> 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.
I politely disagree with your observations, though I acknowledge that I may not be right, I have observed and discussed this behaviour dozens of times with Japanese people in Japan for over twenty years and most find your parent's observation to be correct.
Please don't call people a racist for espousing reasonable views that you don't happen to believe.
I would. Sure, in most cases people don't actively dislike you when compared with some Japanese people that spew vitriol and really have it out for Koreans or Chinese, but you still get treated differently and often not in a good way.
I've met many, many people over the years, myself included, who wound up developing a love/hate relationship with Japan because of the racism.
On the contrary, it's an institutionalized xenophobia/Racism deeply embedded in the national Japanese psyche. take for example these (recent) cases of blatand racism.
20 years a gaijin here. Pretty much agree with your observations.
I would argue that Japanese themselves are subjected to immense pressures to conform to social norms. More so than foreigners, but its the same pressure in both cases.
I think that foreigners get along fine in Japan if they can accept this fact. If not, they are likely to feel constantly rejected and some, out of ignorance may deem it racism.
> Contrast that to countries like most of the West, where at least a solid proportion of people consider it socially unacceptable to discriminate socially based on someone's looks or origins..
Those things are also socially unacceptable in Japan. My experience is that the often discussed "micro-agressions" against foreigners happen about as often in Japan as they do in my own country (US, grew up in Texas).
Of course, the only complaints that foreigners in Japan can make is about trivia. The US is so fucked up that we cannot seem to stop shooting unarmed black men, we're separating mothers from babies, and as of last week now tear gassing families at the border. So not sure if you are American, but many of the foreigners in Japan that complain of discrimination are, and I just want to say that I think it takes a lot of balls for an American in Japan to be like "hey, you guys can do a lot better with the discrimination thing."
As horrifying as someone being impressed with your ability to use chopsticks is, it's not quite so horrifying as being literally shot for walking on the street.
Many people in the US freeze up if a black person so much as walks by them on the street. And on the other side of the pacific? Ask a random stranger for directions; 9 times out of 10 they will stop whatever they are doing and walk with you to wherever you are going.
I hear this a lot and I'm not sure where people get it from. In my experience Japanese overwhelmingly discriminate between races - that is, they see themselves as a separate race from everyone else. But to me racism implies discriminating against races, and naturally that happens but I've never heard any evidence that it's notably worse here than elsewhere.
For example, a black friend once commented that Japan felt more welcoming than home (New York), because here, while he was seen as a foreigner, he also wasn't seen as any different from any other foreigner.
>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.
> Then you’ve got the sense of shared suffering that is part of Japanese culture and super important. I think a lot of people who talk about “racial cohesion” are incorrectly identifying this
A sense of shared suffering is often important in racial and other tribe-like identities that extended beyond immediate knowledge. It is not so much an alternative to racial cohesion as a foundation of it.
> Race is deeply ingrained in their world view in a way that would anger PC-conscious Americans.
What's worse is that it's not even only about race. There's Japanese prejudice towards occupations (anything related to death, meat prep, and so on) and even about places where people are born and where they live
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.
Racism in Japan when you are white is not that bad. Ask your Korean or Nigerian friends in Japan what it is like and you will get a much different answer.
>> 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.
Yes, Westerners call it this. And in our eyes, it is. Japanese don't particularly buy that brand of shame, though.
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