In the spirit of current developments, (mainly the idea of moving to Japan), I've been doing a lot of research online to try to learn the pros and cons of being an American living in Japan. It's amazing how many blogs and articles you can find on that specific subject, and while I was bombarded with information on how "polite and friendly" the Japanese could be, I was more interested in learning about the side of Japan nobody hears about. You don't have to visit Japan to know it's a long way from America... literally and figuratively, and most of the negative feedback I've seen revolves mainly around an apparent inherent racism that, while usually very indirect and passive according to personal accounts, was very much a reality. (Actually, while most pages use the term 'racism', it's actually more of a superiority complex in general... apparently they generally feel superior to anyone/anything that isn't Japanese in origin.)
This got me thinking...
The Japanese word for foreigner is gaijin (pronounced "guy-jean") and literally translates to outside person (gai-outside, jin-person). This, I've gathered, carries a connotation that applies to more than just the status of your visa... it also seems to imply "outside person (from our way of life)"... and consequently most gaijin are treated as... well... outsiders from their way of life. I can see why they would feel this way considering how uniquely individual their way of life seems to be, and the prestige at which even the western world perceives their society past and present (samurai, geisha, etc). With that being said...
Americans take a deep sense of pride in our democracy, often feeling superior to others on a global level because "they just don't seem to get it," and we can't figure out why they do things the way they do because our way makes much more sense. We feel this way to the point that when required to invade nations, we try to "better" their lives by American-izing everything about their society because anything else is second class at best. Well, my friend... welcome to the world of being Japanese.
Let's face it... while I have met some amazing people from other countries, as a general rule most foreigners suck. They do things that don't make sense to us, and language barriers can be physically stressful when trying to explain something to someone that doesn't speak English. The Japanese seem to feel the same way.
A lot of people comment that you will never ever ever be fully accepted as Japanese no matter how long you live there, how many friends you have or how well you mesh with society. This is also not so uncommon state-side. Immigrants to the United States are often treated with the same demeanor - to the extent that some less intelligent people speak slower and louder than normal to foreigners (even if they speak fluent English), as though they were speaking to a toddler.
I guess the moral of this rant is, if you plan to go to Japan you simply have to expect that you will be treated differently because you are different. If you meet their arrogance with your arrogance, you will undoubtedly have a miserable experience... but that's just my opinion
No comments:
Post a Comment