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D.O.S.

This is not intended to ruffle any feathers. Rather, it's an interesting story from Newsweek International about modern day Japan.

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

Rorschach · Joined: 25 Mar 2004 Posts: 130 Location: Osaka

I agree. Japan was alien and foreign to me the first time I arrived here. The first year was hell trying to adjust to the 'Japanese' way of things. Only now that I have been here nearly 3 years that I finally feel settled.

abufletcher · Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 2:20 pm Post subject:

For a great many (and possibly the majority) of the English teachers in Japan, this has been their very first experience living outside their own culture. I suggest that most of what people find "alien and foreign" here is in fact little more than the experience of being an alien in a foreign land -- any foreign land -- for the first time.

From my perspective as some who came to Japan via Mexico and before that Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Germany, Japan is indeed a pretty ordinary sort of place. I hear so many "Japan stories" that to my well-traveled ears sound exactly like "Middle East stories" or "Latin America stories." The illogic of "the locals" almost always figures centrally in these stories. I find nothing whatsoever "unique" about the experience of living in Japan out of all the world's countries. This is just more of the "myth of uniqueness" that has been cultivated in the West for at least the last couple hundred years.

This is not to say that there aren't unique experiences to be had in Japan. I've had lots. But there just aren't any more of them than I've experienced in any of the 5 other countries I've lived in or in the 35 I've traveled in.

If fact on an extended trek in Nepal many years ago I found myself alone on the trails and rather starved for the companionship of other Western travelers with whom I could compare experiences and comiserate -- so much so that I started recording the numbers (and homelands) of the "Westerners" I met in my journal. During the roughly 4 weeks of my trek I saw only 14 other Westerners like myself. It was only after I got back home (to Kuwait) that I realized the incongruity of that fact that of these 14 travelers that I could identify with, 5 had been Japanese.

Compared with my wife's small villiage in Mexico (which might as well be in the mountains of Pakistan for the cultural distance from the US) life in Japan is a walk in the park -- or rather a stroll through the mall.

gaijinalways · Joined: 29 Nov 2005 Posts: 2279

The illogic of "the locals" almost always figures centrally in these stories. I find nothing whatsoever "unique" about the experience of living in Japan out of all the world's countries. This is just more of the "myth of uniqueness" that has been cultivated in the West for at least the last couple hundred years.

Hmm, I would say compared to undeveloped countries or developing countries, perhaps.

abufletcher · Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 5:55 pm Post subject:

seanmcginty · Joined: 27 Sep 2005 Posts: 203

Its always amusing when someone who has only lived in Japan for a year and a bit starts running off like an expert on the whole frigging country and culture.

Actually a lot of the stuff in the article was true, but some of it seemed bizarre. Like seeing hundreds of trick or treaters on halloween? What the hell is that about, outside of little contrived parties at English schools I've never seen anything related to Halloween in Japan and certainly not trick or treaters.

I definitely agree with aclarke, this guy must have been writing just about his limited experience in a part of Tokyo. Go to small-town Japan, or even most mid-sized cities and the presence of foreigners and foreign influence drop off significantly.

Gotta agree with abufletcher too. Compared to adjusting to life in a third world country life in Japan really isn't that much different from life in any other industrialized country.

king kakipi · Joined: 16 Feb 2004 Posts: 353 Location: Australia

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

According the the Japanese Ministry of Statistics, in 2004 there were 720,000 thousand marriages. If this figure is similar to 2003, then 1/20 of that would be 36,000 marriages with Japanese and foreigner spouses.

Japan's population is about 127,000,000 so 1% of that (the number of foreigners registered here) is about 1,270,000. Of course, not all of these foreigners are married, nor are they married to Japanese. And, you can't say that 1 in 20 PEOPLE are married to foreigners. Just that 1 in 20 MARRIAGES have foreigners in them. Big difference.

J. Sean Curtin (Professor, Japanese Red Cross University) has a piece in GLOCOM from last October about the rising rate of international marriages in Japan (5% of all marriages in Japan in 2002)...

The number of marriages involving a non-Japanese spouse is increasing, representing 1 in every 22 registered marriages in 2000, which was a record high. Over the past 30 years, there has been a 6.5 fold increase in the number of international marriages. In 1970, there were just 5,546 such unions, but the figure for 2000 was 36,263. In about 80% of such marriages, the husband was Japanese and the wife was non-Japanese. The vast majority of brides came from neighbouring Asian countries.
http://www.glocom.org/special_topics/social_trends/20021003_trends_s9/

In a 1998 article, we can read the following excerpt:
marriage to westerners went down and then up again
in the 1970's, making it difficult to estimate a total figure for the
decade. Overall, however, an average yearly total of around 1,000 W-J
marriages for the decade 1975-84 and perhaps 2,000 for the decade after
that seems a reasonable (and quite conservative) estimate. Adding up these estimates we reach a range of 25-35,000 W-J marriages since the mid 1970's, with most being since 1985.
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg01573.html

king kakipi · Joined: 16 Feb 2004 Posts: 353 Location: Australia

Ta for the comprehensive answer Very Happy

BradS · Joined: 05 Sep 2004 Posts: 173 Location: Tokyo, Japan

I actuallt just bought this magazine tonight and just finished reading the article.

It really does seem like the author is comparing real Japan to his expectations of movie Japan he had before he came over. He even implies as much.

I will agree with almost everthing he says however... just not as strongly. Maybe 1/10th as strongly.

All those kids trick-or-treating? WHERE?!?

Mark · Joined: 23 Jan 2003 Posts: 500 Location: Tokyo, Japan

I read the article too and i recall the author saying that he was staying in the heart of the expat area, which i assume means he was in Hiro/Azabu/Roppongi. I can imagine kids trick-or-treating there. A lot of them were probably foreign kids or kids at international schools or whatever.

The guy who had lived here for 50 years was not the guy who wrote the article, just someone mentioned in the article.

Basically, some guy came to Tokyo, stayed in the expat area, and found that, the difficulty of the language aside, it wasn't all that different from travelling to a western country.

I think that's a reasonable conclusion given the length of time he was here and where he was staying.

But I don't think it's a completely correct conclusion.

allyismycopilot · Joined: 30 Nov 2005 Posts: 32 Location: Tsuyama-Shi

I think one of the major issues with the article, which was already mentioned above, is that he writes as if the areas of Tokyo he experienced represented the whole of Japan. He is seriously off base.

I lived in Japan for a good 10 years and only went to Tokyo twice and I really disliked it as I was from an area around Hiroshima-shi. My experience with the environment there was far different than my experience in Southern Japan in both Inaka/City.

In my LIMITED experience in Tokyo (by limited I mean visiting for a week total maybe the two times I went) it felt like I was in a PSEUDO-Japan of sorts. The language and people were there but it just felt "different". Can't exactly explain it but it didn't feel "real" to me I guess.

I'm rambling at this point so I'm just going to stop...

matador · Joined: 07 Mar 2003 Posts: 281

Well, if I stayed in an expat heavy area then I would also conclude that it was pretty similar to other countries: lots of black/white faces, international supermarkets, etc. But if you go to most places in Tokyo you will discover it is NOT an international country. Japanese people are very conservative, inward looking, shy, naive about overseas life, etc. I travel up from Yokohama to Tokyo station each day and see maybe 3 black/white faces on the train.

...3!

This is a very homogenous society with no exposure to immigration a la countries such as England, France or Germany.

And thats how the Japanese like it! They do not want it to change.

There was one daft line in the article that needs attention:

...an Asian nation that would not feel out of place if it were suddenly dropped inside the borders of Europe.

What!? Are you bonkers, sir?

Imagine Japan as an EU country (in a geographical position similar to, say, Austria). Can you see the mortified faces of your average Japanese person with car/train loads of Germans, Italians, Bulgarians and Hungarians entering Japan each day?

...let your imagination run with that baby!

SEndrigo · Joined: 28 Apr 2004 Posts: 437

hahaha good one matador!!!

Yeah I also thought that was quite a daft line!! Absurd!

Japan is about 100 years behind the EU in terms of open-mindedness, equality for women, and accepting other cultures.

Look at all this nonsense about the throne...."the Empress is now pregnant, so we don't have to worry about letting women succeed the throne."

Absurdity....typically Japanese. Let's ignore the problem, hoping it will go away.

But it won't.

It's quite possible the author of that article lived in the Azabu/Hiroo area, and shopped at National Azabu supermarket and hung out in Roppongi Hills.

Not very representative of Japan, I'm afraid.