Japan is a fairly ethnically and culturally homogeneous country. It is natural that they would expect Parisians to look and behave a certain way. When they don't, it is of course a big negative to many visitors - they come to Paris expecting a certain look and feel, a certain atmosphere and culture, but they are getting something else.
You do not need to be from Japan to feel that way when visiting Paris either. And I do not see anything wrong with pointing that out.
I wouldn't call it racism, either. Recognizing that different cultures and peoples are different isn't racism, and I wouldn't ever expect people to treat me as a Japanese, because I'm not one. That doesn't mean I'm not treated as an equal, it just means I'm not treated as the same (as I'm obviously not).
I'm thinking of writing a blog post or something about this in a positive light, since most of what you read about Japan in English is from the perspective of people who have a bone to pick with their experience. There's positives and negatives of being an integrated minority in what is by some definitions an ethnostate. I might even say there's some "minority privilege," depending on the situation.
Not likely. Why would the groups subject to this effect be defined at the relatively artificial level of the nation state, and not at any other subnational (states or provinces) or supranational (EU or cultural sphere) level?
Furthermore, watch out for confirmation bias: why is Japan a possible exception rather than a counterexample?
> If you live in Japan but don't look Japanese you never really feel welcomed as a Japanese.
That goes for a lot of countries, especially if your skin color is different as well as your accent, language and whatnot. Heck, even when you are born in a country where you are not the same skin color as the majority you can feel not welcome. So, it's kind of a generalization to say that only about Japan.
It's hard to really answer it based on a relatively short article but I don't think she was being literal in the sense that no other culture has a term for someone of mixed race. My interpretation, and it's just that, is she was saying there's no other country outside Japan that has such a unique situation that you therefore really need a word that describes someone who is Japanese and is yet not Japanese at the same time.
If you are just visiting, you won’t see much similaries. Japanese also consider non Japanese (or more precisely, non Asian looking), to have different norms than us so we treat them differently. Its an internal barrier that homogeneous society make. We will be polite about it but forever we will consider you a foreigner.
Japan is extra special in this regard. My brother who is japanese, married a japanese national, speaks japanese and lives in japan is not "Japanese". That's what the article is referring to.
You can, but it looks like everyone else in this thread is lazer focused on Japan (likely due to the prestige of Japanese culture).
But that doesn't explain Switzerland. Is Switzerland closer to Japanese in culture than they are to Dutch? I think obviously not, but from the thread you would assume otherwsie.
Do you see the discrepancy in your recognising that you need to give all sorts of specific details as to the background and circumstances leading to the immigrant employment problems in Japan, but you're willing to make broad generalisations about France? In truth the two situations are likely as mind-boggingly complicated as each other.
I did say the Japan example is an "in-depth" example rather than a general one, so it would not necessarily apply to other asian locales.
I merely used Japan because I'm actually qualified to talk about them with some degree of specificity, and the rest of the comment is hopefully written in a more generalized manner.
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