is that good
yeah we're getting a performance
That kid
You made a fan
He was into it.
Wait until you get a little bit older.
He was into it. He's like "Look at this babe"
I'm sorry boo boo. You're going to have to wait a few years.
oh here we are yes I got my starbucks
like okay
and I'm with my friend Katie hello Katie
nice to meet you
you might have seen Katie in another
video I just thought she was so interesting
I just wanted to interview you and ask
like a few questions
so what's your back story like your
family and where you're from
my mom is Japanese and
my dad is from the states
He is from California my mom is from
Yamagata mostly raised in Sendai and
I am from Aomori japan so like northern
Japan countryside
and I've lived my life
half and half so it's half my life in
Japan half of my life in the states
right now I've been in Japan for longer
I think than in the states and when you were
growing up
did you use english in the house or did
you use japanese
everybody always asks me that
question we we mix and what's funny how
much like how much we mix like we mix
within our like sentence within the
sentence it's mixed
it's not like that i speak japanese and
they speak english it's like i speak
japanese and english and they do
japanese and english like it's
at the same time
Oh, what's he have?  i'ma taste it
Rice cracker
Salty
Cheese
Salty Japanese soy sauce
he thinks you don't speak japanese
we're gonna go and come back all right
yeah i like you're gonna come back
so when well this is a tourist spot but
when you go walking around do people
speak english to you oh yeah 100%
they speak english see all the time
most of the time most of the time they do
And i try to see how far that goes
because they're trying their best
speaking English
i don't know don't worry about it like
they're trying so
you know some people talk to you in
english because they want to use their
english and practice right right that's
true
so like until they give in i'm not
giving in
are they ever surprised that you speak
japanese
They be like "What the hell"
oh
and you went to school in japan too
right so um
especially with anime and manga and all
that there's so much about
high school in japan and school in japan
is it really that cool
is it really as cool as anime makes it
If ya'll think
if y'all think it really wasn't all
that pretty like it wasn't it wasn't
that like that like you know oh it's
anime
you're you're like memorizing words and
taking a lot of tests
in my mind that's what it is
it's just a lot of memorization and
hardcore studying
and like a lot of pressure
The Japanese education system needs an update but you know
we're taking our time and they still
made you take english class didn't they
which was hilarious
i was probably that one student that
they didn't want in class. You're like "Your not doing it right"
Mam, let me see your passport. You ain't got one. Umm, I thought so.
yeah that wouldn't go very well in
japanese school. because they can be strict like
no nail polish no this no
that everyone needs to look like this
put your hair back do this okay so
everyone needs to look like this was
my issue because everybody don't
look the same
different is not bad
when i was teaching in china like i
taught little kids
they would like go up and look at me
teacher why are your eyes blue
teacher why do you have blonde hair they
would like
i don't know they were like enthralled
curious they were so little
It's adorable.
There's a lot of new things you don't know
you'll learn soon i was i think i was
their first foreign student
so i did set a lot of new rules i did
set a lot of new rules
middle school you don't get that much
freedom because you're supposed in that
you're supposed to learn i guess like
disciplined and you know being
strict or like you know following rules
and stuff like that so you had to have
your hair up if it's past your shoulders
okay but when you go to high school you
get a little bit more like freedom you
get a little more leeway so even if your
hair was past your shoulders so you can
have your hair down
first year in high school my science
teacher came up to me in the hallway
after the bell ring and everybody else
was in the hallway so like you're trying
to humiliate me that's not going to
happen
he came to me in the hallway he asked he
told me to put my hair up because my
hair looked like it got it was done like it was it had been done but 
you didn't notice
I'm black. If you didn't notice. i've been here for half a year but you know if he is over here i know i fit in very well
But I am a little bit different
You must
So like it was an issue
well to him it was an issue the reason
why is because they want you to come in
your natural state when you're still
learning like you're not here to look
pretty for anybody you're here to learn
right so
i'm coming as i am that was mostly for
me and my little sister so she would
probably go to the same school that i'm
going to right
this is not going to happen to anybody
else that comes after me like this
shouldn't be an issue
that was that was one of the tough
things it's
not really tough it's just you have to
if you could speak up it's not tough
but when you're when school is all you
have
it's a small world it's a small world so
you want to be able to fit in and not
stand out because you won't have a place
to be
right right luckily i had a place to be
outside of that so it didn't bother me
too much
wow the weather got so nice
the sun is always on my side
Do you have dual citizenship
um it's about to be done
over i gotta fix that
you gotta pick one i gotta pick a side i
guess whatever that means
you have to choose an american passport
or a japanese passport
so i guess that's the rule when you
reach a certain age i'm guessing that's
what it is i'm gonna look into it i'm
asking questions
like do i have to is there a loophole
would you rather live here in japan or
go to america oh
current situation i might want to stay
here
right with yeah right now
in that case you take japanese
citizenship then but a japanese passport
is more valuable than american passport
yeah you can get into a few more places
but i mean
it means that you can't get social
security in the u.s and it's hard to
invest in the stock market
and stuff like that pros and cons and i
mean yeah that's a
tough decision to make like right now
especially now especially now wow
I haven't been here since that day.
welcome back
Guess who's back?
Back again.
Katie's back with a friend.
Yes! That was so lame.
how about what you're doing now 
you're a dancer
i've been dancing since i could remember
but when i get when i started getting
serious about it was in like
my second year of high school i was
dancing with people
like we had events and clubs and stuff
like that or outside of clubs and
like i just got connected with a lot of
people that were dancing out in the
streets i'd be like hey
how do you do that because i want to
kind of get into
kind of get into that what you're doing
over there because it's cool
hello, I've seen your dance before.
Thank you so much. I'm so happy to hear that.
that got me known by a lot of other
dancers and then i got the opportunity
to audition for a professional basketball
team wow or
Aomori's professional basketball
team they're first members and stuff
like that so i did that for two years
that led me to learn more about
different types of dance like i did
zumba i was a zumba instructor for two
years
two years maybe like half a year because
i wanted to move down here so
it's like i moved from aomori to tokyo
you don't have plans to go back to
america and live there again
not anytime soon with everything going on
i'll see you guys in a couple years.
Maybe a little bit later.
do you have anything else you want to
add like any
anything you want to say or have do you
have a funny story to share about japan
or talk about something you like or dislike
or whatever
wait well so i wanted to talk about if
you do visit japan but i don't know if
that's gonna happen anytime soon but if
you do
if you do visit japan though bring cash
make sure you have cash
they don't take a card like they do in
other countries because usually
everybody pays with cards like they
take cards
They don't hold cash
Here you need it it's a very tangible society
you know they
they have techo still they write things
in notebooks really old school they like
paperback books
they like cash for um yeah they still
have files
uh in offices physical files you gotta
Physical files go through drawers and like dig through like you gotta put in actual
work to find stuff
that's another thing japan you might
think japan is really high-tech
and we still use fax machines they'll
send me an email to send them a fax
like that um but that's like really old
school
like they're really old school they like
to upkeep their tradition you know some
things you don't need to keep going
it's ironic that you were just talking
about how old school japan
is and we found a pay phone my grandma
used to collect like the cards that you
can like pre-charge
for the pay phone there's a hundred yen
to make a call
how long i wonder how long they have it
in english
it's a little bit more high-tech maybe
it's for foreigners that don't have a
cell phone here
that's old school so case in point
we weren't lying it's really old
it's really cool it's like a retro vibe
so you get a good feeling like oh this
is like
hippie or whatever yeah i don't know i'm
sure people have some questions for you
too and maybe we can answer
those in another video so if you have
questions for katie
write them in the comments section below
and uh we'll try to do another video and
I might answer them and I might not
you set the bar really high right here
Don't tell me what to do. No, I'm kidding.
You actually sound a lot like me that's
why we get along
i don't like authority either i'm not
good at it
i got a japanese pattern mask okay see
is that pretty
it's all right see i didn't bring my
fancy mask because i forgot it at home
kimono this is like kimono material
really i think it's modeled after that
that is
like i don't know if it's real but
that's okay that's what they told me
that's why i paid extra money for it
it was expensive japan japan is
expensive it is expensive
It is expensive. bring cash alright
see you next time
