Japanese react to "But We Are Japanese!"

For some reason this makes me afraid of visiting Japan because I don't know a lick of Japanese and I look very Asian........ >.<

(Yes I know the video is a exaggerated skit but the reaction of the people in the reaction video worries me.)

 

Well, my fears come from a lot of things :
- I look Chinese.
- I can't speak Japanese.
- Can't speak any Chinese either.
- My secondary (English) language speaking is pretty slurred.
- My primary language is Filipino.
- Yes, my wierd combination of traits has caused me a lot of grief in the past.

So for some reason I have come to expect maximum racism from everyone. =(

 

You may say there's no intent or malice in their patronisation, but I disagree. It pisses me off to no end; they hate us and don't want us in their country, and that fact has become clearer and clearer to me over the years.

The Japanese mindset is one of the worst in the world, it's either their way or the highway. No will to adapt, not even a want to adapt, everyone does everything the exact same way they've been doing it for hundreds of years like a bunch of fucking robots.

 

DeChief*.

I've lived here for almost 3 years, and after I leave in January I'm sure as hell not going to be living here again anytime soon.

 

I get your point of views, you must be right about how you're treated when you try to integrate their life.

But, to be clear: when you go there and you're seen as a tourist, people are very kind to you, they try to help you even if you don't ask!

I spent 3 weeks there but I got bored in the end about their attitude because, as DeChief mentionned : they really look like they act like robots!! Always the same phrases wherever you get, the same kindness and politeness but most of the time, they don't even look at you when they speak, they just see your shadow and you're good for the same phrases again. The same actions in the same order, etc...

And about that video: The video they show is very caricatural, I just think the waitress is totally stupid, nobody with a brain would act like her. What surprises me the most is when they ask "what do you think about the waitress?", none of them said: she should have apologized and then talked to the ones who can communicate with her...

Japanese know for sure how to distinguish Japanese from other Asian country people, I'm pretty sure they won't speak to those other people in japanese unless they start the conversation.

 

He's like 16? I knew teen pregnancy is a big deal, but lets not rush him lol

 

Trust me Hex, international school girls are loose as fuck. It's like throwing a hot dog down a hallway for 99% of the international school population, it's bound to happen eventually.

 

Very curious what the language levels are of the people hating on the system. It's not everyone's cup of tea, and when I left I really needed to get away for a bit, but let's not oversell the United States (and I would guess anywhere). Having successfully integrated as far as you can go (sans naturalization) I've only experienced the institutionalized racism (credit card denial, shit like that). For the most part, Japanese are the most hospital people there are: tourist or not.

 

It sounds like we've had vastly different experiences. Hospitable or not, you can quite literally feel the distaste and xenophobia of everyone around you.

Everyone oversells the US, from what I can tell it's basically third-world these days.

 

I've been in that restaurant scene countless times over my 30+ years in Asia. Some people just have a mental block hearing Asian sounds coming out of a white mouth. My wife is Asian and I've actually had a few instances where I had to do exactly what happened in the video. Tell her what sounds she needed to make so that a waitress could understand them because they came from an Asian mouth. I once hopped into the back of a cab and carried on a conversation with the driver for about a minute. Until we pulled up to a brightly lit area, looked in the read view mirror, and suddenly couldn't understand a word I said.
Things this bizarre aren't common but they do happen. They're more funny than a problem. Unfortunately you're in the reverse situation. I know how frustrating it is for my wife when people assume she speaks a language she doesn't know or hand her the Japanese/Chinese/whatever menu. It's certainly something to be conscious of but I wouldn't let it put you off a trip to Japan. It's a great place and the people are very nice even if a bit parochial and quirky.

 

A lot of people here complain about situations similar to the restaurant scene, but personally I have only had it happen a handful of times, and even then I was able to stop it by saying bluntly "I'm speaking Japanese". I think it is in part due to the vast majority of the (white) foreign population here not making an effort to speak Japanese, or otherwise speaking Japanese badly.

Also, as a general rule, Japanese people are not xenophobic, they're just ignorant.

DeChief: It's a shame you couldn't have met some better Japanese people here, because there are plenty who don't fit the "mindset" you're talking about.

StriderVM: I wouldn't really worry. People will be more likely to presume you speak Japanese than a white person, but they will soon speak English when they realize you don't, and may even feel more comfortable speaking to someone whose English is "slurred" like theirs.

 

The only time on which it has ever happened to me was in a Chinese restaurant in Shinagawa, an area with a sizeable foreign population these days since a lot of tech outfits and language schools are based around there and they actively recruit foreigners.

The irony of the situation was that the waitress was Chinese but insisted on speaking to me in English even though her English was far worse than my Japanese and she could obviously barely understand a word that I said in English. In the end I think I just ended up pointing at the pictures on the menu but I would be lying if I said that it didn't piss me off.

Unfortunately that is all too often the case but the same could also be said about the vast majority of Americans.

 

FTFY - Most developed countries are oversold as some twist on the same enlightened, magical utopia spiel when most of them have serious problems and have been in decline for years if not decades.

Unless people can be perfect, there can be no perfect place where people dwell. Antarctica could potentially be the best place on Earth.

 

I think that it especially applies to Americans though. I've spent a lot of time in the US but have always seen it from the perspective of an outsider and despite the origins of America the majority of the American population are extremely insular in their approach.

 

Makes me think...

The Japanese set one of the best examples of collective homogeneity. This ends where people want to stand out.
The Americans set one of the best examples of individualistic pursuit. This starts where people want to stand out.

The downside to a collective is that there's always usually one particular way to do everything in life and deliberately standing out or deviating from this may leave you ostracized as cocky and self-centered.
The downside to an individualistic free-for-all is that standing out may leave you standing out like all the other people who think they are standing out - at least until you reach a point of total alienation

^ The volume of this last bit here may explain why Americans tend to have more of an isolated mindset. A lot of people strongly desire to be different or unique in some way so much that it leads to a wide-scale identity competition of sorts and it can lead to an infinite amount of good and bad extremes for outcomes. One mundanely popular example of this is the old idea of "keeping up with the Joneses" (which also shows how people inflate and capitalize on identity sales). A more extreme case might be a guy suddenly identifying as the step-daughter of a tree branch and a Canadian goose at the age of 34. It could be that people find the magnifying glass of the sheepish status quo discomforting, or because a lot of people have snowflake syndrome and just want round-the-clock attention. Then there are a lot of others that just want to be left alone to live a quiet, contented life away from all these sorts of things.

Different type, different area - Snowflake syndrome is strongest in urban areas, keeping up with the Joneses is a suburban thing, living a quiet life would be best in spare/rural areas, etc

 

Maybe, but I think the average American has probably had more contact with people of other nationalities than the average Japanese person. So to an extent, many people are genuinely ignorant, rather than ignorant out of choice.