[Nyororin]

I am one of those apparently rare people who honestly has never experienced any negative racism in Japan. Ignorance, yes, positive discrimination, yes - but nothing negative. At least not from Japanese. And I have been here 10 years.

Although I suppose I should put a disclaimer - I speak Japanese fluently. It seems to me that most of the time (not always, mind you), what people interpret as racism is something more like language discrimination. They`re afraid to commit to anything with someone that cannot sufficiently speak the language. I`ve never had a problem with finding an apartment. As soon as it was made clear that I understood the forms, requirements, etc without support, everything was fine. Japan doesn`t really have a lot of faith in translators, they like the person in question to actually understand. Way too many foreigners here try to weasel their way out of agreements and payments by playing the language card. "I didn`t fully understand" "That was never translated to me" etc.

Language discrimination is something you can find just as strongly in the US. It isn`t something limited to Japan.