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[stumptowny]

warning: this post may disturb your impression of Japan if you are lucky enough to have never experienced anything negative here.

wondering what some of your experiences are in japan regarding xenophobes and discrimination actually making problems. I would like to hear your stories and experiences....

there is subtle stuff occurring occasionally and it does not effect us.. passengers moving seats away from you for no reason... small beans.

when I first arrived, I was standing on a sidewalk waiting for an old man on a bike to pass before crossing. the man started screaming in japanese, not at me but clearly it seemed directed towards me.. he was screaming: "white skin, you have white skin" odd and definitely not positive. again small beans..

but I'm talking about minding your own business and then experiencing severe discrimination that becomes more than just an irritant:

a co worker told me about walking through a late night train (not drunk), and he brushed up on someone upon passing them, an accident. the someone then started choking my friend (my friend is a very small gaijin) and after exiting the train to get help on the platform, the japanese man followed him..

the capper: racism or just a drunk old man? both? sat next to an old man on the train one afternoon. hissing sounds immediately ensued, a long scowl, some grumbling in japanese followed by the angry snapping of his suit flap and his newspaper pages, more hissing sounds. I had made the mistake of sitting next to someone on a train. I looked directly at him and told him what I thought then went about my day (still sitting next to him). 10 minutes later, his elbow went into my side as the woman sitting across from us departed. apparently he felt emboldened if he did not have japanese peers witness this. I promptly stood up, ripped him up out of his seat and threw him down the aisle. then screamed at him to get off the train and threw the papers he had left in his seat at him. sat down like nothing happened but of course about 7 conductors came. the train was delayed like 6 minutes as the conductors questioned me. after pointing out the empty beer cans under the seat and explaining the elbow and taunting, they apologized profusely and asked me if I wanted to make a report. even weirder, after I got on the train and 5 minutes on, I got a handshake from an onlooker, another old man! when by all accounts, it looked like I just accosted some old guy off the train..

curious what some of your experiences are....

[jmatt]

The only overt examples I have are:

Years ago, I was with a girlfriend near the station (and oh so conveniently near a Koban) and some jackoff rode by us on his bike and spit on us, then rode away.

Sat next to some drunken hipster guy on the train. He kept muttering shit about me, elbowing me, thinking I couldn't understand him. Would loved to have interacted and punched him in the face, but why bother? Not worth it. It'd be my fault, and not worth the hassle.

Went to a bar I'd often been to, a different bartender working (male), who saw me come in and gave me the flying X. Fair enough, if you don't want me there I don't want to be there, but as I was leaving, this total hipster chick sneered "Byeee, byeee! Hahahaha!" No need to rub my nose in it, totally uncalled for.

Whatever. Shit happens, but since our return, it does seem like there is a xenophobic undercurrent to society that didn't quite exist years before.

[PO1]

Can't say I've ever experienced anything like mentioned above, but I'm curious as to where these things are happening? My guess would be Tokyo or a bigger city as I rarely see anything like this in a suburb or in the countryside. I may get stares, but nothing out of the ordinary. Never had anyone spit on me or elbow me.

The closest I can remember is walking down the street and an older guy shouted "Konnichiwa!' at my friend and I in a really aggressive way. That was kind of weird, but nothing too bad.

My main issues have been people shoving me out of the way to get off the train before me, but that seems to happen to everyone. People moving seats doesn't necessarily mean they don't want to sit next to you, although it can sometimes be the case. Sometimes people just don't want people sitting next to them if they have the choice. I know I always slide down to the seat closest to the door if I can.

Honestly I've experienced more cases of rudeness in my own country than in Japan.

[rxk22]

[rtm]

[jmatt]

[Cool Teacher]

Here in Osaka doesn't seem to be so many problems liek racism in my opnion. And that's a real relife because I am anti-racism. But many people I know have said bad tings about the Chinese which is strange because so much Japanese stuff came from China. I sometimes mention that and many people don't like it.

[Pitarou]

So long as you know your place (which needn't be a bad one), I don't think you face discrimination, apart from the occasional weirdo and drunkard.

But if you step outside of your appointed gaijin role, I think you'll face an uphill battle.

[cat mother]

Maybe it's different for women, especially causasian women, but I've been living here on and off for about 17 years now (yikes!), and honestly, I have not experienced anything of the sort you are describing.

There was exactly one time when I thought I was not being treated in a professional matter, but that was due to my low-end appearance at a high-end store, so that was more or less normal (same as in the US).

Twice I had to deal with the police and the first time it was a bit hairy, but once when they figured out I didn't realize that I'd just witnessed a crime being committed, I was let go.

The second time I had to deal with the police and various parts of the legal system and everywhere I was getting special treatment, in a positive way.

Even the small beans stuff, it's never happened to me, people sit next to me on crowded trains, nobody moves away when they see me, I get asked for directions by Japanese people if I am the only person around, and generally, I don't see I am being treated any different than my Japanese family members, friends and acquaintances. Old people are usually the friendliest and always want to chat about the weather.

And no, nobody stares, at least not north of Tokyo.

So unless getting offered a fork at a Japanese restaurant can be considered racism, then yes, THAT I can relate to.

[nightsintodreams]

I'll chime in with my experiences, but first I just want to make it known that I love Japan and Japanese people on the whole and enjoy my life here, I'll probably stay for a long time, perhaps forever. Ok, now let the moaning and feeling sorry for myself commence. Btw I'm a fairly good looking 6 foot 95kg bodybuilder with green/blue/grey eyes and very hakujin features, this may have played a role in the way my experiences have panned out. My ex-girlfriend said she noticed that everyone stares at me all the time, but she couldn't be sure if it was because I'm a gaijin or because of my size. Probably a combination of the two.

Aggressive situations:

*I was once standing with a female Brazilian friend while waiting for a bus, not being loud, not drunk, just waiting for a bus. An old man squared up to my friend and pushed her. I then got in between them and firmly told him to stop and leave us alone. At which point he put his hand in his pocket and pretended to be holding onto a knife, then he pretended to stab me with his imaginary knife, before laughing and walking away. Many Japanese people were watching, none of them said a word.

*I was walking arm in arm with an ex-girlfriend, we had our arms locked. This is not something we usually did. but it was raining on this particular day and so we were sharing an umbrella. An old homeless man walked past us and shouted "Gaijin kabure baka!" This can roughly be translated as "The gaijin rash is stupid" but the word rash in Japanese can also be used to describe a negative influence. So it was more along the lines of "The gaijin influence is stupid". Needless to say, she was very upset and shook up by it and split up with me a couple of weeks later. Whether it was because of this or something else, I can't be sure, but she was the only Japanese girl I've ever felt strongly about in Japan and things seemed to be going well.

Dealing with Police:

*Police once came my house asking what I was doing on a night at a precise time over one month ago. I told them I didn't remember and that I was probably watching TV or playing videogames. They then told me that a woman was heard screaming somewhere in the area on that night....Yes, you heard correctly. A woman was heard screaming somewhere in my town and so a policeman took it upon himself to pay the local gaijin a visit. Nice work Sherlock! Anyway, he asked for all my details and to see my gaijin card, when i went to get my gaijin card, he let himself into my apartment.

*I bought a bicycle one year ago and have since been stopped by police over ten times to check the serial number on it incase it'd been stolen. No word of a lie, over ten times!

*On a number of other occasions police have come to my house to check who lives there etc, i don't know if Japanese people get this too to be honest, maybe it's normal. Anyway, I never open my door anymore unless I'm expecting a parcel.

Everyday stuff

To be honest, the stuff above are all fairly rare situations and don't bother me so much, it's the everyday shite that gets me down. Without blowing my own trumpet, I can speak Japanese fairly well and I'd say I know enough about Japanese culture that I don't look like a gaijin fresh off the banana boat anymore. Here's a list of things that really grate my balls at times.

*Mixing English into Japanese conversations. This is one of my pet hates, some may say that I'm making a big deal out of nothing and perhaps I am, but to me, when someone does this it's clear that they cannot talk to me as a human being and only see me as a foreigner. It's impossible for them to forget I'm a foreigner and just have a normal conversation with me.
*Constantly praising everything I do like a dog. Using chopsticks, speaking Japanese etc. I've even been praised at my ability to mix natto and peel an orange (not at the same time, now that would something worthy of praise!).
*Cock blocking: Japanese men are masters at the art of cock blocking gaijin. I've heard guys insulting me to girls I've been talking with, telling them stories, pretty much doing anything to make sure the girl loses interest on me. That's cool I suppose, filters out the fickle girls fairly quickly.
*Going to the JTE to ask me something instead of just asking me directly to do a simple task (which I'd be able to understand in Japanese easily). The JTE in question can't and doesn't like to speak English to me very often so he even tells me in Japanese. I have to pinch myself to make sure I'm not dreaming...In what kind of world does someone need to ask somebody to translate something from Japanese to Japanese? Just ask me yourself, I'm not an alien.
*People never sitting next to me on a train/bus and sometimes actually moving away from me. Also often get the hissing and tutting from old Japanese men.
*Being asked the same questions every day for the past four years.

"Can you eat fish?",

"Well, you asked me that 6 months ago and my answer was yes and six months before that my answer was also yes, infact without exception I eat and drink anything that's placed in front of my fat face so please get it through your thick skull that I can eat fish."

(What I really said: "Yes, I can.")

*Being bombarded with talk of how Japanese is the most difficult language in the world. I'd hazard a guess that at least 50% of the people who say this have had very little experience studying all of the world's ten thousand or so languages, but oh well, who am I to argue.
*Calling me by the name of the previous English teacher. Been at this one school over a year now and I'm still getting called by the name of the previous teacher on occasion. He didn't even look anything like me! He's a skinny vegetarian FFS!
*Being treated like a baby. "Do you know can in can bin?" asked the new teacher in English, "Yes, I know. I've been at this school longer than you have and thus far we've never had any major can incidents so run along now and concern yourself with some more pressing matter, like...I don't know...learning how to treat foreigners like adults".
*Being spoken to in English by someone who's English is worse than my Japanese. I'm sorry, but if you're not my student and your English isn't as good as my Japanese, then you have no business speaking to me in English.
*Shocked faces when I open my mouth and speak a bit of Japanese. Tbf, there probably aren't too many meat heads in the world who speak Japanese as well as I, but still there's no reason to give me the confused tilty head look like a dog who's just seen and licked a frog for the first time.

I could go on but I think I've let out what I needed to.

That felt good, been building that up for a while.

[nightsintodreams]

Oh, I forgot another one of my other pet hates that I think has been discussed on this forum before.

*Not looking at me when I ask a question at a restaurant: I've lost count of the number of times this happens. Anytime I ask a question at a restaurant/cafe/shop they always respond to one of the Japanese persons I'm with. If there's no Japanese people, they reply to the most Asian looking person, even if said person can't speak Japanese.
*Checking my order with the Japanese person: This one isn't quite as common but it still happens fairly regularly. Even my ex-girlfriend noticed it and commented on how rude it was. She ended up staring at the floor whenever I order, just so they can't ask her.

I think it's also worth mentioning the experiences of two of my Korean students at Eikaiwa.

One of them was a very successful businessman. He told me he always used his fake Japanese name because to use his real name would be bad for business.

The other was an engineer at an international company who was climbing the ranks and begin promoted while the manager was a German guy. At some point, the German guy transferred back to Europe and was replaced by a Japanese guy. Since this happened, his progression has stopped and other less qualified and incompetent people (in his opinion at least) have been promoted ahead of him.

[rtm]

[Solar Strength]

Debito's site has a new post about a restaurant that posted a "Japanese Only" sign on their door. I'm too lazy to go get the link, but it's the most recent post as of today.

Japan is what it is - a closed, insular, little island nation that doesn't play well with the outside world.

They don't like outsiders.

But I guess you could write a dissertation on it if you like.

[steki47]

[steki47]