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.

(Part 2 will come sometime next weeky)

Clothes with something in English written on them are still pretty popular here. The sentences might make more sense than what they would have even just 5 years ago, especially since there are import shops that sell shirts that were originally made for an English speaking country. So while the words/sentences themselves might not be incorrect the situation in which the shirt is worn or, in this case, the contrast with the person who is wearing the shirt causes you to laugh.

For this one it was partly because of the name (it’s an area near where I grew up) coupled with the kid, he’s a boy. So, yeah, who would’ve expected that I, being in Japan, would see a coat from a region where I grew up on a young Japanese boy? The chances of that are so low that it must have not happened.

He’s hiding somewhere under that huge coat.

So what happened?

It’s a me, Italian stereotype.

Sumo wrestling is very Japanese. Along with other very Japanese things (kendo, judo, tea ceremony, etc.) sumo has rules and etiquette that should be followed. Some of these rules seem to be inconsequential (winning celebration rituals, how to accept prize money) and yet if you break them you will still be penalized. In the world of Sumo, when a wrestler becomes a grand champion (yokozuna) there is another set of responsibilities that they should follow. This can cause problems with your naked career if you sometimes feel punchy and other people are in your vicinity.

Asashoryu, one of the best sumo wrestlers, has had a great career filled with a flurry of incidents. Besides breaking some of the rules mentioned above, there was a big lawsuit alleging that he paid other wrestlers so that he could get a perfect victory and an incident where he faked injury. While it’s unknown if he actually paid off people (I say he didn’t), he definitely overstated his injuries since he was seen playing soccer.

A picture from sumo’s short-lived, but hilarious, breakdance competition.

There are people saying that people have been unusually harsh towards Asashoryu because he is from Mongolia. Like every country, there are old cranky people that hate others because they’re different (and sumo fans are older on average), but this doesn’t factor in to anything said by the Sumo Association or any new programs. The reason why they’ve been so harsh are easy to understand given correct context; sumo is waning in popularity, there have been other scandals with sumo recently, and the rules for sumo and yokozuna are many and the punishments are strict. These issues cause more and harsher punishments to try and keep order in fat man world; the situation is further exacerbated by the fact that Asashoryu has broken lots of little rules and some big ones. Given all this, I would say that even though some of the punishments have been more severe than they should have been, it’s easy to understand the reasoning behind them.

It’s sad that he’s had to leave the ring and start wearing normal clothes again, but if he wanted to stop having episodes that lead to embarrassment of himself he needed to quit. Now he can do all the things that he did before without repercussions. Well, maybe except for the breaking the nose thing (this is the one that made him quit).

Did you know that they each sleep with life-size pillow versions of each other?

So anyways, they’re not very exciting. However, recently there has been one that makes me all excited and happy in my special place next to my bile duct. I don’t particularly care for the person involved (normal boring Japanese politician type), but even though the poster only does a couple things differently it gives the poster a completely different feel. Tell me what you think.

Dance number!

It’s an action shot! I guess when all of your posters are incredibly boring making one that is only just a little bit different. I was actually very disappointed when I first saw him on TV and learned that he’s not as interesting as his sexy dressing procedure makes him out to be. Maybe, with time, he will live up to the man-beast that resides in the poster. Then again, it could just be a fluke and the posters will go back to being bland and lifeless headshots.

By the way, the tv (Toshiba Regza R9000) seems to be a Japanese only model.

I put on brownface and got an Indian immigrant to take the test for me. I should have paid him less.

Maybe this is an “I’m sorry we don’t share our interesting statistics, sorry” present, but I can’t be sure since it didn’t say that on the envelope. Nevertheless, I have now reached a level that very few whiteys and zero weeaboos will ever reach. I will now pretend for the next 10 minutes or so that I am important.