I’m Vietnamese. I have read about discriminations in Japan, but it’s mostly written by white foreigners. But since I’m South East Asian, I look similar enough to Japanese. So how would my life there be like?
AFAICT there’s actually more discrimination against virtually all varieties of non-white foreigners than towards white foreigners – but white foreigners typically come from countries and cultures where they have never faced ethnic discrimination before, and find it particularly uncomfortable to experience for the first time in Japan.
The nature of this discrimination varies very widely though. Many people go through life feeling little to no negative impacts; most people get a sense of not being accepted into the culture, despite being treated civility and politeness, and often friendliness; and some people have really hard experiences dealing with particularly hostile people or workplaces/school environments/etc. It varies so widely that it’s really hard to draw any conclusions about what your life would be like, since it depends so much on the specific people and places you will live in, and your own personality and approach to life.
Best ways to mitigate discrimination are:
– Learn Japanese (the bar is certainly higher for East/SE Asian immigrants) – Get a good job that pays well, and that values your contribution – Build a good social circle (both foreigners and Japanese) that will support you
Do you have access to social media websites where Vietnamese workers in Japan typically post? Maybe you could ask them.
>I look similar enough to Japanese
The majority of people with foreign citizenship in Japan are of Chinese or Korean descent who grew up here as native speakers of Japanese. Have you heard about their experience in Japan?
>But since I’m South East Asian, I look similar enough to Japanese.
I’m in the inaka and there are Vietnamese (on training programs?) here and most of them stick out like a sore thumb.
You will encounter discrimination at some point regardless but usually the more effort you spend learning the language and the better your job is the less discrimination you’re likely to face.
>since I’m South East Asian, I look similar enough to Japanese
I’m Malaysian-Chinese descent, and yeah my experience swings wildly between “you look Chinese” to “which part of Japan are you from?”. Generally I get the former from people who actually know me or talk to me for awhile, and the latter from strangers.
I think as long as you have decent conversational Japanese, you shouldn’t really have any issues. I travel a lot during my free time here and I’ve never _personally_ experienced racism directed at me.
I’ve experienced low levels of ‘I don’t want to deal with gaijins’ attitude when I’m with friends who are white / black. Worst I’ve experienced is a shopkeeper almost turning my friend (Sri Lankan) and I away until I told him I speak Japanese. Weirdest (and not uncommon) experiences is when Japanese people rant to me about Chinese tourists lol.
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AFAICT there’s actually more discrimination against virtually all varieties of non-white foreigners than towards white foreigners – but white foreigners typically come from countries and cultures where they have never faced ethnic discrimination before, and find it particularly uncomfortable to experience for the first time in Japan.
The nature of this discrimination varies very widely though. Many people go through life feeling little to no negative impacts; most people get a sense of not being accepted into the culture, despite being treated civility and politeness, and often friendliness; and some people have really hard experiences dealing with particularly hostile people or workplaces/school environments/etc. It varies so widely that it’s really hard to draw any conclusions about what your life would be like, since it depends so much on the specific people and places you will live in, and your own personality and approach to life.
Best ways to mitigate discrimination are:
– Learn Japanese (the bar is certainly higher for East/SE Asian immigrants)
– Get a good job that pays well, and that values your contribution
– Build a good social circle (both foreigners and Japanese) that will support you
Do you have access to social media websites where Vietnamese workers in Japan typically post? Maybe you could ask them.
>I look similar enough to Japanese
The majority of people with foreign citizenship in Japan are of Chinese or Korean descent who grew up here as native speakers of Japanese. Have you heard about their experience in Japan?
>But since I’m South East Asian, I look similar enough to Japanese.
I’m in the inaka and there are Vietnamese (on training programs?) here and most of them stick out like a sore thumb.
You will encounter discrimination at some point regardless but usually the more effort you spend learning the language and the better your job is the less discrimination you’re likely to face.
>since I’m South East Asian, I look similar enough to Japanese
I’m Malaysian-Chinese descent, and yeah my experience swings wildly between “you look Chinese” to “which part of Japan are you from?”. Generally I get the former from people who actually know me or talk to me for awhile, and the latter from strangers.
I think as long as you have decent conversational Japanese, you shouldn’t really have any issues. I travel a lot during my free time here and I’ve never _personally_ experienced racism directed at me.
I’ve experienced low levels of ‘I don’t want to deal with gaijins’ attitude when I’m with friends who are white / black. Worst I’ve experienced is a shopkeeper almost turning my friend (Sri Lankan) and I away until I told him I speak Japanese. Weirdest (and not uncommon) experiences is when Japanese people rant to me about Chinese tourists lol.