dr4b | The Japan Rant, Part 1 of N

The Japan Rant, Part 1 of N

It's funny, I guess now that I am somewhat convinced that this is the year I will separate myself from Japan, I keep thinking about the good and the bad things here. I have a feeling there will be more posts like this over the next few months.

I get so angry and annoyed at Japanese people pointing at me and saying stuff to each other. I get more annoyed by big groups of people at baseball games all being like "OMG get a load of that gaijin! Look, she is writing kanji! In a scorecard!" and yet not making the connection that HEY MAYBE I CAN UNDERSTAND YOU, so that they then do things a little later like "That gaijin is so tall, I can't see over her head, do you know how to ask her to move in English?" "No.." "Well, that sucks". So I make a point of sitting up even higher in my seat and getting in their way more.

I hate standing in crowded subway trains or just normal crowded trains. I hate it more when, like the other night, a bunch of airhead girls stand there basically loudly ranting at each other for the entire ride home about how smelly the crowded train is, and casting disdainful glances in my direction, as if it is MY fault rather than, say, the natural result of crowding a shitload of people into a small space. It is only going to get worse as the year progresses and becomes hotter, I remind myself.

I hate the automatic assumption that a white person is an American tourist who is helpless in this country and is only good for English practice. I hate coming into a restaurant, speaking perfectly decent Japanese to answer "yeah, only one person, non-smoking section please, sure, a counter seat is fine with me" and then having them come up to say in broken English, "Do you English menu?"

I hate feeling so ridiculously fat here even though I realize I am only slightly above average in the US now. Of course, I am also gargantuan in terms of being tall, which doesn't help any... but not being able to buy shoes or clothes here easily is not a point in favor of this country either.

I actually like being a teacher, but I hate that it is the automatic assumption that, if you work here, you must be an English teacher, as that is the only job really fit for white people.

I hate getting snubbed from things just because I'm a foreigner. I've given up on counting these kinds of things. People moving past me in lines on train platforms as if I don't exist... clerks not wanting to help me because they think I can't speak Japanese... people at the train station not giving me packets of tissues because they think it's a waste because I can't read their advertisements. Teachers at my school who bring back omiyage from a trip and put a cookie on every single desk except mine, "because they think you wouldn't like it". People who will stand on the subway rather than sit in the empty seat next to me.

So on the other side...

I love the food here. I will miss it a LOT.

I love the trains, even if I hate a lot of the people on them. I love being in a place with such ridiculously good public transportation. I'm really not a fan of driving cars.

I love baseball here, although even that stresses me out due to the perceptions about the NPB and MLB, the perceptions of Japanese people about foreigners, etc. I hate that even though I have become somewhat infamous and do have friends to watch games with, I still think that like, the Fighters ouendan all hate me, things like that. I hate sticking out in the crowd sometimes, that I can't do things other Japanese people can, or that other foreigners can, because I know that if I do something that annoys anyone else, people will remember and talk about it later.

(Sometimes I admit it is good to stick out. People remember me because I am different. Sometimes that is good. But I also hated the assumption of things like "Oh, Brian Sweeney only talks to you because you are also an American", when that was patently untrue, he knew a lot of the other fans as well, the ones who talked to him at least.)

I like the country being safe, although people keep telling me it really isn't. I would still prefer to walk a mile home alone at 1am here than in the US, that is for sure.

I like the lifestyle here of being more preoccupied with accumulating memories than of accumulating things. I know that isn't uniformly true, but the lack of space makes it seem so. Being active is great, in a way I don't think I ever felt I was in the US.

And all things considered, I *like* trying to be an exception to the rule, a weird case to throw off people's stereotypes and assumptions. I get very happy about how far I have come with my Japanese study even if I also feel hopeless to ever really be as good at it as I'd like.

I dunno. I feel it is important to remember the things I like here and at the same time to remind myself WHY I need to get the hell out of this country before I become completely lost and paranoid.

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It must be a humbling experience.

It'd be nice if more people could spend some time in another country for a while. The reactionary types might realize how important it is to assume good faith when accommodating foreigners, and the liberal types might see how progressive American multiculturalism really is.

Yeah, I used to think that it'd be nice to make racist bastards in the US have to spend time here -- except I realized that they'd just make Japanese people hate white people even more than they do already.

There's another complication I forgot to mention -- many people here can be selectively racist, in that white people are otherwise tolerable because they provide valuable English lessons and fashionable culture, but Filipinos, Koreans, and Chinese? GETOUTAHEEEEEEEEERE.

When they have exposés on television about "the scourge of foreigner crime", they're not talking about jaywalking Americans.

The last sentence is the right one. ^_^ I want out too, though I'm stuck here for the next year because Doug wants a turn at trying to live in Japan (and not just being a student). I have to admit, I'm hoping he doesn't get a job in Japan after he graduates, but I'm not going to jinx it for him merely because I'm selfish.

I don't know... I definitely think Deanna is right about a lot of things, but they don't bother me. The lack of language fluency might be masking that to a degree though. I also think that you and I have the advantage of being the average Japanese height, which allows us to blend in a bit more in a crowd.

And the other thing, at least to me, is that I talk to people. Wherever I go, I talk to people, and I don't think I can ever stop doing that. So Japan actually seems quite friendly to me, in a lot of ways. It's much more reserved than the US, but in the last two days, for example... I helped the fruit stand guy convince another customer that yes, my Japanese is bad; I commiserated with an old lady in the train station elevator about her bad knees when she told me about them; I had a lovely conversation with the mother of an incredibly curious two and a half year old (with another on the way); and I had several people try to help me take the right bus (I still got on the wrong one because I didn't listen enough).

So it's a different country, granted, and none of these people are my friends... but I also don't feel entirely ostracized because I'm a foreigner.

Edited 2010-04-21 06:39 (UTC)

Ai gets to blend in because she's Asian, too.

You probably like it a lot more because you can't tell what people are saying about you "behind your back". After a while the paranoia overcorrects itself so that your neck snaps the minute you hear anyone say "gaijin".

Trying to make REAL friends in this country is ridiculous, too.

I guess so, but even if I could completely understand what people were saying, I still don't think it would bother me.

I'm not sure how one gets used to being called fat, ugly, stupid, and useless on a regular basis, really?

Oh yeah, and wait until Chris is visiting and the two of you go around together and girls everywhere giggle and smile at him and glare at you...

It's not a question of getting used to it, it's a question of just not letting it bother you. I can beat myself up well enough without letting other people do it for me. So they can say those things, but I won't pay attention to them.

Does that make sense? This is many years of therapy talking here, by the way. =)

In the US when someone calls me fat or ugly, I don't really care because my thought is "you are a useless human being anyway".

What sucks is that they do it here just because they're racist. Perfectly nice, intelligent people will make ridiculous comments about foreigners because that is just what they have been taught to do all their life.

Understood, but that's a fault of the society as a whole, not you.

Once when I was in high school I was on a flight from florida to PHL with my mom, and there was a college-aged kid sitting next to me on the window seat. She had a horrified look on her face through most of the flight. She wrote in her journal most of the way, and once when i looked towards the window, i noticed she had written about how much she was afraid of me because i looked scary (?!!!) and my mom and I spoke a language she didn't understand.

Reading through this, I tend to believe that some of those grievances ("Do you English menu?", and other service-oriented issues in particular) are a result of it being Tokyo, where foreign residents tend to be less willing to accommodate fellow Japanese Tokyoites than those living in farther-flung areas where such assimilation is necessary. Thus, in turn, the locals (hah, in Tokyo there are no "locals") might look at you and assume you are making no effort to live in their society at all -- still an assumption, yes, but not as baseless as it might be elsewhere.

I think that most humans are naturally assholes, wherever and whatever nationality they may be. Especially megalopolitan-area humans.

Then again, I also share many of the above experiences, which makes me wonder: If there are so many problems like that, then how have I managed to live here nearly 18 years? Paradox, paradox.

One theory goes that Japan is both racist and sexist, so you're not getting the full effect.

Edit: Er, hm. Having just found your website, I will explicitly declare having no good basis for knowing what I'm talking about. Please don't kill me.
All I have is the somewhat puzzling datapoint that, despite actually being a (sometimes clueless) American tourist, I seem to get treated better than Deanna. Perhaps my tendency to avoid Tokyo is also related--certainly no one in inaka Shikoku bothered to ask if I needed an English menu.

Edited 2010-04-21 08:45 (UTC)

Hahahaha. I'm surprised no one has killed me because of that site. I sure rant a hell of a lot about the most inane things, don't I?

But you did have a point in the original post -- people might treat Deanna differently from me because I'm a dude. Japan is hysterically sexist at times, so that might be a factor.

And all things considered, I *like* trying to be an exception to the rule, a weird case to throw off people's stereotypes and assumptions. I get very happy about how far I have come with my Japanese study even if I also feel hopeless to ever really be as good at it as I'd like.

This is a good role to play in life. It helps people think and remember to get out of their own little worlds. It's not an easy row to hoe, but it's a worthwhile one.

I had a couple coworkers at a previous job who'd lived in Japan for an extended period of time. One of them claimed that, at first, he was welcomed in Japan, but the better he became at Japanese, the less people liked him. At the time, it sounded to me like the "uncanny valley" effect, that it seemed strange to see a white person speaking decent Japanese and assimilating the culture. But I wonder if part of it was that he understood what people were saying about him.

I definitely think it's some of both. First, that people are like "OMG look at the white person trying to be Japanese, what a poser" and second, that you actually understand that they're saying that.

I mean, not exactly, but yeah, the better I get at Japanese, the more I get angry here -- the other part is that I hate how some fuckers see a white face and think "OMG MUST SPEAK ENGLISH" even if the white face is speaking perfectly good Japanese at them, so I also take it as an insult that they insist on trying to speak to me in English after I make it clear I can speak Japanese.

I hate the automatic assumption that a white person is an American tourist who is helpless in this country and is only good for English practice.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I hate getting snubbed from things just because I'm a foreigner.

That blows :( :(

About people talking about gaijin, pointing, etc., I just... acted oblivious to it all the time. Avoided looking at anyone in public so I never had to feel weird seeing them staring. Haha.

oops, html failure

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The Japan Rant, Part 1 of N

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