Quote:
Originally Posted by WingsToDiscovery
How do you deal with/feel about these scenarios, or do you just not care?
From the first perspective, I'll talk about gaijin amongst other gaijin. What I've tended to notice is that most gaijin will never be truly happy with each other. On one hand, a gaijin may be ostracized by other gaijin for not trying to fit into the culture enough, or will always try to one-up newbies. Then another gaijin will get the same crap for being too into the culture. Many gaijin will judge each other and detest each other. We have examples even on this forum about not wanting to associate with other gaijin, hating other gaijin, etc.
But then you have being a gaijin from the Japanese perspective. If you take too little interest in social customs, many Japanese will just think you're an ignorant foreigner and treat you as such. If you try too hard, they'll question why you're trying to be more Japanese than them.
It's hard to find a healthy balance of where one should fall, in my opinion.
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Can't say I experienced any of the issues of gaijin not getting along with other gaijin where I lived, well not for the sorts of reasons you state above. Everyone got along pretty well. There were social groups of course but they were more split along lines of professions and interests like sports. Most company owners for instance would not be seen at the weekly poker night. They could be found though in the cycling group or out playing golf. Never really met anyone who was overly concerned about how much you were or were not into Japanese culture. Just about everyone there regardless of profession was there because of the great snow and skiing. Some of us almost purely for that reason, others almost purely for the business opportunities and money to be made from ski tourism. Some had been in the region for over 20 years whilst most others had only started living there within the last 5 years. Many spoke fluent Japanese, took a great interest in the culture and had Japanese partners and many barely spoke a word of Japanese and had little interest in any cultural aspects. Such things though generally didn't have any determination on the social groups that formed.