Jajia is a Chinese writer. I first knew of him when he was the chief editor of Tencent online magazine Dajia (meaning the masters). It is also a Wechat public account. Everyday the account publishes articles by famous writers on all trending topics. It was very popular.
But then things got worse and worse in China and Jajia quit the job. And of course people lost interest in Dajia and eventually it was shutdown in 2020.
In 2016, Jajia made international headlines for being disappeared by Chinese security forces at the Beijing airport.
In China Jajia is also famous for “Two Early theory”. The theory is very simple: “make money early and immigrate out of China early”. After quitting Tencent, Jajia started a company that does immigration business. Eventually, Jajia himself immigrated to Japan.
Eventually Jajia found a Japanese cohost, Xiaoai, who is very familiar with China and can speak perfect Chinese as partner. They started a YouTube channel to discuss cultural phenomenon in Chinese.
The first episode was funny: “Is panda from China a big conspiracy?”. It turns out that many Japanese people think Panda is not an animal but an old man in costume. I surely did not know that.
The most recent one is also quite funny. So I am summarizing it here.
Xiaoai is an expert on this, so she gives the detailed answer.
All Japanese women wear make up. In Japanese culture, this is to show respect to other people. Many Chinese women don’t wear make up. And Japanese women has their own way of doing make-up, so Japanese know when one’s make up is not Japanese.
Chinese women like to have a “natural” hair bang:
Japanese women must have hair bang like this:
The hair bang is very important to Japanese women, and they must be curly. Normally a Japanese woman will have a hair roller in her purse just in case her bang becomes out of shape in rain, etc.
Japanese people have been influenced by their fashion magazine for decades, they follow certain rules. For example, they never wear red, yellow or blue colours, at all.
Chinese women wear clothing differently.
Mr. Jajia responded: the first fashion magazine on how women dress was published in 2005. Men’s fashion only started in 2009.
Xiaoai thinks that Chinese women normally shows confidence, while Japanese women looks more gentle.
Mr. Jajia disagree, he thinks Chinese grew up in a hostile environment and normally were alarmed by things around them. He recalled when he first visited Taipei, he was dragging two big luggages. A high school student came to ask if he needed help and he thought she was trying to scam him. Mr. Jajia said that in normal society people are a bit “stupid and sweet” (this is a popular derogatory phrase in China to describe foreigners as naive). He said that only after he visited other countries many times, he started understand how people treat each other in normal society.
It is a bit vague. But Xiaoai explained that our manner is a reflection of our past and experience.
Mr. Jajia mentioned that in Japan, he observed that when a melon falls off, people will try to catch it with their hands, while he will try both hands and feet. Xiaoai said that in Japan people would never open or close a door with their feet. Mr. Jajia said that the Hong Kong comedy king Stephen Chow never open or close a door with his hands, but always with his feet.
(BTW, is you are new to Stephen Chow here is quick intro to his style).