Job Discussion Forums

[cafebleu]

Sorry to make another post - I think this is one kind of clear example for fromCanada as to why living in Japan as a foreigner is different from living as one in a western country.

I worked at an eikaiwa where the female boss would continuously go on about `gaijin criminals` (certainly not an isolated incident in Japan where daily certain media groups play up crime statistics and would have us believe that Chinese people are in Japan on falsely obtained visas to commit crimes). She regularly referred to the Chinese and my partner is Chinese. She knew that but said of course he is `different from the others`.

She also laughed and made numerous assumptions about `gaijin` - keep in mind that all her teachers were foreigners - and although we teachers were assured we were excluded as we were the `good gaijin`, I don`t think her comments were excusable. Now substitute the word gaijin for Japanese and you can see how this would be viewed in your home country or in a western country.

I quit that eikaiwa of course. However, I don`t think that pig-ignorant woman is rare. I hear and read on a weekly basis comments made by usual Japanese about how most of the crime is supposedly committed by foreigners or rather gaijin to quote most of these people, and this xenophobia is fuelled by the media. Open and more subtle forms of racism are not condemned here generally although groups such as Korean-Japanese groups do a fantastic job of trying to protect their community and foreigner communities from discrimination and iracial incitement.

[Celeste]

[TokyoLiz]

Cafebleu,

Thanks for the invitation to write about how women perceive their experiences in Japan.

I've had a few rough weeks here, and I've been trying to keep it to myself, thinking about WHY I feel the way I do - frustrated, lonely, offended. Remember, I did say this is how I feel, not how I'm treated.

I thought back to the first time I lived in Japan, back in 1999. I was out in the sticks, south Ehime-ken, which is said to be one of the most conservative parts of the country. Well, the schools certainly are.

But outside of school, I had a rich and interesting social life. My downstairs neighbour, who had just turned fifty, invited me out to tea ceremony when I hardly spoke any Japanese. We did the tea thing regularly for the year that I was there. My Japanese grew and we really got to appreciate each other - her amazing energy, grace and good humour really made an impression on me and helped me form an idea of what Japanese women are all about. I hung out with her daughter, too, before she took off to uni in Australia. Cool people.

And then there was the bar in the main street, run by this wild biker guy who was really into all things Texas. After my Aikido practice and my Canadian buddy's kickboxing session, we'd meet up and talk. Our ragtag bunch included a single mom in her late 20's, a 25-year-old juku teacher, a GEOS teacher from Toronto, 26, an office girl with way too much on her mind, and me, the JET teacher, just turned 27.

There were lots of events in the bar, and lots of guys, almost always Japanese. There just weren't many foreign guys there. As my confidence in Japanese grew, I would sit and talk with the guys. The Japanese girls would take me aside and tell me who was okay and who they had heard stories about.

We had a very strong sense of community, albeit a small community.

Flash forward to now, I'm 32, single and living in Chiba. My life and schedule are strung out between three prefectures - home in Chiba City, work in Shibuya, dojo in Chibaraki - Chiba/Ibaraki - and though I have some cool people to hang out with, my dojo buddies and coworkers are far away.

On top of that, most of the English teachers, be they eikaiwa folk of ALTs or whoever, are younger than me by quite a bit and they're essentially transient. I don't mean that in a bad way. It's just that they're here on their first teaching assignment ever, or right out of school, and headed for something else. I'm a long-time ELT kinda person, and I work in a different realm from the average ALT or Eikaiwa teacher. It's hard to relate because of the age difference and experience.

I think what I'm trying to tell you is, it's hard to do what I'm doing as a woman at my age. I'm not into the Roppongi thing. But I'm not in adult diapers yet, either. It's just tough when I'm doing something so different.

The aspect of Japanese life that I find wears on me the most is the media. Negative and stereotyped images of women abound here. And you can't escape it by shooting your tv because train platforms, billboards, magazines all display these harmful images of women.

Case #1 Tokyo Soup Stock ad on the Yamanote Line has a life-size picture of a blond woman, her blouse gaping a little, mouth open suggestively over a long-handled ladle of red broth.

Case #2 Television ad for Asience shampoo shows action sequence on a fashion runway. The designer looks away from the western beauties at an elegantly dressed, smiling Japanese woman and helps her onto the stage as the western models scowl.

I find images like this so antipathetic to the way of life in Canada. Western Canadians generally don't react well to ads that use blatant sexual imagery and clearly displaying a preference for one race over another is completely unacceptable. I know, this isn't Canada, but why are these things acceptable here? These are aspects of Japan I choose not to adapt to or condone.

These are some of the things that have been weighing on me in the last little while.

At the same time, I've found many Japanese men, usually much older than me, to be very gracious and respectful of me and my female coworkers, both Japanese and foreign. We put a voice and a brain to the images of women in Japan, and in general, our male coworkers and my dojo friends receive me very positively. The Japanese can't generalize about all foreigners, and despite the way the Japanese tend to believe they live in a homogeneous society, we foreigners can't generalize about them. It's folly.

[cafebleu]

Celeste and Tokyo Liz - thanks for your replies! I also meant to include Denise in my request for replies; sorry that I didn`t. I`d love to hear from you, too.

Well.......... it seems my Japanese experiences by and large have been coloured by life in inaka! I am not saying that all Japanese country women do the standing around blatantly talking about `gaijin` and other Japanese act - I wrote `such women` which was intended to differentiate between the uwasa ga daisukina women and Japanese women generally. However, my overwhelming impressions of life in Japan to begin with were based on hurt and a debilitating sense of being dragged down by claustrophic gossip and pettiness.

That changed thanks to meeting my lovely man, but I really dread to think how I would have coped without him. Celeste - you sound like a remarkable woman who has brought a lot of positivity and energy to your life in Fukuoka. Yes, there are more opportunities in the city than inaka but the impression I receive whenever I read your posts is of somebody who from day one in Japan has set out to be positive.

I know I can give the impression of negativity but I am the kind of person who tends to analyse - in my partner`s words I `dissect` things. Maybe it is not a good habit. Tokyo Liz - thank you, too, for your insights. Another strong lady who has also known how to fit in. I was especially interested to hear of your experiences in the countryside. I can only envy the group of social friends you made in your town - now that is the kind of experience I thought only happened for men.

In my initial post I said that men could have the experience of getting to know the locals at local watering holes and make friends who only spoke Japanese, but clearly I was mistaken. You were successful in making a group of friends to hang out with in your town. I wasn`t - I wanted to go and sit in the fantastic little shops and nomiya but by myself would have looked really strange. If I had been a foreign man I think I could have gotten away with it.

Interesting, too, to hear about your experiences now. I don`t consider myself puritanical in any way but I, too, am not comfortable with the blatant way women are plastered over all kinds of advertising, much of which is disrespectful or downright discriminatory. Yet at the same time I have not felt disrespected in my work by Japanese men. I have had discussions in conversation classes with men who have felt comfortable enough to tell me what their image was of foreign women and maybe we are breaking down barriers by being intelligent women who are serious about our work.

[shmooj]

[Celeste]

shmooj-

I lived in Daegu. Not exactly rural; just not Seoul.

I prefer people hiding thier true feelings rather than having to put up with people spitting on me and screaming racial epithets at me. This did happen to me in Daegu.

You are in the one city that I would live in if I had to go back there; but I don't have to. I like Fukuoka just fine.

[Gordon]

Celeste,
Shmooj has been in Korea for an entire month already. I'm sure he's got the culture down pat by now.

I lived in Seoul and got my share of verbal and physical abuse too. One nut attacked my wife in broad daylight. I didn't have to do much as my wife pummelled him with her umbrella before I had a chance to jump to her defense.

[Sherri]

Hi all
I've been busy and haven't read the thread until now. I am not in a very positive Japan mindset at the moment. In fact we are making plans to leave. After 13 years here I have had enough and I am ready to go. I have found that life as a single woman in Tokyo working and having a great time in the city is far different from being a fulltime mom with 2 kids in Tokyo. I don't want to make generalizations about men and women here, though I do believe that it is much much easier to get along in a big city like Tokyo than in the sticks (though I have not lived anywhere in Japan except for Tokyo). I chose Tokyo on purpose because it is a big city and I would have all the advantages that come with living here. I lived in London for 10 years before coming here, so I knew city life is what I was after.

My problem being here lies mainly with the problem of bringing up bicultural kids and my own lack of confidence in raising kids in a country so different than my own. I think it is much easier to stay long term for non-Japanese guys who are married to Japanese women because it is their wives who have to cope with the local community and the schools. Of course they already speak the language, know the school system and how to get along with the other moms in the park, in the schools. If you think you attract a lot of attention as a foreigner walking around, try walking around with 2 small children. I am constantly stopped, my children are touched and prodded, examined. Everyone in my local area knows who we are. If I do something outside my usual routine I am asked why and this is in central Tokyo. I hate to think what it would be like further out. My daughter gets more attention than a movie star.

I have very complex feelings about this. But the bottom line is I do not have a thick enough skin. I do not want to be an object of interest everywhere I go and that is why I have come to realize that it is time for me to go. I have had a great time here in Japan. I have had some truly amazing experiences and have made some lifelong friends both Japanese and non-Japanese. I wouldn't have traded it for anything, but for me my time is done.
Thanks for listening all. The longer you live here, the harder it gets, especially when you pass the 10-year mark.
Sherri

[ntropy]

I'll preface this by saying I haven't actually lived in Japan for close to ten years.

(Plus, I'm male)

But when I did, I found the racism very pervasive, widespread, and troubling even if subtle. Even my Japanese in-laws make criminal Gaijin comments etc while I was sitting at the supper table. Did they not know I'm sitting right there and understood every word they're saying? Imagine if my family were saying these things about them!

On the other side, as the right kind of gaijin (ie white) I was often on the side of reverse discrimination, receiving much better treatment than I had any right to expect. This still troubled me, as I just wanted to be treated human, not better or worse.

To the many real Japanese friends and co-workers I made, who treated me simply as myself, I thank you. You were wonderful and I won't forget you. After all, I lived in your country 6 years so it couldn't have been too terrible.

So, yeah, Japan was institutionally racist, but then I haven't been in a country yet that isn't, including my own. Japan was perhaps just different in degree and acceptance of it.

[Gordon]

Sherri,
I'm sad to hear you are leaving and not in very good terms. 13 years is a long time and longer than I could imagine being here. You have my respect for being here that long. I understand what you mean about the kids being the center of attention and how tiring it is. My daughter has blonde hair and blue eyes and causes traffic accidents. I am looking forward to blending in (or brending in ). Where do you think you will live?

[TokyoLiz]

Sherri, Gordon, ntropy,

Hats off to you having made cross-cultural relationships and marriages in and out of Japan. I think you have to have a lot of fortitude to cope with the differences, and to accomodate your partners' culture.

Sherri, good luck on your return.

I'll write more when I get a moment.

[azarashi sushi]

[Gordon]

[Wolf]

[Sherri]

azarashi sushi
You said, "Living in central Tokyo myself, I find this just a weeny bit difficult to believe. Where exactly do you live?" with regard to the attitude of locals to my children.

I live a 20 minute walk from Ikebukuro and I find it more than a weeny bit insulting that you don't take my word for it. Do you have small children or a baby here?

You also said, "I have spent most of my time in Tokyo and have never encountered any prodding, abuse or racism. I think if you're constantly focussing on all the bad stuff, you will attract it. "

Well for the first 10 years here (before kids), I didn't either. I also said that my children were prodded, not me. I did not mention racism or abuse. When you have kids and walk around the city with them, get back to me after a couple of years and we can compare notes. I don't know if you really read my post carefully, or you just sought the negative in it. I have had a good experience here overall, but I have come to the end. It is a personal and family decision. I love Japan, but right now I hate it and I think that most people who have lived here can understand what I mean by that.

The reason I said the longer you live here the harder it gets is because once you make a long term commitment to being here, that is you get married start a family, you have all the complications/ challenges that go with it. Of course many non-Japanese women choose to stay here and raise their families (I know a few) and have a great time doing it, but it is hard and they have to be very strong to make it work.

To Gordon
Thanks for asking. We are going to Hawaii--hurray! 4 more months!
Sherri

PS-- I just wanted to add that one of the reasons why I feel so negative at the moment is that my daughter is coming to the end of her second long-term stay in a hospital here. We need a change, we need a rest and I want to do it in my own country. It's not as simple as saying "it is all Japan's fault" it is not, it is just that being in a foreign country makes stressful situations even more stressful.