Quote:
Originally Posted by Columbine
I lived in a city about 30 minutes by train from Osaka. I'm not sure how big it is by Japanese standards; the population is about 400,000, which seems large to me. I really loved it.  |
Osaka! I SEE! They would bawl.
Some people say that Osaka people are not Japanese, but Osaka-jin.
Their language is different from the Japanese language.
Osaka is not rural, but I don’t think they act like Japanese.
I like Osaka, but I can’t live there even if I want because I can’t speak like them.
Quote:
|
I have friends living in Sendai and Yamagata. Most tourists don't bother to go there, so any foreigners there tend to be there for work. Both live in areas outside the main city centre, so even though it's a big city, they don't see many other non-asian foreigners.
|
I don’t think both Sendai and Yamagata are big city.
My relatives live in Yamagata and I have been there many times. I’m sure that Yamagata is really rural.
Quote:
My teacher actually explained it very well with this story: when she was first married, she lived in a small town in Japan, and she worked in a bank. Another bank in the town had been having problems with a group of asian foreigners in the area, who had been stealing people's bags. So my teacher's banks put up posters warning people "この地域の外人泥棒に気を付けなさい"、or something like that. But the picture of the 'gaijin' on the poster was an American and looked just like my teacher! So people would see the poster, then see my teacher in the bank, and think she was the thief. When she complained that the poster was misleading, the bank said, "it's just warning about those bad gaijin. Anyone can tell you're a good gaijin!"
They did change the poster in the end, but she said it was very odd doing her job right under this big sign that said that people like her were thieves!
|
I hope it was long time ago and it doesn’t happen now.