David Lee Roth on Living in Japan | Joe Rogan

Well, you went and lived in, like last time I talked to you, you were living in Japan. Nice. And you were doing kendo over there. Yes. Well, you pitch a ball, someday I'm going to play for the Yankees, Joe. I loves to wrestle and grapple and someday I'm going to get in the middle of a ring and Joe Rogan's going to say my name. And I'm working my way up through Ed Parker's American Compose system and someday I'm going to J-Pan. Fine. And I'm going to learn from the guys who invented this stuff. Now I'm putting on a pork barrel accent to make it entertaining, but I did. And I started exactly like I did in Barham Boulevard, making rock and roll with the mighty Van Halen in the late 70s at the Oakwood Garden Apartments in midtown Tokyo. I did not know a single person. I didn't know a syllable of Japanese. I had no idea where I was. And no, I can't drive on the left side of the street. I barely carry a cell phone carrot. Come on. And I expect that a lifetime of adventure, you do all the traveling. Come on, artists to artists, you're at home everywhere now, aren't you? Yeah, in a lot of ways. You are the comfortable one in the room, especially if there's conflict, which there always is. And that's what's the most unsettling to the tourist. Travelers, you're at home. When you first start learning Japanese, it comes in three stages. First you watch kids shows on television because they pronounce everything and nobody interrupts. Then you watch the news. Everybody speaks with a perfect accent, bigger words, nobody interrupts. And then you start going with me to the movies in the middle of the day on Tuesday in Tokyo at Kinza. And you're the only pale face in the room. It's all in Japanese and it's the movies. Everybody's interrupting, everybody's shooting, screaming sirens, airplanes going by. And if you can begin to decipher even one character, then you'll develop yours maybe. Do you know how to write it? Well, you practice that, certainly. And think of it as cross-training. There are a lot of schools, for example, Hebrew school. You always hear about Hebrew school before you go to Bar Mitzvah class. It's an ancient way of, wait a minute, you've got to develop the side of your brain by core relating designs with language, with meaning that may not actually be in English. Nobody's walking around speaking Hebrew after only four summers of work, but you develop that side of your brain to where you start to have a capacity to learn in an accelerated way. So all your best musicians speak a couple languages. One of your best politicians speak a couple, all your best artists, architects, all your best design folks and stuff. Speak a couple of languages. There's no secret that you develop that side of your brain. If your kids don't speak Spanish, get after it. I had to learn a language. It's never too late. You'll see the difference. I did every single day, I called it Roth University in Tokyo. Every morning, two hours Japanese class speaking the language. I can get things done for you, but I'm not conversant. You follow? The end result is that it's cross training. Long term memory. My short term memory is a little too short. It gets shorter, but you'll see the difference in your ability to remember what you read. You'll start remembering everything you see. Sometimes that's dangerous. Because of the fact that you're learning this new thing, so you're activating this part of your brain. Oh yeah. You'll start it off with little kids in art class, for example, where you take a pencil and you go, this is just a pencil. What else could it be? Well, in this environment, it's a stick shift. No, it's not. It's a Kubotan. He's got Joe's wrist. None. Little girls go, it's a bow, dad. Me I'm a hero. I'll save the day. And you get start to think in those terms using actual language. Movement's the same thing. At this point in your career with jujitsu and grappling, you have a vocabulary that starts to expand, expand by having to learn and challenge and challenge. People marvel at Anthony Bourdain. God bless him. One of his biggest talent was to be at home everywhere. No matter what somebody might say or posture or present, he was able to let it go by, win later, or no, we'll duke it out right here. And he had the capacity to stay cool in the middle of all of it. So maybe it's stay cool school. What do you think? Well, he just had a fascinating mind for travel and food and culture and he just wanted to know everything about how these people thought about the world and saw things differently. I kind of feel bad now for people that don't travel. I really do. I just feel like you're missing so much of what a human being is.