Job Discussion Forums

[canuck]

[Like a Rolling Stone]

[Like a Rolling Stone]

[Glenski]

Jim,
At least you and I politely disagree. I have discussed this with my wife, and she is shocked at how some people think Japanese use the word in a derogatory way. Do schoolkids do it? Of course, but they use any word that way, whether the kid is half, quarter, Amreican, fat, gaijin, pimply, or anything else. I really don't think you can use schoolkids' manner (and lack of manners) for the country's label of "half".

In contrast, my wife has been asked very politely many times if our child is "half", and the only meaning there is whether he has a non-Japanese father. Nothing more and nothing derogatory intended.

As for some of the other posters here, I'm fairly shocked but not surprised at the condescending manner in which you have made some remarks.

[cafebleu]

Am deleting this as it posted twice and this one was unedited. Sorry

[cafebleu]

Snappy tone you've used there, Glenski. Maybe you've had a tough weekend or week so far. I don't think there's any real justification for having those digs at posters here.

This thread is a good one - with honest critiques, opinions and questions. Why are you making it out to be something it isn't? Especially as Nagoyaguy is not some ignoramus who happened to shove his oar in but actually has experience of having a primary school child in the Japanese schooling system.

As for your jumping out of your metaphorical or literal seat to get offended at Nagoyaguy's comments about "separating" people - how long have you lived in Japan? It is clear to anybody who spends some time in Japan, especially foreigners with children in Japan, that the culture certainly revolves around separating people into your uchi or soto group. Insider people and outsider people.

If it's separating kids into kumi at school - harmless to a point. I still never liked it as it promotes the notion that you and select others have nothing really to do with somebody not part of your in group.

Traditionally it's an old Jp way of looking at people, of separating them as befits suspicious feudal cultures where outsiders are seen as sus and your group holds the line against potential enemies.

Regarding non Japanese or Japanese people born to one J parent are concerned, they are separated by the fact they are "gaijin" -outside people - and "hafu" - not really Japanese because though you were born in Japan you can't be. You are not 'pure Japanese', you have a foreigner parent. Adults can deal with this better than children/adolescents who are in a school system where being part of the group is a constant theme in Japanese school life.

The notion of "we Japanese of one blood" is still widespread. If most Japanese were so aware of their real ancestry (and unlike the indigenous peoples of Japan they have no historical claim to being 'the' original Japanese natives) this whole notion of being Japanese as opposed to everybody else wouldn't continue to be so important to their self-image.

You obviously weren't in Kyushu when Taro Ashole gave a racialist speech about how the Japanese are one people of one blood who do everything the same way and that makes them Japanese. In this century it's fair enough to say that kind of mentality is holding Japan back in some respects and is continuing to separate 'we Japanese' from the gaijin and the hafu.

Of course some ordinary Japanese people aren't thinking specifically like that when they talk about 'hafu' children or people. But that doesn't mean they aren't separate those children and people into groups that apparently have little or nothing in common with "we Japanese" even when those children were born in Japan and by any reasonable definition are worthy of the description Japanese.

I have some J schoolteacher friends who were pissed off by the textbooks they had to use. As they complained to me and other foreigners, all the stress on 'you are Japanese just as your ancestors were Japanese from the beginning and as Japanese people we are unique and were made that way by our Japanese ancestry' was really preventing ordinary people from seeing others, even those born in Japan of one J parent, as equals.

There is nothing unreasonable about pointing those facts out.

[cafebleu]

See post above! Sorry - I don't know why other posts appeared!

[SeasonedVet]

Hello everyone,
I just asked my Japanese friend of some years about the issue.

My friends opinion is that the term is not intended to be derogatory nor disparaging. It was used many years ago in the same way that "mixed" is used today. There was no "mixed" or "multi-racial" word then.
so that someone might say something like "ah anata ga haafu dakara kawaii" which is clearly a compliment.

As for my opinion on it ... I am still thinking and reading posts and I will ask more japanese people what they think and get back to you.

[Speed]

My whole family is filled halfus. I have a few cousins who are `halfu` Japanese and American - and including myself, of course.

My Japanese family members refer to us as halfs and there`s absolutely no lack of love when they say this.

Like Matador said, it`s a factual descriptive term. That`s all. If someone says "Oh, Speed`s half. That`s why he`s so good looking!" Well then yes, `halfu` is a positive nomer.

If it`s, "Oh, Speed`s half. The narcissistic jack-ass should quit trying to be so cool and take his butt back to his own country." Then `halfu` is a negative one.

It`s a matter of how it`s used and perceived - not the term itself.

[AndyH]

My son is "hafu", and I don't have a problem with the term.
I've heard half-Japanese young people refer to themselves as "hafu" too.

[Ai]

[callmesim]

I think Rolling Stone put it best, hafu refers to "half" Japanese. And that's why I find it offensive. All foreigners are put into one category and by making another category for "hafu" is just as bad. It's like saying "not one of us."

And whether malice is implied or not is certainly not the issue. How many times have you heard someone say something racist and when you pull them up on it they say "well, I didn't mean it like that!"

[Glenski]

cafebleu,
I've been here 8 years, thank you. I realize many things that you wrote, but it's not my tone that should have offense raised. I stand by what I wrote. What I saw in those other posters' messages reminded me of an aristocratic snubbing of a lower class people (all Japanese).

No, I wasn't in Kyushu for that speech, but I have been here and seen/heard the idiotic things said by more than one prime minister and a certain Tokyo mayor. Please don't confuse the issue here. We are talking about what I perceived to be the tone from posters on this forum, not what a Japanese official or notable said.

[pastis]

[cafebleu]

The troll is out of its hole!

Glenski - thanks for clearing that up. I still don't agree that Nagoyaguy wrote anything to jump at. Just my honest opinion. To add to the context of this thread, I have some experience of living in France some time ago.

It's one of the reasons I see the constant references to "gaijin" and "hafu" as not being the innocent expressions protested by any number of Japanese and their supporters in the use of these kinds of words.

Despite what some Japanese people see as a disinterested motivation - and yes, some mean no purposeful separation of others. However, the purpose is not so important as how words are used in Japan to marginalise.

In France, the topic of those born in France of parents who came from former colonies (Arabic peoples/African peoples) was consistently spoken about using the word "immigrant" despite the fact that supposedly under the egalitarian French Republic, anybody born in France is a French person.

Often in public debate, all these French people were relegated to being "immigrants" because that way it justified some of the racialist/racist actions of the recent past by Fench authorities against French people who had legally come to France and received citizenship, and whose children were born in France. A lot of people don't know that many people living legally in France, many of whom were French citizens, had this right taken away from them because of racially motivated legislation.

Retrospectively they and their children were declared non citizens and even had their legal rights of residency taken away by legislation. There was some modification of this by various governments but the stigma persists.The use of the word "immigrants" since then has really come to mean French people born of foreign-born parents as well as their parents despite their parents' French citizenship.

Many people are unaware of just how racist France is - and I found consistently that using words such as "immigrant" played the role of placing these people outside the pale of French society and its implied rights.

Another word is "La Zone" to describe the ghettoes of those French people with Arabic/African backgrounds. This word is persistently used in the media, by the government and police as well as white French people.
It has associations of one kind of undesirable place where the undesirables live. I was not surprised by the rioting last year - I was surprised that it hasn't happened on a larger scale each year in France.