12 ms·

> But ethnicity, not just nationality, seems to matter a lot in Japan The correct modern terminology for that is racism. Something most people don't know a lo

by volgo 8y ago

> But ethnicity, not just nationality, seems to matter a lot in Japan The correct modern terminology for that is racism. Something most people don't know a lot about, because as a culture Japanese tend to be very outwardly polite so a lot of racism is very subtle and can't be spotted by someone who's just visiting.

weiming 8y ago
I find it funny that most of Western sentiment about Japan is very boolean: it's either "Japan is a mythical, enchanting land you must visit, great food and lovely people" or "Japan has a rapidly aging population, things are tough, and they are also racist." Why not accept that it's a huge country with 120M people and a multitude of experiences?
- volgo 8y ago
  A boolean opinion would be saying whether Japan is "good" or "bad" as a whole. I was commenting specifically on the racism issue. They have amazing technological advancements, but have a major problem as a culture with racism. The racism isn't scattered here and there, it's a societal issue.
  - weiming 8y ago
    > The racism isn't scattered here and there, it's a societal issue. I guess one can say that generalizing something so dire about an entire population would also, perhaps unwittingly, be racist.
    - rohit2412 8y ago
      I think generalizing to a population shouldn't be racist. However, judging a Japanese individual based on expected stereotypes even without the said person showing it should be termed racist
    - Pyxl101 8y ago
      > I guess one can say that generalizing something so dire about an entire population would also, perhaps unwittingly, be racist. Would it be racist to say that slavery in the pre-Civil War United States south was a societal issue? Or to say that racism in Nazi Germany against Jews was a societal issue? I don't think so. (I give these example to demonstrate that there is some line a society can cross where you'd hopefully agree it's an issue.) I don't know whether the claims are true or not about Japan, but I don't think it's inherently racist against the Japanese to claim that xenophobia or racism are societal issue there. To believe that all such accusations are inherently racist is to believe in a form of moral relativism in which no society can ever be justifiably called racist.
- grizzles 8y ago
  I'm a westerner, I lived in Japan for a year. I'd say it's both those things. The racism westerners experience is very different & much better than the 3K's type racism [1] other foreigners are subject to in Japan. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty,_dangerous_and_demeaning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty,_dangerous_and_demeaning
- icelancer 8y ago
  >> Why not accept that it's a huge country with 120M people and a multitude of experiences? It is both a place worth visiting and also full of what we would call racism. The overly-politically correct crowd in America would be (and often are) shocked at what passes for acceptable race-related behavior in Japan.
- greggman 8y ago
  Japan is like any place and has good (eg safety) and bad (eg sexism). if I'm praising Japan on safety that doesn't mean I don't know it's bad parts. It's just I shouldn't have to bring them up if they aren't on topic. The problem from my pov is people get defensive when someone says "Japan is great. it's so much safer than the US it makes the US feel like a 3rd world country" which is true IMO and it's said to emphasize how the US (and many other countries) take for granted the amount of crime. And sadly instead of getting the intended message which is "the level of crime you live with in the USA is something to be fixed" instead they resort to pointing out the bad parts of Japan so they can ignore the harsh conclusion.
natalyarostova 8y ago
This modern terminology is useful for distilling a vast amount of moral judgement into a single term in order to dismiss an entire class of heterogeneous social structures, some of which are horrible, some of which are fine, into being classified into the set of 'morally evil.'
sonnyblarney 8y ago
The way that Japanese treat outsiders is so far from the popular Western ideal of what 'racism' means that I'd argue the term barely applies. 'Racism' is a loaded term that has little meaning in most situations because it entirely depends on context. Sure, if someone is calling a black guy the n-world, well then yes, we can safely use that term. But if we consider that the vast majority of the world is inherently ethnocentric, then term 'racism' as a hard pejorative can only effectively be used in New World / Western / Anglosphere contexts, as elsewhere it would have an entirely different meaning. The paradox of 'diversity' is that culture and ethnicity are the root basis of differentiation in this world, and without it, there literally is no 'diversity' - and yet, any general ideal which recognizes ethnicity is deemed 'racist' (in the pejorative sense), usually by New World / Western / Anglosphere types who generally lack perspective, in my view. So, yes, Chinese treatment of non-Han types may be 'racist' in the ugliest sense, but it requires far more nuance than this simple term can imply. The very essence of 'diverse' ideals should be founded upon respecting the fact that other groups have a different view of the world (and have different histories) than 'we' do; instead, we all to often end up with ideals of 'diversity' which amount to 'diversity of skin colour and last name' and utter conformity on all other levels. The way the Japanese treat outsiders needs a whole other term of it's own, really.
- knuththetruth 8y ago
  >The way the Japanese treat outsiders needs a whole other term of it's own, really. It’s called xenophobia, of which their various forms of racism are just articulations thereof.
  - honestoHeminway 8y ago
    If the world is not easy, take a knife and cut until it is easy? Does not matter if the quest to make it easy, black and white so to speak, does more damage then good. People are put out of there comfort zones by having people around them, who look totally different then their own mirror image. It happens, because it crashes the mirror-neurons we have - you get difficulties comparing your self image with somebody who looks totally different. Never mind that the whole process is a total delusion, basically everyone hallucinating that everyone else is a carbon copy of the self. Some signals overide this behaviour (baby-stereo types, big eyes, etc.) but for most people getting put outside your comfort zone, becoming aware that there might be not only other people, but also totally strange mindsets, is deeply distressing. And if you look at the past history - of nearly all of the world, and the list of missing explorerers - rightfully so. It can be overcome, partially, but never completely. Of course, acceptance and the applying of widespread workarounds (like the only text based internet) - would deprive political partys of the aggitation-steam theire engine relies on.
mikekchar 8y ago
Every time this pops up, I feel compelled to point out that in the 8 years I've lived in Japan (over a 10 year period), I haven't found this to be true. There is racism in Japan, just like everywhere. When I lived in Canada, I saw a sales manager where I was working throwing how CVs with Indian names. I asked him what he was doing. "There's no point in hiring someone whose name I can't even pronounce", was the reply. In the UK I couldn't get on a bus without somebody complaining about how dark people were taking over the country. Racism is everywhere. It's a good point that in Japan you will almost never run into racism in polite company -- because, as you say, it is considered impolite. However many expats who live here complain about racism. What's going on? IMHO it's not racism, it's culturalism. In my experience, if you speak Japanese well and you know how to act as a Japanese person, you will see almost no racism. However, if you are a visible minority (as I am) people often expect that you are ignorant of Japanese culture. They put on the "you are a guest" routine, which is fine except that it wears thin when it is your home. One or two gestures and a word or two of fluent Japanese almost always snaps them out of it. Just to illustrate the difference, I once went to Takayama with my wife (who is Japanese). We stayed at a traditional ryokan (inn). Takayama has a very famous festival and fairly large old town, so it is popular with tourists. Because my wife changed her surname to mine, the woman running the ryokan assumed she was not from Japan (although she is very obviously of Japanese ethnicity). It took quite a while for the woman to twig that my wife was, in fact, Japanese and lived in Japan. It was the first time my wife experienced that difference and it surprised her quite a bit. I have experienced some racism in Japan, but I really don't think that it's all that much different than anywhere else. Sometimes I think that people don't see the racism where they live -- often because they are not a visible minority. When they become a visible minority for the first time, it's a shock. When I went to University the CS department was composed mostly of foreign students from China or India and most of my friends were from there. It was the first time that I really noticed the racism in Canada. I've run out of time, but at least in my experience, it is relatively easy to live in Japan if you decide to be Japanese. They don't do melting pot here. If you want to hold on to your own culture and to act like you did in your home country, you're going to have troubles being accepted. But if you decide to accept Japanese culture completely, I don't think you will run into any problems. The if part is hard, though, and I've seen many people run into the brick wall that is Japanese culture.
corey_moncure 8y ago
What's your value judgment of racism? Do you think it is good, neutral, bad, necessarily bad, or other, and why?
icelancer 8y ago
>> The correct modern terminology for that is racism. Yes, Westerners call it this. And in our eyes, it is. Japanese don't particularly buy that brand of shame, though.
- taneq 8y ago
  The whole idea that racism / ethnicism is bad is a very Western stance. In the rest of the world, discrimination based on race and country of origin is pretty normal.

by volgo 8y ago

weiming 8y ago

I find it funny that most of Western sentiment about Japan is very boolean: it's either "Japan is a mythical, enchanting land you must visit, great food and lovely people" or "Japan has a rapidly aging population, things are tough, and they are also racist." Why not accept that it's a huge country with 120M people and a multitude of experiences?

volgo 8y ago
A boolean opinion would be saying whether Japan is "good" or "bad" as a whole. I was commenting specifically on the racism issue. They have amazing technological advancements, but have a major problem as a culture with racism. The racism isn't scattered here and there, it's a societal issue.
- weiming 8y ago
  > The racism isn't scattered here and there, it's a societal issue. I guess one can say that generalizing something so dire about an entire population would also, perhaps unwittingly, be racist.
  - rohit2412 8y ago
    I think generalizing to a population shouldn't be racist. However, judging a Japanese individual based on expected stereotypes even without the said person showing it should be termed racist
  - Pyxl101 8y ago
    > I guess one can say that generalizing something so dire about an entire population would also, perhaps unwittingly, be racist. Would it be racist to say that slavery in the pre-Civil War United States south was a societal issue? Or to say that racism in Nazi Germany against Jews was a societal issue? I don't think so. (I give these example to demonstrate that there is some line a society can cross where you'd hopefully agree it's an issue.) I don't know whether the claims are true or not about Japan, but I don't think it's inherently racist against the Japanese to claim that xenophobia or racism are societal issue there. To believe that all such accusations are inherently racist is to believe in a form of moral relativism in which no society can ever be justifiably called racist.
grizzles 8y ago
I'm a westerner, I lived in Japan for a year. I'd say it's both those things. The racism westerners experience is very different & much better than the 3K's type racism [1] other foreigners are subject to in Japan. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty,_dangerous_and_demeaning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty,_dangerous_and_demeaning
icelancer 8y ago
>> Why not accept that it's a huge country with 120M people and a multitude of experiences? It is both a place worth visiting and also full of what we would call racism. The overly-politically correct crowd in America would be (and often are) shocked at what passes for acceptable race-related behavior in Japan.
greggman 8y ago
Japan is like any place and has good (eg safety) and bad (eg sexism). if I'm praising Japan on safety that doesn't mean I don't know it's bad parts. It's just I shouldn't have to bring them up if they aren't on topic. The problem from my pov is people get defensive when someone says "Japan is great. it's so much safer than the US it makes the US feel like a 3rd world country" which is true IMO and it's said to emphasize how the US (and many other countries) take for granted the amount of crime. And sadly instead of getting the intended message which is "the level of crime you live with in the USA is something to be fixed" instead they resort to pointing out the bad parts of Japan so they can ignore the harsh conclusion.

natalyarostova 8y ago

This modern terminology is useful for distilling a vast amount of moral judgement into a single term in order to dismiss an entire class of heterogeneous social structures, some of which are horrible, some of which are fine, into being classified into the set of 'morally evil.'

sonnyblarney 8y ago

The way that Japanese treat outsiders is so far from the popular Western ideal of what 'racism' means that I'd argue the term barely applies. 'Racism' is a loaded term that has little meaning in most situations because it entirely depends on context. Sure, if someone is calling a black guy the n-world, well then yes, we can safely use that term. But if we consider that the vast majority of the world is inherently ethnocentric, then term 'racism' as a hard pejorative can only effectively be used in New World / Western / Anglosphere contexts, as elsewhere it would have an entirely different meaning. The paradox of 'diversity' is that culture and ethnicity are the root basis of differentiation in this world, and without it, there literally is no 'diversity' - and yet, any general ideal which recognizes ethnicity is deemed 'racist' (in the pejorative sense), usually by New World / Western / Anglosphere types who generally lack perspective, in my view. So, yes, Chinese treatment of non-Han types may be 'racist' in the ugliest sense, but it requires far more nuance than this simple term can imply. The very essence of 'diverse' ideals should be founded upon respecting the fact that other groups have a different view of the world (and have different histories) than 'we' do; instead, we all to often end up with ideals of 'diversity' which amount to 'diversity of skin colour and last name' and utter conformity on all other levels. The way the Japanese treat outsiders needs a whole other term of it's own, really.

knuththetruth 8y ago
>The way the Japanese treat outsiders needs a whole other term of it's own, really. It’s called xenophobia, of which their various forms of racism are just articulations thereof.
- honestoHeminway 8y ago
  If the world is not easy, take a knife and cut until it is easy? Does not matter if the quest to make it easy, black and white so to speak, does more damage then good. People are put out of there comfort zones by having people around them, who look totally different then their own mirror image. It happens, because it crashes the mirror-neurons we have - you get difficulties comparing your self image with somebody who looks totally different. Never mind that the whole process is a total delusion, basically everyone hallucinating that everyone else is a carbon copy of the self. Some signals overide this behaviour (baby-stereo types, big eyes, etc.) but for most people getting put outside your comfort zone, becoming aware that there might be not only other people, but also totally strange mindsets, is deeply distressing. And if you look at the past history - of nearly all of the world, and the list of missing explorerers - rightfully so. It can be overcome, partially, but never completely. Of course, acceptance and the applying of widespread workarounds (like the only text based internet) - would deprive political partys of the aggitation-steam theire engine relies on.

mikekchar 8y ago

Every time this pops up, I feel compelled to point out that in the 8 years I've lived in Japan (over a 10 year period), I haven't found this to be true. There is racism in Japan, just like everywhere. When I lived in Canada, I saw a sales manager where I was working throwing how CVs with Indian names. I asked him what he was doing. "There's no point in hiring someone whose name I can't even pronounce", was the reply. In the UK I couldn't get on a bus without somebody complaining about how dark people were taking over the country. Racism is everywhere. It's a good point that in Japan you will almost never run into racism in polite company -- because, as you say, it is considered impolite. However many expats who live here complain about racism. What's going on? IMHO it's not racism, it's culturalism. In my experience, if you speak Japanese well and you know how to act as a Japanese person, you will see almost no racism. However, if you are a visible minority (as I am) people often expect that you are ignorant of Japanese culture. They put on the "you are a guest" routine, which is fine except that it wears thin when it is your home. One or two gestures and a word or two of fluent Japanese almost always snaps them out of it. Just to illustrate the difference, I once went to Takayama with my wife (who is Japanese). We stayed at a traditional ryokan (inn). Takayama has a very famous festival and fairly large old town, so it is popular with tourists. Because my wife changed her surname to mine, the woman running the ryokan assumed she was not from Japan (although she is very obviously of Japanese ethnicity). It took quite a while for the woman to twig that my wife was, in fact, Japanese and lived in Japan. It was the first time my wife experienced that difference and it surprised her quite a bit. I have experienced some racism in Japan, but I really don't think that it's all that much different than anywhere else. Sometimes I think that people don't see the racism where they live -- often because they are not a visible minority. When they become a visible minority for the first time, it's a shock. When I went to University the CS department was composed mostly of foreign students from China or India and most of my friends were from there. It was the first time that I really noticed the racism in Canada. I've run out of time, but at least in my experience, it is relatively easy to live in Japan if you decide to be Japanese. They don't do melting pot here. If you want to hold on to your own culture and to act like you did in your home country, you're going to have troubles being accepted. But if you decide to accept Japanese culture completely, I don't think you will run into any problems. The if part is hard, though, and I've seen many people run into the brick wall that is Japanese culture.

corey_moncure 8y ago

What's your value judgment of racism? Do you think it is good, neutral, bad, necessarily bad, or other, and why?

icelancer 8y ago

>> The correct modern terminology for that is racism. Yes, Westerners call it this. And in our eyes, it is. Japanese don't particularly buy that brand of shame, though.

taneq 8y ago
The whole idea that racism / ethnicism is bad is a very Western stance. In the rest of the world, discrimination based on race and country of origin is pretty normal.