and self-sufficiency even if their folks don't teach these things to him or her. Last edited by belvadeer on Fri Jul 24, 2015 4:23 pm; edited 1 time in total |
||||||||
unready
 Posts: 399 Location: Illinois, USA |
|
|||||||
|
I recall reading not long ago the results of a survey of tourism workers from several countries. They were asked to rate which country had the best and the worst travelers.
People in other countries rated US travelers the best, because Americans were the most interested in learning local customs and trying local cuisines. They often failed, sometimes spectacularly, at getting it right, but the effort was noticed and appreciated. Japanese travelers were rated second best, because they never complained about anything and were always very polite. French travelers were rated the worst, because they were rude to everyone, complained about everything, and were outspokenly disdainful that no one spoke French anywhere they went. Interestingly French tourism workers, taken as a single case, also rated French travelers the worst.... Of course, these perceptions in foreign countries were all about people who wanted to travel. The people in this story sounded more like teenagers who got dragged along on their parents' vacations and would have rather stayed home and played video games. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
sokpupet
Posts: 133 |
|
|||||||
Or, OR, and bear with me here, it's the parents nowadays who refuse to let their children do anything (set up a bank account, submit college applications, pay for insurance or cell phones, etc). Helicopter parenting is just as ruinous, if not more so, than applied ignorance in young people. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
roxybudgy
Posts: 129 Location: Western Australia |
|
|||||||
|
Some people just aren't meant to travel.
I took my partner with me to Thailand (my mum and sister went too), planned to do touristy things in Bangkok, then visit my grandma in Chiang Rai. My gawd, he complained all the time. He complained about being tired, he complained about the heat, he complained about things being "dirty" and he complained about the food. We had planned to stay at my grandma's house in a rural village for a week and a bit, but when he saw what my grandma's bathroom/toilet looked like, he refused to use the toilet and refused to eat so he wouldn't have to use the toilet. My mum worried that he was going to make himself sick by starving himself, so I made a last minute booking for a 1-week stay at a luxurious 4-star hotel in Chiang Mai. My mum and sister would stay at my grandma's place while my partner and I went to the hotel. I had specifically picked a hotel in the heart of Chiang Mai so that we would be walking distance from many of the temples and tourist attractions. But aside from a short walk to the old city gate/moat, we pretty much spent the whole week inside the hotel watching movies on TV. And his constant complaining made it very difficult for me to enjoy myself. What a waste... I have visited Japan once as part of a school exchange. I had been looking forward to it for over a year, but on the first night with my host family, the fact that I was in a foreign country in a house of strangers that didn't speak much English, it was just too much for the socially anxious me and I just wanted to go home. Thankfully I got over that quickly and had a lot of fun during my 3 week stay there. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
belvadeer
|
|
|||||||
No no, you're absolutely right. I can't believe I didn't include copter parents. They tend to start hovering from when their kids are infants and never let go of the umbilical cord. |
||||||||
penguintruth
 Posts: 8459 Location: Penguinopolis |
|
|||||||
|
This is why I never visit foreign countries, because I just KNOW I'd be one of those people. I try not to inflict my personality on too many people. Offline, anyway.
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
|
|||||||
|
These kinds of people, the ones for whom going to another country freaks them out like as if they're visiting Cthulhu's dimension:
This is why localization of anime and video games to general audiences change names, remove Japanese cultural references, and otherwise pass themselves to try to be as western as they can. People question why Takeshi's onigiri is changed to Brock's donut or why all the Digidestined have western names--people like them are the reason why, and as can be seen with all these anecdotes, there are a LOT of them.
My best guess: They weren't given much notice but jumped at the chance to fill out their resume with something notable. These are likely people into video games who want to get into the game business, and they know the Tokyo Game Show is a big deal. Basically, they had no time to prepare or think things through but wanted the glory of Tokyo Game Show coverage so much that they were willing to jump at the chance.
Yeah, I'm curious. Did the author never figure out what the riot police were there for?
Well, universities very rarely ever teach how to function as independent human beings, and parents often forget to (or don't think it's necessary). At least, in my case, I was always told that once money starts coming in, you can then figure everything out on your own easily enough. From what I've seen, the people who can survive independently as young adults are those who either already lived alone growing up (such as if their parents have jobs that leave them little time to spend with their children) or their parents directly teach them how to live independently (which can only mean that the parents themselves had that trouble growing up too). Having specialized degrees and/or specialized university settings will produce specialists, people who are very good at their jobs but know little to nothing about anything else. I am a trivia person, so I try to avoid becoming one of those. But I have met plenty who are, and they fall into two categories: You have people who are big fans of what they majored in, spending most of their time thinking about what they're studying (you get a lot of these in fine arts, but any major could have them); and you have people who are very serious about their work and want to avoid any kind of distraction that can lower their odds of graduating or moving on to a higher school (this happens a lot in medical and legal fields, but they're by no means pervasive). Both of these groups have something in common: They have little time to be interested in anything else. These guys are no fun to converse with.
I heard that McDonald's in Japan have buns made of rice, don't have much in terms of beef burgers, and you have to pay for refills. Is that true? I also heard that the Filet-O-Fish is popular in Japan. I've never been to one in Japan, but I've been to one in Bangkok, and the burgers there are WAY more expensive than the ones in the United States. Everything is smaller in general as well, there is only sweet chili sauce for McNuggets, and the only menu items in common with American McDonald's are the hamburger, cheeseburger, Big Mac, McNuggets, and fries. There is also a sweet-ish tinge to most of these items, because to Bangkok natives, anything with no sugar in it tends to be unappetizing. And McDonald's exists in Bangkok partially to serve American tourists too, so they have to be accomodating to them. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
Cutiebunny
 Posts: 1746 |
|
|||||||
There's a McRice in the Philippines, but I've never seen McDonalds in Japan feature a rice bun. MOS Burger has rice bun burgers, though. The McDonalds Japanese menu is pretty much the same as the US menu, with the exception of some of the promotional sandwiches they have. The menu is largely beef, with quite a few chicken and a pork item or two in there. The portion sizes are smaller, but to be honest, I find Japanese McDonalds to be tastier than the US counterpart because it's just not as greasy. I'd consider eating a burger in Japan whereas in the US, I'd go with the chicken option. I also think the Happy Meal(Happy Set) toys are a lot better too. The toys are either better made or useful. I kept all of mine. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
so it's not just Americans. 
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group