I would love to invite you into my house for a nice cup of hot green tea, but a Russian sailor looted my house last week so I can’t let you inside. Who know how many sailors could be hiding in your coat.
Being in Japan I tend to read Japan-related articles on the websites that I visit. Over time I started to notice that there was usually a comment or two (or 17) mentioning that Japan is a racist society. No mention of any other country or even a reason why it was important to make such as remark in the comments of an article whose only connection is the country. These types of comments seem to be championed by a mostly white American crowd (Here’s someone who agrees). Please be aware that I’m not saying that these types of comments are only done by English-speaking North Americans, I don’t speak enough languages to be able to give you my opinion on what the citizens of other countries think about Japan.
In the next three or four big posts I’m going to talk about different parts of this very complex subject. Here’s part one.
It can’t be tentacles all the way down, there had to be a first tentacle.
Since the inception of Youtube, the videos and details regarding “Japanese Only” signs have spread farther than they did back in the Netscape/IE4 days (the video is just a slideshow of this page). As most of you have probably guessed, this video shows the signs of places where foreigners are not allowed. Given that this video just takes the pictures of the page from Arudo Debito’s website and doesn’t give any text or dialogue, you’re not going to get the full story by just watching the video. When people see videos like this or hear comments from others that Japan is racist, even if they happen to go on a trip to Japan they’re not going to have enough knowledge to know if what they’ve been told is true or not. This alone is not (or at least it shouldn’t be) sufficient for a regular person to think that Japan, and not one old and cranky Japanese guy, is racist.
Japan, along with many other Asian countries, still connect nationality with race. This practice allowed (mostly) Brazilians with a Japanese relative to easily enter and work in Japan. While this practice might make sense for some countries, many people see it as a way of saying that those with “Japanese blood” are better than others. Furthermore, Japan did some horrific, unconscionable things 70 years ago that many people might see as racist. When you put all of these things together you end up with a lot of people saying/wondering about Japan and it’s supposed racism.
Hatsune Miku would love to make a song for you as long as you’re not a stupid smelly foreigner.
You mean the tubes can tell fibs?
Getting back to the “Japanese Only” video, check out the webpage and you’ll learn more of the story; many of these places are in Northern Japan, on the side of Japan that faces the Japan Sea, or near a military base. If you set up shop in one of these places there’s a chance that many of your customers will be Russian or, for the latter, American. When you keep having trouble with a certain set of clientele you have to decide whether or not you have to decide whether or not to exclude them. The places shown in the pictures all decided to restrict their customers to a certain subset.
Not only are most of the places listed in the areas mentioned, but most of them are a certain type of establishment, hostess clubs. Hostess clubs are something that are foreign to most people outside of Japan, this means (in almost all instances) that if someone doesn’t look Japanese that they most likely don’t know how things go down in a hostess club. To make things go smoothly they only want those customers who know what they’re getting into and not a tourist who’ll get pissed because the girl he’s been flirting with for the past two hours just freaked out and called security because he got touchy-feely. Oh, there’s also the language barrier, most clubs don’t require their girls to be able to speak a foreign language.
I hope a pure-blooded Japanese male stabs the owner in the fucking throat.
You might be wondering why I wouldn’t think that this policy (in both situations), while useful, is not as discriminatory as it sounds. The answer to this is that, these signs don’t mean what they say. Check out that webpage one more time and read the updates for each case, you’ll see that many of them have taken down the signs at the request of just one foreigner that can speak Japanese well enough. These places weren’t being racist against non-Japanese, they were trying to deal with people who didn’t follow rules, couldn’t understand the process, and/or didn’t know the language which caused some kind of issue.
Just because there is a general policy against allowing foreigners into certain places (i.e. soaplands, etc) does not mean that the locale is strictly for Japanese people. If you hint to the staff (in Japanese) that you know the rules they’ll get the drift and let you have your soapy fun. How the hell do I know this? Did I start going to hostess clubs and soaplands without telling you? No, but I know someone who has done just this and this has worked for him very consistently. You might have thought that since it’s on a sign (and thus a rule) that the Japanese would follow it unthinkingly, but I’m here to tell you that, on many occasions, Japanese people can be pragmatic even if they’re shitty at making signs.
