Only moved here back in September but I find myself oftentimes being treated like a tourist and wanting to essentially “prove” that I’m not just a tourist and that I live here.
Definitely feels like a childish feeling, but I’m not too worried about it as it doesn’t harm anyone and I know I’ll eventually stop caring about that haha.
Just curious if anyone else has dealt with this.
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Normally speaking good Japanese will do the trick for me.
I feel it a bit now after not having tourists for a couple of years.
Like going to a place I’ve been going to and suddenly getting Englished at after two years of it not happening, it’s jarring.
Like there’s an expected routine and suddenly it’s different.
Usually I’m not annoyed, but I had a shitty day today and it definitely got to me when the staff came up to tell me in that half-scared English tone that they were actually sold out of what I ordered.
Nah. I kind of enjoy it now because it so seldom happens.
What I *do* often feel the need to ‘prove’ is that I *am* a tourist and not a local when I visit family in my birth country.
I’ve lived in tourist towns most my life and it’s funny how common this is world wide.
Have I felt this way, well yes, can’t deny it entirely.
Does it dissipate with time. Most certainly.
It’s not something I care about. People figure out pretty quickly that I didn’t just step off the plane once we start talking.
I don’t think I’ve ever had any “treated like a tourist” experiences and I don’t even look remotely Japanese.
I know it’s dumb and I shouldn’t let it get to me but the over exaggerated hand motions asking if I have a point card/if I need a bag are so patronizing and kinda pisses me off.
I got this this morning for the first time in years. Totally caught me off guard.
It’s easy to prove you’re not a tourist by walking around without rubbernecking. People can see it in half a second.
Never actually happened where I live as far as I’m aware, probably in part because where I live is absolutely not a tourist destination. And if I actually go somewhere in Japan for vacation… I actually *am* a tourist.
Mostly only when I’m at a hotel and they’re insisting on me providing my passport. I try to shrug it off when I get that feeling, as it doesn’t do me any good to be bothered by it.
You will eventually care less and less, especially once you have set a routine of your life and the shopkeepers get used to your particular face.
Time of day, the clothes you wear, the area you are in, how fresh the staff are, all of these have an influence on how Japanese staff will try to do their service with you. The ones that have good experience in customer service will do whatever is smoothest, which in my experience, is Japanese first and then reactions based on how you interact with them.
For example, today I was buying a can of coffee at the local 7-Eleven during my lunch break, and when I buy single cans of things I usually rotate the can and hold it at an angle so the staff can easily scan the barcode. Usually the staff go in auto-pilot mode when I do this, and the whole interaction is 100% Japanese from them, and I don’t say anything because I just tap the buttons on the cash register. The (senior-ish?) woman spoke English to me: “One-hundred and eighteen” — I’ll admit I was taken aback, but I didn’t say ありがとう or anything to correct her, I would have said “thank you” if I was quick-witted enough. She said “Thank you for coming” as I took the can and I did a little bow in response.
Did I care? Not at all. I was impressed that she actually said “One-hundred and eighteen” instead of something like “one hundred – eighteen” or “one one eight”. I just responded in the way that I thought would make this interaction as quick as possible. Once you live here long enough that’s all that really matters, and you’ll eventually find your comfort-zone when it comes to interacting with Japanese staff and people in general.
Also here’s a strategy if you’re studying and restaurant staff come up to you with an English menu. Just ask for both.
両方お願いします。
Compare the menu items, see if the Japanese has any daily specials that aren’t on the English menu. The staff (should!) understand that you’re studying Japanese. It worked for me in the beginning.
I feel that the way you dress can sometimes indicate whether or not your perceived as a tourist or not. If you dress obviously like an American, or a European, etc., it’s likely you’ll get the English. My clothing hasn’t changed much from when I was in the US, but perhaps my styling has adapted more to Japanese “standards”. Also, your mannerisms might give it away. I think most foreigners instinctively bow often, lower their volume, and generally become more aware of the “air” around them.
I suggest just getting used to it. Anyone I know with this mindset ends up hating japan and themselves
No, because I’m white and live in Okinawa, so I have to prove I’m a local and not military lol
Yes I have totally dealt with this but I figure hauling my kids around on my mamachari does the trick 😂 I do feel there is this weird thing in Japan (idk about other counties) where is gaijin feel the need to prove ourselves or like one up each other? Like we have won the game of living in Japan? It’s so weird lol
I even told some J moms I went out drinking with the other day how hard it is to talk to other gaijin in the area cause we all just side eye each other cause we wanna be the token gaijin or something 😂
I was at this cafe yesterday morning that didn’t have any tourists 6 months ago but now is like half non Japanese speaking foreigners and the normal ladies weren’t there today and the counter had a young guy who I had never seen before had clearly been struggling with all the tourists in his really spotty English so I spoke to him in JP and he gave me the look of the waitress lady in the “but we are speaking japanese” video only more nervous and he was giving those exaggerated hand motions. He settled down until I told him he had forgotten to scan the barcode on their app for my points. Not the worst thing in the world but is there any way around this thing to make him relax I wonder.
“Where are you from?”; “Oh, just down the block.”; “But which country”; “We’re in Japan.” OTOH, you cannot win this, just let it go, haha.
I lived in Asakusa for 10 years.. like down the street from Sensouji— the huge famous temple. I’d have to walk in front of it everyday in the way to work and everyday for months and months the riksha guys would try to get me to ride.. and it started to annoy me. Then one day I brought a bunch of them coffees , said they looked cold. Between the coffee, using Japanese and the initials event from that point in they remembered and also pointed out to others not to bother me. Lol
Yeah, it happens and it can be frustrating on a few levels.
That said, like you mentioned, you’ve only been here since September. You may not be a tourist, but there’s still a lot of things you don’t know, both about Japan at large and about your local neighborhood. If someone tries to show you the ropes, as it were, it could be a worthwhile experience. You might meet some nice people or learn some new things.
Never had this problem because I live in such a shitty place, no self-respecting tourist would ever visit.
On one hand, I feel like this is a totally normal thing to go through. We all want to feel like we belong somewhere, and a long-termer getting assumed to be a tourist is like getting slapped with an implicit “you don’t belong here, outsider!” It sucks, and I get wanting to minimize it.
But also I feel like trying to distinguish yourself from a tourist is the seed of some really toxic thinking. Naturally doing your best to learn what language you can and be non-disruptive as you fit in is fine, but to go beyond that with extra steps to get sempai to notice you aren’t a tourist starts to feel like you expect to be on a higher tier of life in Japan than someone who just arrived. And that’s the core of everything wrong with our community – instead of supporting each other, we get hyper-competitive and try to invent ways to say we’re better than every other foreigner, so they should “get out of my Japan.”
That’s not the way. The problem isn’t that we look like tourists, the problem is that certain Japanese people assume we’re tourists the moment they see our non-Japanese faces. It might not be effective to directly confront that racism, but we need a better way to deal with it than inventing hierarchies within our own community.
I’ve only ever had it luckily when hanging around with a group of English speaking friends. I’m guessing it happens a lot more in Tokyo though, but assertively speaking (sufficiently proficient) Japanese usually does it for me.
Another option would be to find a way to get on national TV occasionally so people recognize your face well enough to know what to expect from you.
I honestly don’t give a fuck treat me like a tourist so what.
It’s the clothes, or the attitude.
I’ve been here for 5 years so far and I don’t really give a shit if I am viewed as a tourist. I am not a local native anyways.
Sending thoughts and prayers for the foreigner residents of Kyoto
I’ll probably get downvoted for this, but tbh you’ve been here for like half a year, that’s still pretty fresh off the boat and wouldn’t exactly call it being local. It’s not a bad thing, it’s just how it is in the beginning.
My town doesn’t have any tourists so it’s a non-issue 99% of the time.
I’ve just moved to a new area so I technically am new to a lot of stuff here, so it’s kind of nice to feel like I can ask for directions/not know where something is etc.
I know a lot of comments say “speaking Japanese fixes it” but I’ve had plenty of people still be surprised that I live in Japan after speaking to them in Japanese. It’s like a bizarre disconnect that occurs in their brain lol
I find my “Don’t hassle me; I’m local” T-shirt does the trick
Living there for 5 years, it never ends lol.
I stopped caring what people think of me.
No, you are who you are. There’s no shame in that, but rather trying to hide it is shameful. Especially, when I hear another tourist say this is touristy. The amount of ego and without self realization is mind bending.
On the flip side I do hate those foreigner that think just because they know some Japanese they look down on other tourist.
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It happens at times when checking in at domestic hotels.
So I thought this would be the case since the border opened up and tourists are back again. For some reason I haven’t been treated any differently. People don’t speak to me in English much. Maybe I don’t give off tourist vibes?
You either get treated as a tourist or get scolded for not being/acting 100% like a Japanese would. There’s no middle ground.
You need to learn to stop giving a fuck.
Unless you are Japanese you’ll always be an outsider. Even perfect Japanese won’t help. Many Japanese can’t process the reality that a non Japanese who has lived in Japan for many years can speak perfect Japanese and not be a tourist. See the book ‘The Roads to Sara’ by Alan Booth. It’s a fantastic read. He’d lived in Japan for more than 20 years and had a Japanese wife and could speak impeccable Japanese. He decided to walk from the northernmost point of Japan to the southernmost point. In the book he talked with a farmer and the farmer said he couldn’t believe how easy English was to understand. And so on.
Just return to the same smaller bars/restaurants/izakayas and actually talk to the staff over and over and over again and at some point you’ll just be the local gaijin. That’s probably the closest you’ll get to being “local” haha
It used to annoy me a bit but I try to think about it like this: if someone replies to me in English, I guess I’ve either messed up what I was saying in Japanese (not unlikely…), they’re trying to be accommodating or they want to practise. Or all three. The way I see it, it’s better to give them their eigo moment than leave them with an even greater sense that learning English is pointless. I don’t think it’s all that likely that they’re deliberately trying to make me feel like I don’t belong here.
On a different but related note, people in rural places sometimes assume my wife is foreign because she’s with me. She usually just gets offered the English guide leaflet in those situations but (bafflingly) she’s occasionally been offered the Korean and Chinese ones too (surely no pure Yamato maiden would go out with or marry a foreigner… must be Chinese or something). She finds it funny, thankfully.
No, I’ve worked in international schools at various levels for over 10 years and I love seeing someone muster up the courage to use English to me most times. I was at a book store just the other day, and the older lady behind the counter struggled her way through sentence to explain something to me in English when I have a near perfect understanding of Japanese. I let her finish her explanation and at the end I said to her “thank you for speaking to me in English!” And her eyes completely lit up and she smiled. Sometimes it takes a lot of courage for some people and it’s nice to see they want to communicate.
Went to Rinku outlets the other day, right by KIX so they cater to many foreigners (especially Chinese), for some reason at the food court no matter what I asked them in Japanese they replied in broken English. I get the fact that they might want to practice their English or that they might be told to use it with foreign looking people but it’s disheartening honestly, like they are saying my Japanese isn’t good enough.
I used to work in a tourist spot for almost 10 years in my country, I learned quickly not to assume who is foreign and use the national language first to not offend immigrants and other ethnic groups. Doesn’t feel good to be “othered”
In Osaka, showing some of my friends around. Finally found a restaurant that wasn’t packed. Place took the menu off the table and gave us an English menu. I politely asked in Japanese to have both, but they wouldn’t give it to me. I started out nice, saying that I’m learning Japanese, etc. I But then I understood what was going on, and demanded to see the menu.
They actually admitted the prices were higher in the English menu! They even gave the reason—-since the dollar was so strong! I told them I work here and make yen. They were so embarrassed and flustered that we ended up with free dessert.
Yeah kinda. Last week my companies regional manager came for a visit, and when he handed me his business card he said, in Japanese, “sorry its not written in English.” As I’m interpreting for the client. They hired me as an translator-interpreter btw lol. I don’t know if that’s passive aggresive or a micro-aggresion or what not, but everytime someone says something like that to me I get an urge to prove myself.
Yesterday in a meeting too I was interpreting our client’s instructions about using a vice (万力) and one of the Japanese guys in the corner made a comment like “ho ho, he knew the Japanese word lolz” and in my head I’m just like come on really? Really?
Okay so I live in a famous area for tourism in Inaka.
Yes, Japanese will often try to accommodate you. They’re not doing it to be malicious. They’re doing it to make a conscious effort that gets lost in social translation. It comes off as patronizing, but they want you to see that they want to make an effort for you. It’s dumb. It’s also kind of sweet if you don’t take it personally.
What I noticed on my long lunch breaks during this two weeks when ive been sitting around alot of English speakers:
Holy shit the bickering. The bickering the bickering the bickering.
We’re talking six couples going back and forth in the span of 45 minutes in a konbinis one day, four the next day, three the day after.
We in the west have the capacity to be super prescriptive and assumptive. We assume intent so casually which creates this reflexive/defensive back and forth.
It’s not bad that we feel confident we understand people’s intentions, it’s not good either. Sometimes it’s cool when we’re in synch, other times it creates problems.
What I’m getting at is: don’t assume malice what can be explained through ignorance.
We’re doing our best when we think we understand how someone else feels.
Japanese are doing their best when they try to accommodate a big part of who you are.
Before WFH, I always made a great flourish of whipping out my Suica commuter pass, and proudly holding it aloft, like Chamberlain after his nice meeting with that Hitler, so that all present may bear witness. I’m fairly sure that a lady swooned one time.
Yes it’s good to be more localized but remember this: “You will never be accepted as one of them and you should not try to.”