I’m a South Indian/South East Asian looking male living in the Tochigi countryside. I believe I look perfectly South/South East Asian (Leaning more towards Indian id say). Im 5’11 and I’d say in medium brown(The darker side of medium). My eyes are more deep set and Indian although some Indians would say my eyes are South East Asian, my nose and face shape is South East Asian and my hair is wavy and kinda inbetween Indian and South East Asian texture wise.
Most foreigners , both Asian and Western immediately flag me as South or South East Asian usually Sri Lankan is the first guess and then the classic Indian and sometimes Nepali. However the strangest thing is that im persistently called ”Kokujin ” by Japanese people in passing which i believe means Black. I find this extremely odd as there is nothing African about my appearance besides maybe my skintone being the closest. The funny thing is that its only Japanese people. I know I look South Asian because South Asians immediately know im either South or South East Asian usually. Moreover I keep my hair medium length so its clear that I have Asian hair. I also have those typical thick Indian eyebrows.
So my main question is what exactly are the usages of Kokujin in Japanese? Are there a varying amount of meanings. Is it used to describe dark skinned people in general? And have any other South Or South East Asians on this sub been referred to as kokujin?
Note theres nothing wrong with being any ethnicity but im just trying to understand the thought processes Japanese people have when they use these words. Do they just not know what Indians look like?
9 comments
Probably because your skin tone is darker…it means black man or dark skin…one of my friends told me about it years ago when we were in college…he was born and raised in Japan and is half black and half Japanese…
Lol i am Indian living here for 9 years and heard the word Kokujin for first time. Generally I am called gaijin or indojin or bakajin.
Means “black person”. I wouldn’t say it’s racist, but the person using it is probably a bit ignorant.
Kokujin (黒人) means black person. Hakujin (白人) means white person. People are referring to you as 黒人 because of your dark skin color. I remember some time ago there was an English lesson TV show on every week where the name used for the teacher was 白人先生, literally “white teacher.”
It’s people in Tochigi being totally ignorant about other races. Their thought process is Foreign + dark skin tone = kokujin
Japanese can be quite ignorant but it sounds like it’s being used as an insult to me. FWIW, Japan’s not-so-latent racism has gotten progressively worse since I first came here in the 1990’s. Blame the government for dog whistling the public down that road. People do what they’re told here.
Man don’t worry, and ignore those ignorants. Kokujin, hakujin, gainjin, kosugaijin…etc are all humans similar to all the people living in this country. Don’t let that win you over and be an obstacle in your life
What the hell kind of area are you living in in that people are saying Kokujin to your face? I don’t think it’s discriminatory or whatever but Japanese people aren’t usually saying hakujin! Kokujin! Regularly
I’m a black Brit and Have been here almost 10 years and have never had anyone say that to me. Only time is when I brought it up in a conversation.
Honestly it’s down to ignorance. I worked at the front desk for a while and we had a couple of South Asian gentlemen ask a few questions about our place. When they left, some of my coworkers asked what they wanted, and I asked, “The South Asian gentlemen?” And plenty of my coworkers were surprised I could tell they were from south Asia. Lack of exposure means they can’t tell different ethnic groups apart, I guess.
If I had to guess, since you’re obviously foreign and your skin is darker, in some Japanese people’s minds you’re not hakujin (white person) therefore you’re kokujin (black person). I don’t know how good you are with kanji, but the kanji for kokujin 黒人 is literally black + person. So they’re just going by skin color. I guess.
TL;DR:
Kokujin literally means black(the color) + person. Some Japanese are unaware of different ethnicities so they might just be going by skin color.