How do you handle people who are "anti-Japanese" (fixed thread)

(In an experiment to deal with empty troll threads that hamper legitimate discussion of a topic, I'm testing this idea out. Redo and correct the "troll thread" into a legitimate thread for discussion. I don't consider the other post valid, so let me know how this works.)



From time to time, you'll run across someone who is blatantly "anti-Japan." How do you handle people like this when you run into them?

For example, I've run people from various countries who are against Japan and Japanese people. The reasons and behavior varies from racism, bias, to sometimes just ignorance.
You'll meet people in the world who might be heavily pro-China or pro-Korea, that believe that the Japanese stance on WWII war crimes carries over to all Japanese and therefore they are a "bad people." Maybe you have someone in your family who is elderly that carries with them the stereotypes from World War II about the Japanese. They may not even be elderly and simply be racist against anyone from Japan. Generally, how do you deal with those who have strong, unfounded and ignorant views against the whole of Japan?

To get things started, my response depends largely on the extent of the person's behavior. If they are simply ignorant, I'll correct them by telling them my own experiences in Japan and what I have seen. Not necessarily tell them directly, "You're wrong stupid!" but give them actual information to begin to base something reasonable on, and let them take it the way they will. Now, if the person is not only ignorant of Japan and believing in stereotypes but downright hates Japan based off of whatever personal reason, I'll tend to directly tell them that they are spreading incorrect information, but I likely won't waste my time trying to change their minds that have already decided on hate. That doesn't mean I won't try to stop the spread of ignorance like this. I generally follow this rule whether it be Japan or any country/people who are being lambasted for no reason.

Please discuss.

(Oops can't fix the typo in the poll)

Take the piss. Not much else to do.

Derfel said:

Take the piss. Not much else to do.

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I guess, but to some extent you have to show that such behavior isn't tolerated in some manner I think. In the more serious cases, you're simply dealing with blatant racism. There are those that think on one side you should show them "love" and then other extreme that you should show them the bottom of your boot as the last thing they see during their life time. However, racism is based in fear and ignorance and if there IS an opportunity for that person and they are willing to listen to rational discussion, or reconsider their views based on new information, then there should be an attempt to reason with the person I think.

However, if not, then walling them off from discussion or opposing them is about the only option left in my opinion.

I have an uncle who knew some POWs interned in Japanese camps. From their stories, he has developed a hatred for Japan that will not go away. He understands that those events happened a long time ago, but his mind is made up. (I found this out at a recent funeral we both went to.)

My response is to respect his opinion and not bring the subject up. I won't change his mind, and it's not worth the drama.

Yeah, you are right, but its just too much sometimes. I mean, you reason with your relatives, you reason with your friends, but there's just some people you don't want to waste too much time on. I think once you have brought to the other party's attention that he or she is making sweeping generalisations and that we do not really contain genetic information that would create such a difference in behaviour which could be the target of resentment, there is not much else to do. If there's a problem with someone's objectivity, that needs to be dealt with first, and dealing with peoples' personality is pretty laborious.

I have quite a bit of antisemitism in my family, express on one side and implied on the other, and to be honest, I feel quite satisfied whenever win an argument against them. I firmly believe that unfounded views deserve no respect and so I am ready to insult whoever may hold said unfounded views. Racism is just one of the many rather "emotional" sort of views and it spreads like a virus. It is not rational and it tries to spread through emotions and falsehoods. I think not bringing it up is totally ok, but providing protection by "respecting" someone's views can be a bit injurious.

Mikawa Ossan said:

I have an uncle who knew some POWs interned in Japanese camps. From their stories, he has developed a hatred for Japan that will not go away. He understands that those events happened a long time ago, but his mind is made up. (I found this out at a recent funeral we both went to.)
My response is to respect his opinion and not bring the subject up. I won't change his mind, and it's not worth the drama.

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I wonder if he had been exposed to the stories of interned Japanese-American Citizens in California if he would think differently or to the opposite extreme. I can definitely understand that the generalization could fester from that exposure; however, by no means are horrible actions limited only to one race. But of course, that is preaching to the choir. I would like to ask, if your uncle started ranting about Japanese in a racist or extreme manner at a get-together, would you speak out then?

Derfel said:

Yeah, you are right, but its just too much sometimes. I mean, you reason with your relatives, you reason with your friends, but there's just some people you don't want to waste too much time on. I think once you have brought to the other party's attention that he or she is making sweeping generalisations and that we do not really contain genetic information that would create such a difference in behaviour which could be the target of resentment, there is not much else to do. If there's a problem with someone's objectivity, that needs to be dealt with first, and dealing with peoples' personality is pretty laborious.

I have quite a bit of antisemitism in my family, express on one side and implied on the other, and to be honest, I feel quite satisfied whenever win an argument against them. I firmly believe that unfounded views deserve no respect and so I am ready to insult whoever may hold said unfounded views. Racism is just one of the many rather "emotional" sort of views and it spreads like a virus. It is not rational and it tries to spread through emotions and falsehoods. I think not bringing it up is totally ok, but providing protection by "respecting" someone's views can be a bit injurious.

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Some VERY good points here. I agree. There is a certain point where there isn't much to be gained with talking to someone about it, but at the same time, as I hinted at above, there are moments when it is important to speak out in general. Most importantly, when someone is SPREADING their racist, or bigoted views. If someone holds such views, that is disappointing yes, but actively spreading them is where you run into even more danger.

When you encounter an Anti-Japanese Chinese person, the best thing you can do is just ignore him, for one of several reasons:

1) Living in China, he has been subjected to blatant anti-Japanese propaganda (just watch some of their movies) and being "Anti-Japanese" is socially acceptable in China.

With this amount of brainwashing to the level of Christianity or Islam, there's no point trying to reason with him. He has decided that he will hate Japan for all of eternity and there is nothing you can do about it.

2) Perhaps this Chinese guy does not really care about Japan. BUT he is being paid by the Chinese government to spread anti-Japanese hatred. It doesn't matter if he likes Japan, the point is he is being paid to hate Japan.

Again, there's no point trying to reason with him. The best thing you can do is pay him more than his employers (The Chinese government) are giving him.

Mikawa Ossan said:

My response is to respect his opinion and not bring the subject up. I won't change his mind, and it's not worth the drama.

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That is an incorrect approach.

You should respect HIS RIGHT TO HIS OPINION.

However, you obviously disrespect (as you should) his actual immovable carved-into-the-stone opinion.

Respecting someone's right to opinion and respecting their actual opinion are two completely different things.

Derfel said:

I think not bringing it up is totally ok, but providing protection by "respecting" someone's views can be a bit injurious.

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Emoni said:

I would like to ask, if your uncle started ranting about Japanese in a racist or extreme manner at a get-together, would you speak out then?...If someone holds such views, that is disappointing yes, but actively spreading them is where you run into even more danger.

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I see no injury made whatsoever. He has his opinion and I have mine. He told me his opinion at the funeral pretty matter-of-factly, although I could see the anger behind his eyes. Once he told me his opinion, it was never mentioned again. If this is the first time I found out about his opinion, I don't think he works too hard spreading it.
If he did try to spread his opinion, I would offer mine in repute, of course. However his opinion is rational, if taken to an extreme. I think it's rational to harbour strong feelings against people who treated his (friends? mentors? Although he was alive in WW2, he wouldn't have been old enough to fight.) so inhumanely, but he didn't stop with the individuals or military institutions and generalized it to the entire population. That makes some sense, too, given the rhetoric he grew up with. I've seen it, and it's scary how racist the U.S. government was/can get. In other words, his opinion did not come out of a vacuum. I disagree with it, but he is not hurting anyone with it. I will never change his opinion, and he will never change mine. I respect him enough to leave it be at that, and he does the same (at least so far). That's good enough for me.
If he had heard stories about the internment camps a la the U.S. government, I don't know how he would have felt. My guess is that unless he knew people directly affected by it, he wouldn't think much of it one way or the other.

InvisibleSkyMagician said:

That is an incorrect approach.
You should respect HIS RIGHT TO HIS OPINION.
However, you obviously disrespect (as you should) his actual immovable carved-into-the-stone opinion.
Respecting someone's right to opinion and respecting their actual opinion are two completely different things.

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That's just a matter of semantics.

i Try to reason with them because he may has a point...
if his reason is Illogical i ignore him !

I ignore pretty much everyone so ignoring those who hate something unfounded is twice as legitimate.

InvisibleSkyMagician said:

You should respect HIS RIGHT TO HIS OPINION.
However, you obviously disrespect (as you should) his actual immovable carved-into-the-stone opinion.
Respecting someone's right to opinion and respecting their actual opinion are two completely different things.

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While this is semantics, I do agree that this is a very important difference. Similar ideas and phrasings can easily get mixed up and perverted when semantics are ignored sometimes.

Emoni said:

I wonder if he had been exposed to the stories of interned Japanese-American Citizens in California if he would think differently or to the opposite extreme. I can definitely understand that the generalization could fester from that exposure; however, by no means are horrible actions limited only to one race. But of course, that is preaching to the choir. I would like to ask, if your uncle started ranting about Japanese in a racist or extreme manner at a get-together, would you speak out then?
Some VERY good points here. I agree. There is a certain point where there isn't much to be gained with talking to someone about it, but at the same time, as I hinted at above, there are moments when it is important to speak out in general. Most importantly, when someone is SPREADING their racist, or bigoted views. If someone holds such views, that is disappointing yes, but actively spreading them is where you run into even more danger.

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In responce to the bold part I highly doubt it. Compared to the japanese prison camps, the US Internment Camps of WW2 would seem like County Jail.

The best arguement to use against these "anti-japanese" people is the fact that the current generation(s) had nothing to do with the war and get over it. Ask them if they were personaly hurt in some way by the japanese. Odds are they are/were not.

If the person is spreading their views odds are the people buying into them are already of a similair mindset to the bigoted person in question.

Emoni said:

While this is semantics, I do agree that this is a very important difference. Similar ideas and phrasings can easily get mixed up and perverted when semantics are ignored sometimes.

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I suppose you're right when discussing in a bb like this. Even if they're the same as a practical matter, when we're stepping back and discussing it like this, semantics is more important. I concede the point.

"anti-japanese

Emoni said:

(In an experiment to deal with empty troll threads that hamper legitimate discussion of a topic, I'm testing this idea out. Redo and correct the "troll thread" into a legitimate thread for discussion. I don't consider the other post valid, so let me know how this works.)



From time to time, you'll run across someone who is blatantly "anti-Japan." How do you handle people like this when you run into them?

For example, I've run people from various countries who are against Japan and Japanese people. The reasons and behavior varies from racism, bias, to sometimes just ignorance.
You'll meet people in the world who might be heavily pro-China or pro-Korea, that believe that the Japanese stance on WWII war crimes carries over to all Japanese and therefore they are a "bad people." Maybe you have someone in your family who is elderly that carries with them the stereotypes from World War II about the Japanese. They may not even be elderly and simply be racist against anyone from Japan. Generally, how do you deal with those who have strong, unfounded and ignorant views against the whole of Japan?

To get things started, my response depends largely on the extent of the person's behavior. If they are simply ignorant, I'll correct them by telling them my own experiences in Japan and what I have seen. Not necessarily tell them directly, "You're wrong stupid!" but give them actual information to begin to base something reasonable on, and let them take it the way they will. Now, if the person is not only ignorant of Japan and believing in stereotypes but downright hates Japan based off of whatever personal reason, I'll tend to directly tell them that they are spreading incorrect information, but I likely won't waste my time trying to change their minds that have already decided on hate. That doesn't mean I won't try to stop the spread of ignorance like this. I generally follow this rule whether it be Japan or any country/people who are being lambasted for no reason.

Please discuss.

(Oops can't fix the typo in the poll)

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I applaud you for your approach to such issues... We should all take a strong dose of common sense, before opening up to anyone with these type of feelings... Hope to chat with you again sometime... Ogenkede... biru san1

To tell you the truth, I've never met anyone who hated the Japanese. Most people abroad find them interesting and unique. I guess I've never encountered anyone who was related via family to the Pacific War or anything.

While over here, I've met one person that I can remember who was perhaps not hateful but extremely bitter towards the Japanese. Actually, it was my old IS at Nova when I worked there a couple of years ago. They had been here upwards of 7 years, so when we first met I asked them "Hey do you study Japanese? Your Japanese must be great by now!", to which they answered "Oh I don't study, I have no desire to overhear all the stupid little conversations people have on the train about food and shopping or understand all the annoying stuff people are saying to me in stores".

I was pretty shocked. I was thinking.. if you hate the place so much why don't you just GTFO then?

Our professional relationship deteriorated from there because, well, I just found her to be ignorant, her opinions to be poorly founded and she was just an all around b!tch.

So as Derfel said, I guess my way of dealing with it is to just take the piss and treat them like they deserve to be treated. That is, if they're like my old boss.

If we were talking about a war vet with some deep-seeded hatred stemming from war atrocities that'd be a completely different scenario of course. If I think about that for a moment I'd have to say that, well they're most likely entitled to their opinion, the Japanese did do some pretty messed up stuff during the war. Someone like me wouldn't have any right (or luck) trying to change their mind.

On the subject of hate, -hoping I am on topic...

I realize that the subject is on hating a certain race or culture of peoples, the Japanese in this case.

And I hope I am not redundant, but it is a great question for all persons, for many different reasons and geographies and races and religions.

If I could live my life over, I would stay away from the 25 years I invested in computer technologies (good paycheck, limited time duration of expertise), and invest it in health care situations, including mental health care and the subject of biases, prejudices, and negative learned behaviour.

At the root of all our "selves" is animal behaviourism: "Birds of a feather flock together, etc. etc."

We are virtually identical as a human race, and we are born not to hate one group or another, but we somehow learn behaviourisms that categorize persons according to race, culture, color, tribe, religion, politics, even sports team affiliations.

Some of those learned "categories" are favorable, and some unfavorable, and some dangerous. By the way, these "categorizing" seems to extend into the animal world, where one tribe of monkeys or wolves or lions or hyenas will attack their exact same species, but different tribe, and kill each other!

In my area, we have had killings/attacks based on the color of the head scarf, indicating gang affiliations, or sexual preference (one attack in the last 24 hours near to me), and sports team assault (sports fan), or brand name on a T-shirt, or female gender, or religious head dress.

Is anti-Japanese or anti-American sentiment any different from these negative learned, "categorized" behaviours?

You ask for possible Solutions: (maybe I have some)

If there is danger involved in your bias-sentiment situation, you have to walk away as safely as you can, ignoring the offender.

If there is no danger involved, you might courteously alert the offender that the comments negatively effect me or the persons nearby to all of us.

My favorite, non threatening response to one overbearing, insensitive comment against a race and culture has been the simple question posed to the offender...

"My nephew is an xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, how do you mean what you say xxxxxxxxxxxxx?"
"Do you really feel that xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"?

99% of the time, the person's whole aggressive stance collapses, and the person will respond... "Oh, I didn't mean xxxxxxxxxxxxx, I'm not racist or yyyyyyy or bbbbbbb!"

But on the mental health side of the situations, at 57 years of age, I am leaning towards some deep seated, animalistic NEED within all of us for dominance, need for control, need for power, -"I am better than those persons, or my status as a human being is more entitled than those human beings". Note: I might suggest that specific war experiences may be in a separate category of negatively learned biases.

Ironically, as untrained as I am in Taxi-driver theory, I tend to think the deep seated inference in the "better than thou biases" is that these same persons subconciously feel less than those persons, or even FEARFUL of those persons they criticize!

Not that this question had intended to go so deep into the psyche of motivations, it is a very deep, deep, pertinent subject effecting all parts of the world, with thousands of negatively learned behaviourisms and prejudices.

Humanoids are complex, and your question could easily be a PhD thesis of study, it is that important, I think.

From an American perspective, much of the bais toward Japan came from the World War two generation who had fought against the Imperial Japanese forces in the Pacific. As that generation has passed away, and these United States becomes more exposed to Japanese culture, much of the bais against Japan has faded. Even in the 1980's when there was fear in America because of Japanese economic prowess, it was mostly the older generation that drove the excessive caution.

Both my grandfathers fought in the Pacific theatre and were wounded. Neither were ever fond of anything Japanese for the bulk of their lives. I understand that generation and sometimes that type of distrust just has to fade as time passes. The current generation of American military and civilians are unease for the most part about many things Islamic and Arabic after the 9-11 atrocity in New York, and global war on terror. I would hope that would fade out far sooner than our grandparents did of the Japanese and Germany, merely because we have better communications between cultures than we once did.

As far as persons showing pure individual bigotry based on no reasonible justification, there is little you can do but reason with them, and pass that ignore them.

not much thing to do..
chinese and koreans have great hatred towards japan.. and this is something i fully understand.
my best friend ever..is chinese and he hates japan very much because of the rape of nanjing, but still he understands my passion for japan and manages to see the good things about japan.
so i think anti japanese is kind of normal, japan did some very bad things in WW2.. (nanjing, manchuria, unit 731, etc etc)
but japan has something that makes many people fall in love with this country: love for art and hunger for everything new

I think part of the distrust stems from how the Japanese military during the first half of the 20th century were systematically violent, indoctrinated, and vicious (as opposed to the isolated spontaneous violence present in most conflicts) in a way that constitutes crimes against humanity. Blaming it entirely on the leadership seems a bit too simple, as if Japanese in general are more predisposed to these things. Granted, the leadership is no longer there, but one wonders whether the craziness runs deeper in Japanese, like how we suspect today that Germans still have a deep undercurrent of nationalism and xenophobia.

My ancestory is celtic. Should I hate all Italians because Rome sacked my homeland and killed my people or enslaved them back in BC times?

It makes just as much sense as hating people who live today for the things their parents and grandparents did to my parents and grandparents.

Much more productive to focus on how to be peaceful and happy people now and do our bit to try and stop such bad things happening again.

Tullera said:

My ancestory is celtic. Should I hate all Italians because Rome sacked my homeland and killed my people or enslaved them back in BC times?
It makes just as much sense as hating people who live today for the things their parents and grandparents did to my parents and grandparents.
Much more productive to focus on how to be peaceful and happy people now and do our bit to try and stop such bad things happening again.

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Humans wouldn't be here today if they didn't learn from their past experiences. Still, I understand where your ideals come from, even if I don't think they're realistic.

From a soldier's point of view I see why some WWII vets and even WWII's widows and families could hate Japan and it's people. But I also believe they should learn that Japan and it's people aren't the same any more. Not only that but every country does things in it's past that it regrets. Does things in war it regrets. Hell we (USA) put Japanese US citizens in camps where many lost pretty much all their possessions and even died in the camps. Our own citizens!?! I still can't believe those citizens and their children could forgive our government. And there were Japanese US citizens that fought for their country that imprison them even. And fought so bravely in the European campaign that no other battalion won more medals than them.

Basically all you can do is ask why someone is anti-Japanese then explain how you (your country) was no different in the past and how Japan is much better now. And how every country still isn't perfect so cut the Japanese some slack.

firehazard51 said:

Our own citizens!?! I still can't believe those citizens and their children could forgive our government. And there were Japanese US citizens that fought for their country that imprison them even. And fought so bravely in the European campaign that no other battalion won more medals than them.

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that is such a silly argument that I'm disappointed you made it. I mean, we treated our Japs pretty damn well and eventually even gave them some money back.

firehazard51 said:

so cut the Japanese some slack.

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We are. We positively love them compared to Iran and North Korea.

Mazin said:

that is such a silly argument that I'm disappointed you made it. I mean, we treated our Japs pretty damn well and eventually even gave them some money back.

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Please tell me your are being sarcastic. I took a class on discrimination and my teacher's grandfather died in one of those camps. The only photo he's ever seen of him is in a museum that documents the harsh life of the interment camps. People lost EVERYTHING but the shirts on their backs. And you think a little check makes up for that? Many of those people framed the check and never collected on it. Those checks where the only formal documents stating the government was wrong in what they did. Those interment camps where barn shacks because they were over populate and disease spread rapidly. Causing many of the elderly to die. Not to mention the ones who were actually shot and killed during the interment camps. And remember these are citizens who had all of their rights taken away just because they where of Japanese decent.

Mazin said:

that is such a silly argument that I'm disappointed you made it. I mean, we treated our Japs pretty damn well and eventually even gave them some money back.

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I voted "to ignore" at the poll, but would like to as you to refrain from using such a term which many people find quite offensive.