RE: Yes, I can use chopsticks: the everyday microaggressions that grind us down. →

darkhriss:

I’ve lived in Japan for many months and I have to say that this is true, and yes, it affects me very much sometimes. I’ve just returned from a hellish day at school where I’ve been treated like a little monkey by a bunch of third graders, their teacher and my OWN teacher, which didn’t meant any harm, but managed to make  us feel like some inferior species. But what can I do, other than swallow and try so smile again tomorrow? Of course everyone “dismisses” these problems, because you can’t really do anything about them. You either swallow everything and try to enjoy your life, or you just get sucked up into all this crap and jump in front of a train. Well, call me in denial, but I’d want to be part of the first group, even if it’s hard sometimes. 

I don’t feel very comfortable to begin with in my country either, and I’m sure I would feel the same in any place on this planet. Why? Because the sensible, smart and understanding people are less than 20% in every culture and society. And you would kill yourself after a day if you’d try to adjust to every idiot in the universe. Just…follow your own way. 

Don’t get me wrong, but I find articles like these a waste of time. If you admit that there’s no solution, why are you writing that in the first place? To make all the foreigners in Japan acknowledge the problem? And do what about it?   What’s the meaning of words like:

“Alas, my actions to stem or deter this just make me look alarmist, reactionary and paranoid in the eyes of the critics (especially the NJ ones, who seem to think I’m somehow “spoiling” Japan for them), either because they haven’t experienced these microaggressions for themselves, or because they live in denial.”

Ok, I don’t call you paranoid and I don’t live in denial because I admit all these problems. And what next? The japanese are magically going to change because I get mad every time they discriminate against me?  

I’m telling you, people aren’t going to change even if you write on their foreheads “foreigners are human beings too”. You can’t change a whole nation, you can only change the way you see and feel about life, if you want to remain sane and enjoy the world a bit, that is.

Considering that once upon a time, minority groups were treated much worse in other countries, but that changed, I’d say that while I agree that getting angry with a Japanese person for treating you like you aren’t human won’t necessarily solve anything, it doesn’t mean that you can’t ‘change a whole a nation’. It just takes time. Even if the article says that there’s nothing to be done about it, it’s not a solution-less problem.

Japan is still a super homogeneous nation and if and when it becomes more of a multicultural society, it will change. It’ll have to, because Japan needs foreign residents, it needs tourism, and it’ll always get less of those as long as it keeps the attitudes it has. It’s already been trying for years to encourage more foreign visitors and residents, especially since Japanese people leaving the country is becoming more and more common, but the combination of discrimination, economic issues and the recent natural disasters have proven incredibly off-putting (the earthquakes and tsunami even caused many expats to leave entirely). Japan might be largely ignorant of the way it treats its foreigners, but the rest of the world isn’t and that can and will have negative ramifications on Japan itself. Aspects of it already are evolving, like the abandoning of gaijin cards later this year. Ultimately, it’s just a country that remains decades behind the rest of the world with regards to social activism, rights etc., whether it’s immigration, race, gender, LGBTQ and so on. Sure, I can’t change it personally with my anger or my trying to educate the people that treat me differently because I’m not Japanese, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t change in the future or that it isn’t worth talking about. The more foreigners who come to Japan, the more Japan’s treatment of immigrants (which as I understand, other governments aren’t blind to) is made a topic of discussion, the more Japan becomes a less isolated nation - all of that means that expats will be less likely to be treated like aliens in their own homes. I can’t change it, the author of the article can’t change it, but it’s not altogether unchangeable.

That said, I also agree that it’s not something that people should dwell on, and it’s definitely something that you should try and get past in order to better enjoy your time here (focusing on it will likely ruin your day every time you leave your house, and that’s a terrible way to spend your life here), but it isn’t an entirely hopeless situation. It’s just something that foreigners in Japan have to grin and bare for the time being, while Japan continues to try and catch up to (most of) the rest of the world.

ETA: I should also clarify that when I said that people too often ‘dismiss’ racism in Japan, I mean that they dismiss it in a way that doesn’t take it seriously, rather than dismissing it because they can’t do anything about it. Whenever the topic comes up online, it’s usually followed by a slew of people who’ve often never even been to Japan saying ‘it can’t be that bad’, ‘they’re just curious’, ‘they just think we’re celebrities’, ‘it’s harmless’, ‘they just think we’re pretty!’, ‘it’s not racism tho’ etc. and completely ignoring the fact that it is a legitimate, potentially frustrating or upsetting problem for foreigners who live here. Accepting that it’s bad but letting it slide because you can’t do much about it, I have no problem with and is probably the healthiest way to cope with it when you’re actually experiencing it. ‘Dismiss’ it in that respect by all means! I’d much rather it ran off me like water off a duck’s back as opposed to taking it to heart as often as I do. But turning a completely blind eye and even going as far as to justify and defend Japan’s racism is too far and it’s that and the blatant invalidation of many (but probably not all, as there are some lucky folks who’ve never felt negatively affected by it) non-Japanese peoples’ experiences of it that bothers me. Dismissing it as a coping mechanism is great, but dismissing it as nonsense and refusing to acknowledge that there’s even an issue isn’t.

(Source: magomago)

Yes, I can use chopsticks: the everyday microaggressions that grind us down. →

Have you ever noticed how many interpersonal interactions in Japan are like “speed dates” of set questions?

For example, the taxi drivers who have the odd fascination about where you’re from, whether you’re married, how much you like Japan, and how hard you think the Japanese language is?

The barkeeps and clientele who try to slot you into their hackneyed preconceptions of some country and nationality, what you can and cannot eat, and (as things get drunker) how much you enjoy having physical liaisons with Japanese?

The neighbors who have a white-hot curiosity about how differently you raise your kids, what you fight with your spouse about, and how much you like Japan — regardless of how many years you’ve been interacting?

In the beginning, these were dismissible as just acts of awkward friendliness by people who didn’t know how else to approach you. It at least made you really good in certain areas of Japanese conversation.

But after years of repeat games, boredom sets in, and you begin to realize two things: 1) that you can sleepwalk through most conversations, and 2) that, if you stay awake, you see there is a larger issue at play here: social control — something increasingly recognized by social psychologists as “microaggressions.”

…

They include, in Japan’s case, verbal cues (such as “You speak such good Japanese!” — after saying only a sentence or two — or “How long will you be in Japan?” regardless of whether a non-Japanese (NJ) might have lived the preponderance of their life here), nonverbal cues (people espying NJ and clutching their purse more tightly, or leaving the only empty train seat next to them), or environmental cues (media caricatures of NJ with exaggerated noses or excessive skin coloration, McDonald’s “Mr. James” mascot (JBC, Sept. 1, 2009)).

Usually these are unconscious acts grounded in established discourses of interactions. Nobody “means” to make you feel alienated, different, out of place, or stereotyped.

But microaggressions are also subtle societal self-enforcement mechanisms to put people “in their place.” For NJ, that “place” is usually the submissive status of “visitor” or “guest,” with the Japanese questioner assuming the dominant position of “host” or “cultural representative of all Japan.”

Read more.

This article has been making the rounds around international students I know, and it’s pretty accurate as far as explaining the little things that make me tick as a foreigner in Japan goes. People too often dismiss Japan’s racism because the things that many Japanese people say or do aren’t necessarily done with bad intentions, but intent isn’t magical and doesn’t change the way it makes a lot of foreigners here feel. Sure, they might just all be ‘curious’, but when you’re made to feel out-of-place, day in and day out, however nice the people around you might be, it has the potential to eat away at you. It’s also something that a lot of people who’ve visited but never really lived in Japan often seem unable to fully understand.

(Of course, although I’m posting this because of it’s relevance to my study abroad, it’s also important to remember that these kinds of microaggressions are not something that can only be experienced in Japan - they happen every day to minority groups just about everywhere, to the same effect.)

On a lighter note, I’ve never understood why Japanese people are always so curious as to whether or not foreigners have romantic partners. （・＿・；）

Is it true that it’s more difficult for foreign women to live and succeed etc. in Japan than it is for foreign men?

start of the GW

With less than 90 days left until I go home, does anyone have any topics or questions that they’d like me to write about?

Hm, I’m not 100% sure because I never really checked how far the sizes go up to, but I have to say it’s not very likely, especially since that’s a size that’s pretty hard to shop for back home too. Sizes are even more limited here, plus there’s a chance that your actual cup size might even be one bigger in Japan than back home too (seems to be the trend among my friends, anyway, that their Japanese bras are a cup up). In any case, I’d recommend stocking up before you get here just to be safe!

Thank you, and agreed! Apart from chains like H&M, GAP, Zara etc. which are all quite expensive in Japan, Uniqlo is your best and cheapest (by a little…) bet and offers more of a range of sizes, although they’re still a little bit limited compared to back home.

I also recommend stocking up on bras and underwear not only because of the awkwardness involved in language barriers, but because Japanese underwear are… not to a lot of us North American and European womens’ tastes, at least not in the city I live in. Thankfully I haven’t needed to buy any, but most lingerie shops I’ve seen around Kyoto are incredibly lacking in plain, practical underwear; most bras I see are excessively cutesy, flowery, lacy, frilly and sometimes even fuzzy, and not the kinds of things you can wear comfortably under clothes.