Howling Racism Supported by Amazon, Family Mart, 7-Eleven, and more

since i dont have 2 votes to throw at this article, i'll throw a comment in. good stuff. it seems like that part of the world (japan, australia, etc) is experiencing some common problems. it fits in with their progress of development.

Interesting seed. Good writing :) I'd join the boycott, but I don't shop at any of these locations to begin with, so I'll just stick here for moral support.

Oh Fatso, you hairy barbarian you.

Foreign Minister Aso Taro said just last year that, "Japan has one race, one culture, one society, and is the only such country in the world," with the clear implication that this was something to proud of.

Aso said that in 2005, and thus your entire story is found to be not credible.

Ok, joking. You knew that.

Good article. I was completely unaware that 7-11 was Japanese. I've kind of had indications that Japan had issues with racism. It sounds as though the way you describe it, there is a tendency for it to be based not on their race, but on their nationality? In other words, their "purity" as Japanese, not Asians?

Fatso -- Excellent article. My exposure to those attitudes is now ancient history going back to the '65 to '71 period. Four of those years on Okinawa when the top dog on that little island was a three-star U. S. Army general officer: So pre-reversion to Japanese control.

Even as a young GI, I could see what was going to happen after reversion. The Japanese historically looked down their noses at the people of Okinawa because the Okinawans were perceived to be of less pure blood that mainland Japanese. I heard that the same attitude existed for the people of Hokkaido.

We young GIs, the ones in the US military population that spent time on the street, knew that after reversion to Japanese control, the native Okinawans would be in for a rough ride. Switching from driving on the right side of the road to the left and the change from the dollar to the yen would have been the least of their problems. The inclusion back into Japanese society as second-class citizens, we young GIs opined, would be more revolutionary than the average Okinawan believed. The US administration of the island had more or less allowed the Okinawans to run their government the way they wanted to. I know there were limits such as you can't kick us out, but otherwise, the population governed themselves as they saw fit.

Now, what actually happened after reversion? I don't know. I believe that the Japanese use Okinawa as a vacation spot. But for daily life, I have no idea.

The Japanese are a paradoxical culture. Extreme xenophobia and extreme xenophilia live cheek-and-jowl. However, much of the xenophobia is a reaction to the xenophilia that is prevalent within the younger generation. The xenophilia is an old strain within the culture, as can be seen in how much or theri culture is borrowed, adapted and mutated from others, starting with the Chinese, thousands of years ago.

I spent five months in Tokyo in '88-'89, and a month in '91 hitch-hiking around the country. Almost everyone I encountered was extremely friendly and interested in what I was doing. I only got a hostile stare from one man in a construction worker's outfit. It was very common for drunks to give me language lessons. I think those two periods had to be the most pure fun I've had in my life.

On the other hand, I am quite aware of Japanese racism. They place Europeans/white Americans one slot down from Japanese, and other Asians (especially Koreans) well below that. I grew up in a state with a majority Japanese population, and many of the older 2nd generation Japanese retained that sense of racial superiority and some very specific stereotypes of other races (Hawaiians: stupid and lazy; Filipinos: stupid and industrious; whites: smart and lazy; Japanese: smart and industrious).

The extremely low birth rate is going to force them to come to terms with their racism. They will either open up to immigration, or Japan will become so depopulated that it will suffer an economic collapse.

Excellent one there Fatso... Very well posted. I can't get over the fact that this book makes it out of the hands of a writer, past an editor, approved by the executive, printed in the press rooms, picked up and distributed by the distributor and put on the shelf of the Family Mart with approval from the board of directors WITHOUT anyone saying "Hey is this a good idea?"

Of course it's a good idea. It seems as though it's been a sellout hit. The market obviously wants such a publication, and the publisher is just giving them what they want.

I wonder how much of their sales is made up of outraged foreigners buying it to scan it and blog it.

50, tops...

My best friend spent 14 years in Tokyo teaching English. He told me about finding a couple of mountain bikes in a river bed, taking them home and fixing them up. He went riding with a girlfriend and got pulled over by a couple of cops, who ran the numbers on his bike, and informed him that he had stolen it. They ignored his girlfriend. When he asked why they weren't checking her bike, they told him "Japanese don't steal."

Excellent article. I live in Nagasaki where foreigners are rare, and if present, either teach or work for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. An older Japanese man once told me that Nagasaki used to be friendly to foreigners; however, that attitude has turned to suspicion and even fear due to too many foreigners staying for a short time and leaving a "bad impression" behind them.

But I've got to say the cops, taxi drivers, immigration, and people in Nagasaki have all been very friendly and warm to me. It's hard to tell how much of it is just tatamae - as it is hard to tell whether anything is really real in this country - or genuine fondness.

When a foreigner who lives in Japan attempts to describe the country to his friends, he will usually come up with a few big "but"s that are too large to ignore. For example, "Japan is friendly to foreigners, BUT... I can't go into some places because they are for Japanese only."

One thing I cannot stand is the narrow mentality of Nagasaki people compared to even Fukuoka residents. When I take the hour and forty-five minute train up to Fukuoka, everyone seems a lot more relaxed about my presence. Where I drew looks and stares in Nagasaki, I feel comfortable and incognito; it's probably to do with the fact that Fukuoka is a much larger and younger city, with a larger, longer established foreigner community. Many Japanese in Nagasaki just can't fathom the idea of a foreigner owning a business or working for a Japanese company. We work for NOVA, Geos, Aeon, or Mitsubishi - in that order.

With all that said, I don't have a big problem with not being allowed into some places. If Japanese people want a place where they can be Japanese and not have to become awkward about not being able to speak a foreigner's language, that's fine by me. Usually those places are hostess bars anyway, and I completely understand the reasoning for not allowing foreigners in them: foreigners don't know the rules governing these kinds of places, don't know the language (and it's very unlikely the girls working there feel comfortable doing their jobs in English), and if the foreigner refuses to pay for the hidden "karaoke charge" or extra "service charge" at the end of the night, there is little recourse for those establishments. Now, there's no place I can't go in Nagasaki. Besides, paying money to talk to young girls is not my cup of tea. It just seems like the sign is there as a proviso to those who can't speak Japanese. If you want to be treated like an American, go back to America.

With all that said, there are instances of blind racism and ignorance that I just can't stand some days. For instance, an otherwise pleasant person I meet for the first time will spew horribly racist remarks about black people, white people, Chinese people - anyone really - without even knowing it. He'll be discussing and stereotyping every nationality like it was the thing to do.

And what is with some Japanese guys so eager to discuss sex? I'm on the train to Fukuoka and unexpectedly bump into a couple co-workers - guys from the sales department I hardly have contact with. In fact, I've met them once and didn't really say anything, but that doesn't stop them from talking to me about their penis sizes, my penis size, how many wives and kids they had, how many girls they're cheating on, and which one of our co-workers has the biggest breasts and how they want to screw her, asking me if I've screwed her, and generally going off on a perverted tangent.

At the risk of this turning into a Japan-bashing post, I'm going to end it here with my conclusion:

Japan is an interesting case study of what happens to a country in terminal decline. It's a country of many contradictions and extremes that must change in order to survive in the global economy. But change isn't new for the Japanese; they've been drop-kicked down the time line with natural disasters, wars, and economic turmoil. They must own up to some very serious facts and stop looking the other way when it comes to their own nation's future. Cut the bureaucracy, slash public works subsidies, and play a larger role in the international theater. Japan's isolationist period created the xenophobia and xenophilia, but it's never too late to change the educational system that perpetuates the problems. I don't want to give up on Japan just yet. The positives still outweigh the negatives for me.