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Just Cultural Differences?

Sorry, this might get a little lengthy! :sorry:
kokusu said:
...I want everyone to understand that if I write something that seems contradictory or challenging to what has already been written, I do so simply out of a desire to contribute to and expand this discussion and not out of a spirit of confrontation or disrespect.
Thanks for your input! It's always nice to have a variety of viewpoints to keep everyone honest!
Now then, while there certainly is racism in Japan, I do not think that it is particular to the Japanese nor uniform amongst the Japanese, and these are two important points I would like to contribute to this thread.
I don't think anyone disagrees here!

In a way, this comment is passively racist as well. Even though this person has met Japanese people in person as individuals (and thus, I assume, understands that the Japanese people are comprised of individuals just as any other culture is comprised of individuals), it was very easy for this person to add a 'but' and start referring to the Japanese broadly as 'they' and 'them'.
Good point! It's a little ambiguous though about what they and them refer to in at least the two instances, though. Does it refer to Japanese in general or the people with whom he spoke to?
All Japanese do not understand racism? Everyone in the West understands racism? Everyone in the West understands racism the same way? Or, do some Japanese (even if it is a lot or a majority) do not understand racism and some do, just as some 'Westerners' do and don't understand racism?
Another good point. It is good to be accurate. On the other hand, all we "regular folk" can do is speak from our experience. In my experience, there are people I know that understand what I mean when I talk about racism, and there are many many more who don't. Again, I'm not saying that this is inherently bad. I mean it in a very neutral sense.

only the Japanese suspicious of foreigners, or do we see this occur frequently in other cultures as well?
True, but I don't think this is the issue at hand. I had often heard people complaining about latino immigrants because they "take jobs away from Americans" and "steal our taxpayers' dollars" in the form of education, welfare, etc. I have never once heard such arguments in Japan. I think that part of the difference is that in the case of America, such individual foreigners are considered to be in America on a rather permanent basis after arrival, whereas individual foreigners in Japan are considered to be much more temporary. Correct me if I'm wrong. This is the impression that I've gotten, however.

And another aspect is that, as brought up in another thread, latinoes can hope that they or their children will one day be fully accepted into US society, I can not ever hope for the same. And my children, especially if they should happen to be non-asian, are in for the same. Are say 3rd generation Chinese-Americans considered American by American society at large? Of course! Would 3rd generation German-Japanese be considered Japanese by Japanese society at large? I highly doubt it.

I think the issue of assimilation is not insignificant.

It is a difficult thing to not peculiarize people of a culture different than one's own.
This certainly is not my intention, nor do I think that I am doing so. I use the words "they" and "them", but that is mostly because I am not Japanese. When I become naturalized someday, as I hope to do, it will be much more complicated, but that's another topic. You should hear me speak about America, my native country! :p
Also, there are many Japanese who are racist and xenophobic.
But there are many good Japanese as well who are sensitive to people of different cultures. Also, there are Koreans, Chinese, Americans . . . you name it! . . . who are racist and xenophobic in exactly the same way they believe the Japanese to be! So this racism thing we are talking about . . . well, it seems to be a problem that people from all cultures must struggle with, not just the Japanese.
I don't think anyone is saying otherwise. 😌

I'm sorry you had such a poor experience with the JR employees. I had great experiences. Does this invalidate your experiences? Absolutely not! I believe you when you say you have had problems. I just saying, perhaps not all JR employees are the same, therefore maybe the conflict is with bad JR employees in specific rather than JR employees as a whole?
Just as I imagine there to be bad American anthropologists, I hope to not be one myself. Therefore if someone has a bad experience with an American anthropologist I hope they will still be open to being friends or associate with me. 😌
Of course not all JR employees are the same. But I have noticed over the years that I can expect quite consistantly similar service from JR. Especially in urban/semi-urban settings. Let me first say that I have never once been refused service from a JR employee. No, what I find is that if I want to buy a ticket from an employee as opposed to a machine, I have to deal with the notion that White automatically equates with English-speakers who cannot read Japanese, nor can they understand spoken Japanese, even if they are speaking it, nor do they know the tickets and therefore need them explained in excruciating detail. It's not 100%, but I find this happening at JR much more consistantly than I do anywhere else in the country. I don't hate JR employees. Nor do I assume outright that the person behind the counter will act in a certain way, but I am not surprised when he (sorry, always a man) does.

1) Japanese are individuals and not all are racist!
2) These problems of racism are not only found in Japan but in culture after culture and country after country around the world. Please, when you discuss the problem of racism, don't treat it as if it is a problem specific to one culture alone! It isn't a Japanese problem, or a Korean problem, or an American problem; it is a human problem.
What did we say to make it seem that Japan is 100% racist and that other cultures do not harbor it?

OK. I'm done.
Otsukaresama deshita!🙂
 
kokusu said:
I'm a day-and-a-half from surgery and having been working as much as possible to do things while I still can . . .
I hope the surgery works out well for you! I'll be crossing my fingers for you!

But, by what standard do we measure racism and how do we compare it between cultures? What is the standard? In this sense, a generalization makes me feel very uneasy, because it seems much more problematic to objectively prove/disprove.
Good point! But wouldn't you agree that for this very reason it's important that we do discuss the ideas and generalizations that we personally have?

And is "black" the normal expression for African or African-American?
There are many people of African descent who are not African-American!:p

Finally, I have had many conversations with many of my Japanese friends about racism, and they didn't need a dictionary to understand the term or the discussion. This is why I feel that generalizing the Japanese about the racism issue can be dangerous. Some Japanese are, some aren't. I work with some causasian Americans who don't think it is racist to call African-Americans niggers. Does this mean that Americans are racist in general, too?
That's great! Where do they live? Do you talk about racism in Japan? Or racism in the abstract sense?

About the Americans...no, of course not. I think you might be tempted to consider the possibility, though, if the overwhelming number of Americans you knew had similar opinions.
A last question . . . I kind of want to share this thread with a former professor of mine who has her doctorate in Anthropology and specialized in Japanese cultural studies to get her take on the flow of discussion and her insight into the issue. Is this OK with everyone?
I don't mind. Anyone else?
 
Whenever i say something to the effect of "i dont like udong noodles" or "i dont like pickled octopus" or some japanese food i simply dont like (i cant think for the life of me why japanese are soooo into eating creepy crawlies from the sea, but i dont complain) my girlfriend, a japanese girl, starts to rant on about how gaijin just eat meat and potato, meat and potato, meat and potato, it right pisses me off.

Its not like i complain about japanese food, i try new stuff and i either like it or i dont and i say so, but for some reason this passes as some horrible slight against japan, and i get my head bitten off for it in an anti-western food rant.

One-time i went to her uncles home for new years meal deal thing, anyway it started out great laughing, enjoying ourselves, her uncle even gave me a little envelope with about 3000 yen in it, he thought my name was james but he seemed pleased to meet me.

Then they got pissed up drunk on sake and beer and well, things were said, tears were wept, and basically it ended with me being driven home with a crying Saori, because it was made clear that her uncle and grandfather didnt want her dating a gaijin.

I dunno if that was indirect or just drunk talking, and its kinda sad.....ive read so many of these similar stories i wasnt even suprised when it happened, i wasnt angry or upset or felt descriminated, its a sad fact i read of it so much and expected it in the back of my mind that it wasnt a shock at all when it happened.


But regarding 2-chan, its a website, and to get my point across, theres a 4chan, the western equivilant, its also full of dead-beat youth of western society, yet it doesnt represent the broad spectrum of western society in the slightest.

So i put it to you that your raging suspicion will just hinder you, you should just let it go.

For websites, thats just the way things is, its no big secret that a perfectly normal person in real life, once on the internet, can become a right tit, behind his monitor.

As for racism in japan, yes, many japanese may be less then familiar with westerners but i will have to point out the 90+% of the japanese population being ethnic japanese.

That means that for the everyday life of a japanese person, the chances of seeing a real life gaijin strolling about is fairly low, let alone the chances of having the time and chance to interact with these gaijin to make friendships and relationships.
In the country you might spend your entire life without seeing a gaijin.
And its no secret older generations are, less then modern in their thinking, its not alien the idea of an old western granpda speaking ill of say the french, or english, or canucks, or mexicans or something.

Your theory that the majority of japanese are just hiding their raging racism below a disguise is paranoid at best, and...well, dangerous at worst.

Most japanese people are genuine, and especially in the big cities, seeing a foreigner isnt that too much of a big deal.

some japanese are happy to meet you, and others arent interested, thats fine, no different then the west.

My girlfriends family isnt pretending neither, and most japanese ive talked to have been genuinly polite and friendly.

I think the issue is blown out of preportion by gaijin who feel alien and isolated in the new enviroment of japan, they dont get to have easy and free flowing conversation in their own language, they might not know the language, or culture, or any number of reasons, because they were born elsewhere, this feeling of being alone, even married men/women, means they can start feeling a little paranoid and suspicious.

I know this because ive felt it a little myself, i can see a member of my girlfriends family looking a little less then happy and i can start thinking "are they fed up of me being here?" but hey, the japanese arent the only ones guilty of feeling a little low now and then and it doesnt mean i am the object of their contempt.


I think you have two choices, accept japan, or as many here do, go against the grain and use it as a constant source of bad feeling.

Japan is different, thats simply the way it is, japan is changing slowly but its changing.
Those of you living in japan, if its really that bad, you would have left by now.
Its like western news, nothing but bad horror tragedy stories and very few stories of the majority of good stories.
 
nurizeko said:
One-time i went to her uncles home for new years meal deal thing, anyway it started out great laughing, enjoying ourselves, her uncle even gave me a little envelope with about 3000 yen in it, he thought my name was james but he seemed pleased to meet me.

Then they got pissed up drunk on sake and beer and well, things were said, tears were wept, and basically it ended with me being driven home with a crying Saori, because it was made clear that her uncle and grandfather didnt want her dating a gaijin.

So you see, the first appearance were all to make you believe that you were welcome, they were happy to see you, and they even gave you money for the New Year, like to their own children... But that was all "tatemae", facade, appearance, face... Their true feelings, after alcohol untied their tongues, was that they didn't want a gaijin dating their daughter.

This is the hypocrisy I am complaining about. You rarely get to know the true feelings, even of "the family", so how can you expect a stranger or work mate to tell you what they really think of you. You have to read between the lines, read on their face and in their emotional reactions what they believe deep inside them. So if they get abnormally surprised that you can use chopsticks after several months in Japan and explained that they feel so because after all you are a Westerner (=unable to learn to use chopsticks), then you know they are at least a bit prejudiced, and also a bit racist in their conception of Westerners.

But don't worry, most Japanese are so good at hiding their true feelings (honne) since they were children, that even between them they have difficult to guess it, and if you aren't used to reading people's mind, your only chance to have a clue is to get them drunk and managed to make them a bit angry, so as to untie tongues.

nurizeko said:
As for racism in japan, yes, many japanese may be less then familiar with westerners but i will have to point out the 90+% of the japanese population being ethnic japanese.

That's the same in every European country isn't it ? The UK is 97% "white", despite being one of the country with the most non-European immigrants. Personally, I had never seen a Black person (even Indian) in real (i.e. not on TV) until I was about 10 years old, and an East Asian until I was 12.

What I don't understand is that under the same circumstances, a European child will not point at the ethnically different person and shout "look a foreigner, a foreigner !" or "look a Black ! a Black !" while giggling (I have never seen it happening). But I talked to adult Japanese in Tokyo who admitted doing it ("gaijin, gajiin !" + giggle) when they were children, and found it to be perfectly normal, because they weren't used to see a "foreigner". Whatever the feelings behind it, the behaviour of Japanese (and shall I say most East Asians, as I have seen the same in SE Asia, Korea or China) is clearly different from that of Westerners in the same situation (i.e. seeing somebody from another ethnic group for the first few times).

nurizeko said:
That means that for the everyday life of a japanese person, the chances of seeing a real life gaijin strolling about is fairly low, let alone the chances of having the time and chance to interact with these gaijin to make friendships and relationships.

In the country you might spend your entire life without seeing a gaijin.

Aren't you contradicting yourself with that :

nurizeko said:
Most japanese people are genuine, and especially in the big cities, seeing a foreigner isnt that too much of a big deal.

In fact, one has to be blind not to see Caucasian, Black or Indian people on a daily basis in a big Japanese city (and not just Tokyo, I saw Westerners in every major city I visited from Kyushu to Hokkaido, even when I only stayed a few hours there). On the contrary, so-to-say never see East Asian people in the Belgian countryside (except in a very touristic village).
 
I, too, find it ironic that for all the good things you say about the Japanese being genuine, the moment your girl friend's uncle and grandfather lose some of their inhibitions through alcohol, they start saying what they really think. Saying that someone should only date/marry within their race counts as racist to me. Would they have said the same thing had they not been piss drunk?

And I don't think 2ch and 4chan are comparable. If you actually read the posts in 2ch, they're actually more similar to the posts in the forums of dailyrotten.com. Now add to the fact that 2ch has millions of visitors it leads me to believe that it's a much bigger problem than you may think. As I originally stated, they start to say what they really think the moment they are granted anonymity. And I don't think it's paranoid to keep these things in mind. Knowing all this will, at the very least, not surprise you when it does happen the next time you interact with a Japanese person.
nurizeko said:
I think the issue is blown out of preportion by gaijin who feel alien and isolated in the new enviroment of japan, they dont get to have easy and free flowing conversation in their own language, they might not know the language, or culture, or any number of reasons, because they were born elsewhere, this feeling of being alone, even married men/women, means they can start feeling a little paranoid and suspicious.
Well, I grew up in Japan and I still visit from time to time because my parents are still living there. But I don't see the problem going away anytime soon. It seems to me that this issue is not getting proper attention at all. It only seems blown out of proportion because it's never the Japanese themselves that complain about this.
 
I don't overestimate or underestimate the 2ch stuffs, it is just an internet community. I don't know ailyrotten.com, but what about news discussions in yahoo.com? All discussions there represent Americans' true ideas? Maybe, maybe not.
 
racism in Japan

It seems to me that this issue is not getting proper attention at all. It only seems blown out of proportion because it's never the Japanese themselves that complain about this.

I would state it's the opposite, that the problem is much worse because the government doesn't pass any laws addressing the problem despite Japan signing a UN agreement. If most Japanese did have some concept of racism, then a lot of the racial problems in Japan would be lessened, and Japan would be a lot more truly internationalized.
 
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