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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

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.

lovemenot 8y ago
>> it's not racism, it's culturalism 20 years a gaijin here. Pretty much agree with your observations. I would argue that Japanese themselves are subjected to immense pressures to conform to social norms. More so than foreigners, but its the same pressure in both cases. I think that foreigners get along fine in Japan if they can accept this fact. If not, they are likely to feel constantly rejected and some, out of ignorance may deem it racism.
InfiniteBeing 8y ago
Well, a lot of the problems people in the USA have with certain groups has to do with those same cultural reasons.
- buckminster 8y ago
  The problem is that the USA has never had anything like a single homogenous culture but some groups like to pretend that it has.
icelancer 8y ago
>> The if part is hard, though, and I've seen many people run into the brick wall that is Japanese culture. True. But the knee-jerk reaction by Westerners is to call it racism, which it isn't, just like the majority of things called racist.
majos 8y ago
Interesting. I know I've read accounts by, say, ethnic Koreans claiming that even when raised in Japan the ethnic difference caused native ethnic Japanese to treat them differently. Maybe I'm unduly influenced by a small number of such anecdotes.
spicytunacone 8y ago
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Never set foot in Japan myself but your overall view falls in line with those of almost every foreigner in Japan I've ever followed. Something I find that's less discussed, probably because I only frequent English speaking sites, is specifically other Asians in Japan and I'm wondering if someone here can shed some light on that. The impression I have from reading random accounts is Koreans and Chinese (perhaps all of Mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong?) are expected to conduct themselves like any other Japanese and fully integrate, whereas Caucasian gaijin (or any Westernized people as your wife's anecdote seems to imply) are comparatively given more leeway (expected to do things their own way, but as a corollary never thought of as fully Japanese)? The model I have in my head is that the average Japanese who doesn't know your deal will put you in one of two categories: A) You are a temporary visitor. A tourist on vacation or business trip. B) You are a full fledged member of Japanese society. So the more "foreign" you seem, the more likely you are to be considered "A". I'm particularly interested in Southeast Asians: are they expected to be more Japanese/Asian or "other"? I guess the temporal nature of their visas helps cement them as the latter.

lovemenot 8y ago

>> it's not racism, it's culturalism 20 years a gaijin here. Pretty much agree with your observations. I would argue that Japanese themselves are subjected to immense pressures to conform to social norms. More so than foreigners, but its the same pressure in both cases. I think that foreigners get along fine in Japan if they can accept this fact. If not, they are likely to feel constantly rejected and some, out of ignorance may deem it racism.

InfiniteBeing 8y ago

Well, a lot of the problems people in the USA have with certain groups has to do with those same cultural reasons.

buckminster 8y ago
The problem is that the USA has never had anything like a single homogenous culture but some groups like to pretend that it has.

icelancer 8y ago

>> The if part is hard, though, and I've seen many people run into the brick wall that is Japanese culture. True. But the knee-jerk reaction by Westerners is to call it racism, which it isn't, just like the majority of things called racist.

majos 8y ago

Interesting. I know I've read accounts by, say, ethnic Koreans claiming that even when raised in Japan the ethnic difference caused native ethnic Japanese to treat them differently. Maybe I'm unduly influenced by a small number of such anecdotes.

spicytunacone 8y ago

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Never set foot in Japan myself but your overall view falls in line with those of almost every foreigner in Japan I've ever followed. Something I find that's less discussed, probably because I only frequent English speaking sites, is specifically other Asians in Japan and I'm wondering if someone here can shed some light on that. The impression I have from reading random accounts is Koreans and Chinese (perhaps all of Mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong?) are expected to conduct themselves like any other Japanese and fully integrate, whereas Caucasian gaijin (or any Westernized people as your wife's anecdote seems to imply) are comparatively given more leeway (expected to do things their own way, but as a corollary never thought of as fully Japanese)? The model I have in my head is that the average Japanese who doesn't know your deal will put you in one of two categories: A) You are a temporary visitor. A tourist on vacation or business trip. B) You are a full fledged member of Japanese society. So the more "foreign" you seem, the more likely you are to be considered "A". I'm particularly interested in Southeast Asians: are they expected to be more Japanese/Asian or "other"? I guess the temporal nature of their visas helps cement them as the latter.