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Tkyosam interviews Arudou Debito

YouTube vlogger Tkyosam interviews Arudou Debito (7 parts):

Highlights include:

Sam telling viewers to “stay Black.”
A waitress who answers Debito’s Japanese with English.
A discussion of the value of passing gas.
Debito eating chicken.
And more!

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46 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - January 6, 2009 at 8:06 pm

Categories: Foreigners in Japan Tags:

The Overthinker

What on earth has he got on his chin? A little known Amish ancestry coming out?

http://whatjapanthinks.com Ken Y-N

He’s just copying his hero Tony Lazlo.

LB

Ouch! That’s gonna leave a mark.

But seriously, it will take more than copying the beard to get Debito depicted in a shabu-shabu tare commercial.

http://www.debito.org Arudou Debito

C’mon James, this is a bit much. Debito.org has been posting stuff for weeks now that is far more Japan Probe -worthy. And out of all those topics this is the one you take up? And say one highlight is of me eating chicken? That’s unfair both to the interview (lots more was discussed) and to your media.

Point to it if you like, but represent the issues raised more accurately.

Bruce Smith

Debito, Many people including me have never met you nor have we seen you on video until now. So for me it was actually good to watch part of this interview. You interview quite well and seem quite normal and rational. So I don’t think this video does any harm to your image. And who knows it could mean a bit more traffic goes to your website. Think of it as free publicity.
http://www.japanprobe.com James

Debito:

-I usually post videos on this site, which is why I have blogged about this and not some of the other things you have posted recently. Much of serious things you say in the video has already been covered on your site in the past. If I had written a summary of the main points covered, many people would have simply skipped the video because it doesn’t offer much new in that respect. My highlights were meant to draw people into the video by mentioning some of the odd/funny moments of the interview.

http://www.debito.org Arudou Debito

(Tepid) naruhodo… Okay, thanks for the clarification, James. Debito

PS: For those who want the chicken and not the main meal, skip to the latter parts of the video.

KokuRyu

I feel for Debito… We live in an age when any twit with a videocamera can ambush anyone and upload it to the Net for all to see.

That said, I turned it off after Debito started ranting about his experiences at a Niigata company twenty years ago. The guy has worked a total of three years in the private sector.

http://whatjapanthinks.com Ken Y-N

Debito was hardly ambushed – he was a willing participant who has promoted this interview on his own web site.

Isa

Oh god Debito,
you ban anybody who criticized you from your blog and now you are bashing James on his blog?

Gaijin Panic

Arudou Debito is like a radical Islamist terrorist Palestinian organization . Though I feel the Palestinians have good reasons to bitch and complain about their unfair treatment it is the way they complain which makes it hard to support them. The same with Debito. While there are issues in Japan about racial discrimination the way Debito deals with it aliantes many foreigners. Wish he was more of a Ghandi or Martin Luther King instead of Al Qaida.

I do enjoy some of his comments though. There was info on your rights if you get stopped by the police which I thought was quite useful but when he compares gaijin to the n word he loses all credibility.
http://www.youtube.com/tkyosam Tkyosam

Lol, I got featured?!?!?!

Man, I gotta put people eating chicken in more of my videos

http://www.victorymanual.com Alex

Do you intentionally make yourself sound like Jeff Spicoli?

“All I need are some tasty waves and a cool buzz.”

http://www.hormel.com VonSkippy

Warning – unless you think excitement is synonymous with Diabetic Coma – don’t waste those precious 10 minutes of your life watching that drivel.
ダビ

That’s one looong interview. I just wanna see the Japanese waitress answering him in English – which part and at about what time?

Bruce Smith

Part 3 at approx 1:16.

The Overthinker

I’ve never had a waitress insist on speaking to me in English (but then I don’t live in the big city). However the best way to get around that, rather than saying “hey, I’m speakin’ Japanese here!” might be to say, in Japanese, “I’m sorry, I don’t speak English” – granted, here it might not work if the waitress had heard them speaking English.

I do applaud James for sitting through the entire thing. I only got halfway through the first one. 70 minutes of that? I very nearly turned it off when the interviewer was doing his Ali G impersonation.
Philip

Watched half of the first video, then skipped to the waitress answering back in English.

I think the waitress was very nice, and her English was decent enough. I would have spoken back in English, as long as she understood me. Anyway, in that situation I would have said, “Nihongo de iidesuyo.” (Japanese is fine.)

Did he intentionally say it rude? Or is his Japanese not really that good? She was probably sent over by her manager because she speaks English. Most people would think that was good service. Like hotels always have English speaking staff.

Here’s an unwritten rule everyone should know: don’t piss off the waitstaff. They can do some nasty and disgusting things — and you’ll never know about it.

LB

“Did he intentionally say it rude? Or is his Japanese not really that good? ”
It was probably intentional, his tirade after she left makes his views clear. He has “image issues” that he inflicts on everyone around him.
The Overthinker

I did not see the part after the waitress – the five minute long shared rant. I did notice the waitress almost touching Debito on the shoulder – very unprofessional.
http://whatjapanthinks.com Ken Y-N

That’s an interesting accent he’s got when speaking Japanese… Seems to replace intonation with speed. I hope I don’t sound like that.

http://neilduckett.com/ Neil Duckett

Hostess slipping drugs into drinks??!! .. Come-on ….

LB

Well, that could actually explain some of his behavior…
http://www.youtube.com/tkyosam tkyosam

lol, i don’t know, since my friend worked in one place in 歌舞伎町 I just took her word for it.

Plus my salarymen friends said that wasn’t uncommon too…

Come on Neil, we are both too sexy to need to go to those clubs anywayzs :p

http://www.victorymanual.com Alex

I have a lot of my own “highlights” from the clips, but I’ll keep them to myself. I just want to mention one here:

I don’t get the logic behind the excuse, “I came here before the manga boom.” Doesn’t that mean Debito was here for the manga boom?

LB

Perhaps he is referring to the Manga Boom outside Japan? So he wouldn’t have seen many of the translated Manga? Maybe that is what he meant? I dunno, I can’t put myself through watching all the clips to see what the context might have been.

http://whatjapanthinks.com Ken Y-N

Which reminds me of something – his “Best things of 2008″ included manga and anime, which he illustrated by talking about 2000 AD, Judge Dredd, Powerpuff Girls and Samurai Jack.

LB

Yeah, that “I grew up on manga, like Judge Dredd” made me chuckle too. Kind of shows how he grasps at words sometimes without understanding what those words really mean.

The Overthinker

What was this in reference to? His lack of reading of manga? Debito’s reading of Japanese is not that hot – as he admits in his year wrap of 2007, when he says he first read Japanese (a manga) for pleasure rather than just to get information and referred to using chuugakusei textbooks for improving his reading. So he would not have had a chance to read the translations if he was in Japan at the time.

http://raretreats.livejournal.com/ Hairy White Prince

Hey Debito,

That beard is re god damn dickulous! If your GF tells you it looks good she’s lying to you.

X
moominsean

interesting and dumb at the same time. about twice as long as it should have been…
KokuRyu

That’s an interesting accent he’s got when speaking Japanese… Seems to replace intonation with speed. I hope I don’t sound like that.

Yeah, I saw Debito speak to a group of CIRs in Kobe in 2000, and he speaks really fast – ridiculously fast – for some reason. A speech coach could help with that.

After seeing his actions with the waitress, it’s hard not to feel sorry for Debito, because it kind of reminds me of *me* in Japan at certain points of my life there. If you’re white or look like a “foreigner” (I like Debito’s “non-Japanese” phrase better), people are going to try to speak English with you. Depending on my mood, I could make it an issue and be rude with a waitress or whatever (at low points during my stay), or figure out a way to move past making an issue of it and also avoid being drawn into impromptu English conversation practice by service staff who were being paid to help *me*.

I realized that I wanted to enjoy living in Japan, and having nasty little battles with “English vampires”, who are usually just slightly naive and confused, but generally pretty sweet-natured, was just counterproductive.

Hopefully Debito can learn some coping mechanisms.

http://whatjapanthinks.com Ken Y-N

My ears aren’t too good, so sometimes when I say “sumimasen” it get interpreted as “I don’t understand Japanese” rather than “I didn’t quite hear”, which is a bit annoying, but the usual reaction from the Japanese staff is the “oh shit I have to try English!” look of panic…

Whenever I go to a place that deals with international customers I’ll speak English as they need the practise more than me, so that doesn’t bother me. It’s the replying to my wife when I’m doing the talking that annoys me the most, but I’m too meek to say anything, and the wife would probably complain later about me making a scene!

The Overthinker

“It’s the replying to my wife when I’m doing the talking that annoys me the most”

Yeah, this does get annoying. You go into a restaurant, and the waiter there to greet you actually looks around or moves around you to speak to the Japanese person.

Ken – you might try something like “Mou ichido?”

http://sleepytako.blogspot.com sleepytako

Hehe my wife just ignores the waitstaff/clerk/whoever and lets me keep on talking even if they wont look at me.

“Mou ichido” works great if it’s a case of “I just didn’t catch what you said.”
Philip

My “hai” (yes) always gets mistaken for “hai?” and they end up repeating what they said. So try that!

KokuRyu

“It’s the replying to my wife when I’m doing the talking that annoys me the most”

This used to bug me until my wife explained that the wife usually does the ordering for the husband, who, as the boss, is above such things like talking to waitstaff.

LB

“Hopefully Debito can learn some coping mechanisms.”

Two decades and counting, I wouldn’t hold out much hope at this point. He’d lose his raison d’etre if he could get along without bitching.

Bruce Smith

Interesting how we all comment about Debito when Tkyosam is definitely far more annoying.

http://whatjapanthinks.com Ken Y-N

Tkyosam is meant to be annoying (from my standpoint as a Boring Old Fart), but Debito is a sort-of public figure who speaks on serious topics, so the attention on what he is saying and how he is acting is warrented.

Oh, and Tkyosam, get a video editor and cut the thing down to size! Or James, chop it down to Staying Black, the waitress, the chicken and the farting.

The Overthinker

But first, Tykosam, interview the guy in a decent, well-lit room with a camera at the right height.

http://www.victorymanual.com Alex

You didn’t like the interview from the meal’s perspective?

Steve

Tkyosam should go to http://www.jingai.com/yakuza/ for more on the yakuza movies he loves. It will help him become a guttural panda.
http://www.youtube.com/tkyosam Tkyosam

Hey guys, thanks for all the comments on this and thanks to Japan Probe for featuring this.

I guess I should have written this out more thoroughly in the video decription on the page for these videos; but this WASN’T supposed to be a REAL/PRO interview like the one Yamato Damacy did. I just wanted to record this for my own benefit just because I had been reading his site for a long time and I wanted to record what we were talking about (in case I forgot a couple questions to the answers I had), but then when I got back home I thought that since he had such a big fan base that I might as well cut it up and put it on my Youtube account for those fans to see.

So I just cut it up and put all of on the web because I didn’t care about it not being a serious interview, more of just a chance for the his readers to see a more recent video of him and also get a couple of those questions that aren’t answered on his website out of the way.

If you guys actually checked out my channel and see the other videos I have you might like them too

Stay Black JP readers

Thanks James and Clayton for putting this up

-Sam

http://www.youtube.com/tkyosam Tkyosam

**couple answers to the questions I had

http://www.sautot.com Christophe Sautot

I want to look for videos of Debito lecturing at his university in Hokkaido, and other more formal interviews. Casual interviews are cool… but, I don’t think they do Debito justice. It was nice to see him from this angle though. Props to Tkyosam for conducting the interview and posting the video to Youtube.

Tkyosam interviews Arudou Debito

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