Idk if this counts as racism but getting hashi jozu when I’m ethnicly chinese was shocking. Like bro my people invented the dam sticks.
Does assuming I speak English count?
I do speak English, but what if I only spoke German or Swahili?
I always ask people first “English?” but now I wonder if maybe I am the racist for thinking someone might not speak English.
Most things that made me feel like that usually came from ignorance so I don’t know if it really counts as racism, but I do remember feeling uncomfortable when I was asked by a neighbor, who has known me for years, if I will be going back to my country during the holidays. I mean, sure I look foreign and that is not a strange thing to assume, but for all they know I could have been born in Japan, just not look Japanese.
Another thing I remember that made me feel uneasy was when I was told “it’s amazing someone with your face can speak Japanese so well!”. I’m near fluent, so perhaps for them it was hard to imagine that a non-Japanese looking person can speak like I did. Anyways, I guess mentioning one’s appearance when giving “a compliment” can be accidental racism.
Please don’t include any “XXXX jouzu” as an act of racism… it is at best kindness, at worst clumsiness. Just m y 2 cents after living in Japan for more than a decade and being married to a (japanese) english teacher in a Junior High School frequently asked to create lessons about racism in Japan.
Blackface could be a nice topic.
Racism is always a negative thing.
The only real negative I’ve experienced is going into a really local bar and being denied entry because “only japanese”. Happened only once.
Apart from that i feel that japanese ppl try extra hard and give more service to gaijin compared to nihonjin , but maybe im wrong.
now they even have translator apps which wasnt the case a few years ago.
So ive never felt that any nihonjin did something with good intentions which ended up being otherwise.
btw nigongo jouzo is not racism… its a compliment for trying to speak jp, if u interpret it directly ofc everyone know its not true.
it can seem 2faced at first maybe (i never said that to a gaijin in my home country speaking my mother tongue brokenly and i never would).
so it can lead to some confusion for sure, but its not racism.
That one time at a convenience store in Nagasaki where the employee was like “[South Asian country]?” and I replied actually no, I’m from [European country]. He then recoiled in horror and profusely apologized, as if he committed the gravest of offences.
So I was basically racially profiled and when he found out I wasn’t from where he thought I was, his apology felt like it was a bad thing to be from the country I was not from.
The guy had no ill intent and we shaberu’d for a few minutes but it was still a kind of racist moment IMO.
Meh… accidental racism seems a bit much in all jouze situations…
TRUE accidental racism are things like where the fuck is the deo in the combini. That’s institutional.
I wouldn’t call that racism but patronizing.
But I get what you’re trying to get at.
Foreigners have large wieners but they aren’t as hard as Japanese wieners.
Just making assumptions about people based on their race or ethnicity in general. There are countless examples that you could come up with, but the underlying idea/problem is the same.
idk if I would call ‘nihongo jozu’ racism, it seems a little ridiculous to put something like that in the same category as like… housing discrimination… but I see what you’re getting at, you want things people say without really thinking that are rude (and related to race).
‘(japanese thing) jozu’ is annoying, but maybe also mention WHY and highlight what would be good to say instead? 日本長いんですね？ etc. Otherwise you are just giving them a list of ‘DONT DO THIS!’ without providing context or solution.
Blackface, calling dark skin people ゴリラ, are more severe things…
Also, when people put down one type of foreigner in front of another. It makes me think, ‘damn, what is he saying about me behind MY back then?’ for example, I went out to lunch with a manager at my previous company, and he asked why I became interested in Japan, replying, ‘That’s a good reason, unlike those *Chinese* employees…’ wtf
When you have legitimate and valid problem and someone just responds bluntly with, “Well all Japanese people know this.” or “I don’t know about your country, but all Japanese people do this” or something to that effect.
Was my last bosses go too for the final response to things she didn’t want to deal with.
Apartment renting
People moving away on the train. I give benefit of the doubt as much as I can ….but sometimes it is obvious.
Teach about how people were specifically racist to you. Surely it’s happened
Being followed around in department stores by employees.
Sitting in a busy family restaurant and being asked to get up and make room for new customers 2 minutes after clearing my plate while there were multiple tables of Japanese teenages that just bought drink bar and are just lounging around looking at their smartphones or actually sleeping on the GD table.
At a free music gig on the weekend. There were no signs saying “you can’t take photos”. Half the Japanese people around me had their camera out to take a video or photo of the performance. Including my wife.. Security guard came up to me, only geijin in the area holding a sign saying “no photos”. Put my phone away cos didn’t want to cause a scene. Looked around and the locals were still taking photos and videos without this guard coming over to stop them. Hmmmmm.
Definitely not with good intentions (this guy is a medical student, older and smarter than me, but he thinks it’s good intentions) i had a online friend and when we finally met he just kept mentioning, “you don’t sound like black girls” “oh i thought black girls typically smell.” and a few other things. he was very shocked when i blocked him and in his heart he truly believes nothing is wrong with these stereotypes
Rather than “jouzudesune”, I’d say “let me teach you how to use chopsticks!” Felt incredibly condescending. (But the dude was a creep in general, so take this with a grain of salt)
Maybe not the answer but there’s no shortage of xenophobia.
Start by discovering the difference between racism and prejudice. There is big difference. Nothing you discuss will ultimately be meaningful if you dismiss the difference between hurt feelings and the actual harm of racism.
I wonder how the school came up with the topic of “accidental” racism. If it was intentional does that make it okay? If you have a chance to talk about racism I think you got to talk a bit about history. Maybe take it out of Japan if that makes it easier. But I’m not sure enough Japanese know about the Kanto earthquake massacres, just to name one example
I think it’s more funny than anything but every now and then when I go to something like a konbini, instead of the usual “袋ご利用ですか” they’ll say “バッグ?” While doing a motion of them holding a bag. Even though the people in front of me in line they asked the normal way.
I’ve been out of Japan for a few years, ( business Stateside, covid, will be returning this fall) but we maintain a home in Japan, and this used to happen to me quite frequently. We (Japanese husband) would be out shopping, or going someplace, eating out, etc. I would speak to a salesperson, waitress, clerk, in Japanese, and receive a blank stare in response. I’d repeat myself. Blank stare, and the sputtering about how they don’t speak English. Usually by then my husband would step in and reprimand them for not understanding their own language, pointing out I’d spoken in *Japanese*, etc. He told me they’re do that because they’re “hearing with their eyes”, meaning they see me, a tallish, blonde haired, blue-eyed woman, and automatically assume I can’t possibly speak Japanese.
Also, years ago, when I still taught English, it was quite common to find want ads in Kansai Time Out magazine specifying either blonde or “typically American” looking candidates only. If I called about a job, I was often asked if I was American, what color my hair and eyes were. One of my Canadian friends was actually asked if she would be willing to dye her brunette hair blonde, and was denied the job when she refused.
I don’t know if these examples are useful to you, they happened years ago, but were quite common at the time.
I’d suggest approaching this with “common myths about foreigners”:
1. Foreigners Commit More Crimes. When foreigners commit crimes the newspapers/TV almost always mentions it. This creates the perception that foreigners commit more crime. There are numerous problems with these statistics. One problem is that tourists get lumped in with foreign residents, and there are millions of tourists every year. This means that every time a tourist breaks a law (normally through ignorance) the foreign community in Japan gets blamed. See this graph for how crimes by foreigners “mysteriously” dropped during Covid-19 when tourism declined. [https://www.statista.com/statistics/1263319/japan-number-foreigners-arrested-crimes-law-violations/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1263319/japan-number-foreigners-arrested-crimes-law-violations/) Also every time a tourist overstays their visa by even a day it gets listed as a crime. And this raises another important issue, that there are some crimes that only foreigners can commit, such as overstaying their visa. Even including all the “add-ons” there were 2.5 million foreigners in Japan in 2022 and only 9,550 crimes, which is 3.82 crimes per 1,000 foreigners. By comparison Japan’s population in 2022 was 124.49 million people who committed 601,389 crimes, which is 4.83 crimes per 1,000. So actually even with the extra “crimes” committed by tourists and the extra crimes that only foreigners can commit… we’re still less criminal than the average Japanese person. 2. Foreigners Don’t Pay Tax/Medical Insurance/Pension/etc This is complicated. If I recall correctly (and I am open to correction if the situation has changed) U.S. citizens don’t pay tax in Japan for the first 2(?) years of their stay in Japan. However U.S. citizens are a small percentage of foreigners in Japan. In 2000 U.S. foreign residents made up only 2% of foreigners in Japan, or roughly 50,000 people. The other 98% of foreigner residents pay all the same taxes as Japanese people, and while we generally get the same services and social support there have been times when this myth about foreigners not paying their share has led to some local city official incorrectly denying foreigners the same services and social support that Japanese citizens receive. The Japanese courts have ruled that this is okay with them, and foreigners aren’t entitled to the same services or social support as other tax payers in Japan. Now again, note that this not paying tax thing is only US citizens, and only for the first two years, and as far as I can recall it’s primary purpose was to prevent headaches for the US military and US military contractors dealing with taxation for soldiers on training or other short-term deployments in Japan. The other 98% of foreigners (and US citizens from the 3rd year on) pay all the same things that Japanese people do. Arguably we pay more tax per capita because we’re almost all employed. 3. Foreigners Shouldn’t Get Permanent Positions in Japan I hear this from time to time when discussions come up about permanent jobs and the logic that is presented is that if foreigners want to get permanent positions they should become full Japanese citizens. Okay, well firstly, Japanese law disagrees. Article 3 of the Japanese Labour Standards Act reads, “Employers shall not use the nationality, creed or social status of any Workers as a basis for engaging in discriminatory treatment with respect to wages, working hours or other working conditions. …” (第三条 使用者は、労働者の国籍、信条又は社会的身分を理由として、賃金、労働時間その他の労働条件について、差別的取扱をしてはならない.) . Japanese employers using nationality as an excuse to treat foreign workers differently are breaking the law. See above about the myth that Japanese people are less criminal than foreigners… or just leave your umbrella unguarded outside of a convenience store! Secondly, Japan doesn’t allow multiple nationalities, which means that any foreigner wanting to become a citizen would need to give up their birth nationality. Now that’s a big ask. It makes visiting home for birthdays, weddings, and funerals much harder. It also means that we’re tied to Japan forever, even after retirement. Now my Japanese is good, but I had an experience that made me question where I want to live in Japan in my old age. When I was coming out of surgery I was confused and I temporarily “forgot” Japanese. Oddly enough I didn’t default back to English either, but rather to another one of the languages I speak, which is strange but then I was very disoriented after the anaesthesia. And the hospital staff didn’t handle it well at all. They were just unable to cope with someone speaking another language that wasn’t English or Japanese, and while they panicked I moved and ripped a whole lot of stitches. It was not a great situation for anyone. What’s the point of this story? That it made me seriously rethink how well I’d do in a Japanese nursing home (if I live that long) when the staff panic at the sound of a foreign language. I’d really like to move back to my birth country where people speak multiple languages and would at least have recognised the language and not panicked. 4. Foreigners Stink This one could be a bit of a wake-up call for your audience, but Japanese people often stink too. This myth has largely got to do with what smells people consider “normal”. I’ve been in enough trains next to Japanese salarymen who breakfasted on some foul-smelling fish, and then failed to shower in the morning (despite spending the night in an unairconditioned apartment) to say firmly that Japanese people can smell incredibly bad. And let’s not start on the pungent breath that smells like stale coffee, dead fish, and a particularly rancid ashtray. Now normally foreigners say nothing. I’m only bringing this up now to illustrate a point. We’re also aware that we probably have our own range of aromas that Japanese people probably find distressing. We don’t bring up their body odour. They shouldn’t bring up ours. We would mask the odour with deoderant, but it’s hard to find decent stuff in Japan that doesn’t make every Japanese person in the area begin to gag at the strength of the smell. Can we all agree on a “body odour non-aggression pact”? You don’t mention our body odour and we won’t mention yours. 5. Foreigners Are Here to Steal Our Wimmen! Let’s deal with the obvious first. Japanese women are perfectly capable of making their own choices. However there are a lot of myths to unpack here. Foreigners are not a homogenous group. The biggest groups of foreigners in Japan are Korean and Chinese, who you would probably pass in the street without noticing. Even amoungst “Western” foreigners there are a lot of cultural differences, and yet there persist myths that Western guys can all cook, want to be more involved with child care, are more romantic, and so on. Are these myths true “on average”? Yes, no, maybe. Japanese women aren’t getting into a relationship with “on average”, they’re getting into a relationship with a specific person. And that specific person might be a master chef, or might be unable to boil an egg. Likewise there are a lot of myths about foreign women that I’ve heard. As a good general rule remember that while generalisations are good for understanding broader social issues and the “average” person in a society they’re pretty awful when dealing with individuals. The divorce rate in Japan “on average” is about 35%, but it is higher than 50% for foreign marriages. Part of this is communication difficulties, but a big part is these myths. And this isn’t one-way traffic. Both sides are often guilty of this. But at its most basic this myth is mostly insulting to Japanese women and implies that they’re property to be owned only by Japanese men. Which is pretty darned sexist. …which leads to my final point here. That sexism is probably the most prevalent form of discrimination in Japan. While foreign men have to deal with some pretty odd misconceptions the unfortunate truth is that foreign women have it a lot more rough, having to deal with discrimination against foreigners **and** Japan’s huge problem with discrimination against women in general. It’s a double-whammy.
You’ll probably want to approach it less bluntly and with a less direct tone than I’ve used here. Some funny pictures of people holding their noses on the subway, or some cutesy cartoon image of a foreign guy holding flowers to get the discussion going. Give the students some time to consider and react to the initial myth, and then ease them into the idea that they’re dealing with a bunch of stereotypes and often blatant misinformation.
My end point is to note I’ve used some stereotypes about Japanese people here and some of you will be getting offended, but I did that on purpose. Pause and consider how stereotypes made you feel. Now realise that they’re just as offensive to other people too. How you’re feeling is how they’re probably going to feel. Try to treat each person as an individual.
You use chopsticks really well. I on the other hand have never told a Japanese person they use a knife and fork really well.
If you get a job in customer service and they come across a couple where one looks Japanese and the other doesn’t; don’t assume the other doesn’t speak Japanese, don’t look and talk solely to the Japanese(-appearing) person, do address both of them.
Honestly, even if it’s clear they don’t speak Japanese, it’s common courtesy to address everyone in a group.
The biggest for me is assuming every crime is done by a foreigner, usually followed (or implied) by a comment like “a real Japanese won’t commit these crimes.” I’ve seen or read too many comments like these. Sure, some foreigners *have* committed crimes, but still a majority of them haven’t.
Another one, which might only apply to my workplace, is assuming someone who doesn’t speak Japanese *correctly* = gaijin. I have a new young coworker who’s Japanese but can be a bit slow when it comes to reading or pronouncing kanji characters (漢字が弱い). On her first day and the first time she misread a kanji, one of my bosses asked her if she’s haafu, which of course she denied. But every time she misreads or uses the wrong kanji (sometimes even word), it’s been kind of a running joke where a few coworkers would laugh by saying “外人さんみたいに話すね (you talk (make mistakes) like a gaijin).”
Edit: Oh actually another one! Comments like, “Toramayu-san is such a hard worker. 日本人みたい (You act like a Japanese)”, irks me for some reason, lol. Like, thanks? But hard working is not exclusively a Japanese trait?
After twenty years in Japan, and plenty of misunderstandings, I have reached the conclusion that *individuals* are very rarely racist. They may do things that seem like clumsiness or even micro-aggressions to Westerners but they rarely are.
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There is, however, *institutional* racism in Japan. In some circumstances it can be a touch harder to get an apartment or a job if you are not Japanese. It’s harder to get a stock trading account if you are not a Japanese national. Since I arrived here in 2004, however, it seems to have got substantially easier to rent a property and Japanese companies do seem to be more open to hiring foreigners in standard office and other positions that don’t involve teaching English.
​
NOTE: I am a white, English guy and I am only writing from my own experience. Other people of different demographics may have something different to say, having experienced prejudice or discrimination I am not aware of.
Not sure if I can match the racism with the good intentions part.
For pure discrimination/racism – nothing beats rental discrimination here. Not just me but all of the people I have transferred into Japan.
This one is just sort of clueless – neighbors asking me if my son speaks Japanese when they know he goes to public school. Or sometimes commenting that his Japanese is good. Like, yeah, he goes to public school, you see him with his landoseru out here everyday with the other kids. I get that he looks different but I specifically sent him to public school so that he would relate well in society!
One time, my wife needed an ambulance. She couldn’t speak at all. There was a koban nearby. She was in dire need and the officer started asking me what I do for a job and can he see my card. Another officer walks up 10 minutes later (took ages for the ambulance) and he says, “mind showing him your card too?”. Like…what does that have to do with the situation at hand!?
Curious — do you also plan on speaking to the students about examples that they might find personally relatable?
I think, in addition to citing some of the examples in this thread, covering examples of racism towards Japanese people could make it easier to absorb the nuanced feeling of experiencing racism.
I’m half (JP and US), and I have been on the receiving end of uncomfortable comments while both in the US and Japan. They usually from a place of true ignorance and thus I’d categorize them as “accidental” racism.
If you could (perhaps anonymously) ask Japanese teachers to share moments they’ve personally had in their lives, that might be the most graceful and impactful way to approach sharing examples of racism towards Japanese people.
From my experience of living in Japan and attending public schools, I think it’s unlikely that many of the Japanese students have experienced racism unless they’ve traveled abroad, attended classes at an intl school, etc.
They likely do, however, have experience with bullying and other forms of injustice, so I’m hopeful that your lesson will resonate. Good luck!
I think it’s a shame you’re getting downvoted for this post, it’s an interesting topic.
For people who take offence at the “nihongo jouzu” example, I guess they see it as a micro-aggression. I think micro-aggressions are a good example of accidental racism. But my impression is that opinions about micro-aggressions are mixed even in the English-speaking world, where the term is familiar to most people. You might have trouble introducing and explaining the concept in a single talk
EDIT: reading about this myself I came across the term [attributional ambiguity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attributional_ambiguity). If you talk about micro-aggressions it might help to allude to this concept
Maybe speak about how half Japanese people face discrimination for “not being Japanese enough”.
I was at a bar with some friends of mine. Everyone in the bar was Japanese and one Japanese person in the bar said to my half Japanese friend “wow you are the only foreigner here”. My friend said “I’m Japanese and Filipino, but born and raised in Japan”. The person said “oh that doesn’t count as Japanese”
When I used to teach back in the day I’d show the kids videos by アーサー(IU connect). He’s a little cringe but he’s got a skill for breaking down difficult topics like the one you mentioned above by giving alternatives rather than saying don’t do or say this.
Also, it removes the needs for your direct opinion(which could land you in trouble), encourage discussion and be the mediator rather than the lecturer.
Tokyo Metro Police are running a heavy traffic crackdown for all of July. https://www.keishicho.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/kotsu/torishimari/kokai_juten/kokai.html Fast machine translation: **Speeding…
35 comments
Idk if this counts as racism but getting hashi jozu when I’m ethnicly chinese was shocking. Like bro my people invented the dam sticks.
Does assuming I speak English count?
I do speak English, but what if I only spoke German or Swahili?
I always ask people first “English?” but now I wonder if maybe I am the racist for thinking someone might not speak English.
Most things that made me feel like that usually came from ignorance so I don’t know if it really counts as racism, but I do remember feeling uncomfortable when I was asked by a neighbor, who has known me for years, if I will be going back to my country during the holidays. I mean, sure I look foreign and that is not a strange thing to assume, but for all they know I could have been born in Japan, just not look Japanese.
Another thing I remember that made me feel uneasy was when I was told “it’s amazing someone with your face can speak Japanese so well!”. I’m near fluent, so perhaps for them it was hard to imagine that a non-Japanese looking person can speak like I did. Anyways, I guess mentioning one’s appearance when giving “a compliment” can be accidental racism.
Please don’t include any “XXXX jouzu” as an act of racism… it is at best kindness, at worst clumsiness. Just m y 2 cents after living in Japan for more than a decade and being married to a (japanese) english teacher in a Junior High School frequently asked to create lessons about racism in Japan.
Blackface could be a nice topic.
Racism is always a negative thing.
The only real negative I’ve experienced is going into a really local bar and being denied entry because “only japanese”. Happened only once.
Apart from that i feel that japanese ppl try extra hard and give more service to gaijin compared to nihonjin , but maybe im wrong.
now they even have translator apps which wasnt the case a few years ago.
So ive never felt that any nihonjin did something with good intentions which ended up being otherwise.
btw nigongo jouzo is not racism… its a compliment for trying to speak jp, if u interpret it directly ofc everyone know its not true.
it can seem 2faced at first maybe (i never said that to a gaijin in my home country speaking my mother tongue brokenly and i never would).
so it can lead to some confusion for sure, but its not racism.
That one time at a convenience store in Nagasaki where the employee was like “[South Asian country]?” and I replied actually no, I’m from [European country]. He then recoiled in horror and profusely apologized, as if he committed the gravest of offences.
So I was basically racially profiled and when he found out I wasn’t from where he thought I was, his apology felt like it was a bad thing to be from the country I was not from.
The guy had no ill intent and we shaberu’d for a few minutes but it was still a kind of racist moment IMO.
Meh… accidental racism seems a bit much in all jouze situations…
TRUE accidental racism are things like where the fuck is the deo in the combini. That’s institutional.
I wouldn’t call that racism but patronizing.
But I get what you’re trying to get at.
Foreigners have large wieners but they aren’t as hard as Japanese wieners.
Just making assumptions about people based on their race or ethnicity in general. There are countless examples that you could come up with, but the underlying idea/problem is the same.
idk if I would call ‘nihongo jozu’ racism, it seems a little ridiculous to put something like that in the same category as like… housing discrimination… but I see what you’re getting at, you want things people say without really thinking that are rude (and related to race).
‘(japanese thing) jozu’ is annoying, but maybe also mention WHY and highlight what would be good to say instead? 日本長いんですね？ etc. Otherwise you are just giving them a list of ‘DONT DO THIS!’ without providing context or solution.
Blackface, calling dark skin people ゴリラ, are more severe things…
Also, when people put down one type of foreigner in front of another. It makes me think, ‘damn, what is he saying about me behind MY back then?’ for example, I went out to lunch with a manager at my previous company, and he asked why I became interested in Japan, replying, ‘That’s a good reason, unlike those *Chinese* employees…’ wtf
When you have legitimate and valid problem and someone just responds bluntly with, “Well all Japanese people know this.” or “I don’t know about your country, but all Japanese people do this” or something to that effect.
Was my last bosses go too for the final response to things she didn’t want to deal with.
Apartment renting
People moving away on the train. I give benefit of the doubt as much as I can ….but sometimes it is obvious.
Teach about how people were specifically racist to you. Surely it’s happened
Being followed around in department stores by employees.
Sitting in a busy family restaurant and being asked to get up and make room for new customers 2 minutes after clearing my plate while there were multiple tables of Japanese teenages that just bought drink bar and are just lounging around looking at their smartphones or actually sleeping on the GD table.
At a free music gig on the weekend. There were no signs saying “you can’t take photos”. Half the Japanese people around me had their camera out to take a video or photo of the performance. Including my wife.. Security guard came up to me, only geijin in the area holding a sign saying “no photos”. Put my phone away cos didn’t want to cause a scene. Looked around and the locals were still taking photos and videos without this guard coming over to stop them.
Hmmmmm.
Definitely not with good intentions (this guy is a medical student, older and smarter than me, but he thinks it’s good intentions) i had a online friend and when we finally met he just kept mentioning, “you don’t sound like black girls” “oh i thought black girls typically smell.” and a few other things. he was very shocked when i blocked him and in his heart he truly believes nothing is wrong with these stereotypes
Rather than “jouzudesune”, I’d say “let me teach you how to use chopsticks!” Felt incredibly condescending. (But the dude was a creep in general, so take this with a grain of salt)
Maybe not the answer but there’s no shortage of xenophobia.
Start by discovering the difference between racism and prejudice. There is big difference. Nothing you discuss will ultimately be meaningful if you dismiss the difference between hurt feelings and the actual harm of racism.
I wonder how the school came up with the topic of “accidental” racism. If it was intentional does that make it okay? If you have a chance to talk about racism I think you got to talk a bit about history. Maybe take it out of Japan if that makes it easier. But I’m not sure enough Japanese know about the Kanto earthquake massacres, just to name one example
I think it’s more funny than anything but every now and then when I go to something like a konbini, instead of the usual “袋ご利用ですか” they’ll say “バッグ?” While doing a motion of them holding a bag. Even though the people in front of me in line they asked the normal way.
I’ve been out of Japan for a few years, ( business Stateside, covid, will be returning this fall) but we maintain a home in Japan, and this used to happen to me quite frequently. We (Japanese husband) would be out shopping, or going someplace, eating out, etc. I would speak to a salesperson, waitress, clerk, in Japanese, and receive a blank stare in response. I’d repeat myself. Blank stare, and the sputtering about how they don’t speak English. Usually by then my husband would step in and reprimand them for not understanding their own language, pointing out I’d spoken in *Japanese*, etc. He told me they’re do that because they’re “hearing with their eyes”, meaning they see me, a tallish, blonde haired, blue-eyed woman, and automatically assume I can’t possibly speak Japanese.
Also, years ago, when I still taught English, it was quite common to find want ads in Kansai Time Out magazine specifying either blonde or “typically American” looking candidates only. If I called about a job, I was often asked if I was American, what color my hair and eyes were. One of my Canadian friends was actually asked if she would be willing to dye her brunette hair blonde, and was denied the job when she refused.
I don’t know if these examples are useful to you, they happened years ago, but were quite common at the time.
I’d suggest approaching this with “common myths about foreigners”:
1. Foreigners Commit More Crimes.
When foreigners commit crimes the newspapers/TV almost always mentions it. This creates the perception that foreigners commit more crime. There are numerous problems with these statistics. One problem is that tourists get lumped in with foreign residents, and there are millions of tourists every year. This means that every time a tourist breaks a law (normally through ignorance) the foreign community in Japan gets blamed. See this graph for how crimes by foreigners “mysteriously” dropped during Covid-19 when tourism declined. [https://www.statista.com/statistics/1263319/japan-number-foreigners-arrested-crimes-law-violations/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1263319/japan-number-foreigners-arrested-crimes-law-violations/)
Also every time a tourist overstays their visa by even a day it gets listed as a crime. And this raises another important issue, that there are some crimes that only foreigners can commit, such as overstaying their visa.
Even including all the “add-ons” there were 2.5 million foreigners in Japan in 2022 and only 9,550 crimes, which is 3.82 crimes per 1,000 foreigners. By comparison Japan’s population in 2022 was 124.49 million people who committed 601,389 crimes, which is 4.83 crimes per 1,000. So actually even with the extra “crimes” committed by tourists and the extra crimes that only foreigners can commit… we’re still less criminal than the average Japanese person.
2. Foreigners Don’t Pay Tax/Medical Insurance/Pension/etc
This is complicated. If I recall correctly (and I am open to correction if the situation has changed) U.S. citizens don’t pay tax in Japan for the first 2(?) years of their stay in Japan. However U.S. citizens are a small percentage of foreigners in Japan. In 2000 U.S. foreign residents made up only 2% of foreigners in Japan, or roughly 50,000 people. The other 98% of foreigner residents pay all the same taxes as Japanese people, and while we generally get the same services and social support there have been times when this myth about foreigners not paying their share has led to some local city official incorrectly denying foreigners the same services and social support that Japanese citizens receive. The Japanese courts have ruled that this is okay with them, and foreigners aren’t entitled to the same services or social support as other tax payers in Japan. Now again, note that this not paying tax thing is only US citizens, and only for the first two years, and as far as I can recall it’s primary purpose was to prevent headaches for the US military and US military contractors dealing with taxation for soldiers on training or other short-term deployments in Japan. The other 98% of foreigners (and US citizens from the 3rd year on) pay all the same things that Japanese people do. Arguably we pay more tax per capita because we’re almost all employed.
3. Foreigners Shouldn’t Get Permanent Positions in Japan
I hear this from time to time when discussions come up about permanent jobs and the logic that is presented is that if foreigners want to get permanent positions they should become full Japanese citizens.
Okay, well firstly, Japanese law disagrees. Article 3 of the Japanese Labour Standards Act reads, “Employers shall not use the nationality, creed or social status of any Workers as a basis for engaging in discriminatory treatment with respect to wages, working hours or other working conditions. …” (第三条 使用者は、労働者の国籍、信条又は社会的身分を理由として、賃金、労働時間その他の労働条件について、差別的取扱をしてはならない.) . Japanese employers using nationality as an excuse to treat foreign workers differently are breaking the law. See above about the myth that Japanese people are less criminal than foreigners… or just leave your umbrella unguarded outside of a convenience store!
Secondly, Japan doesn’t allow multiple nationalities, which means that any foreigner wanting to become a citizen would need to give up their birth nationality. Now that’s a big ask. It makes visiting home for birthdays, weddings, and funerals much harder. It also means that we’re tied to Japan forever, even after retirement. Now my Japanese is good, but I had an experience that made me question where I want to live in Japan in my old age. When I was coming out of surgery I was confused and I temporarily “forgot” Japanese. Oddly enough I didn’t default back to English either, but rather to another one of the languages I speak, which is strange but then I was very disoriented after the anaesthesia. And the hospital staff didn’t handle it well at all. They were just unable to cope with someone speaking another language that wasn’t English or Japanese, and while they panicked I moved and ripped a whole lot of stitches. It was not a great situation for anyone. What’s the point of this story? That it made me seriously rethink how well I’d do in a Japanese nursing home (if I live that long) when the staff panic at the sound of a foreign language. I’d really like to move back to my birth country where people speak multiple languages and would at least have recognised the language and not panicked.
4. Foreigners Stink
This one could be a bit of a wake-up call for your audience, but Japanese people often stink too. This myth has largely got to do with what smells people consider “normal”. I’ve been in enough trains next to Japanese salarymen who breakfasted on some foul-smelling fish, and then failed to shower in the morning (despite spending the night in an unairconditioned apartment) to say firmly that Japanese people can smell incredibly bad. And let’s not start on the pungent breath that smells like stale coffee, dead fish, and a particularly rancid ashtray. Now normally foreigners say nothing. I’m only bringing this up now to illustrate a point. We’re also aware that we probably have our own range of aromas that Japanese people probably find distressing. We don’t bring up their body odour. They shouldn’t bring up ours. We would mask the odour with deoderant, but it’s hard to find decent stuff in Japan that doesn’t make every Japanese person in the area begin to gag at the strength of the smell. Can we all agree on a “body odour non-aggression pact”? You don’t mention our body odour and we won’t mention yours.
5. Foreigners Are Here to Steal Our Wimmen!
Let’s deal with the obvious first. Japanese women are perfectly capable of making their own choices. However there are a lot of myths to unpack here. Foreigners are not a homogenous group. The biggest groups of foreigners in Japan are Korean and Chinese, who you would probably pass in the street without noticing. Even amoungst “Western” foreigners there are a lot of cultural differences, and yet there persist myths that Western guys can all cook, want to be more involved with child care, are more romantic, and so on. Are these myths true “on average”? Yes, no, maybe. Japanese women aren’t getting into a relationship with “on average”, they’re getting into a relationship with a specific person. And that specific person might be a master chef, or might be unable to boil an egg. Likewise there are a lot of myths about foreign women that I’ve heard. As a good general rule remember that while generalisations are good for understanding broader social issues and the “average” person in a society they’re pretty awful when dealing with individuals. The divorce rate in Japan “on average” is about 35%, but it is higher than 50% for foreign marriages. Part of this is communication difficulties, but a big part is these myths. And this isn’t one-way traffic. Both sides are often guilty of this. But at its most basic this myth is mostly insulting to Japanese women and implies that they’re property to be owned only by Japanese men. Which is pretty darned sexist. …which leads to my final point here. That sexism is probably the most prevalent form of discrimination in Japan. While foreign men have to deal with some pretty odd misconceptions the unfortunate truth is that foreign women have it a lot more rough, having to deal with discrimination against foreigners **and** Japan’s huge problem with discrimination against women in general. It’s a double-whammy.
You’ll probably want to approach it less bluntly and with a less direct tone than I’ve used here. Some funny pictures of people holding their noses on the subway, or some cutesy cartoon image of a foreign guy holding flowers to get the discussion going. Give the students some time to consider and react to the initial myth, and then ease them into the idea that they’re dealing with a bunch of stereotypes and often blatant misinformation.
My end point is to note I’ve used some stereotypes about Japanese people here and some of you will be getting offended, but I did that on purpose. Pause and consider how stereotypes made you feel. Now realise that they’re just as offensive to other people too. How you’re feeling is how they’re probably going to feel. Try to treat each person as an individual.
You use chopsticks really well. I on the other hand have never told a Japanese person they use a knife and fork really well.
If you get a job in customer service and they come across a couple where one looks Japanese and the other doesn’t; don’t assume the other doesn’t speak Japanese, don’t look and talk solely to the Japanese(-appearing) person, do address both of them.
Honestly, even if it’s clear they don’t speak Japanese, it’s common courtesy to address everyone in a group.
The biggest for me is assuming every crime is done by a foreigner, usually followed (or implied) by a comment like “a real Japanese won’t commit these crimes.” I’ve seen or read too many comments like these. Sure, some foreigners *have* committed crimes, but still a majority of them haven’t.
Another one, which might only apply to my workplace, is assuming someone who doesn’t speak Japanese *correctly* = gaijin. I have a new young coworker who’s Japanese but can be a bit slow when it comes to reading or pronouncing kanji characters (漢字が弱い). On her first day and the first time she misread a kanji, one of my bosses asked her if she’s haafu, which of course she denied. But every time she misreads or uses the wrong kanji (sometimes even word), it’s been kind of a running joke where a few coworkers would laugh by saying “外人さんみたいに話すね (you talk (make mistakes) like a gaijin).”
Edit: Oh actually another one! Comments like, “Toramayu-san is such a hard worker. 日本人みたい (You act like a Japanese)”, irks me for some reason, lol. Like, thanks? But hard working is not exclusively a Japanese trait?
After twenty years in Japan, and plenty of misunderstandings, I have reached the conclusion that *individuals* are very rarely racist. They may do things that seem like clumsiness or even micro-aggressions to Westerners but they rarely are.
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There is, however, *institutional* racism in Japan. In some circumstances it can be a touch harder to get an apartment or a job if you are not Japanese. It’s harder to get a stock trading account if you are not a Japanese national. Since I arrived here in 2004, however, it seems to have got substantially easier to rent a property and Japanese companies do seem to be more open to hiring foreigners in standard office and other positions that don’t involve teaching English.
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NOTE: I am a white, English guy and I am only writing from my own experience. Other people of different demographics may have something different to say, having experienced prejudice or discrimination I am not aware of.
Not sure if I can match the racism with the good intentions part.
For pure discrimination/racism – nothing beats rental discrimination here. Not just me but all of the people I have transferred into Japan.
This one is just sort of clueless – neighbors asking me if my son speaks Japanese when they know he goes to public school. Or sometimes commenting that his Japanese is good. Like, yeah, he goes to public school, you see him with his landoseru out here everyday with the other kids. I get that he looks different but I specifically sent him to public school so that he would relate well in society!
One time, my wife needed an ambulance. She couldn’t speak at all. There was a koban nearby. She was in dire need and the officer started asking me what I do for a job and can he see my card. Another officer walks up 10 minutes later (took ages for the ambulance) and he says, “mind showing him your card too?”. Like…what does that have to do with the situation at hand!?
Curious — do you also plan on speaking to the students about examples that they might find personally relatable?
I think, in addition to citing some of the examples in this thread, covering examples of racism towards Japanese people could make it easier to absorb the nuanced feeling of experiencing racism.
I’m half (JP and US), and I have been on the receiving end of uncomfortable comments while both in the US and Japan. They usually from a place of true ignorance and thus I’d categorize them as “accidental” racism.
If you could (perhaps anonymously) ask Japanese teachers to share moments they’ve personally had in their lives, that might be the most graceful and impactful way to approach sharing examples of racism towards Japanese people.
From my experience of living in Japan and attending public schools, I think it’s unlikely that many of the Japanese students have experienced racism unless they’ve traveled abroad, attended classes at an intl school, etc.
They likely do, however, have experience with bullying and other forms of injustice, so I’m hopeful that your lesson will resonate. Good luck!
I think it’s a shame you’re getting downvoted for this post, it’s an interesting topic.
For people who take offence at the “nihongo jouzu” example, I guess they see it as a micro-aggression. I think micro-aggressions are a good example of accidental racism. But my impression is that opinions about micro-aggressions are mixed even in the English-speaking world, where the term is familiar to most people. You might have trouble introducing and explaining the concept in a single talk
EDIT: reading about this myself I came across the term [attributional ambiguity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attributional_ambiguity). If you talk about micro-aggressions it might help to allude to this concept
Maybe speak about how half Japanese people face discrimination for “not being Japanese enough”.
I was at a bar with some friends of mine. Everyone in the bar was Japanese and one Japanese person in the bar said to my half Japanese friend “wow you are the only foreigner here”. My friend said “I’m Japanese and Filipino, but born and raised in Japan”. The person said “oh that doesn’t count as Japanese”
When I used to teach back in the day I’d show the kids videos by アーサー(IU connect). He’s a little cringe but he’s got a skill for breaking down difficult topics like the one you mentioned above by giving alternatives rather than saying don’t do or say this.
Also, it removes the needs for your direct opinion(which could land you in trouble), encourage discussion and be the mediator rather than the lecturer.
Good luck!
How about actual actual Japanese racism?