00:00
Welcome to Kevin's English Room Podcast!
*makes funny noises*
*laughter*
Did you hear that?
I did.
Did you hear that?
I did.
What?
It was like a little bend in time.
Yeah, like...
The time kind of...bended a little bit.
Weird happened.
Yeah.
Why do you do that kind of thing?
What do you mean?
Like, where do these things come from?
I don't...
Like, inspirations, right?
Yeah.
Hmm...
That's a good question.
Like, it just comes naturally. I don't know.
*laughter*
I wasn't really inspired from anything. It just...
It just felt like moving my stomach muscles.
Okay.
And it came out like that.
*laughter*
Okay.
Talent.
Yeah.
Some sort of like...
Yeah.
Talent.
So...
As always...
As always?
I've got a...the letter.
Letter!
Yes.
As always.
You know, I've moved to the new house.
Yeah.
So I was wondering, people can't send you more letters, right?
But you got them letters now?
Yeah, I did.
So...
Wow.
This is from, uh, Rina-san. Rina-san.
Rina-san?
Yep.
Thank you, Rina-san.
What is something that doesn't happen in Japan because of the everyday things that happen in America and France?
Uh...
A lot, right?
Culture differences, right?
Yeah.
One, like, easy, extreme example would be, like, guns, right?
Like, we sell guns at supermarkets, too.
Oh, really?
We go to Walmart, they sell guns.
You know, I've heard about this topic...
Yeah.
...many times, but I, you know, haven't seen that in reality, so...
Right.
So my experience in Rome, Rome, Georgia, is about, like...
I've...
So I've never actually seen a gun...
People who's wounded from gunshots myself, I've never seen that before.
But in my city, it happens, like, once a month or something. Once a month.
Really?
Right. Probably in the more ghetto area, it's more often, I'm assuming, though.
Yeah.
But I don't really step foot in those areas, so I'm not familiar with the situation there.
But me, as a middle schooler, a high school student, I've heard gunshots,
and I've heard of news, rumors that there was gunfights about, like, once a month.
Wow.
And cocaine happens, too. Cocaine.
03:00
Okay.
Right? So I think what's interesting is, from a Japanese perspective, is that...
So high schoolers can drive to their school.
Okay.
Because age is lower, right? So high schoolers drive themselves to high school,
and once in a blue moon, a police with dogs, sniffy-sniff dogs, they would come in,
they would search each car.
Wow.
Right? They don't have the owner's permission, not at all.
They just randomly come at your school, and they sniff each car, and they sniff out cocaine.
Wow.
Drugs, right?
And they find them.
They find them?
Right, they actually find them.
And there's times where... I've actually seen cocaine before.
A friend... not a friend, a person who's sitting next to me.
So high school, you can choose which class you want to take, right?
I once took this...
Like a college in Japan.
Right, just like college in Japan.
I once took this... what was it called?
It was a class about using tools.
Oh, okay.
Like...
Make something?
Right, make something. How to use...
Machines?
Chainsaws, how to use drills, and there's a class for that.
But I took them, right?
And me sitting in my classroom, there was this one guy who was an African-American.
He was like, "Yo, you want some of this?"
Okay.
And he said that, and he tried to hand me a bag, a small bag with white powder in it.
Obviously cocaine, right?
And that was actually the first time I saw cocaine.
I was very scared, right?
I was like, I did not want to put my hands onto cocaine.
Because I knew what it was to be like...
People around me, they get addicted, right?
They ruin their lives.
So I didn't want that to happen to me, not at all.
So I was like, "Oh, no, man. No, I'm good. No, man. I'm not going to do that."
He kind of forced me up in my nose to smell it, like it's good.
And I accidentally smelled it. I sniffed it in.
But the powder didn't actually go in my body. It was just from the bag.
So I smelled something.
I smelled something, but I wasn't sure if it was the cocaine or it was something else.
Like sugar, maybe?
Right, maybe sugar or something like that.
I felt something, not knowing if it was a cocaine or not.
So I got really, really scared.
I thought like, "Oh, maybe some of the powder went in my nose and up in my body."
So I got scared and went home.
And I searched, "Can a person get addicted from just smelling cocaine?"
I researched a lot about that.
Just the smell won't get you addicted.
You have to actually consume in cocaine to actually get addicted.
And so it turned out to be that by research, I was okay.
06:05
I was safe. I did not get addicted.
And a few days later, I didn't get addicted at all.
I didn't affect my body at all.
So that was not a problem at all.
But that was a scary moment, right?
That doesn't really happen in Japan, right?
Guy next to you comes up to you and be like, "Hey, it gives you a cocaine."
That never happens, right?
So guns and cocaine, guns, drugs.
Yeah, that's pretty weird things for Japanese people.
That's really American.
Like guns, especially.
Guns, especially.
Really American thing.
How about France?
Like the drugs that happens in France, too.
I was in a football club.
Soccer?
Football says soccer, right?
Yeah.
Don't say soccer.
It's football.
That's how people over there get angry, right?
They feel like it's a disgrace.
Like a little bit, you know.
But in Japan, we call this soccer.
So it's more natural to me.
But in calling that sport soccer.
But in France?
You know, that's a football.
It's called football, not soccer.
No.
Okay.
All right.
Anyways, I was in a football club, and one of my teammates was, I don't know what was
that exactly, but kind of weed.
That little leafy thing.
Yeah, weed.
And they used that, some kind of like a cigarette, smoked.
And he was like, "You want to try that?"
And I was like, "No, I don't think I want."
But you know, that was the timing I met with that.
Was there a lot of smoke coming out?
Yeah.
White smoke?
That was that.
And I didn't notice about that, but almost all of my teammates was doing that.
Doing weed.
Yeah.
Was it illegal?
Is it illegal in your country?
I think so.
Okay.
But you know, that doesn't happen in Japan.
Yeah, it never happens in Japan, right?
But I've never seen the guns in France.
Is it legal?
I don't think so.
I've never seen guns at the supermarket.
People in England, they come to Japan to shoot a gun, like takagata, you know, that shoot an animal.
Like a sport.
Yeah.
So that was in England, but I didn't see guns in France.
09:00
Yeah.
And other things, bizu.
A biz, right.
Yeah, I've told you before.
Kiss in the cheek or something like that, right?
Yeah, that doesn't happen in Japan.
That's weird, right?
That's weird for Japanese people.
Right.
Obviously.
All the surprise.
And hugs?
Hugs.
That's in the United States too, right?
Yeah, it happens in the United States too.
Hugs, definitely.
Yeah.
And other than that, hmm.
Shoes in houses, maybe?
Is the shoes in houses allowed in your country?
Yeah, but, well actually, I did a homestay.
And my house, we took off our shoes at the entrance.
But you don't know if that's a cultural norm or not.
Right.
But you know, we can't enter with your shoes on.
Okay.
For sure, that's not allowed.
Right, it's not something like genkan things.
It's just, you know, floors are the same.
The same.
Yeah.
Right.
Right.
Hmm.
And other than that, so many things.
Right, right, it's culture differences, right?
Right.
But I think guns and drugs and, right, pretty hardcore.
Big.
Scary.
Scary, right.
Yeah.
All right, that wraps up the episode.
Thanks for listening in, guys.
Bye-bye.
