Just as equally you can become blind to it. To justify the choices you have made in your life you can deny that racism and xenophobia exists. You can deny a whole raft of issues that make it hard for a foreigner to live in Japan. I love Japan and would move back to live there in a heartbeat. I preferred living there than living in Australia by far and I would never have left if not for my wife!! But I witnessed and experienced quite a lot of xenophobic attitudes and outright, in your face racism during my time there. To try and deny it exists is ridiculous. Japan is not one of the least culturally diverse nations on the planet for no reason. I think many have very valid reasons to feel disgruntled about how non Japanese attempting to live there can be treated. There is little if any protection in law against discrimination based on race. Something that is very unusual in a developed nation in this age and I believe a testament to the xenophobic attitudes that pervade the nation. Because it is legitimised from the top down many Japanese can't even comprehend that some of their actions could be considered racist. But I challenge anyone to show that race is not an issue in Japan.

I wasn't referring to racism, specifically, but rather to the assumption that points of Japanese culture exist specifically out of racism or xenophobia... Like the example given of how people look down on other cultures where they don't take their shoes off.

It isn't that there is no racism in Japan, it's that most things in Japan do not exist to confound and frustrate foreigners. When you start saying things are done because Japanese people want to feel superior to you, or the like, is when I start shaking my head.

Also - a note on the " assuming Japanese isn't spoken" that seems to come up incredibly often... I can count on one hand the number of foreigners I have encountered in Japan during the 10+ years I have lived here who were proficient in the language. I have heard the complaint about people assuming you don't speak Japanese numerous times, but the majority have been from people who don't speak the language.

The fact is, the majority of westerners in Japan DO NOT speak Japanese. Even the majority of long term residents in Japan do not speak the language well. I have never had anyone doubt my ability to speak the language AFTER speaking it... But at a glance, it is in the best interest of a business to assume otherwise. A potential customer who cannot understand the menu is a customer likely to go somewhere they can understand the menu. If you check into tourism info, it has been shown that handing an English language menu out to clearly non-Japanese customers more than triples sales. So... Is it racist for a business to want to make money?

I must apologize, being the thread starter, I didn't read through every single comments in detail before posting this reply.

Anyways, on the note of racism, was the denial of service as described by James, a real case of racism? Or simply a safety measure due to the language barrier and the lack of understanding of the Caucasian culture?

I mean, putting yourself in their shoes, what kind of risk are they subject to when they provide service to someone they don't understand, both language-wise and backgroud-wise?

A risk of gaijin parties, loud music, multiple sex partners frequenting the premises, late night visitors, strange smells seeping through the door, inability to explain financial details, things like that
Those are my assumptions, slightly based on hearsay.

I can agree with Nyororin that the majority of things which come off as racist are certainly not due to outright intentional acts of racism or xenophobia, but a surprising (surprising to a Canadian that is) amount of them are.

Also, in most of the world, racism isn't done intentionally and spitefully but rather out of ignorance, that doesn't make it any less racist though :)

But this is the automatic assumption that every single foreign client being dealt with has a lack of understanding of both the culture and the language.

No no no, I am not referring to the client being delt with, its the service provider themselves... The denial of service is because "I am scared because I don't speak English and I don't know what you are up to"... not "I don't think they know our language and culture"....

As per James, a lot of these fear was from an assumption that foreigner will be loud and noisy, they bring home different girls 4 times a day.. again, all assumptions, mostly hearsay...

I have a book at home that talks about life after Japan surrendered during WWII, I think a lot of the current mentality was "carry over" from similar thinking from that period. One of the chapter in that book talks about a Picture between taken of the US marine shaking hand with the emperor at the time, how people see the tall wide American overpowering an small short Emperor, American were viewed as beast, and families with daugthers were listening in closely to when the troops will land and they need to move north to the moutain and suburbs to avoid a run in with the American because they are on a mission to rape all the Japanese women.....

Anyways, I will see if i remember to dig up that book and share a few interesting articles with you guys on a separate thread, but I think a lot of the "avoidance" mentality came from that kind of media back in the days, much of it were not erased till even now....

I still don't know if I would classify this form of "fear" as racism, but I do see why others felt that way..

I don't think anyone's denying their problems. I'm certainly not denying they have a fish obsession. I just think that there could be a way around it.

It's the same thing. If a Foreigner can demonstrate that he is competent in Japanese, why does the Japanese service provider fear not speaking English (or other language)? It's an assumption that there will be some sort of miscommunication but if both parties can communicate than it shouldn't be a problem, but there are many cases where it is.

And the "fear" that Gaijin will wreck the apartment or whatever is not a legitimate reason. It's labeling the entire group of foreigners as, dare I say it, barbaric.

I never had any problem walking or cycling when I was in Japan, so I suppose I just interpret it differently. Some people see the bike bell ringing as a sound of aggression, to me it's just a helpful warning, and in my experience even if you dither about they tend to give pedestrians right of way or move onto the road.


Very very true. The penalties for drink driving in Japan are also harsher, I believe. Also an awful lot less people in Japan wear cycle helmets, even kids, so it's really unsafe to risk getting swiped by a car that doesn't give way. I mean, one of my sister's friends came off at 20mph, wearing a helmet and now has personality issues because the crash basically shook his brain up like a bowl of jelly.

The other thing about cycling on the roads in Japan is the roadside drains. Ok not an issue in town centres, but there were some near us in the 'burbs that were just bicycle death-traps especially after dark.

well then just tell them to bring you a menu in Japanese if you are so desperate to show off to other people that you have invested the time and speak their language.

or even better. stop bitching about pointless stuff - you can read it can't you? SO WHAT IS THE DAMN PROBLEM?! food doesn't taste the same if it is not spelled out in Japanese? :mad: