Foreigners amazed by giant garbage claw
November 21st, 2009 by James
Some of Asahi TV’s foreign reporter team, visits a trash processing facility near Tokyo Bay and gets to see a giant claw in action:
The trash lifted by the claw is burned at 1450°C. The leftover metal is recycled.
In the second clip, they check out the tunnel under Tokyo Bay:
They are given a special tour of the emergency walkway that runs under the road. In case of a fire inside the tunnel, there are evacuation slides every 300-meters that allow trapped drivers to escape into the emergency walkway.
At the end of the clip, they walk up a lot of stairs and get to walk around on the artificial island created as a ventilation shaft for the tunnel. (Warning: There is an absolutely stupid pun in the last few seconds of the video.)
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Appreciate the heads-up on the pun. Still made me want to curl up in the corner and weep openly, but appreciate it nonetheless.
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Blonde gal so cute. Where Japanese tv finds those cute gaijins ?
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So today, do all foreigners in Japan speak Japanese this well now or what? I’m about 10 years out of date.
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I would assume they were probably raised in Japan (or are haafu) and grew up spoking the language of the country they report in and Japanese.
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Of course not.
Most foreigners in Japan are tourists or on contracts with international companies. They pick up survival phrases, maybe a bit of everyday conversation..
You only get good at the language by living there long-term and moving outside the gaijin comfort zone, or if you study hard.
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Thank god we have survival phrases!
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Let’s rephrase this:
“You only get good at the language by living there long-term and moving outside the gaijin comfort zone, AND if you study hard…..”
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They are probably haafu. Someone in their family is Japanese. Or they have lived in Japan a very long time. Like born/raised in Japan.
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I know a lot of foreigners whose Japanese is as good and none of them were raised here. ”
On that note, being raised here would mean that they aren’t foreigners.
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A very good point.
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“being raised here would mean that they aren’t foreigners”
No it wouldn’t.
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I’m impressed. That’s pretty damn cool.
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Giant trash cranes, cool. Tunnel facilities, cool. Annoying reporters, not cool.
They were less annoying than the time they went to Haneda airport, but still it’s like they were forbidden by the directors to stop talking or think for more than a second before vocalizing what goes through their minds.
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But we hear no typical gaijin reaction from reporters such as “Oh my god”, “Wow!”, “Oh, yes…”, “Whew”, etc. The Japanese guy responds to reporters as “Yes” and “Oh…” in the second clip instead. Small but important progress to Japanese media. Maybe, their mission is just to kill loneliness at sunset (it’s a part of an evening news).
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Anyone else think this looks like th perfect location to weather a Zombie Apocalypse in? Only one easily monitored easily defended entrance and plenty of potential escape routes (thank God zombies can’t swim).
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Is really strange to see a white girl behave and speak perfect Japanese and they are so gorgeous.
From the Japanese aspect this is a dream come true and I suppose for all japanese men.
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;D much appriciated XD
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Dorkiness aside… That crane is pretty impressive.
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Ummm I think they have been in Japan a little too long. It sounds like some of them have mastered the typical Japanese over reaction that I see on every show on Japanese TV. I mean it’s just a crane, is it really sugoi?
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No it isn’t. It’s just a big crane, innit.
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Ummm I think they have been in Japan a little too short. It sounds like some of them have not yet mastered the typical Japanese under reaction that I see on every street in Japanese towns. I mean it’s just a crane, is it really sugoi?
All gaijins and Japanese TV persons are characterized by their over reaction?
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I think pixel is referring to how the “talento” react on TV, not in the street. The two are very different.
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I think pixel is referring to how the “talento” react on TV, not in the street. The two are very different.
Of course I’m sure on that but “have been in Japan a little too long” should not be mentioned as a direct reason. They are just a “talento” and behaving so.
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Yea I meant on television. Back in the states we don’t have a lot of variety shows, it’s mostly dramas or “reality” shows. You might get some things similar in a reality show but I avoid them like the swine flu. I’d say the closest thing I can think of from the states that is similar to the talento on Japanese TV is some of the infomercials will feature fake audience members in a talk show format who will react with amazement at the awesome product they are trying to sell. So yes the talento format was new to me when I came here and the first thing I noticed is how easily impressed Japanese people seemed to be. Of course then you meet actual people and figure out they are just normal. What a disappointment.
As for people on the street, that must depend on what street you are on. I think most people some “normal” as far as their reactions. I don’t really know how someone under reacts, I guess it would be hard to notice there lack of reaction unless it was truly an extreme situation.
I live in Shibuya now and I can tell you I frequently see Japanese gentlemen with hand help megaphones at Shibuya crossing that seem to be over reacting about something.
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“Of course I’m sure on that but “have been in Japan a little too long” should not be mentioned as a direct reason. They are just a “talento” and behaving so.”
Ah ok, I didn’t understand the part you objected to. Saying they have been “talento” too long might be a better way to state it.
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Also I guess the story should have been called “Talento amazed by giant garbage claw”.
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It’s indeed true that in many Japanese TV shows (but not all) there appears many over-reacting talentos. On the streets, there might be many school girls who are often screaming “kawaii” with pointing at worthless things. However, a life in Japan never means spending time in front of a TV nor stalking school girls. Also, these TV reporters might have been asked to behave like such or the clip might have been edited to sound more noisy.
And as a minor issue, it is actually foreigners who are supposed to be characterized by over reaction in Japan, and the Japanese are sometimes depicted as an emotionless creatures with (superficial) politeness and calmness by foreign media.
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Also I guess the story should have been called “Talento amazed by giant garbage claw”.
They did not behave like a stereotypical foreigner and did not show an “unique” insight as a foreigner to entertain Japanese audiences in the above clips, furthermore, Sahel Rosa who appeared in the previous post is a Japanese living in Japan for more than 15 years and Kaytlyn Girson (an Australian woman in a brown jacket) seems to have grown up mostly in Japan. Maybe, the only reason to hire “foreigner-looking” reporters is the similarity between the title “東京見聞録” of this Tokyo local reports and “東方見聞録” (Il Milione) by Marco Polo?
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Indeed, they behaved like stereotypical Japanese talento. So yea, pointing out they are foreign in the title is misleading I guess especially if some of them are actually Japanese citizens as you said
No offense meant here but it’s so hard for me to wrap my head around the phrase “stereotypical foreigner”. Just hard for me to imagine everyone who is not Japanese being similar enough to be lumped into a stereotype. I’m sure it’s something I just don’t understand being on the other side of the fence. I mean perhaps it would be more accurate to say “stereotypically non-Japanese” since I guess the only thing they share in common is that they are not Japanese.
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I could have used the word “gaijin” here to implicitly denote non-Japanese people who may be often confused with “typical” Americans. (I’ll not go into more details…)
Ironically, that must be exactly what I often saw on midnight TV show from the U.S. here in Japan about 10 years ago. I think it became a cult midnight show.
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The male tarento is absolutely atrocious… That 東京ツー joke warrants a major bitchslap.
Judging from the Haneda clip, his Japanese doesn’t seem all that hot either. Anyone can spew out すげぇ！デカッ！ and 広っ！ Did I detect a French accent?
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