Job Discussion Forums

[SoulCal]

@ bailemos

Staring is rude in Japan, people know this. They often stare at you for a number of reasons:

1. Curiosity
2. Contempt
3. Mental Illness
4. Perversion/Voyuerism
5. Plain rudeness

Some Japanese people may act like they didnt know it was inappropriate, but dont fall for that BS. If you want to get the Japanese to stop staring at you, simply raise your voice at them and make a bit of a scene. Japanese people hate to have the eyes of others on them (oh, the irony), and 99% of the time, they will quickly turn away in embarrassment.

Ive had many experiences like this, either while I was talking at a moderate volume or not talking at all, and I had the balls to speak up about it. The result left the Japanese person (usually older people and salarymen) embarrassed or speechless, and I was able to carry on feeling a lot better. Bottom line, dont let a**holes intimidate you because you have different physical characteristics. Make the experience a public example, its the only way the Japanese will really learn not to do it; otherwise, theyll keep trying to be subtle and sneaky about it and expect to get away with it.

As you can tell, I hate that sh1t , but I take care of business when it happens

[cornishmuppet]

Just glare back and say 'nani?' in a threatening voice. Or to really embaress them, stick your tongue out!

[Cool Teacher]

[gaijinalways]

[Glenski]

[Tomasama]

When I was living an working in Japan being treated differently started to wear on me but now I realise it was mainly cultural fatigue. A quick fix would have been to go back home for holidays and see my family.

Let me pose a question,
would you rather be passively treated a little different once and a while by some poor unfortunate soul who's never had the chance to travel outside their country
or
would you prefer once and a while to be sworn at and abused when you refuse to give money to a beggar for his next drink or get told your a $%^$ white %#$ and threatened with violence by the local indigenous population?
Welcome to Australia!
I just came back from a three week holiday in Japan and I understand why I got a lot of stares. I really feel sorry for the Japanese, so many nihonjin are completely isolated from people outside of Japan.
The closest they ever get is by staring at someone on a train!
I'm guessing that for a lot of people, the only interaction they see is foreigners on TV.
I caught up with some Japanese friends who had been in Australia on a working holiday visa and returned.
They told me that since returning to Japan, they had absolutely no reason or opportunity to speak English.
Perhaps you could ask yourself, if I were fluent in Japanese and not teaching English rather I was doing some other line or work, would be people around me speak English at all?

I hope what I'm saying makes sense and you muster a little sympathy。 Ｎext time give them a smile and say 今日は。

[starteacher]

Thank you Tomosama. A bit of positive thinking is all that is needed to get you through the days.

The world changes when YOU change. You cannot change others, but you can change yourself.

[natsume]

[gaijinalways]

natsume posted

[Cool Teacher]

[Cool Teacher]

[gaijinalways]

gaijinalways wrote:

[mitsui]

my wife is Japanese and she gets stared at. Maybe because she was speaking Osaka ben, or she looks Korean who knows.
This happens in Tokyo.
Tokyo isn`t a tolerent place. Lots of people are from rural areas and they want to fit in and act cool. Many Tokyo people look down on other people because of the way they look or way they speak Japanese.

Tokyo is the capital yet it reminds me of places in rural Ohio where minorities stick out.

[seklarwia]

Maybe it's a major city thing with regards to low tolerance.

But out of all the major cities I've been to, Tokyo seems the least openly hostile for minorites (aka all foreigners)... I can deal with a bit of staring and the odd ignorantly racist comment.

Being as rare as they come (that 'other' box on those horrendous ethnicity forms that are so loved in the UK was obiviously created for me ) I often get mistaken for the "wrong" minority and have ended up on the receiving end of many not very pleasant encounters in many a major city. There was being mistaken for a muslim with no head scarf in Granada which meant male muslims tried to pick me up for money. There was being mistaken for a south american in Madrid which meant men in general trying to pick me up for money. I got mistaken for a possible illegal immigrant from Africa in Paris, which meant being picked up by the police (at least not for money this time). London presented me with a scar down my back from being attacked with a bottle by some guy who thought I was from Sudan. In Beijing I had a guy chat me up using a load of racial insults that he genuinely believed were compliments (which they were in a really twisted way, if I despised my own heritage... or what he believed my heritage to be anyway)... and so on and so forth.

Staring is nothing. Be grown up and ignore it.

I'm going to agree with Glenski. Sometimes there are reasons other than being a foreigner that might get you stares. I myself have found my attention drawn to other foreigners when they are speaking really loudly to each other, etc.

And when you are getting stared at despite truely doing nothing wrong (going with cool teacher now) making a scene is not the way to deal with it.

If you can't ignore it, go with the more subtle ways of dealing with it that have been suggested. Making eye contact on trains really does work. On train and in public, a polite konnichiwa normally gets the starer to scurry away or turn their attention elsewhere. Sometimes a greeting will actually show starers that you aren't some wierd and wonderful zoo creature - I even had one old woman chatting away to me, even though initially she had taken the seat next to me and turned to stare literally under my nose.
If the staring persists, get up and move or close your eyes.

Staring may be rude, but it's not a crime. Retaliating in an aggressive/intimidating manner however will likely just give even more people cause to stare and may even get you into a world of trouble. Plus, it just adds to the already negative gaijin stereotype.

[Cool Teacher]

Here here seklawaria!

Perfect!