Government-Subsidized Infection (w/Phoebe Amoroso)

NHK-World business reporter and first-class gourmet Phoebe Amoroso breaks down the will-they won't-they drama around Japan's Go To campaigns, including questions like "Won't they reconsider?" and "Will they kill us all?"
NHK-World business reporter and first-class gourmet Phoebe Amoroso breaks down the will-they won't-they drama around Japan's Go To campaigns, including questions like "Won't they reconsider?" and "Will they kill us all?"

Ollie recommends a river cruise that does what it can to prevent the robots from taking over... the window seats. Bobby talks about a river boat discount that comes with a little extra something special.

Topics discussed on this episode range from:
  • SOMETHING THAT SHOULD HAVE ALREADY BEEN DONE A WHILE BACK
  • School rivalries that don't matter
  • What Japan has to offer the world post pandemic (like it's ever gonna be over)
  • Japan as a destination for immigration as compared to the US
  • How aware is the international business community of the drawbacks to doing international business with/in Japan and how long will it hold a grudge
  • Is a more diverse Japan in the cards?
  • Will increased immigration into Japan ruin Japan for the white men on Twitter?
  • How much of "British culture" does Ollie think has been directly influenced by Barbados
  • Why do people in South East Asian Countries REALLY want to study Japanese?
  • The problems with trying to leave us reviews
  • The wild ups and downs of Japan's rollercoaster attempt to launch their Go To Travel Campaigns
  • Tokyo getting left out, for ONCE
  • The confusion that led to Ollie thinking he was gonna get a government sponsored trip to Japan and finally get out of Malaysia
  • What the government has decided to do about covering cancellation costs
  • How the government is trying to cover it's a** in terms of being able to disqualify prefectures and NOT pay for the losses
  • How the tourism industry expected an Olympic travel boom and instead got the Olympic equivalent of poorly timed decisions 
  • Whether or not the Japanese government should have seen the conflict between Go To Travel and the second wave
  • How the Go To Eat campaign is supposed to work
  • How the UK managed to launch an even more embarrassingly named stimulus campaign
  • If the glory hole thing was real
  • The LONELY eating establishments that might have a leg up on coronavirus prevention for your dining experience
  • Why the Go To Eat campaign might not be doing enough to attract diners
  • The Terrace policy and what it might it say about Japan making arbitrary rules and then ignoring those rules when it suits them
  • The unique charm of Japan's yatais
  • The 70% telework goal, and the encouragement to go on "workation"
  • How JAPANESE it is to expect people to use their vacation time to work
  • How workations and all the "with corona" stuff continues to drive technological advancements and technology adoption
  • Changing business models for hotels, as demonstrated by the availability of pornography
Get access to the extras by supporting the podcast for less than $1 an episode by becoming a member at http://buymeacoffee.com.

Topics Discussed on the Extras:
  • A smashing recipe for yeast
  • The best way to name household items as though they were pets
  • Who Aso Taro is
  • If quality bread baking is worth putting up with terrible smells
  • The Daiwa Foundation: What it is and how you get qualified for it
  • What an A-level is
  • Phoebe's hilarious experience on a Japanese dating show
  • The NOT-SO hilarious experience a friend of ours had on a similar show
  • Ollie doing the EXACT KIND OF JAPANESE JOKE he always gives Bobby shit for
  • A WHOLE LOT OF MAKING FUN OF A MAN WHO POLISHES SAXOPHONES
  • The horribly insulting and totally unintentional thing Phoebe said to her potential TV suitor
  • That thing where gainfully employed or sponsored foreigners sneak around and get on TV
  • The failure of Phoebe's international wedding crashing project
  • Phoebe's experience researching and writing an article on a wasp-eating festival for the BBC
  • What the best ways to prepare wasps/wasp-products are
  • The similarity between eating wasps and eating natto or daikon
  • Why Ollie's Japanese Oyaji-gags don't work
  • (Its because Japanese people process words in terms of the kana or kanji that make them up, and not the alphabetic letters. They don't have the sense that the name NONAKA, contains the separate japanese ONAKA, because they break it down into NO, NA, and KA, or the kanji for NO, and the kanji for NAKA, and they would never break it down as N + ONAKA. You're welcome, Ollie)
  • The origin of sushi?
  • The communal nature of wasp sorting
  • How you actual hunt wasps/find wasp nests 

Social Media Links:

Phoebe Amoroso: Instagram | Twitter

Ollie Horn: Twitter | Instagram

Bobby Judo: Twitter | Instagram | YouTube

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Government-Subsidized Infection (w/Phoebe Amoroso)
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