Harmony's experience reminds me of a line from a TS Eliott poem "one must travel the world three times before returning home, and understand it for the first time". We need contrast to better understand ourselves.

Enjoyed this. Harmony is so positive and full of joy. It’s not possible to hear her talk and not walk away feeling better.

Your cousin is such a kick ! Very Americanized! And thank you Joshua for yet another fascinating interview ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This was a really insightful video and gives a nice perspective to what having a cultural identity means. Thank you for the meaningful discussion, to the both of you!

So interesting! I'm hafu, born and raised in the US. Hearing Harmony's experience made me reflect on my own. Growing up on the US mainland among mostly white kids, I didn't realize I was different either. My Mother only spoke English, other than the Japanese she blurted out when exasperated. My parents were my parents, I never compared what they looked like to other parents...until we came to Hawaii. Then I realized how White my Dad was. I feel fortunate to have grown up in the US w/out the oppression that Japanese youth experience. But now, at 60, I long for the order and respectful philosophy of Japan. I so wish my Mother taught me Japanese, but Harmony's ability to learn English inspires me to keep studying nihongo and I'll be living in Japan every Spring and Fall.

From what I gather from your videos, it seems "non-Japanese" in Japan refers specifically to the way you look because it doesn't seem to matter that you were born and raised there, speak native-level Japanese and understand the culture as well as any Japanese person. As someone born and raised in the US, I have to say the "non-American" feeling people get will rarely be related to the way someone looks because the notion of "American" is purely as a nationality and not a race or ethnicity. "non-American" is a cultural separation. It also explains why westerners (especially Americans) would be quick to say that you are Japanese (even though in Japan people don't feel this way) because we tend to have a strong concept of nationality, independent of ancestry.

Enjoyed the interview! Thought your cousin was very open and funny.

That last comment on how Harmony can Express her thoughts and opinions more. She can be more herself and yet the strength of Japan being taking care of one another. Honestly so beautiful as an American who visited Japan for 2 weeks. I loved the hospitality (how they thought of others) and definitely want to visit again. We need the strength of both cultures: individuality and community in balance. That would be something beautiful.

That was such a fascinating conversation about perspectives from home grown Japanese raised half mixed or full Caucasians. Your cousin has changed to a more Western perspective. She’s also an extrovert vs your introvert personality. I’m still curious as to why she doesn’t have much desire to visit New Zealand . I’m half Japanese and have visited Japan a small handful of times. I’m culturally American, so I was well aware of the differences in culture every time I visited. Semi fluent in the language also helped, , but that has faded over the years.

The questions you ask are allways on point👍Thanks to both you and your guest for sharing some insights on mixed cultures and identities. It was very interesting.

Harmony is awesome. She still seems very Japanese, but an idealized version. She seemed like she had escaped the shackles of Japanese culture.

This is so interesting! So happy that Anming introduced us to you.

Really interesting video, thanks for sending! As an American living in a European country, I've become a lot more aware of the difficulty of even verbalizing the extremely deep, subtle differences between cultures and I think you and your cousin did a great job. I've also come to find that I am indelibly American and can't ever be otherwise no matter how hard I might try. Ultimately I've decided it doesn't matter - I can still build meaningful relationships with people and build a life in a place where I'll never 100% belong, but on the plus side I always have a good conversation topic around what the US is like :) The relationships and living my life the way I want are the important things rather than the ideal of belonging.

Great episode! Very interesting! Thank you!🙏

Randomly stumbled upon your channel today, and love seeing stuff like this! I love Harmony mentioned the “real stuff” in American high schools…also she was Americanized in a “good” way. Thank you for the great content!!

Harmony is very funny and adorable really. I hope she continues to have a good experience living here in America.

excellent video Joshua!

Love these kinds of interviews!! ❤️❤️

loved this perspective! she's interesting

I live in a border town in California where it is very common to have one American parent and one Mexican parent - and I find myself explaining my heritage to people _constantly_ , still 😆 Also, why my Spanish is so good (because I spent half my life in Mexico, like everyone else here 🙄😆), I suppose because I do look very Caucasian. I’ve decided it’s mostly peoples’ social anxiety and not knowing what else to talk about except for the obvious, and those topics are low-hanging fruit - like the weather 🤷🏻‍♀️😂 Love hearing your story and about your corner of the human diaspora, keep it up! 🙏🏼🖤

what a great talk, I could listen to you both talk for hours.

Love your channel, Joshua!

Cool interview...

Appreciate the time and work you put into videos. As an American this was fascinating and really made me think about what it means to be "American". I know you focus on Japan but you might be interested in looking into Dreamers. They're essentially Americans, grew up here, went to school here but legally they're not citizens. So for some they're citizens of a country that they have never been to. I've worked with some and never really asked them in depth how they feel about their identity. To me they're just Americans lol. I would imagine they go through some of the same questions that you and the people on your channel think about concerning identity.

Very interesting!

I met her at CFNI a few years ago. She seems a lot more confident in speaking English. It surprised me that her accent was more American this time around.

Nice man.

I’m a language teacher, and was also born in but soon left a bilingual region, and I’m so gutted when I see lost chances of bilingualism. Harmony’s English is pretty good but that’s the best ever gift that her dad could have given her for free.

She’s so dramatic 😂 Great interview! I would advise her to visit NZ. It’s a beautiful country and she will develop an obsession with that too. Good luck ⭐️👏🏻

It's so funny to me she says "Mexicans think I'm Mexican" because this whole time I was thinking about how Mexican she looks and I'm a Mexican-American.

I live in Austin, TX and have two friends who are brothers here who are also Caucasian and grew up in Japan. I thought they were incredibly unique, but I keep learning that their situation is not as unique as I thought. To add to that, I met them because I worked with one of them at a ramen shop here for a short while that was frequented by a lot of Japanese people. I noticed he rarely spoke Japanese to those guests and asked him why. His response was really sad - he said that often when he would, the guests would get upset with him and be really cold to him the rest of the time they were there. So, he avoided speaking Japanese at work except with the owner, who said his Japanese was perfect. I hope over time Japan becomes more open and familiar with non-Japanese looking people being a part of their culture.

Joshua & Harmony, you are both so prescious. Love hearing you both talk. I have a question for you both. How do you feel about people who adopt Japanese culture who have never lived in Japan?

I'd be interested in an interview with your parents. I imagine that there were even fewer white people in Japan when they were growing up than there are today.

Damn~ glued watching these identity-crisis videos, somewhat far away, from Kazakhstan. I mean, having the experience being brought up Qazaq in Russian institutions and later experiencing life in the US, I can totally relate to many feelings, social, and psychological details discussed here. Fascinating, subscribed! Make us some more of your videos. PS hey, I understand this channel to be dedicated to Japanese affairs, yet how about expanding the scope and making videos with otherness in the rest of the world, huh?

It's nice when you guys changed to japanese language

My husband is Japanese fully. He grew up in Hawaii. He never was interested in learning about Japan because his mom and sister went and Japanese people treated them poorly being American Japanese. Yet everyone wants to move here and don't want to learn about what the Japanese who became American went through in internment camps. I'm from Pennsylvania, we met here in California. He looks like Harmony since he had double eyelid ... Yes he gets Mexican. I do have Huron Indian from my family that came from Quebec side of Canada. Japanese people see it. We volunteer at Pow Wows. They all thought he is NA California is easy because Harmony is considered Happa..... Mixed half n half Japanese. Scott says I am because the link of NA and Japan ... But I'm fully face white tbh. I have bigger eyes.... Maybe almond shape. I want to go to Japan though been my dream since high school. Moved to California at 19, culture shock tho.... Many Asian friends !!!! My brother in law is Chinese. God bless your journey ❤️❤️❤️

Interesting how much schooling seems to have on your identity. It seems you pick up mannerisms and how people view their culture primarily through the schooling system.

I'm curious about Harmony's ethnically-New-Zealand father's experience. He would be like Joshua - perhaps raised completely in Japan since his/her parent (Harmony's grandparent) came as a missionary. It's not surprising she has little interest in NZ since her own father probably didn't feel like a New Zealander. Also, I'm curious about the grandfather perhaps being in Japan shortly after WWII and what that was like.

ハーモニーちゃんめっちゃ面白い🤣声でかいっって私もすぐに思った

Part of being British is of course picking up all the subtleties of the culture growing up, but what makes me not see you as British is really just the American accent. This is a phenomenon in my perception that I’d already noticed in the past. I am very open to migrants and can easily see people from other languages who settle as British, but I just can’t see native English speakers with non-British accents as British. It’s not that I think that is a rational distinction - it just applies automatically and subconsciously. I think it’s connected to accents being so important to us. I wouldn’t see someone with a Southern accent as being *from* the North, or vice versa, no matter how long they had lived there. I wouldn’t even see someone with a Liverpool accent as being from Manchester even if they’d been there half a century.

I was born and raised here and compared to when I was growing up, America is horrible and very authoritarian and brainwashed....Are there really any free countries?

僕は純日本人で日本で育ったから、完全には理解できてないかもだけど、ルーツと育ちが異なってたら、複雑な心境があったりするんだろうなぁと思った。日本の人たちはルーツも日本っていう人が多い。　あと、特に日本人って、外見で決めつけてしまう傾向ありますよね。それは悲しいことかもしれない

It matters where you're from but it's often nuanced, but not always...

America is very weird.... it's a melting pot of cultures and it's the only country (I know of) that has hyphenated identities (Korean-American etc). But, when you come here as a foreigner it's such a weird experience realizing how 'being American' is distilled into single points of reference and how no matter how you bend yourself to fit, you are always "not"... even now, after 20 years of being here, I am not considered American... (do I want to be? ... that's a different question and one I grapple with quite often). Great video! Very thought provoking!

so harmonys dad is originally british? born in new zealand but grew up in japan.

How did Harmony end up being born in Texas?

Being loud is an American RIGHT. Congrats Harmony, you are one of us! :-0. And Josh, I think you would be happy here too. The Brits are wound too tight. We work hard here but are generally more accepting and believe me, NO one cares where you are from in the States.

お二人ともお疲れ様でした〜🤗 別にアメリカ行ってない他のその辺の田舎の日本人でも声でかい人普通に結構いるでねがぁ〜田舎だからか？！💦🤣👍(自分も含む) 日本もいろいろな民族が入り混じったがこれはみんなアジア系で。 アメリカは移民大国にして世界様々な色々な人種が入り混じってるハーフどころか先祖も含めて両親が8ヶ国以上の国籍の血筋っていうケースもあるらしい💦 もうドイツ系もアイルランド系もへったくりもないまさしく独立とした国🇺🇸👍💦 うむ💦確かに同じ島国ニュージーランドよりはどうしてもアメリカは選んじゃうよね💦だって国土は広いしハリウッドあるし色々話題がありそうじゃん笑。でも現実はそれらをいっぺんに体験するのは難しいかもですが💦

いやあ、面白いな。勉強になるわ。 なるほどね。アイデンティティってなんだろうな？ じゃ、次はハーモニーの親達とその兄弟達をインタビューして。 俺、エピソード持ってるよ(笑)

Could you come to the conclusion that you are from Japan but mixed heritage and thats cool. Poor New Zealand has a big natural disaster recently.

ハワイで生まれ育った白人として共感できますね（まあ国内だから全然違うところもあるでしょうけど） お母さんはまたハワイ生まれ育ちの３世スコットランド人でお父さんはカリフォルニア出身で、僕は離島の田舎で生まれ育ちました 白人が少ない環境でいじめに遭って、特に「本土に帰れ」と言われることが多かったです（言うまでもないかもしれないけど、ハワイの歴史上ではアメリカ人を嫌う理由がありますからね） そうやって「お前は私たちと違うぞ」と何度も言われて、自分の見た目や育った環境を嫌うようになって、高校卒業したらカリフォニアに行くと決意しました カリフォニアで「ハワイ生まれ育ちです」と言うと、ハーモニーさんが言うような「なわけあるか」て顔されることで、同じ「アメリカ」なのに全然違うことに気づいて、初めて自分がハワイ（人）なんだって認識ができました 今はオアフ島に住んでるけど、大人になってからいじめがなくなって、自分のバックグラウンドを話すど笑いが取れて興味深そうに話を聞いてくれるから「みんなと違う」でよかったなーと感じてます アイデンティティって難しいもんですけど、使い方によっては大きな財産になることもありますね

Joshua, for all the talk of "reading the room" , are there any scientific studies that show Japanese people are doing it correctly? I think it is much more internal than external, unless someone is being a complete asshole.

Wow that's awesome