- Global Voices - https://globalvoices.org -

Why Japanese Bathrooms Are the Best, and Other Videos

Categories: East Asia, Japan, Citizen Media, Ideas, Media & Journalism, Youth
Screenshot 2016-10-01 at 6.10.31 PM

Screencap from Life Where I'm From YouTube channel [1].

Have you ever wondered how other people live their daily lives around the world? What's an apartment like [2]? What do people eat for breakfast [3], lunch and dinner [4]?

If you have, there's a YouTube channel for you. Life Where I'm From [5] features dozens of high-quality video blogs about life in Japan, and sometimes from other countries.

The vlogs are usually hosted by Aiko, a girl who lives with her family in Japan. Greg, her father, a Canadian transplanted to Tokyo, shoots, edits and uploads the videos.

The video blogs now have millions of views from around the world, including this one that explains “why Japanese bathrooms are the best”:

There are videos that describe just about every aspect of life in Japan from a child's perspective, including what owning a ramen restaurant is like [6], or how Halloween is celebrated in Japan [7].

The YouTube channel has an accompanying website, Life Where I'm From [8]. According to Greg [9]:

We've made a few videos about what life is like for us in Japan, but we have always wanted to know what life is like where you're from.

[…]

The whole point of the project was to have kids from around the world see what life is like for other kids around the world. If we're lucky enough to have you share your stories, we'd love to feature some of them in our videos.

The website itself hosts the videos on a blog [10], which has become host to a vibrant discussion about daily life in just about every part of the world.

The team at Life Where I'm From also encourages its audience [11] to help determine the format of future videos.

Life Where I'm From

Screencap from Life Where I'm From [11] website.

The father Greg also has yet another popular video blog, Life Where I'm From X [12].  According to Greg, this vlog provides an “adult perspective on what life is like in Japan.”

On this vlog, Greg talks about issues such as homelessness in Japan [13], as well as what it's like to travel with a disability in Japan.

Besides the YouTube channels and the website, you can follow the Life Where I'm From team on Twitter at @lifewhereimfrom [14].