Quote:
Originally Posted by clintjm
Even if you are married to a Japanese, children with a Japanese, acclaim citizenship etc... by a majority of the public. Even "Half(s)" sometimes have this issue. You can dress, speak fluently with idioms but your looks and if your background is known you always have that possibility of being treated differently. Little things like being stopped in public and asked for your ID just because the officer can. Being stopped for driving a car and asked why the Japanese in the car is not driving despite having all the credentials. This affects finding a new job and how far you will go with a this job at a Japanese company.
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I have never been harassed in Japan for any reason by normal individuals. I was once yelled at by a guy in Hiroshima because of the bomb, and the Japanese around him apologised profusely to me for his behavior. To put this in perspective, I have twice been accosted in East Texas by the KKK for being Roman Catholic.
The only time I am approached by police is if they think I am lost. I may have told this story here before, but once, a police officer figured out I was sick and showed up with medicine for me. I was amazed any officer would care that much.
Maybe this is Fukuchiyama, and if it is, then there is a reason why I love my town, I guess, but I was always pulled over, yelled at, and generally treated like crap by city police agencies in the US, and that hasn't happened here.
I get treated far worse in America for being different, religiously, politically, age-wise, than I ever do in Japan for the color of my skin.
This is why I take such accounts of people being harassed in ridiculous ways "all the time" with an entire shaker of salt. As MMM said, every country has idiots, and Japan is no exception, but I just don't see the kind of institutionalised, conspiratorial racism/nationalism/xenophobia I am constantly encountering in Western discourse, be it online or in person.