> But ethnicity, not just nationality, seems to matter a lot in Japan
The correct modern terminology for that is racism.
Something most people don't know a lot about, because as a culture Japanese tend to be very outwardly polite so a lot of racism is very subtle and can't be spotted by someone who's just visiting.
To clarify, my comment above was primarily meant to point out that the behaviour we're discussing is not something unique to the Japanese. I felt it was a bit unfair to single them out for having a culture that continuously reminds people of being foreign, when everybody else does it also (well- as far as I can tell). I didn't say whether I thought it's a problem or not.
So- is it? I guess that will depend a lot on the situation, won't it? For myself I've been in both kinds of situations, where it was a problem and where it wasn't. Say, when I first moved here I worked menial jobs and the people I worked with tended to not care much about social niceties (although there may have been other reasons I attracted the wrong kind of attention, by some). Nowadays, I'm a PhD researcher, so it would be a really big surprise if someone brought up the fact I'm not from around here as a disadvantage; most people I work with are not, anyway.
It's just that, there are situations were anything that singles you out can spell trouble- and being foreign singles you out. In such situations, you have to tread carefully in a way that locals don't.
To be perfectly clear, I personally take things in my stride and I generally fare very well. But not everyone is the same as me, neither have I always been as confident and self-assured as I am now. The target is, I think, to have an environment (a society, if you will) that accommodates all kinds of people, those who aren't bothered as well as those who might be.
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Edit: "neither have I always been as confident and self-assured as I am now". Actually, now that I think of it, I always have. I'm a tough cookie :)
> Japan is, of course, just a place. The people there are ordinary humans. Fetishizing a particular culture is both cringeworthy and genuinely harmful. Their country and society have plenty of problems, just like any other. There is nothing magical about Japan or any other place.
Japan, by your own description, isn’t just a place. It’s the place of a people who share a long and deep culture. If you substituted New Yorkers for Japanese in Tokyo, it wouldn’t be like Tokyo for very long! (Feeling like a “clumsy, nasty barbarian” is certainly an apropos description of how I feel returning to New York after visiting Tokyo.)
Most Japanese wouldn’t describe Japan as “just a place.” A Japanese acquaintance of mine (a law professor) and I were once discussing the issue of government corruption in Asia. My acquaintance dug into some 400 years of Japanese history to explain why it had less problems with corruption than China, next door.
Of course it’s not “magical”—just as there is nothing magical about Apple under Steve Jobs. But it is an achievement—the achievement of a group of people who share a particular culture. When my dad was born in 1951, Japan had a GDP per capita (adjusted for purchasing power) similar to Bangladesh’s today. Within a generation they had become a first world country. You shouldn’t fetishize their culture, but it’s okay to marvel at their achievement!
>Japan also treats non Japanese people differently. Nobody says anything bad about Japan.
What? I see claims of Japanese racism everywhere on the internet. A load of people seem to think it's one of the most racist countries on earth.
Yet in my 5 years here, and as someone visibly foreign, I've never been treated differently from a local. If anything, being treated completely normally put a lot of pressure on me early on since the only thing holding me back was my own lack of language ability.
>> Why not accept that it's a huge country with 120M people and a multitude of experiences?
It is both a place worth visiting and also full of what we would call racism. The overly-politically correct crowd in America would be (and often are) shocked at what passes for acceptable race-related behavior in Japan.
> Aside from the language issue, it is also difficult to integrate socially if you are a foreigner.
So, I do not live in Japan, but I've visited multiple times now. I don't speak Japanese more than a few words here and there and mainly get by usually with Google Translate.
I've had a not-too-difficult time making friends (who I even stay in touch with from here in the US) by finding people there who participate in the same hobbies (car culture and baseball, specifically). Generally, most people I've met in those communities are very friendly. Not everyone enjoys the Google Translate back and forth but many still do.
Anyway, like I said before, I don't live there so it may be different as a long-term resident. But I just feel like based on my experience so far, the "way in" may just be a matter of finding people with similar interests, much like I would here in the US.
>Every new person I meet would assume I'm a foreigner.
Which would be a statistically sound assumption.
In Japan, the cases of caucasians that were born and raised there are very rare (compared to just tourists or short term staying), so they naturally assume you are not that.
It's just that the US has all kinds of people living there since centuries even (e.g. 3-4th generations of Chinese), so you can't make the assumption that a Chinese in the US is a foreigner. Plus, the US doesn't have any ethnical cohesion anyway, so even a newly arrived asian, french, russian,
or latin american etc, fits right in with the general population.
Given that, the real "forever a foreigner" problem to me would have to do with the acceptance (or lack thereof) of those that know you (e.g. how colleagues, neighbors, etc see you), not how random strangers see you. That's not what would make me feel like a foreigner...
That's surprising to hear. I have lived in Tokyo a fair amount of time (5+ years) and only experienced true racism, e.g. being kicked out of a place for being non-Japanese, a handful of times. Not doubting your experience, just putting this here as another data point.
Most of the times being treated differently was just other people being scared of talking English and avoiding me, but that usually fixed itself when they realize I speak Japanese.
Unrelated, but I think a lot of the foreigners in Tokyo are oversensitive to racism because they have never experienced looking different in their own country - that leads itself to interpreting all kinds of tiny acts as racist when something doesn't go the way they want. But in reality many of the acts have a different cause behind them, like the insecurity of the other person.
> I had the privilege to live in Japan for one year
The people that are gushing the most about Japan, ready to defend its honour on every corner of the Internet, are those that don't have much experience living there. Says it all, really.
It's such a common phenomenon these people even have a slightly derogatory nickname. Also:
> Western countries are kind of a shithole compared to Japan
I'd really like to know how many Western countries have you lived in for at least a year.
>> Japan back into a far-right, ultra-racist country.
I was under the impression from friends who taught English there and other family members who worked there in various positions, this is how the country has always been - exclusionary to outsiders, racist and very intolerant to outsiders.
Was there a time (I lost track of the country after the first dot com bust in 2001) that the country wasn't like that? I'm genuinely curious.
> Sometimes people speak (usually not very good) English to me, assuming I don't understand
This has changed in recent years. At least in the prefecture I live in (Aichi), and where I've traveled outside Tokyo, people just start talking to me in Japanese. 15 years ago, when I lived in Japan for 15 months, it would happen that they'd first try English or I'd feel they were hesitant to speak Japanese to me (but still did).
But since I moved to Japan again 5 years ago, nothing of the sort. They start in Japanese without batting an eye. I think that's because there are way more foreigners living here than there used to, and they tend to talk Japanese. And in non touristy places, there are probably more foreigners who speak Japanese than not.
> I’m never going to be Chineses, same as he’s never going to be Japanese. If that bugs him why not go home? No one’s making him stay in Japan.
I’m so happy to read this comment. I lived in Japan for 4 years and had the same feeling. People are always upset they’re not seen as Japanese despite the fact they are indeed not Japanese. I could see an argument if you were a child of a western parent, born and raised in Japan with Japanese values constantly having to remind people that you are a Japanese national but these are just foreigners living in Japan with a chip on their shoulder because they weren’t born Japanese.
>the Japanese are so hostile to foreigners/immigrants that it's borderline xenophobia
Have you ever actually visited Japan?
If so, how do you usually behave?
I'm white and haven't really had a single negative experience. I've also made several friends who are incredibly friendly, keep in touch, etc.
When I've been lost, random Japanese citizens, not even government officials, have helped me find my way, even taking me over a block away from where they were to make sure I found what I was looking for.
Occasionally there are glances and stares but I'd definitely not classify that as "hostile".
As someone interested in Japan, would you mind elaborating on this please?
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