Japan Stories: More Wack, Less Fact? (w/David A McNeill)

Japan By River Cruise

David McNeill explains why sometimes the ancient art of jya-narizamu intersects with the even more ancient art of bullshitto, and how exoticizing foreign countries meant the British newspaper industry died a little slower than it could have done.

Ollie recommends a cruise that maritime insurers hate.

Bobby explores which Covid variants will form part of the Olympic boating legacy.

Topics discussed on this episode range from:

• What 'soap talk' means and how much of a thing it's become.
• Slips of the tongue in Japanese, and how David explained why he was bringing spring onions into the wrong part of his house.
• David's journalist friend's best bloopers as he listed in his Japan Times piece.
• The linguistic similarity between the word 'housewife' and 'prostitute'
• How Bobby's generalisation of women became infinitely more problematic when he tried to communicate it in Japanese.
• How Japanese people's tendency to not confront foreigner's mistakes means that a bad situation becomes worse.
• How seriously Ollie's "send in what you want as long as it's accompanied by money" was taken seriously.
• What feedback means to us, and what we're gonna do about it.
• Ollie's gratitude for including a guest's laughter in an otherwise disparaging transcript of the show.
• An absolutely-not-a-gimmick idea to record our thoughts on why the hell we're even doing this.
• JBRC Press Club reports from @kumayama100 and @PJOMC about the Mainichi Shimbun report that "Japanese Government Employee to be paid compensation for harassment by an official in the anti-harassment department."
• Explaining how the NYT Magazine managed to make a pot special, and what the systematic reasons may be for these kind of stories being popular.
• Why David would sometimes get calls at 10pm from newspaper editors asking him to do the impossible, and how he managed.
• How the 'hardy perennial' was the precursor of 'click bait', and what kind of content the UK newspaper readership wanted to read about Japan.
• How editors with no knowledge of a country or subject would decide what was written about, and not on-the-ground journalists.
• Why Japan's relationship with animals was such a hop topic for foreign papers, and what listeners might be reading between the lines.
• Whether newspapers are hammers in search of nails
• The two strong narratives that informed reporting on Japan abroad.
• Ollie's experience working for Japanese TV, and how despite him receiving information that would make for an interesting story, the director discounted it for going against the story they wanted to create.
• A weird diversion about how weird the Irish are, but that's kind of of the point: every country seen through another country's lens will get weird results.
• Whether cultural interaction may be the solution
• The extent to which certain Japanese people promulgate the kinds of stereotypes western journalists are called out for.
• How the Internet makes it wayyyy harder for journalists to bullshit.

The extras this week are pretty intense. We talk about David's reporting on the 2011 Tohoku disaster. It's a lovely chat

We rely on the listeners that can afford $5 a month to support the show, so those who can't afford it can continue to enjoy it for free each week. Thank you for your support! Find out how you can get the show early, get access to the Extras, and get other bonus bits from time to time on our buy me a coffee page: buymeacoffee.com/japanbyrivercruise

Have something you'd like to say? Send us a fax at japanbyrivercruise.com

or Tweet to us at @jbrcpod

Social Media Links:

David McNeill: Twitter

Ollie Horn: Twitter | Instagram
Bobby Judo: Twitter | Instagram | YouTube

★ Support this podcast ★