Racism in Japan
In today’s Japan times there is an article on page 13 entitled “Racism is bad business.” It addresses the issue of foreigners being barred entry to certain Japanese establishments and how this hurts international business in Japan. Over my 3 years in Japan I have seen many articles and pieces devoted to this issue and I would like to get some feedback from you other Japan ex-pats out there. We all know that racism is not good but for the sake of sport, I would like to argue against all this whining from ex-pats about the racism issue. So without further delay let’s start the debate.
I have never experienced being barred from any Japanese establishments (of course I lived in Tokyo and it may differ in the countryside) and I’m tired of all this ex-pat whining. Japan is a homogenous country and they have very specific customs and rules of behavior that most foreigners cannot understand. Most of us ex-pats are good hard working people and try to understand Japan from the inside. But then you have the other type of “gaijin” like in Shibuya or Roppongi that are extremely shady and are suspect. If I was Japanese I would bar these people too.
Further, I (like many of us) got my start in Japan teaching English. We used to go to Watami, get extremely drunk and make a wreck of the place. Some gaijins commented that many of us go crazy because we are not in our home country and think that acceptable forms of behavior no longer apply. There were food fights, vegetarians that gave the waiters hell if they could not understand that they wanted their salads with no bacon bits and got angry when the food came with a bit of meat, and drunkards spilling their beers all over the place. I’ve noticed that the Japanese do not resort to this type of behavior no matter how drunk they are. Just go to any of the foreigner areas in Tokyo and you’ll be sure to see a gaijin making a mess of himself.
Most Japanese in the countryside do not know how to deal with foreigners and a few bad apples have spoiled it for the rest of us. I think that on the overall and circumstances being what they are here in Japan, the Japanese do a very good job of hosting the foreigner. Sure there are hard times and I too have been rejected from many apartments because I was a foreigner. But once you learn the ropes of dealing with the Japanese and speak the language, many of these obstacles dissapear into thin air. Don’t get me wrong, I almost lost my sanity a few times dealing with apartment rental and university life where they do not know how to deal with foreigners. But after being here for three years and learning the language, my life has become 300% easier. I think that if gaijins made more of an effort to understand Japan and the Japanese instead of trying to have Japan adjust to them, this racism stuff would ease up a bit.
The article lists a website at www.debito.org/roguesgallery.html that apparently catalogs pictures of foreigners being barred entry. Might be worth a look but not getting too angry over.
Exactly:
I even have trouble getting worked up about the real estate agents who flat out refuse foreigners. Some of us have been in the room when the “gaijin” talks about how he skipped out of his apartment without telling the landlord. The conversation sounds like this, “I didn’t want to pay for the damage to the walls, tatami, flooring, and the bathroom.” Or, “We totally smoked up the entire third floor with our barbecue! Dude, and the Japanese got all bent out of shape. Don’t they know how to have fun?”
That is fun?
Again, “If I was Japanese I would bar these people too.“
” I’m tired of all this ex-pat whining.”
I don’t know why you are asking for comments when you have clearly already made up your mind that there is no racism problem in Japan. I’ve lived in japan twice, and I’m very low-key, mellow, mature person. Never been in trouble with the police, haven’t been in a fight but once in my life in grade school. If I get drunk, the most you can expect from me is a biting remark. That said, I think japan has a racism problem. BUT, compared to the U.S., the problems in japan, in my opinion, are almost negligible. The only issues I still fume over are clubs (IN TOKYO) with signs that say ‘no foreigners (and no, I don’t just mean strip clubs, thank you), and the apartment situation. I’m also tired of the Debito bashing. I don’t agree with everything the guy says, but I think he makes some good points. I wish people would stop telling him to shut up, we need ‘some’ dissenting voice in japan to help along cultural change/exchange. Japan wants to be considered a democratic, international type of city, so they have to improve certain things in terms of immigration and cultural understanding, otherwise, just close the borders and pretend to be north korea.
Anyway, like I said, while I have some problems with race in Japan, but compared to my home country of America, Japan is heaven and the people are great.
Let’s see, the original story can be found here.
Rather than considering the article “whining”, it might be worthwhile to look at Arudou Debito’s work from this perspective: he has become a Japanese citizen and is a committed member of this society. He closes the article, “Japan can do better than this. It must. As the world’s second-biggest economy, in a resource-hungry world, this is tragic. As Asian business prospects steadily shift to a growing China, this situation, if left as is, will only hurt Japan’s future global opportunities.” Though he can be more than a bit self-promoting, I read this as a wish for Japan to be a better, more successful place for everyone, rather than whining.
I think one of the points that Debito implied in his article was that Japan is not the homogenous society it once was. In fact, it is becoming less so all the time. In some areas of Japan, resident foreigners or foreign business people are becoming a significant group. I’ve never been to Sapporo, but living in Nagoya and spending time in Hamamatsu really shows how the supposedly 100% Japanese society is changing, and not just in Tokyo.
Japan does have some specific customs, but common sense, a little bit of patience, and basic manners from your home country will get you pretty far. I’ve seen plenty of foreign business people with no special training or experience do reasonably well here on short trips simply because they observed their surroundings and didn’t act like lunatics.
What teaching English has to do with this I’m not sure, but what seemed to be needed was a “No obnoxious drunks” sign, not a “No foreigners” sign. I think you will find this to be the rule at most bars or restaurants in many other countries. If you throw stuff or abuse the waitstaff, you will be asked to leave. The problem in Sapporo seems to be that all foreigners are expected to act like obnoxious drunks. If that is the basic belief about foreigners regardless of behavior, then how can foreigner individuals expect to be judged on their own merits in business?
I suggest spending a bit more time in some cheaper izakaya that are not gaijin haunts. When working in Kyushu, I saw a member of the local board of education strip of his trousers and chase a waitress around the room at a bounenkai. I used to help out a friend by waiting tables at his yakitori shop once in a while. I was one of the few foreign customers who ever wentt in their. It was mainly an afterwork haunt for JR workers and cops. The cops were the worst- forcing the younger new guys to drink until they puked just like some kind of frat initiation. I could go on, but all you have to do is spend time on the trains late at night or very early in the morning to see some out-of-control obnoxious drunks (or their remains).
The article isn’t describing miscommunication or the experiences of foreigners who don’t speak Japanese. Heck, even when accompanied by a Japanese government employee, people were getting the “big batsu” treatment. You are absolutely right that learning the language wil make your life easier and get you past some of the barriers, but if business establishments or individuals won’t even give you a chance to demonstrate that you can be reasonably civilized that is a serious problem: not just for the barred foreigners, but for the society itself.
Debito cites several examples of business people deciding not to do business here because of the ill feeling that discrimination causes. Aside from any notions of fairness, with the state of the economy, Japan cannot afford to pass up valuable opportunities. That is really Debito’s point: part (not all) of Japanese business and society is barring itself from important developments by denying entry to foreigners.
Personally, I’ve only rarely been barred from a place of business. I tried to check into a capsule hotel many years ago. My Japanese was still very rudimentary, but with a bit of calm persuasion, the desk staff got over any worries about “specific rules”, and I got in anyway. I’ve never been denied a ride in a taxi as described in the article. I have been asked to pay higher prices by companies such as Usen. And, after a very discriminatory experience trying to open an account, I will never do business with UFJ if I can possibly help it. That’s it in a nutshell: by discriminating against foreigners, businesses like Usen and UFJ lose valuable customers while businesses that take a moment to be a bit flexible gain goodwill.
Treating someone differently because of gender, race, sexual orientation and place of birth is discrimination. And discrimination is bad. No two ways about it.
If it is “traditional” to discriminate against someone, then get rid of the tradition.
Totally agree with you Ted.
Yes, there are gaijin that behave poorly and give us all a bad rep. However, when I was in Tokyo, I was alone and was barred from several establishments.
I was about to question them why? They were polite though. But decided if they don’t want my money then it’s not a place I want to be.
I am latino and got treated more politely in Japan than I ever have in the US but that doesn’t excuse language discrimination. For example, in one establishment, I acted like I spoke Japanese fluently and they let me in when the first time I tried, I said I didn’t spoke Japanese.
It’s very difficult for me to get as worked up as Debito is about racism in Japan. Only a person with their head in the sand could deny it does exist. But on the other hand, as a Japanese-speaking white guy who’s been coming here since high school, living in Tokyo for two years and has traveled all over the country in both Japanese and in foreigner-only groups, I can say I’ve never been treated with anything except the utmost courtesy and respect.
Perhaps I’m just going to the wrong places (not much of a “snack” or brothel or bar-hopper, and I tend to avoid places where large numbers of foreigners congregate.) In fact, I’ve never even encountered any sort of hesitation at being served or let into an establishment. A little common sense — such as approaching new establishments quietly and inquisitively rather than busting in with an armload of drunk or loud friends — goes a long way over here.
Debito’s right to point out cases of discrimination. The cases in Sapporo sound extreme and definitely worthy of further scrutiny. But it’s important thing is to remember that these are fairly isolated incidents. By and large I have found Japan to be one of the most warm and hospitable places I’ve ever lived — in some cases, even more so than my hometown of Washington DC.
-Matt
Um, I am a quiet nice person, who had a nice quiet Japanese husband with me when I lived in Japan. People refused to serve us at one restaurant in Omiya. We didn’t have problems elsewhere just Omiya.
Yet, on my own, things were bad. The weirdest incident when was I had a post office manager throw my letter at me because he refused to mail something out of the country.
Japan is pretty racist and I come from Canada where I did grow up with some racism already.
I think that you are coming at this from a perspective of a privledged foreigner. Imagine that you are were born here and didn’t have the right to vote because of your race.
Hi, I have just come back to Australia from Japan. I think that Japan is a wonderful country, technologically and culturally. Very strong indeed. The major gripe that I have about Japan is that at one stage whilst living in Okayama I was suffering from depression due to an immense amount of racial prejudice placed against me within my Japanese work environment, as I was the only foreigner. The company that I worked for made me work my ass off part time for a part time wage working over time, but as soon as a Canadian came whom was caucasian, he was offered a full time wage with lesser hours, hence my decision to leave the company. It is acceptable to be a racist in Japan because it is part of the culture. I accept that. I understand now that I am in Australia why alot of Japanese people are psychologically bent and hope that one day they will learn that sincerety is real and not something that can be faulsified. Its alright to turn a blind eye to racism and say well its just like that, but people who do that are condoning racism…as oposed to doing something about it.
Hi, I have just come back to Australia from Japan. I think that Japan is a wonderful country, technologically and culturally. Very strong indeed. The major gripe that I have about Japan is that at one stage whilst living in Okayama I was suffering from depression due to an immense amount of racial prejudice placed against me within my Japanese work environment, as I was the only foreigner. The company that I worked for made me work my ass off part time for a part time wage working over time, but as soon as a Canadian came whom was caucasian, he was offered a full time wage with lesser hours, hence my decision to leave the company. It is acceptable to be a racist in Japan because it is part of the culture. I accept that. I understand now that I am in Australia why alot of Japanese people are psychologically bent and hope that one day they will learn that sincerety is real and not something that can be faulsified. Its alright to turn a blind eye to racism and say well its just like that, but people who do that are condoning racism…as oposed to doing something about it.
I have lived in Japan for years and speak Japanese. I know that if Japanese were treated in Australia the same way as “Gaijin” are treated in Japan there would be no end of whining and squeeling from Japanese. The amount of corruption in business is astounding in Japan, beyond comprehension.
I must agree with all your thoughts. I travel a lot due to my job and been in Japan several times. The main rule is to respect Japanese traditions. They don
I’m sorry to hear that the writer had to behave in such a bad way in Japan. It’s ridiculous that you justify Japanese racism by your own behaviour.. In a way justifying them both, the Japanese racism and your own. Get a grip. The problem is that the Japanese think all foreigners are the same, unable to distinguish between stupid and racist American college idiots, and others who have come to live obeying the Japanese laws and rules. I guess this is also a display of Japanese racism. The only foreign country is the US, nothing else matters, all foreigners are and should be like Americans. Stupid pigs. So it’s all the same to treat all foreigners like shit.
I have lived in Yokohama for two years and I find your comment “I’ve noticed that the Japanese do not resort to this type of behavior no matter how drunk they are.”(re- to messy drunken behavior) hilarious!
I’ll tell you just two things I saw only this week.
1) A group of 5 gaijin (myself included) standing on a busy street corner talking and having a beer before catching the train. A drunk J.man walks up and stands in the middle of our circle, takes out his penis and urinates on the gound in the middle of the street. We all jump back and yell at him to get away from us, he smiles and in japanese says “drop dead gaijin”.
I am not complaining about this, I think its funny, I meen what other 1st world country could you see this in.
2) Drunk J.man on train, J.girl putting on makeup sitting next to him. Girl softly bumps him with her elbow while painting her face, he looks at her with daggers. The second time she bumps him he slaps her in the face (hard) and yells at her, she crys and runs off the train.
I will whine about this, and in fact J.man and I had and nice little talk.
The fact that you would say drunk Japanese dont act like this makes me question the amount of exp you have have in Japan.
As for your Q. As some people have said there is no point in arguing with you because you have made up your mind. But I will tell you about one more exp.
Two weeks ago near Tokyo Station, I was walking along when I came across a BIG political rally (LOTS of people) all clapping and cheering. The man on top of the van with the megaphone was saying “All gaijin in Japan should hang their heads in shame, I cant walk down the street without seeing their ugly faces, gaijin are horrible”.
Ive traveled alot, and I have not seen a racist act on that scale before (in person).
One more thing, all the people out there who think the Japanese are not racist, do you understand Japanese or do you just speek Eng? Because until I started speeking J I didnt think they were racist.
I don’t have much to say other than what I found during my brief stay in japan. I admit to being a little naive when I went over there as to what to expect, but the reality was, for me, much worse than I could imagine.
I felt completely hated by most people just for being a skinny white guy and lost count of how many times I was looked upon as though I had been scraped off somebody’s shoe.
Itwas clear to me that there was a lot of resentment and anger and as a British citizen i felt that it was completely misplaced and just couldn’t believe how I was treated in general.
I did meet some nice Japanese people there and I prefer to think of them when i am assaulted by horrible memories that stir up racist feelings within myself because of the way I was treated.
I went as a naive twenty five year old intrigued by Japanese culture such as video games and Manga and the usual stuff we are subjected to in the west, and I left after six months with a palpable distaste for anything Japanese.
I resent Japan for what it has done to my perspective of Asia and wish I had never been there as I’m not sure I will ever visit that part of the world again.
I really believe that in Britain we do not treat Japanese people that way whether they are tourists or working there and cannot escape this horrible feeling of injustice and anger whenever I think of that time, which I unfortunately do often. It is a crying shame that they behave in this way.
Oh, I forgot to mention….as soon as I got off the plane and was walking to the train station in the airport I passed a young Japanese couple in the subway. The woman uttered something about ‘gaijin’ that I didn’t understand and pulled a face as if she had just smelt rotten cabbage or sth, and as I turned around to look as they passed, her boyfriend or whatever was clearly looking back to see if I had understood the insult. I did not need to speak japanese to understand the meaning of what had gone on….I had been in the country for ten minutes. No one will ever tell me that the Japanese are not an intrinsically racist people.
Hi Paul Hill
I’m not sure if your comments are genuine or whether this is just some kind of trolling attempt to get reactions from people. Either way, I feel obligated to comment on them in order to provide a bit of a different perspective.
You wrote:
Actually, I will.
I think your comment is perhaps not as carefully considered as it could be. Writing off a whole nation of people as racists just seems, well, kind of silly.
There are assholes everywhere who will do what they can to try to piss other people off. Especially if they perceive those people as being weaker and more vulnerable than themselves. And maybe the easiest way for assholes in Japan to do that is to make “gaijin” comments.
And that said, do you recognize that despite what some foreigners here seem to think, “gaijin” is not necessarily a bad word. Just because you hear somebody use the word “gaijin” in the middle of some comment the rest of which you don’t understand, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are dissing you because you are a gaijin. The girl who looked at you funny may have just not liked the way you dressed. Or the fact that you are skinny. Or pale
If you go around getting bent out of shape every time somebody looks at you funny, I reckon you are going to find lots of things to get upset about no matter where you are.
Another thing: Based on my experiences here, which I would guess are a little longer than yours, I’d say that I sometimes see friends of mine blaming any sort of perceived mistreatment they endure as coming because of the fact that they are foreigners. I guess it’s easier for them to blame it on that than it is to try to take a moment to think about what other reasons there might be.
All that said, I will admit that there are racist people in Japan. Plenty of them. But there are plenty of racist people everywhere. You tend to not notice it as poignantly when you are part of the majority race in the place where you happen to find yourself. But you notice it much more acutely when you are in place where you are not part of the majority race.
It seems to me there are a couple of points of view that people typically take after living for a while in some place where they are in the minority.
You can take the point of view of “I lived in place XX, and some people there treated me like shit because I was different, so I realized that all the people there are racists.”
Or you can take the point of view of “I lived in place XX, and not being part of the majority race there gave me a lot of insight into the complexities of racism, and really made me think about how minority races are treated every day in the place where I’m from.
I went to GasPanic club in Roppongi tonight. On my last visit to Japan I was refused entry because I walked up alone to the club, they asked me if I got a member
Ali I understand. I am a Black American and even though things are still nuts here I am utterly shocked by these things Im learning of Japan. I used to have a strong desire to go to Japan and Learn more of its culture as I am the type of person with a mind for other cultures but this just sickens me. I was hoping that Americas race crap was isolated to just here but I see that the entire world is fixated on this Pathetic racial garbage. I dont Judge anyone by color when you open your mouth and prove yourself the fool I mark you as such not because of your skin color.
I am a lover of Japanese anime and Ive often noticed the Big Lip Black characters which have that early 1900s black face design and it did bother me to a degree, but with this new knowledge of Japanese Racism Im Done with Japan.
Its sad that more American or even British or Austrailian companies dont step up to the technology plate because I feel like throwing out all my Japanese products to stop the support of companies that may only see a Black male who has a BS in CIS fit only for Janator work.
also jokuvaan what you say is just like the Japanese mentality. Not all in America are “stupid pigs” thats just like me throwing out comments like “G’day mate! You have a boomerang Im hunting Roo!!” Just Because your from Australia doesnt mean you know how to use a boomerang just like me being American doesny make me a Stupid Pig.
Stereotypes the genes our Forefathers fostered with their Bonehead hate still continues to fuel the fires of Bias and inorance to this day.
From what I have heard, the Japanese are known to discriminate against all known foreigners as far as personal dealings go whether they are European, African etc. It seems strange to me though that their anime often portrays Japanese characters with distinct European features, usually indistinguishable from European characters other than hair color.
I’ve heard the explanation that it is just the style that is being used. Why is it then that African characters are always unmistakably distinct from Japanese characters, often with grossly exaggerated and hideous features. Also African characters are usually portrayed as either very dumb, monstrously ugly, low life criminals or all of the above. I have yet to see a male African character portrayed as intelligent, handsome, serious, or honorable.
In Japanese video games African males usually appear as big hulk, Neanderthal like boxers, wrestlers or goofy, smiling kick boxers, never making it through as Karate or Kung fu experts. The opposite characteristics can be seen in quite a few European characters. It has been like this practically since the beginning and I just don’t understand why it’s like this.
After reading all these comments I am really thinking it twice before I decide to study manga/anime illustration and try to work over there. I am dominican and am finishing my high school studies, I am planning on going to study to the United States and become a professional Illustrator with the hope to be good enough to get a job in Japan. This is a country I came to love not only for the work they do on animation and manga, but for their beautiful cultur and manners, but after reading all these comments and the behavior they present about forgeiners is just killing my expectatives big time, not to mention I have the light suspect that for the fact that I’m from the dominican republic, a country I’m shure they have heard very little about (so far I understand the majority of forgeiners are from the US.) I’ll have lower chances than anybody else to try and make good relations with these people who seem to have a very low tolerance of people different than them, and it’s just very, very sad. I understand it’s in part of their culture to be a little dejective over forgeiners, but bring it out at this point? It’s really sad… I really want to fulfill my expectations, even if they look so very hard to get, but this is certainly not helping much…
The interesting difference between xenophobia in Japan vs. in the USA is that it is still 99% obvious from external appearances who is Japanese and who is not. A perfectly fluent gaijin with permanent residence (or even citizenship) is not “Japanese” — he doesn’t look it, and therefore he is treated differently.
This happens less frequently in say New York City, where everyone is from somewhere else and there’s no distinguishing US citizens from tourists from space aliens.
The reverse is also interesting: a USA citizen 4th generation Japanese-American with 2 years of college Japanese came to visit me and was treated like a Japanese person, though he could hardly speak, didn’t know how to bow, used the wrong slippers, etc. Most people seemed to treat him basically like a mentally handicapped Japanese citizen; him being a gaijin was difficult for most people to handle.
Yes, racism exists everywhere, and some countries have it legalized/institutionalized to the same extent as it is in Japan.
As long as Japan continues to have, through official (educational, employment, etc.) policies and social norms, a sense of unique “Japanese-ness”, the whole concept of “kokusaika” is irrelevant. Any country that needs to expound on its “international”ness, really isn’t.
Yea, after reading all of this it worries me now if my goals i want to achieve. I’m 17, and female and i want to become an interpreter (Japanese and English) but go to Japan first to teach English for a year. I don’t want to go somewhere and be shunned. I have a light tanned skin colour, and i’m from Canada.
i knew Japan was a tight knit country, but ack. This badly? Today someone on my MSN list (who i later blocked and deleted =___= )was making fun of me. Saying, that i’m going to need all the luck i can get because i’m not white, I’m not going to get a job, I should send the lightest picture i have of myself, and sucks to be me. To be honest, this hurts. And i love Japan, and knowing that i might not even be allowed to achieve my dreams because i have a tanned skin colour (i’ve even went out with Asians with darker skin than me -.-;; ) just bursts my bubble big time.
NOTE for the anime lovers: There are some black anime characters that aren’t protrayed with bad features…. some. Bleach, and Utena for example =P