4 ms·

I left my bag on a train the first day I arrived in Japan. I had fallen asleep and woke up to a conductor shouting at me. I grabbed my backpack and hurried out

I left my bag on a train the first day I arrived in Japan. I had fallen asleep and woke up to a conductor shouting at me. I grabbed my backpack and hurried out of the train. But, as soon as the doors shut, I realized my other bag was inside. I went to the train authority and registered the lost item and everyone assured me that it would be found, no problem. I called back several times over the next 10 days but it never showed up. The train person told me “it must have been a Korean.” I was like, whaaa? My bag is lost and you are going to comfort me with racism? Ah well, that was literally my only negative experience in the country.

brabel 5y ago
> “it must have been a Korean.” Everybody here is basically making the point that Japanese are extremely unlikely to keep items they find, which is basically as racist as saying "other nationalities are more likely to keep stuff", except that in this particular case, the person singled out a particular nationality instead of generalizing - I find generalizing the whole rest of the world even worse than doing that.
- hohoemi8 5y ago
  >which is basically as racist as saying "other nationalities are more likely to keep stuff" You can call it racist if you want but it's absolutely true.
  - brabel 5y ago
    That's the thing with racism: you can't just pick and choose what you believe is ok or not. Is it ok to say japanese people are less intelligent? If not, why is it ok to say they are more intelligent?
- Barrin92 5y ago
  Not really. It's one thing to point out that Japan has a unique culture, which is very obvious. It's an entirely other thing to blame foreigners once that culture doesn't work as expected. In particular because Koreans have very strong lost and found systems and high trust as well. Blaming Koreans is a reflex given the strong anti-Korean sentiment in Japan.

brabel 5y ago

> “it must have been a Korean.” Everybody here is basically making the point that Japanese are extremely unlikely to keep items they find, which is basically as racist as saying "other nationalities are more likely to keep stuff", except that in this particular case, the person singled out a particular nationality instead of generalizing - I find generalizing the whole rest of the world even worse than doing that.

hohoemi8 5y ago
>which is basically as racist as saying "other nationalities are more likely to keep stuff" You can call it racist if you want but it's absolutely true.
- brabel 5y ago
  That's the thing with racism: you can't just pick and choose what you believe is ok or not. Is it ok to say japanese people are less intelligent? If not, why is it ok to say they are more intelligent?
Barrin92 5y ago
Not really. It's one thing to point out that Japan has a unique culture, which is very obvious. It's an entirely other thing to blame foreigners once that culture doesn't work as expected. In particular because Koreans have very strong lost and found systems and high trust as well. Blaming Koreans is a reflex given the strong anti-Korean sentiment in Japan.