Discrimination/racism in Japan vs non-Japan

[Chidoriashi]

Undrentide> Haha, ok thanks, I feel silly.

Well, I for once will have to agree with Caster and say yes that is discrimination and should be changed. Though the motives for Koreans doing such a thing are quite different from the reasons for Japanese putting up the "Japanese Only" signs. Those motives being based on bitterness, rather than ignorance, or the lazy way of dealing with a select minority from a group that cause problems.

 

[Kyoto Returnee]

I dont know why there are two price lists for Japanese in other developrd country

For Example, hotel..
Do not you obviously think this to be discrimination?

It is a bit of a cliche and can see where your opinion is coming from.

It stems from more I think to do with Japanese tourists generally targetting the more expensive end of the tourist market, namely, hotel brands.

Most of this is pre-booked by way of packages from Japan, and genrally includes meals, tours, etc.

We know in Cairns tourism industry that any high price fixing actually originates from Japan, and is usually catered for right down the line, including the vacation country by way of the Japanese country having a presence, one comes to mind, JTB.

Yes, Chinese restaurants in geberal here have a special menu for the Japanese tourist, usually including all the expensive seafood and the likes, which their is good profit on. I stress this menu is for Japanese only so perceive that as racism and it leans the other way forward if you get my drift..

having said that, the Japanese tourist is free to roam and pay what they want here and I'm sure they do, unless they have more money than sense (cents)

Different prices for foreigners no doubt exists in many countries, one again comes to mind, and that's Thailand.

They have a Thai (local) price and foreigner price. It was genrally perceived, although times have changed, that Westerners had more money than Thai so the businesses could ask for more. Some foreigners did take offence of this, live their long enough to understand the culture, and you would have understood. Like I said, times have changed in Thailand and it has gone from third world, developing world, to now.

In Cairns, Queensland, Australia, the locals generally get a cheaper price to tourists if we show our driving licence for ID at entry.

This does not include all Australians.. An Aussie on vacation in Cairns from down South, do pay tourist prices..

 

[undrentide]

It is a bit of a cliche and can see where your opinion is coming from.

It stems from more I think to do with Japanese tourists generally targetting the more expensive end of the tourist market, namely, hotel brands.

Most of this is pre-booked by way of packages from Japan, and genrally includes meals, tours, etc.

Did you read caster's post #98, which elaborates his post you've quoted.
I do not think it has anything to do with your explanation above...

 

[Chi65]

?
I think, it has very well!

In fact, they (Caster's example) should not have written these different prices on one paper, that was a bit silly indeed!
Two separate papers would have been better, and is very well common practice in some countries and places (annoys me too, but is a fact, and in no way just japanese related).

I also think, knowing the differences between general prices and particularly what you accordingly get for your money in Korea and Japan very well (having been in both countries several times), that it was even still cheaper for the Japanese than in their own country. Some Koreans must have thought, well, its all relative, Koreans have less money available in general in contrast to Japanese and lets relate this somehow.

This would be exactly like the Chinese thinking, as I described before!
And somewhat understandable (although I did not like the chinese way either, but, as said, as soon as they realised, I do not belong to the arrogant rich foreigners, the picture changed immediately).

 

[undrentide]

?
I think, it has very well!

In fact, they (Caster's example) should not have written these different prices on one paper, that was a bit silly indeed!
Two separate papers would have been better, and is very well common practice in some countries and places (annoys me too, but is a fact, and in no way just japanese related).

I know that in some countries, foreign tourists can be a target for "rip-off" because they think those people have much more money thus taking more money from them should not a bad thing.
Also Japanese tourists in particular can be regarded as easiest target because many of them do not know how to bargain.

I also know that in the past (I don't know if they still do) they have two different money system and different price system for themselves and foreigners in general.

But the example caster posted is different.
First of all, it is not these price lists printed on a paper, it is from the hotel's officla webpages (not one sigle page).
And the reason caster feels it "descrimination" is both Korean/English (which should be for everyone outside Korea) show the normal price while only the Japanese one shows higher prices.

If only the Korean version shows the low price and both English/Japanese ones show the higher prices, it would be more understandable, if not justifiable, to think "because they think foreign tourists have more money".

I really don't know the actual reason for this price discrepancy but if it was something intentional (not an error of forgetting to revise Japanese one), it is natural then one feels that there must be something other than foreign tourists vs Korean people money issue.

 

[Chi65]

Koreans can be very direct and also very naive, and sometimes both. . .

on the other hand, we have the german proverb:
who feels meant, is meant. . .hm. . .

As for the different money system, that was so in China for long, btw.
If it was also in Japan or Korea at times, I simply don't know and hear it here for the first time, please teach me about.

 

[epigene]

AFAIK, Japanese hotels, restaurants, etc., have never had a different pricing system for foreigners. If it had existed, I think it was in the early postwar days (some years following end of WWII), when the Japanese currency meant next to nothing, and many people were craving to earn in US dollars.

As for different pricing system for Japanese, I have experienced it in the Philippines, Hong Kong and some establishments in Malaysia. I later found that the higher pricing was targeted specifically for Japanese tourists and not for European and North American tourists. However, I must add that this was some years ago, since I haven't traveled for the past couple of years.

Disclaimer: Never been to Korea, though my husband had. He said he never realized that he was being charged differently because he didn't know any better!

 

[Chi65]

Thank you very much for the informations, epigene!
The former Japanese way seems to resemble the Chinese way. Have there also been special shops for foreigners, where they could only buy with this extra money, like in China?
(this opened a big illegal exchange market, btw, but we also found our way to help them getting what they wanted; on the other hand, many local and daily things were much cheaper in the local jenminbi, thus any way of exchange turned out to be nice ;-))