What shocked me the most as a German Girl living in Japan 🇯🇵🇩🇪

in the past 7 years I've spent in Japan I encountered quite a few culture shocks from dating to working as well as family and friend Dynamics many things were new and different I want to emphasize that this is the beauty of diverse cultures and I'm not comparing them in any negative way I hope you enjoy coming along a day in my life while I share my experiences let's start hey everyone one let's talk about dating it's very windy here let's go the biggest difference I noticed when it comes to dating culture in Japan in comparison

to Germany is that if you have any interest in a person people here usually confess that quite quickly and shortly after or immediately people become a couple and in that course of that relationship they get to know each other in Germany on the other hand people tend to have a dating phase of 1 to 3 months or even longer where they get to know each other and when they're very sure about it they get into a committed relationship other than differences I want to show in this video that there are so many interesting discoveries when

traveling and living abroad and while we might not agree with all of them when we stay curious and respectful to other cultures we can learn so many things and new ways of living for me this makes life an amazing [Music] experience hey everyone I just came into a cute Cafe and I wanted to talk about my first culture shock that I had when I came to Japan and that is stealing in comparison to other countries in Japan things don't really get stolen which is a little bit ironic to say now because a few days ago

I woke up and my bike was stolen from right in front of my house but other than that it's really not common other than bikes or umbrellas stealing in Japan is quite uncommon I was really shocked when I first saw people leaving their phones laptops or even Wallets on the table in cafes when they went to the bathroom or ordered a drink it made me feel like people do trust each other in some kind of way which brings me a lot of comfort let's make my go-to [Music] breakfast when you move to a new country

it takes some time to adjust to the new diet when I first came to Japan I was introduced to many new flavors that I had never tried before luckily I have to say that other than a good German bread I don't really miss anything and most of the time I crave Japanese food over Western cuisine [Music] so so a c a shock I had is physical touch in Japan it seems like physical touch is reserved for children or your partner when you reach a certain age my friends told me that they don't hug their parents

anymore and for me coming out of a very physical and very affectionate household that was kind of a little bit of a culture shock for me but I know there are also many families in Germany who also handle physical touch in a more similar way so I think it just totally depends on the family and how you grow up what really took me some kind of time to get used to is physical touch among friends because here when you meet your friend you usually say hi and bye by waving and I am so used to

hugging my friends and that situations that it felt kind of strange for me to be so close to someone to call them my friend but not being able to do that but yeah after living here for quite a while I totally got used to it and also actually the majority of my friends hug me now because they know that's what I'm used to and they also enjoy it so it also just depends on your personal preferences yeah that was one little culture shock I think in the west we often hear about Japan's extreme working culture

and sadly most of it is true people are extremely busy so it's very common plan meetings with friends months in advance that was definitely something I had to get used to and while I'm very happy with my current job I don't know if I can see myself working in a Japanese company forever I'm working very hard right now to create another path for myself with the big help of Squarespace for a long time I put off creating my own website because it felt overwhelming I thought it would require a huge investment of time and effort

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very much to square space for sponsoring today's video hello another thing that shocked me but at the same time deeply fascinated me about Japan is the unique blend of the ancient and the modern traditional tea ceremonies seasonal festivals and historic temples and shrines coexists alongside technology and the bustling urban life of the big [Music] cities Japan is very dedicated to protect its cultural heritage and I hope it stays like this through the future Generations [Music] they purp in the air cute Lun [Music] yeah didn't expect anything but actually it's good [Music] [Music] you want to

try this interesting [Music] so UT said his one culture shock is that he cannot stay next to anymore in the restaurant because in Germany we just wait until someone comes but here you have to say it and he feels uncomfortable exactly yay one more culture shock hey everyone I just stumbled upon this beautiful Shrine while exploring this area and it made me think of another culture shock that I had when I first came to Japan and that is the quietness you can find in the small Street in the shrines even in Tokyo where I lived

before I was able able to find these quiet peaceful places almost everywhere and as you can hear it's so beautiful there are so many birds and the leaves of the trees and the wind and one big reason while I fell in love with Japan this is something very unique about Japan and I think it's only possible because people respect these faes o I'm on my way to anaaya because I want to talk about another culture shop and that is the drinking culture as I came to Japan and told people that I'm from Germany many had

the stereotype that we drink a lot of beer while that might be true especially in some regions of Germany we are nothing against Japan no matter what day in the week it is you will find people drinking after work in eakas and definitely not just one beer I have to say Japan has optimized the drinking experience with amazing atmosphere food and drinks while I can totally see that this might be a big reward ESP especially after a long day of work it does concern me a bit because it seems like alcoholism is quite normalized so

everyone these were my culture shocks that I've experienced since moving to Japan now that I'm editing I can think of a few more maybe I will share them in another video If you enjoyed it as I said in the beginning of this video if we stop judging and start observing we can learn so much from one another thank you so much for taking the time to watch this video I hope to see you very soon again goodbye [Music]