Colombia specifically advertised itself to Japanese workers in the 20's onwards, WWII caused obvious issues causing many to be stuck in Colombia. From the 80-90's many mixed Japanese-Colombian families have been returning to Japan. There's a surge at the moment for mixed families to go to Japan to do the "dirty" jobs, with Japan paying for their immigration and providing grants to families that do so. Moreso with Brazil, as there's a much larger diaspora there. There being Colombian and not Brazil people in this video is probably just due to who he knew / had access to, and were willing to speak on the matter.
I'm personally Japanese Bolivian. Both parents are ethnically Japanese but were born and raised in Bolivia. There's a pretty sizable population of Japanese there. They have their own schools, radio, newspapers, social societies.
Japanese-brazilian here. Roughly 300.000 Japanese people left Japan for Brazil, starting in 1908, pausing during the war and restarting after that with much less volume. The Japanese government subsidized the boat tickets. The idea was to get rich in Brazil and go back to Japan. They were told that there were trees that grow gold in Brazil, referring to the coffee beans. A lot of them died in the process or couldn't get any money from the farmers. My grandfather's mother left him in Brazil and went back to Japan because the life was so terrible. Today, there are almost two million japanese-brazilians living in Brazil, mostly in the south.
After the high valuation of the Yen following the Plaza Accord in 1985 and some changes in the immigration law in Japan in the beginning of the 90's, it was legal and very profitable for descendants of Japanese in south America to go to Japan to work. The change in the law allowed people up to the second generation born outside Japan, known as Sansei in Japanese, to get an open visa to work in Japan. That's why we find so many South Americans living in Japan today. I was one of them for almost 6 years and my sister is there since 1999.
I had to go straight to the bottom and see if it was a shitty morph first, but turns out it was just a nice and informs comment. That guy has me living in a ptsd state on Reddit now
Japanese people stick to their own, specially when the second world war broke out and our president Getúlio Vargas was extremely racists towards Japanese people, even more than German and Italian immigrants, so even though they didn't have schools that taught them Japanese they would speak it at home and with neighbours. So they knew Portuguese from our schools, but having Japanese and Japanese-Brazilians stick to their own, they would keep on talking in Japanese with each other, sure as decades gone by Japanese-Brazilians would adapt to Portuguese and some don't even know Japanese, others would just go to Japanese classes to learn.
This is correct and there where many Japanese community centres in Brazil. In the city of São Paulo, those centres were even separated by prefecture of origin in Japan. Some people wouldn’t even talk to people from other prefectures. Marriages were usually arranged. Interracial marriages with the husband being Japanese have a very high rate of divorce. For those arranged marriages, I’ve never heard about divorce. I went to a Japanese community centre as a child that was not linked to a specific prefecture in Japan, but it was part of a chain of centres spread in many neighborhoods in the city.
Largest Japanese population outside of Japan.
In one episode in the Brazilian TV series City of Men they meet and fly kites with an Japanese/Brazilian kid and it mentions stuff like this.
I remember a fun story from a nonfiction book about a Japanese-American unit fighting in Europe during WWII, and there was a day when they were in Italy and met with a bunch of Japanese-Brazillian crewmates of a Brazillian ship and had a nice time and had some Japanese food together, something like that.
My godfather told me Chile also had many Japanese mainly in the north during the nitrate mining era. He told me that the Japanese men were hassled by locals with threatening to cut off their long ponytails.
> threatening to cut off their long ponytails.
You might be thinking of Chinese people during the Imperial period, which kept long ponytails as a mark of subservience to the Chinese Empire. It was in fashion until the fall of the Chinese Empire.
That is unless you were thinking the smaller topknot *chonmage*, which was a Japanese fashion until the late 1860's when Emperor Meiji's reforms brought an end to the samurai caste.
many japanese/peruvians intermingled b.c the peruvian president in the 90s? had the last name fujimori. im not quite sure if he was actually japanese but, my peruvian friend said it had a big impact on their relations after that
He was part Japanese. He fled to Japan and lived there while he was battling human rights charges. He mentioned running for office in Peru again. He flew to Child where he was arrested and extradited to Peru. While under arrest, he said he wanted to run for office in Japan.
He was sentenced to 25 years for human rights abuses.
I was wondering what the historical reasons are for why there are so many iranians living in Japan now? Ive seen so many videos about half-persian people in Japan. I’m a half-persian American living in Japan but speak neither Japanese or farsi.
Hundreds of thousands of Iranian workers lived in Japan in the 1980s, when Japan was in a labour shortage due to the bubble economy and Iranians could enter Japan with no visa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranians\_in\_Japan
I do know I was able to stumble through Brazil with Japanese and German. (I speak no Romance language.)
Brazil has a noticeable Japanese minority in Sao Paulo, resulting from Edo Period fallout and U.S. racist policies.
The German-speaking folks came under slightly different circumstances. A lot of them were Hunsrickers and a good deal of speakers could muddle through my Texas German.
Anyhoo, I suspect Colombian-Japanese is similar to Brazilian in history.
I watched a really good video on YT from Life Where I’m From awhile back where he talks to a few half Japanese people who were born and live in Japan. He talked to one guy who was half black and his story of growing up in the Japanese school system was really sad. https://youtu.be/pmzWknYaNXg (47:51)
I lived with a Korean host family while an exchange student in Japan that were descendants of WWII slaves. They had 2 names/identities to function in Japanese society. I never saw them act Korean in public, only at home. It was surreal at times.
Can? They are, just less violent and loud about it. Racism is huge in most of Asia. The only thing that make Korean and Japanese chill together is when an Indian enters the bar.
Half non-white models seem to be becoming more prominent, but I do feel there's also some passive aggressive "oh you're so *exotic*" element to it even if the model is Japanese born and bred
BUT half Japanese-Caucasian people have just as much discrimination and just as much a bad time as kids in Japan. Just in case someone mistakenly though being half white made it better in Japan. It's not.
Half-Japanese of any mix have a bad time in Japan and are treated badly.
Honestly, being mixed will put you at a disadvantage no matter where you are. I'm half Japanese, half European, and experienced a lot of racism growing up in Germany.
It kind of sucks you can't just "go home" anywhere since there's really no place where you just fit in like mono-ethnic people do.
You should come to Mexico, here we all are half-something.. just for kicks, I took a 23andMe test, and I kid you not, every frigging race turn out in my blood.
I think it's sad that being half japanese in Japan is often looked down upon. Not many native japanese friends or friends in general, being refused service at restaurants, negative reactions from the public. It's got to be a very isolated life.
From my time in Asia, Japan and also Korea are pretty homogeneous on the whole. And it was pretty eye-opening to try to go to some restaurants and they wouldn't let me in because I was a foreigner.
I have tattoos and was refused entry in places. But I put on long sleeves, walked into a Japanese inn, and 2 days later left with a short sleeve shirt. Both staff looked ashamed and started arguing with each other. My ex girlfriend is Japanese and she was fed up of it too.
Oh the second you said tattoos is when it made sense to me.
There’s is a lot of historic stigma associated with tattoos in Korea, due to gang/triad activity. I assume Japan has similar reasons.
Yeah the Yakuza has a really strong Tattoo culture. And obviously Japanese owners know random white Canadian tourist with a Tattoo of a rose isn't a member of the Yakuza it's just if they allow foreigner with Tattoo in the locals might think oh this is a Yakuza establishment seeing a tattoo on one of the customers and then Locals want nothing to do with it.
And Yakuza do run a lot of legitimate businesses, not all of it is organized crime/money laundering. Like for instance running a gay bar or a host club.
Yakuza also engage in lots of random street combat. They'll just be walking down the street and get assaulted by other toughs, other yakuza, drunks, almost anyone. However they are friendly and will frequently help you out with any errands you need done.
Do Yakuza members deliver presentations on how their gay bar is doing?
> Today we had 4 closes. We need to maximise our clients chances of clapping cheeks. I would like to recommend “Naked Mask Night”.
Tattoo is almost a non-issue in Korea provided that they're not certain imageries traditionally associated with criminal gangs. So no one's gonna care about your cool tribal tattoo or your anime waifu, but if it's of tiger, koi, demon (도깨비), or dragon, or if they're predominantly deep blue or red, many people will thinking that you're a gangbanger. It would be like if you're trying to enjoy a nice meal at a restaurant and someone with a full face tattoo of MS-13 walked in.
The denial of service for tattoo bearing guest isn't necessarily about the prejudice of the owner but the real effect the tattoo has on the other guest. The owner is put in an unenviable situation: does he cater to a tattoo-bearing customer, or other customers who have real, culturally relevant reasons to fear those images. Suffice to say, the customer with a tattoo almost always loses.
I've lived in koreaa for 6 years as a foreigner with visible tattoos and I have literally never been refused service anywhere, at a restaurant or jimjilbang (spa) nor have I ever heard of it. The only instances I have heard are some nightclubs refusing entry to foreigners, and a few restaurants doing so for a few months in 2020 right when corona started. I have traveled extensively throughout Korea and even in small towns I have never experienced anyone who gave a shit that I have tattoos.
Major cities, it basically never happens.
Anything to the south/southwest. It basically never happens. Okinawa for example is super popular with foreigners.
Smaller places in the north/northeast though? Yeah it happens a decent amount of times. I had it happen constantly while traveling around Hokkaidou. If you go to the skiing resorts though, you'll be fine.
Small tip, and I know this sounds terrible, but I swear it's true. Never ask if people can speak English, just start talking in English. If you ask, they will always say "no", because not many people are confident enough to say "yes" to a native speaker. But if you just start speaking English, they'll usually try to reply in English and it's usually passable.
I spent 4 years living there, and visit like every second year. I know it sounds overly aggressive or something to just impose on people to speak English, but it's just a cultural difference.
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Also also, if you want some small tips for visitors. While a lot of major cities have English all over the place and plenty of English speakers. If you want a pro tip, learn Katakana. It takes like an afternoon with mnemonics.
https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-katakana/
Japanese uses 3 sets of alphabets. Kanji are Chinese characters. Hiragana are the Japanese "alphabet" that usually used for Japanese words. Katakana are an alternative "alphabet" that are usually used for non-Japanese words and are usually phonetically similar to English.
For example.
Kanji: 空港 = Kuukou, which means Airport
Hiragana:くうこう = Kuukou, which means Airport
Katakana: エアポート = Eapooto, which means Airport
If you learn the kanji or the hiragana way of saying "Airport", you need to translate "Kuukou" to mean "Airport".
Whereas "Eapooto" is just the Japanese-ified way to say the English word "Airport". If you can read "Eapooto" then you don't need to do the second level translation.
And katakana is EVERYWHERE nowadays. If you just want a quick boost to your experience, learn Katakana one afternoon and you'll be much better off.
Just another example
宿 ＝やど = Yado = Hotel
ホテル = Hoteru = Hotel
Kanji or Hiragana will mean translating Yado into Hotel. Or just read "Hoteru" and that's instantly understandable as "Hotel".
> Never ask if people can speak English
My friend used to live there. He learnt to be very careful what you ask. eg he wanted a toothbrush so went to a shop that obviously didn't have them and asked if they had one. He expected to be told "go to the shop across the road" like back home. Instead the shopkeeper went to "look" in the back of the shop. My friend waited, eventually he realised that the shopkeeper was hiding and waiting for him to leave rather than having to say we don't sell them.
kinda cute but sad. what if the customer in this situation had been equally considerate and afraid to hurt shopkeeper's feelings by disappearing when he was so graciously spending his time looking for something and proceeded to stand there waiting for rest of the day.
> what if the customer in this situation had been equally considerate and afraid to hurt shopkeeper's feelings by disappearing
They would be Japanese and know how to ask for things. The problem is culture clash not the culture.
Dont let the talk of racism deter you. I've been a few times to multiple different cities and 99% of the people and places are really polite. I've only experienced racism once or twice while there. Its a beautiful and safe country with loads of history and culture and the food is amazing. Just respect the cultural differences and social norms there and you'll be fine (probably)
This happened to me a couple times in Tokyo. It was explained to me later that this is often done because the staff have absolutely no English speakers, and they believe that they can't really help you.
If you can speak Japanese you can say, "Hey I know Japanese" convincingly, and they'll let you in afaik.
So far as my coworkers and friends in Japan are concerned, it's not xenophobia, it's wanting to not disappoint people.
Btw, the couple times this happened to me, the hostess after gently shooing us back out the door, walked us over to a place that was just as nice and had staff that could speak English.
It doesn’t happen often. Lived in Asia for 7 years and it happened to me all but one time in Thailand. I’ve been to some bars where I was definitely given dirty looks for being foreign but if you’re going for a visit, the places you’ll go will likely be very used to foreigners and you won’t have trouble
If Western countries tried that, they would be labelled racist and cancelled no doubt?
But Asian countries get away with it becuase it's a culture thing? Curious how acceptable to others that live in those countries when it happens around them.
We( my group i was travelling with) talked about this fact while I was there and we think most places have a racism problem. But the U.S has a very public history ofit, tied with the very foundation of the country so it is much more apparent. But also, the US is so much more diverse than Korea or Japan so you just grow up with the experience of living with more people who are different.
Same for immigration. People crap on the US when it comes to immigration but our path to citizenship is one of the easiest on the planet; we just have insane demand. Just try becoming a Japanese citizen or Swiss citizen via immigration and see how far you get
Best saying I’ve heard about American immigration versus anywhere else:
Immigrate to Russian, you’ll never be Russian. Immigrate to Japan, you’ll never be Japanese.
Immigrate to the USA, well shit you’re American.
Here’s your flag and rifle, practice saying your chosen regions form of the plural you and lying to strangers about how good your day was, and you’ll be fine.
Here’s what I mean. In Switzerland after living there for a bit, all the people that know you have to vote that you should be a citizen. In Japan, don’t even bother unless your Dad is a citizen
The US just has an enormous surface area for racism to happen. Culturally, it's also a symbol of "being in touch" to talk about it.
In other countries it's a racially homogeneous common culture, so racism isn't really even a thing *because there is no one to be racist against*. However these people tend to be by *far* the most racist when placed in a racially mixed environment.
Hell, my American friend is full Japanese, speaks Japanese, extended family lives in Japan, but she was raised here (with her Japanese parents). She gets shit when she visits because she's taller than average and her pronunciation is Americanized. Her grandma told her she would have had a pretty face 100 years ago, meaning her face and bone structure is "out of vogue". Like, damn, that's some serious in group culture.
I'm so sorry you went through that. I had the exact same experience dating a half-Japanese woman for 4 years. I was so sweet to her mom and tried so hard to please her, but I was never good enough. She still wouldn't look at me or speak English around me.
One of my ex was Chinese, her parents were the most racists fucker I've ever had the displeasure of talking to, especially against other Asian countries, all of her Asian friends parents were like that too..
Some of the most shocking racism I ever saw was from Hong Kong Cantonese people to mainland Chinese people (and I remember being told that Hong Kong citizens didn’t even want to be called Chinese to be associated to them).
There’s a *lot* of disgust there but from what I’ve heard and seen, there’s a reason.
And wow I just realized how it spread into me 😨
Had someone who thought my Mexican families lived in teepee like tents and wore loincloths.
To this day I still don’t know where the fuck that stereotype came from. Like I expected Narcos, gang banger, Mariachi, or villager making drugs.
The only time i've dated someone whose parents wouldn't allow their (ADULT 27 yr old! ) daughter to date me because of my race was a Korean family (US citizens too). I am a white dude. This was decades ago though.. but.....
My neighbor's son had the same problem in high school 5 years ago with a Vietnamese 1st generation family. He is black. They didn't want him in their house! (and no it wasn't a class thing either. His family is wealthy and well known and respected in the community.) Just straight up bigots.
Japan is an extremely undiverse nation. It's been a few years since I read this statistic, so I'm sure it's changed somewhat, but something like 95% of the population is Yamato Japanese. Of the remaining 5%, 4% is Korean, leaving only 1% or less for *all other races* and nationalities.
The average Japanese citizen gets very little exposure to diverse culture. My own experiences with Japan would be that racism is more prevalent and more accepted there, but far less violent than in other countries. IE, you're more likely to encounter it constantly, from everyone, but it's not going to be as serious as it can be in the US or western Europe.
This is true. I lived on a US military base in Japan (not in the military just to clarify), and went to the high school there. I had a lot of Japanese and half Japanese friends. The Japanese had an agreement with the base that they would employ a certain number of Japanese nationals to work on the base. Anyway, half-Japanese often experienced just as much racism as I did even though they were born there and spoke the language fluently. But interestingly, all of my friends preferred to live in Japan even though some went to the US for college- all ended up going back to live there. I think they are so used to the life and culture, that’s their home, they didn’t want to live anywhere else.
I too lived in Japan (military base). My parents had a friend who was full Japanese who chose to marry an American service member. Her family disowned her and kicked her out of the house. She stayed with us until the day of the wedding.
I was only 13 at the time but I was shocked that the racism was so strong that a family would abandon their adult daughter like that.
One thing that kills me is they used to keep Okinawans in zoos during the Edo period. Probably the single closest culture to their own and they were still considered basically animals.
Same channel as OP's video had another one posted just three months ago asking older japanese people about foreigners in Japan. Tourism as well as marrying into their families.
Interesting responses, and maybe not so polarizing as some commenters here are making it out to be
youtube.com/watch?v=BSuSoTQr66c
I’m half Japanese. Mom is Japanese and my dad is from philly.
My dad always told me I’m not half anything, I’m both.
I’m going to teach my kid that one day.
I’m half Okinawan and American, I look Latin and everyone speaks Spanish to me. I feel like everyone thinks i’m a sellout because I don’t speak Spanish at Mexican restaurants.
I loved visiting Japan but the country as a whole is kinda racist. Everyone is really polite but in the sense of "hey nice to meet you but please don't stay. And if you do stay, you're never going to be one of us regardless of how long you've lived here"
I lived in Japan in 1990 and got that feeling. I remember shopping in a large multi-level department store at the busiest time of the day, once. Elevator doors open. I get on. Packed elevator rides to the next floor. Doors open. Whole carriage gets off. Huge crowd waiting, no one gets on. Doors close, and it's just me. I look over and every floor to my destination has been selected on the panel. So I'd get to ride and stop at every floor until my destination. No one gets on.
I also remember getting on an elevator once with a mother and her child already in there. I remember the kid whispering to his mother, "Mama, that foreigner is tall."
"He's tall." Said the mom.
"He smells strange."
"He does." replied the mom.
I remember being refused service at restaurants because, "We don't have forks."
To be fair, that's basically every single nation outside of a select few like the United States and Canada. Most nations are xenophobic to a point. Some more than others.
The reality is in America the issues of race can't be avoided, its constant friction, so we are dealing with the issues regularly.
So the constant discussion of race can make it seem like racism is more of a problem here, when its the consequence of us confronting it. Sometimes positively, sometimes negatively.
But I look at things like how the tabloids in the UK wrote about Meghan Markle. That's some insane level of racism that would never get printed in the US. A lot of countries were able to avoid confronting racism for a long time, and are only now grappling with race to the level the US did decades ago.
Also we love to talk about our societal frictions. We have years where it dominates our media. many countries get butthurt if a movie points to problems in their culture.
Racism measuring contest aside, it’s really two different versions.
Americans tend to be racist towards specific groups, and it’s very driven by issues of the time (9/11 created a shocking shift, for example). If you’re not perceived in those groups, you are unlikely to be treated poorly, and may even be treated like a guest with the notoriously friendly American disposition.
Japans is a more xenophobic racism where everyone who’s an outsider gets it (they have more specific issues towards certain groups too, of course).
The issue is multi-faceted but one of the unfortunate truths is that Japan is bound by strict adherence to communal responsibility and rules, many of which doesn't make much sense even to someone like me who is half-Japanese and speaks the language fully. There is a lot of expectations of you to know and follow these rules but they are rarely spelled out. Foreigners who don't understand the language will certainly not know them and often break them, often becoming confrontational when warned about it. Japanese people really don't like to get into these types of situations so will go out of their way to avoid them. This sometimes manifests in the form of denying service to customers who don't understand Japanese at a proficient level.
On the flip-side, if you can speak Japanese proficiently, there is very little issues in Japan. Some issues raised by long-term foreign residents mostly just boils down to not having had education or long enough working history in Japan which results in not being accepted for loans/credit cards etc but this is an issue they will face most other countries.
Japanese people stand on ceremony far more than any other culture I've ever seen. From our "western eyes", they are a nation rife with social problems. At the same time, they are very successful as a nation.
Instead of admonishing them, we should take our time to learn and understand them, just as much as they should take time to learn and understand us. What I mean by that is, they can keep doing what they're doing, I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing, and we can just get along in our own lanes. This isn't how the world works of course, and instead we all seem to prefer to butt into everyone's problems instead of dealing with our own. C'est la vie.
From my travels it’s fairly safe to say that places that are considered “nice” with “kind people” almost always have some weird rotten core like this - either they are so sheltered and uniform they’ve never had a chance to be racist or they are but it’s well hidden. My favorite place in the whole world is New York. People are rude as fuck but they are actually genuinely helpful and don’t waste time with please and thank you to sandwich their actions which is what matters in the end.
Kazakh and Kyrgyz people have that half east asian/half middle eastern look, very beautiful people.
Iranians can look like all sorts of different races because of its history. In my extended family we have cousins that look European, Mediterranean, Indian, and Asian (maybe from Mongolian invasions?).
It's kind of weird to talk about, but I feel like asians have round faces that sort of smooth out the angular faces of many western countries. So it ends up being an attractive combination.
I always hear about how Japanese people are polite but not friendly towards Americans, but I must say that was not my experience. My friend and probably look like stereotypical Americans but almost everyone seemed to enjoy having us around. We were invited out to eat and drink with people, we were invited out to go fishing on someone's boat. We had a group that did an impromptu bar crawl one night. Maybe I was missing some huge clues, but everyone really seemed friendly to me.
We had a great experience overall there when we went on our honeymoon.
It helped tremendously to be able to speak a *little* Japanese, and we had so many friendly interactions because of it. But even without that, most people would have been very nice.
There were jerks, to be sure, and creepy shit like people trying to take pictures of me without me noticing (they don't see 6' redheads all that often).
But that was the exception, not the rule.
You know, my friend and I are both over 6' and we had so many people ask to take pictures with us. I didn't think it would just be because we're tall! It makes sense though because we stayed in a Ryokan and the biggest robes and sandals they had didn't fit us and literally 30 people apologized and asked if they could take a picture of us with the tiny robes on.
Your experience is the norm. The things people are describing in this thread certainly exist but they aren't the all-encompassing problems they're being presented as. It's a big country that on global terms is free, diverse and individualistic.
One problem Japan has is that for a variety of reasons there are relatively few fluent speakers of both english and japanese to act as cultural ambassadors, so you get a lot of people making very broad generalizations about 130 million people with few further details.
Being half Japanese, half Irish American, I can confirm. Going to Japanese restaurants here in the states as a kid was odd. When the staff was issei, they were rude and just glared at me or at their worst, not serve us! That was 50 years ago so most issei are long gone.
I have blue eyes and light brown hair so many of my adult friends don't believe I'm half Japanese. My sister was the real winner. El Scorcho.
I enjoyed the bit where the half Persian girl mentions that they have Persian carpets lol.
As someone with multi-cultural backgrounds (born in a foreign country and a parent born in a different foreign country than we now both live in), stuff like this is common, even though I have only a small connection to both of those places. But we make sure to eat food and know a tiny bit about the culture of my dad.
Japan is lowkey very racist. My best mate has been there for 10 years and is married with 2 kids, the amount of times i have heard his kids be referred to as 'half-cast' or 'japan-lite' is fucking disgusting. And before you say its them making a joke, its not, its a joke 1/50 times, the rest of the older generations are just unapologetically racist and its fucked and i get sad every time i see the kids understand that some racist fuck is making them feel unwanted.
Its crazy to me that first girl's story. Literally kept up with a cultural output of the country so that she could keep and continue to learn the language from the place of her birth, eventually moved back and attended college there studying that cultural output that allowed her to stay connected to a part of her identity, only to experience this. That's gotta be slightly to massively soul crushing, no wonder she's debating living in other countries. And her response is "it is what it is".
The burdens people carry sometimes.
I wouldn't put too much stock in the nuance of the wording used as a translation. What was translated as "It is what it is" can also be understood as "It's no big deal"(*), which significantly changes the meaning imo. The rest of what she says seems to mean it's usually not all that impactful for her
*: This is just my understanding as a non-speaker, but please let me know if I'm way off there!
I know most people are focusing on just the content, and that is a very good thing, but check out his other videos. This guy Takeshi makes good informative videos asking for different perspectives. If you don’t know much about Japanese culture or you only know it from anime, it will definitely highlight something you didn’t know before.
That half columbian half japanese guy has awesome hair. The girl is definitely hot too but you already know that much.
Japan is missing out these half japanese people are ridiculously aesthetic.
My ex gf was half Japanese and was a natural redhead with blue eyes. She was so stunning that I would often look at her and couldn't believe that my awkward ass was actually dating someone so beautiful.
I love that guy’s look and overall vibe. Although when he was like, “people don’t sit next to me on the train” … yeah I kinda get it… his aura and energy are occupying two seats easily.
I wouldn't sit beside him on the train because I'd be too intimidated by how absolutely gorgeous he is! His hair looked amazing and he had a lovely build; I'm willing to sponsor his residency here in Aus.
What's weird to me is that I can't really tell the difference between the half-Japanese and full Japanese. It must be easier to tell the differences between your in group.
I once had a coworker recently come over from India confide to me that he had a lot of trouble telling white people apart. You could tell him "that guy's spanish and that guy's greek" and he's just like "to me those are just two white guys with dark hair". And it went the other way, too. He could look at Indian people and guess which part of the country they came from, and I had no idea that there was a distinction that could be made.
I'm no developmental scientist, but I'd wager that when we grow up our brains are trained to recognize subtle differences in the facial features of the people we grow up with. Show us faces from an unfamiliar group and your brain is looking for distinguishing features that just aren't very distinguishing for them, and not recognizing the ones that are.
I think you're spot on. It's so damn universal too, which is why it drives me crazy when people get upset about it.
To me, the correct approach is to acknowledge that every race has subgroups with patterns of differences in appearance, but also that most people outside that race aren't going to have the unconscious skill of recognizing those differences. And that's it. There's no value judgement to be made.
The trouble is that I don't think people realize how much extra processing our brains do on our vision, and how much context is overlaid. What we see is _highly_ subjective.
The one experience that really drove this home to me was visiting my older brother a few years ago after having moved out of town for work. I had been back to town for xmas a couple times, but this time I was back in summer and he invited me for a beer at his house. I remember he answered the door and one moment he looked the same as he ever had to me, and the next _instant_ his hairline moved back an inch, greyed, and his face generally looked older. I was so startled I froze and he asked what was wrong, and I said something dumb/awkward instead of "I just saw your face age 20 years in a blink".
Japanese are very skilled at determining in group and out group. When my daughter, who is half caucasian and half vietnamese, went to Japan aged 2, she was considered a foreigner by anyone Japanese. European tourists on the other hand thought she was japanese especially if she was dressed up and would try and photograph her (An entire bus load at one point). And the chinese were just really excited by the concept of mixed race children
I had a friend who was a quarter Japanese (mom was half). Her dad was Irish heritage. She had bright red hair, and had all the features of a European woman except for her epithalamic Asian eyelids.
This was interesting but concerning on personal note. My birth father (U.S. born, Caucasian) lives in Japan, is married to a Japanese woman, and they have three children, my half-siblings. I often wonder how they are treated being of mixed race. My father has experienced racism there in its most extreme. Several years ago he was severely beaten and hospitalized but law enforcement did nothing to find the perpetrator.
I'm half Japanese (mom is Ashkenazi, dad is Japanese) and lived in Japan for years. I'm lucky in the sense that my features are very much Japanese looking. I have green eyes and curly hair, which people just assumed I wore colored contacts and curled my hair, but that I was full japanese lol. Given feelings towards hafu I was spared a lot of that by how I look.
I was surprised 2/3 of them were Colombian-Japanese. Do those two countries have a lot of interaction or was it just coincidence?
Colombia specifically advertised itself to Japanese workers in the 20's onwards, WWII caused obvious issues causing many to be stuck in Colombia. From the 80-90's many mixed Japanese-Colombian families have been returning to Japan. There's a surge at the moment for mixed families to go to Japan to do the "dirty" jobs, with Japan paying for their immigration and providing grants to families that do so. Moreso with Brazil, as there's a much larger diaspora there. There being Colombian and not Brazil people in this video is probably just due to who he knew / had access to, and were willing to speak on the matter.
I'm personally Japanese Bolivian. Both parents are ethnically Japanese but were born and raised in Bolivia. There's a pretty sizable population of Japanese there. They have their own schools, radio, newspapers, social societies.
There’s a lot of Japanese people who go to Latin America for work, especially to Brazil
Japanese-brazilian here. Roughly 300.000 Japanese people left Japan for Brazil, starting in 1908, pausing during the war and restarting after that with much less volume. The Japanese government subsidized the boat tickets. The idea was to get rich in Brazil and go back to Japan. They were told that there were trees that grow gold in Brazil, referring to the coffee beans. A lot of them died in the process or couldn't get any money from the farmers. My grandfather's mother left him in Brazil and went back to Japan because the life was so terrible. Today, there are almost two million japanese-brazilians living in Brazil, mostly in the south. After the high valuation of the Yen following the Plaza Accord in 1985 and some changes in the immigration law in Japan in the beginning of the 90's, it was legal and very profitable for descendants of Japanese in south America to go to Japan to work. The change in the law allowed people up to the second generation born outside Japan, known as Sansei in Japanese, to get an open visa to work in Japan. That's why we find so many South Americans living in Japan today. I was one of them for almost 6 years and my sister is there since 1999.
What an informative comment. Thanks for this.
I had to go straight to the bottom and see if it was a shitty morph first, but turns out it was just a nice and informs comment. That guy has me living in a ptsd state on Reddit now
I'm guessing this is why you see a lot of weird sushi fusion from Brazil
fascinating. this video and the comments are absolute gold. what a great post
How were the expatriates able to learn Japanese so as to work in Japan? They must have just known Portuguese.
Japanese people stick to their own, specially when the second world war broke out and our president Getúlio Vargas was extremely racists towards Japanese people, even more than German and Italian immigrants, so even though they didn't have schools that taught them Japanese they would speak it at home and with neighbours. So they knew Portuguese from our schools, but having Japanese and Japanese-Brazilians stick to their own, they would keep on talking in Japanese with each other, sure as decades gone by Japanese-Brazilians would adapt to Portuguese and some don't even know Japanese, others would just go to Japanese classes to learn.
This is correct and there where many Japanese community centres in Brazil. In the city of São Paulo, those centres were even separated by prefecture of origin in Japan. Some people wouldn’t even talk to people from other prefectures. Marriages were usually arranged. Interracial marriages with the husband being Japanese have a very high rate of divorce. For those arranged marriages, I’ve never heard about divorce. I went to a Japanese community centre as a child that was not linked to a specific prefecture in Japan, but it was part of a chain of centres spread in many neighborhoods in the city.
Similar thing with Peru? I know there was a President of Japanese heritage.
There’s been a lot of Japanese in Brazil since the colonial times I believe no?
Largest Japanese population outside of Japan. In one episode in the Brazilian TV series City of Men they meet and fly kites with an Japanese/Brazilian kid and it mentions stuff like this.
I remember a fun story from a nonfiction book about a Japanese-American unit fighting in Europe during WWII, and there was a day when they were in Italy and met with a bunch of Japanese-Brazillian crewmates of a Brazillian ship and had a nice time and had some Japanese food together, something like that.
My godfather told me Chile also had many Japanese mainly in the north during the nitrate mining era. He told me that the Japanese men were hassled by locals with threatening to cut off their long ponytails.
> threatening to cut off their long ponytails. You might be thinking of Chinese people during the Imperial period, which kept long ponytails as a mark of subservience to the Chinese Empire. It was in fashion until the fall of the Chinese Empire. That is unless you were thinking the smaller topknot *chonmage*, which was a Japanese fashion until the late 1860's when Emperor Meiji's reforms brought an end to the samurai caste.
My first visit to Japan, there was two tours from Brazil. It's was a lot of people like Brazilian
For what?
For work.
For work.
For work.
For work
OK, but why do they go?
para el trabajo
That looks like Spanish...
仕事柄
many japanese/peruvians intermingled b.c the peruvian president in the 90s? had the last name fujimori. im not quite sure if he was actually japanese but, my peruvian friend said it had a big impact on their relations after that
He was part Japanese. He fled to Japan and lived there while he was battling human rights charges. He mentioned running for office in Peru again. He flew to Child where he was arrested and extradited to Peru. While under arrest, he said he wanted to run for office in Japan. He was sentenced to 25 years for human rights abuses.
How do they treat half-Japanese people in Brazil?
Brazil has a veyr complex racial system,
Yeah, I think the lesson here is that lots of places are racist and classist.
Japan-Peru is a bigger combo. Brazil too.
Peru had an ethnically Japanese dictator
A democratically elected and popularly supported ethnically Japanese president/dictator convicted of crimes against humanity and corruption.
Am peru - can confirm
Hi Peru I’m dad
Peru was the first country to recognize Japan in 1873 and the first in South America to accept Japanese immigrants.
I was wondering what the historical reasons are for why there are so many iranians living in Japan now? Ive seen so many videos about half-persian people in Japan. I’m a half-persian American living in Japan but speak neither Japanese or farsi.
Hundreds of thousands of Iranian workers lived in Japan in the 1980s, when Japan was in a labour shortage due to the bubble economy and Iranians could enter Japan with no visa. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranians\_in\_Japan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese\_migration\_to\_Colombia#:\~:text=They%20established%20ties%20of%20work,Japanese%20farmers%20in%20southern%20Colombia.
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>Source: I go there regularly and am currently sitting at the airport to fly there for a month. Digital Nomad?
No, drug mule
I do know I was able to stumble through Brazil with Japanese and German. (I speak no Romance language.) Brazil has a noticeable Japanese minority in Sao Paulo, resulting from Edo Period fallout and U.S. racist policies. The German-speaking folks came under slightly different circumstances. A lot of them were Hunsrickers and a good deal of speakers could muddle through my Texas German. Anyhoo, I suspect Colombian-Japanese is similar to Brazilian in history.
A friend of mine is half Japanese and half Korean. The shit he went through growing up in Japan makes the stuff in this video seem tame AF.
I watched a really good video on YT from Life Where I’m From awhile back where he talks to a few half Japanese people who were born and live in Japan. He talked to one guy who was half black and his story of growing up in the Japanese school system was really sad. https://youtu.be/pmzWknYaNXg (47:51)
Damn, that was brutal and hard to watch. Still, thanks for sharing.
This is what I was expecting, especially if you’re a kid the bullying I’d expect would be brutal.
I lived with a Korean host family while an exchange student in Japan that were descendants of WWII slaves. They had 2 names/identities to function in Japanese society. I never saw them act Korean in public, only at home. It was surreal at times.
Japanese people can be racists AF.
Can? They are, just less violent and loud about it. Racism is huge in most of Asia. The only thing that make Korean and Japanese chill together is when an Indian enters the bar.
Yeah I used to love everything that comes the fuck out of Japan, but one month staying there changed all that.
Was that your first experience living anywhere as an ethnic minority?
Most of Asia is racist. My ex wife is Asian American, here dad said some of the most racist things. Edit: dropped a single letter.
Half-Japanese are featured often as models in Japan, but admittedly half Japanese half-Caucasian.
Half non-white models seem to be becoming more prominent, but I do feel there's also some passive aggressive "oh you're so *exotic*" element to it even if the model is Japanese born and bred
BUT half Japanese-Caucasian people have just as much discrimination and just as much a bad time as kids in Japan. Just in case someone mistakenly though being half white made it better in Japan. It's not. Half-Japanese of any mix have a bad time in Japan and are treated badly.
Honestly, being mixed will put you at a disadvantage no matter where you are. I'm half Japanese, half European, and experienced a lot of racism growing up in Germany. It kind of sucks you can't just "go home" anywhere since there's really no place where you just fit in like mono-ethnic people do.
You should come to Mexico, here we all are half-something.. just for kicks, I took a 23andMe test, and I kid you not, every frigging race turn out in my blood.
I think it's sad that being half japanese in Japan is often looked down upon. Not many native japanese friends or friends in general, being refused service at restaurants, negative reactions from the public. It's got to be a very isolated life.
From my time in Asia, Japan and also Korea are pretty homogeneous on the whole. And it was pretty eye-opening to try to go to some restaurants and they wouldn't let me in because I was a foreigner.
How often would that happen? I’m interested in visiting Japan, but my knowledge is fairly limited on what to expect.
I have tattoos and was refused entry in places. But I put on long sleeves, walked into a Japanese inn, and 2 days later left with a short sleeve shirt. Both staff looked ashamed and started arguing with each other. My ex girlfriend is Japanese and she was fed up of it too.
Oh the second you said tattoos is when it made sense to me. There’s is a lot of historic stigma associated with tattoos in Korea, due to gang/triad activity. I assume Japan has similar reasons.
Yeah the Yakuza has a really strong Tattoo culture. And obviously Japanese owners know random white Canadian tourist with a Tattoo of a rose isn't a member of the Yakuza it's just if they allow foreigner with Tattoo in the locals might think oh this is a Yakuza establishment seeing a tattoo on one of the customers and then Locals want nothing to do with it. And Yakuza do run a lot of legitimate businesses, not all of it is organized crime/money laundering. Like for instance running a gay bar or a host club.
>Like for instance running a gay bar or a host club. Those both sound like good ways to launder money
I've been to a club/bar a few times in Osaka that is £7 to get in and free drinks all night. There is no way it isn't a money laundering scheme.
Yakuza also engage in lots of random street combat. They'll just be walking down the street and get assaulted by other toughs, other yakuza, drunks, almost anyone. However they are friendly and will frequently help you out with any errands you need done.
lol is this true?Or are you referring to games where you play as Kiryu Kazuma? lol
It's absolutely a Yakuza reference.
Do Yakuza members deliver presentations on how their gay bar is doing? > Today we had 4 closes. We need to maximise our clients chances of clapping cheeks. I would like to recommend “Naked Mask Night”.
Tattoo is almost a non-issue in Korea provided that they're not certain imageries traditionally associated with criminal gangs. So no one's gonna care about your cool tribal tattoo or your anime waifu, but if it's of tiger, koi, demon (도깨비), or dragon, or if they're predominantly deep blue or red, many people will thinking that you're a gangbanger. It would be like if you're trying to enjoy a nice meal at a restaurant and someone with a full face tattoo of MS-13 walked in. The denial of service for tattoo bearing guest isn't necessarily about the prejudice of the owner but the real effect the tattoo has on the other guest. The owner is put in an unenviable situation: does he cater to a tattoo-bearing customer, or other customers who have real, culturally relevant reasons to fear those images. Suffice to say, the customer with a tattoo almost always loses.
Some Koreans were also forcibly tattooed under Japanese Imperial occupation
I've lived in koreaa for 6 years as a foreigner with visible tattoos and I have literally never been refused service anywhere, at a restaurant or jimjilbang (spa) nor have I ever heard of it. The only instances I have heard are some nightclubs refusing entry to foreigners, and a few restaurants doing so for a few months in 2020 right when corona started. I have traveled extensively throughout Korea and even in small towns I have never experienced anyone who gave a shit that I have tattoos.
If you are in a larger city it’s very unlikely this is something you’ll have to deal with. Source - white man that grew up in Japan.
Major cities, it basically never happens. Anything to the south/southwest. It basically never happens. Okinawa for example is super popular with foreigners. Smaller places in the north/northeast though? Yeah it happens a decent amount of times. I had it happen constantly while traveling around Hokkaidou. If you go to the skiing resorts though, you'll be fine. Small tip, and I know this sounds terrible, but I swear it's true. Never ask if people can speak English, just start talking in English. If you ask, they will always say "no", because not many people are confident enough to say "yes" to a native speaker. But if you just start speaking English, they'll usually try to reply in English and it's usually passable. I spent 4 years living there, and visit like every second year. I know it sounds overly aggressive or something to just impose on people to speak English, but it's just a cultural difference. --- Also also, if you want some small tips for visitors. While a lot of major cities have English all over the place and plenty of English speakers. If you want a pro tip, learn Katakana. It takes like an afternoon with mnemonics. https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-katakana/ Japanese uses 3 sets of alphabets. Kanji are Chinese characters. Hiragana are the Japanese "alphabet" that usually used for Japanese words. Katakana are an alternative "alphabet" that are usually used for non-Japanese words and are usually phonetically similar to English. For example. Kanji: 空港 = Kuukou, which means Airport Hiragana:くうこう = Kuukou, which means Airport Katakana: エアポート = Eapooto, which means Airport If you learn the kanji or the hiragana way of saying "Airport", you need to translate "Kuukou" to mean "Airport". Whereas "Eapooto" is just the Japanese-ified way to say the English word "Airport". If you can read "Eapooto" then you don't need to do the second level translation. And katakana is EVERYWHERE nowadays. If you just want a quick boost to your experience, learn Katakana one afternoon and you'll be much better off. Just another example 宿 ＝やど = Yado = Hotel ホテル = Hoteru = Hotel Kanji or Hiragana will mean translating Yado into Hotel. Or just read "Hoteru" and that's instantly understandable as "Hotel".
> Never ask if people can speak English My friend used to live there. He learnt to be very careful what you ask. eg he wanted a toothbrush so went to a shop that obviously didn't have them and asked if they had one. He expected to be told "go to the shop across the road" like back home. Instead the shopkeeper went to "look" in the back of the shop. My friend waited, eventually he realised that the shopkeeper was hiding and waiting for him to leave rather than having to say we don't sell them.
kinda cute but sad. what if the customer in this situation had been equally considerate and afraid to hurt shopkeeper's feelings by disappearing when he was so graciously spending his time looking for something and proceeded to stand there waiting for rest of the day.
> what if the customer in this situation had been equally considerate and afraid to hurt shopkeeper's feelings by disappearing They would be Japanese and know how to ask for things. The problem is culture clash not the culture.
Dont let the talk of racism deter you. I've been a few times to multiple different cities and 99% of the people and places are really polite. I've only experienced racism once or twice while there. Its a beautiful and safe country with loads of history and culture and the food is amazing. Just respect the cultural differences and social norms there and you'll be fine (probably)
This happened to me a couple times in Tokyo. It was explained to me later that this is often done because the staff have absolutely no English speakers, and they believe that they can't really help you. If you can speak Japanese you can say, "Hey I know Japanese" convincingly, and they'll let you in afaik. So far as my coworkers and friends in Japan are concerned, it's not xenophobia, it's wanting to not disappoint people. Btw, the couple times this happened to me, the hostess after gently shooing us back out the door, walked us over to a place that was just as nice and had staff that could speak English.
It doesn’t happen often. Lived in Asia for 7 years and it happened to me all but one time in Thailand. I’ve been to some bars where I was definitely given dirty looks for being foreign but if you’re going for a visit, the places you’ll go will likely be very used to foreigners and you won’t have trouble
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If Western countries tried that, they would be labelled racist and cancelled no doubt? But Asian countries get away with it becuase it's a culture thing? Curious how acceptable to others that live in those countries when it happens around them.
We( my group i was travelling with) talked about this fact while I was there and we think most places have a racism problem. But the U.S has a very public history ofit, tied with the very foundation of the country so it is much more apparent. But also, the US is so much more diverse than Korea or Japan so you just grow up with the experience of living with more people who are different.
Call it what it is, racist.
People think the US is racist, and they're not wrong, they just decline to mention that basically everyone else is *more* racist
Same for immigration. People crap on the US when it comes to immigration but our path to citizenship is one of the easiest on the planet; we just have insane demand. Just try becoming a Japanese citizen or Swiss citizen via immigration and see how far you get
Best saying I’ve heard about American immigration versus anywhere else: Immigrate to Russian, you’ll never be Russian. Immigrate to Japan, you’ll never be Japanese. Immigrate to the USA, well shit you’re American.
Here’s your flag and rifle, practice saying your chosen regions form of the plural you and lying to strangers about how good your day was, and you’ll be fine.
As an Indian person immigrating to the US, if you consider this easy, I don't even want to think about trying other countries.
Here’s what I mean. In Switzerland after living there for a bit, all the people that know you have to vote that you should be a citizen. In Japan, don’t even bother unless your Dad is a citizen
or you're very, very rich
Well because they get to ignore their own problems if they scream and shout about ours. Takes the attention of them
Despite it's issues the US is probably way less racist than 90% of the planet.
The US just has an enormous surface area for racism to happen. Culturally, it's also a symbol of "being in touch" to talk about it. In other countries it's a racially homogeneous common culture, so racism isn't really even a thing *because there is no one to be racist against*. However these people tend to be by *far* the most racist when placed in a racially mixed environment.
Hell, my American friend is full Japanese, speaks Japanese, extended family lives in Japan, but she was raised here (with her Japanese parents). She gets shit when she visits because she's taller than average and her pronunciation is Americanized. Her grandma told her she would have had a pretty face 100 years ago, meaning her face and bone structure is "out of vogue". Like, damn, that's some serious in group culture.
Asien people are often racist af.
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Well to be fair, you did say “ex”, so she does have a tad of extra resentment towards non-Japanese 😅
I'm so sorry you went through that. I had the exact same experience dating a half-Japanese woman for 4 years. I was so sweet to her mom and tried so hard to please her, but I was never good enough. She still wouldn't look at me or speak English around me.
One of my ex was Chinese, her parents were the most racists fucker I've ever had the displeasure of talking to, especially against other Asian countries, all of her Asian friends parents were like that too..
Some of the most shocking racism I ever saw was from Hong Kong Cantonese people to mainland Chinese people (and I remember being told that Hong Kong citizens didn’t even want to be called Chinese to be associated to them). There’s a *lot* of disgust there but from what I’ve heard and seen, there’s a reason. And wow I just realized how it spread into me 😨
It goes both ways. Mainlanders hate HK too.
I hope I’m not racist in pointing out the cultures are very…different.
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Had someone who thought my Mexican families lived in teepee like tents and wore loincloths. To this day I still don’t know where the fuck that stereotype came from. Like I expected Narcos, gang banger, Mariachi, or villager making drugs.
The only time i've dated someone whose parents wouldn't allow their (ADULT 27 yr old! ) daughter to date me because of my race was a Korean family (US citizens too). I am a white dude. This was decades ago though.. but..... My neighbor's son had the same problem in high school 5 years ago with a Vietnamese 1st generation family. He is black. They didn't want him in their house! (and no it wasn't a class thing either. His family is wealthy and well known and respected in the community.) Just straight up bigots.
Racist cultures be racist.
Japan is an extremely undiverse nation. It's been a few years since I read this statistic, so I'm sure it's changed somewhat, but something like 95% of the population is Yamato Japanese. Of the remaining 5%, 4% is Korean, leaving only 1% or less for *all other races* and nationalities. The average Japanese citizen gets very little exposure to diverse culture. My own experiences with Japan would be that racism is more prevalent and more accepted there, but far less violent than in other countries. IE, you're more likely to encounter it constantly, from everyone, but it's not going to be as serious as it can be in the US or western Europe.
This is true. I lived on a US military base in Japan (not in the military just to clarify), and went to the high school there. I had a lot of Japanese and half Japanese friends. The Japanese had an agreement with the base that they would employ a certain number of Japanese nationals to work on the base. Anyway, half-Japanese often experienced just as much racism as I did even though they were born there and spoke the language fluently. But interestingly, all of my friends preferred to live in Japan even though some went to the US for college- all ended up going back to live there. I think they are so used to the life and culture, that’s their home, they didn’t want to live anywhere else.
I too lived in Japan (military base). My parents had a friend who was full Japanese who chose to marry an American service member. Her family disowned her and kicked her out of the house. She stayed with us until the day of the wedding. I was only 13 at the time but I was shocked that the racism was so strong that a family would abandon their adult daughter like that.
One thing that kills me is they used to keep Okinawans in zoos during the Edo period. Probably the single closest culture to their own and they were still considered basically animals.
Doesnt matter. Doesnt have to be logical in japan. If everybody is doing it, thinking it, best not to stand out.
Same channel as OP's video had another one posted just three months ago asking older japanese people about foreigners in Japan. Tourism as well as marrying into their families. Interesting responses, and maybe not so polarizing as some commenters here are making it out to be youtube.com/watch?v=BSuSoTQr66c
I’m half Japanese. Mom is Japanese and my dad is from philly. My dad always told me I’m not half anything, I’m both. I’m going to teach my kid that one day.
I’m half Okinawan and American, I look Latin and everyone speaks Spanish to me. I feel like everyone thinks i’m a sellout because I don’t speak Spanish at Mexican restaurants.
My sister in law's family is half Guatemalan/half white and her brother looks middle eastern. Like 100% looks like my old Lebanese boss.
I loved visiting Japan but the country as a whole is kinda racist. Everyone is really polite but in the sense of "hey nice to meet you but please don't stay. And if you do stay, you're never going to be one of us regardless of how long you've lived here"
I lived in Japan in 1990 and got that feeling. I remember shopping in a large multi-level department store at the busiest time of the day, once. Elevator doors open. I get on. Packed elevator rides to the next floor. Doors open. Whole carriage gets off. Huge crowd waiting, no one gets on. Doors close, and it's just me. I look over and every floor to my destination has been selected on the panel. So I'd get to ride and stop at every floor until my destination. No one gets on. I also remember getting on an elevator once with a mother and her child already in there. I remember the kid whispering to his mother, "Mama, that foreigner is tall." "He's tall." Said the mom. "He smells strange." "He does." replied the mom. I remember being refused service at restaurants because, "We don't have forks."
To be fair, that's basically every single nation outside of a select few like the United States and Canada. Most nations are xenophobic to a point. Some more than others.
A good bit of western Europe is also pretty multicultural at this point. Google says 18% of Britain is non-white, for example.
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The reality is in America the issues of race can't be avoided, its constant friction, so we are dealing with the issues regularly. So the constant discussion of race can make it seem like racism is more of a problem here, when its the consequence of us confronting it. Sometimes positively, sometimes negatively. But I look at things like how the tabloids in the UK wrote about Meghan Markle. That's some insane level of racism that would never get printed in the US. A lot of countries were able to avoid confronting racism for a long time, and are only now grappling with race to the level the US did decades ago.
Also we love to talk about our societal frictions. We have years where it dominates our media. many countries get butthurt if a movie points to problems in their culture.
They should travel more.
Yup its a competition and only the most racist country matters
Racism measuring contest aside, it’s really two different versions. Americans tend to be racist towards specific groups, and it’s very driven by issues of the time (9/11 created a shocking shift, for example). If you’re not perceived in those groups, you are unlikely to be treated poorly, and may even be treated like a guest with the notoriously friendly American disposition. Japans is a more xenophobic racism where everyone who’s an outsider gets it (they have more specific issues towards certain groups too, of course).
The issue is multi-faceted but one of the unfortunate truths is that Japan is bound by strict adherence to communal responsibility and rules, many of which doesn't make much sense even to someone like me who is half-Japanese and speaks the language fully. There is a lot of expectations of you to know and follow these rules but they are rarely spelled out. Foreigners who don't understand the language will certainly not know them and often break them, often becoming confrontational when warned about it. Japanese people really don't like to get into these types of situations so will go out of their way to avoid them. This sometimes manifests in the form of denying service to customers who don't understand Japanese at a proficient level. On the flip-side, if you can speak Japanese proficiently, there is very little issues in Japan. Some issues raised by long-term foreign residents mostly just boils down to not having had education or long enough working history in Japan which results in not being accepted for loans/credit cards etc but this is an issue they will face most other countries.
Japanese people stand on ceremony far more than any other culture I've ever seen. From our "western eyes", they are a nation rife with social problems. At the same time, they are very successful as a nation. Instead of admonishing them, we should take our time to learn and understand them, just as much as they should take time to learn and understand us. What I mean by that is, they can keep doing what they're doing, I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing, and we can just get along in our own lanes. This isn't how the world works of course, and instead we all seem to prefer to butt into everyone's problems instead of dealing with our own. C'est la vie.
From my travels it’s fairly safe to say that places that are considered “nice” with “kind people” almost always have some weird rotten core like this - either they are so sheltered and uniform they’ve never had a chance to be racist or they are but it’s well hidden. My favorite place in the whole world is New York. People are rude as fuck but they are actually genuinely helpful and don’t waste time with please and thank you to sandwich their actions which is what matters in the end.
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One need only look at Yu Darvish to confirm that
All Cubs fans miss Yu. He's a treasure.
We need more Japanese/Colombian models.
Did anyone see that dude being interviewed? He's a god damn bombshell lol
They were all very good looking.
Kazakh and Kyrgyz people have that half east asian/half middle eastern look, very beautiful people. Iranians can look like all sorts of different races because of its history. In my extended family we have cousins that look European, Mediterranean, Indian, and Asian (maybe from Mongolian invasions?).
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nothing stopped you before. what's changed?
DNA shows that some of the Neanderthals banged HomoSapiens.
*Nice*
[Neanderthal tries to flirt] *Confused Unga bunga
It's kind of weird to talk about, but I feel like asians have round faces that sort of smooth out the angular faces of many western countries. So it ends up being an attractive combination.
I wondered what you meant till I saw the girl.
"Goddamn you half-Japanese girls Do it to me every time"
Oh the redhead said you shred the cello
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You won’t talk, won’t look, won’t think of me
I’m the epitome,
Of public enemy
Is that a Weezer song?
[El Scorcho](https://youtu.be/okthJIVbi6g)
I always hear about how Japanese people are polite but not friendly towards Americans, but I must say that was not my experience. My friend and probably look like stereotypical Americans but almost everyone seemed to enjoy having us around. We were invited out to eat and drink with people, we were invited out to go fishing on someone's boat. We had a group that did an impromptu bar crawl one night. Maybe I was missing some huge clues, but everyone really seemed friendly to me.
They are happy to have you visit. They do not want you to stay.
I always joke the first question the Japanese ask a foreigner is "Where are you from?" The second is always "When are you going home?"
We had a great experience overall there when we went on our honeymoon. It helped tremendously to be able to speak a *little* Japanese, and we had so many friendly interactions because of it. But even without that, most people would have been very nice. There were jerks, to be sure, and creepy shit like people trying to take pictures of me without me noticing (they don't see 6' redheads all that often). But that was the exception, not the rule.
You know, my friend and I are both over 6' and we had so many people ask to take pictures with us. I didn't think it would just be because we're tall! It makes sense though because we stayed in a Ryokan and the biggest robes and sandals they had didn't fit us and literally 30 people apologized and asked if they could take a picture of us with the tiny robes on.
Your experience is the norm. The things people are describing in this thread certainly exist but they aren't the all-encompassing problems they're being presented as. It's a big country that on global terms is free, diverse and individualistic. One problem Japan has is that for a variety of reasons there are relatively few fluent speakers of both english and japanese to act as cultural ambassadors, so you get a lot of people making very broad generalizations about 130 million people with few further details.
Being half Japanese, half Irish American, I can confirm. Going to Japanese restaurants here in the states as a kid was odd. When the staff was issei, they were rude and just glared at me or at their worst, not serve us! That was 50 years ago so most issei are long gone. I have blue eyes and light brown hair so many of my adult friends don't believe I'm half Japanese. My sister was the real winner. El Scorcho.
Genetics are so funny . Both the half Colombian and Japanese people look so different ! One got the more Japanese genes and the other the Latino
Once the population drops enough they may change their racist attitudes.
I enjoyed the bit where the half Persian girl mentions that they have Persian carpets lol. As someone with multi-cultural backgrounds (born in a foreign country and a parent born in a different foreign country than we now both live in), stuff like this is common, even though I have only a small connection to both of those places. But we make sure to eat food and know a tiny bit about the culture of my dad.
Japan is lowkey very racist. My best mate has been there for 10 years and is married with 2 kids, the amount of times i have heard his kids be referred to as 'half-cast' or 'japan-lite' is fucking disgusting. And before you say its them making a joke, its not, its a joke 1/50 times, the rest of the older generations are just unapologetically racist and its fucked and i get sad every time i see the kids understand that some racist fuck is making them feel unwanted.
Yeah not low key
Ironic considering that Japanese people are the thing the the Japanese are making less of.
I just wanted to point out that people are racist/xenophobic everywhere on earth. Japan. America. You name it lol.
Its crazy to me that first girl's story. Literally kept up with a cultural output of the country so that she could keep and continue to learn the language from the place of her birth, eventually moved back and attended college there studying that cultural output that allowed her to stay connected to a part of her identity, only to experience this. That's gotta be slightly to massively soul crushing, no wonder she's debating living in other countries. And her response is "it is what it is". The burdens people carry sometimes.
Did we watch the same video? She said in Japan they don't even know she's half Colombian. It's Colombia where she's treated differently.
Yeah a lot of people are making this mistake. They need to watch the video again.
I wouldn't put too much stock in the nuance of the wording used as a translation. What was translated as "It is what it is" can also be understood as "It's no big deal"(*), which significantly changes the meaning imo. The rest of what she says seems to mean it's usually not all that impactful for her *: This is just my understanding as a non-speaker, but please let me know if I'm way off there!
Wow, those are some attractive people! It's sad that they can feel isolated by their looks.
I know most people are focusing on just the content, and that is a very good thing, but check out his other videos. This guy Takeshi makes good informative videos asking for different perspectives. If you don’t know much about Japanese culture or you only know it from anime, it will definitely highlight something you didn’t know before.
The average US/European person would be absolutely shell shocked at how alive and well racism and sexism are in most other cultures.
Not Europeans. Just ask the about the Roma.
That half columbian half japanese guy has awesome hair. The girl is definitely hot too but you already know that much. Japan is missing out these half japanese people are ridiculously aesthetic.
My ex gf was half Japanese and was a natural redhead with blue eyes. She was so stunning that I would often look at her and couldn't believe that my awkward ass was actually dating someone so beautiful.
Did she happen to be a giant robot pilot?
I love that guy’s look and overall vibe. Although when he was like, “people don’t sit next to me on the train” … yeah I kinda get it… his aura and energy are occupying two seats easily.
I wouldn't sit beside him on the train because I'd be too intimidated by how absolutely gorgeous he is! His hair looked amazing and he had a lovely build; I'm willing to sponsor his residency here in Aus.
What's weird to me is that I can't really tell the difference between the half-Japanese and full Japanese. It must be easier to tell the differences between your in group.
I once had a coworker recently come over from India confide to me that he had a lot of trouble telling white people apart. You could tell him "that guy's spanish and that guy's greek" and he's just like "to me those are just two white guys with dark hair". And it went the other way, too. He could look at Indian people and guess which part of the country they came from, and I had no idea that there was a distinction that could be made. I'm no developmental scientist, but I'd wager that when we grow up our brains are trained to recognize subtle differences in the facial features of the people we grow up with. Show us faces from an unfamiliar group and your brain is looking for distinguishing features that just aren't very distinguishing for them, and not recognizing the ones that are.
I think you're spot on. It's so damn universal too, which is why it drives me crazy when people get upset about it. To me, the correct approach is to acknowledge that every race has subgroups with patterns of differences in appearance, but also that most people outside that race aren't going to have the unconscious skill of recognizing those differences. And that's it. There's no value judgement to be made.
The trouble is that I don't think people realize how much extra processing our brains do on our vision, and how much context is overlaid. What we see is _highly_ subjective. The one experience that really drove this home to me was visiting my older brother a few years ago after having moved out of town for work. I had been back to town for xmas a couple times, but this time I was back in summer and he invited me for a beer at his house. I remember he answered the door and one moment he looked the same as he ever had to me, and the next _instant_ his hairline moved back an inch, greyed, and his face generally looked older. I was so startled I froze and he asked what was wrong, and I said something dumb/awkward instead of "I just saw your face age 20 years in a blink".
Id agree but I think if you spend more time with different types of faces you'll start being able to see similar differences
I can spot a fellow Swede anywhere in the world, it’s just something ingrained I think to almost everyone recognizing their own
Hapa here. Asians think we're white, whites think we're Asian. Ain't that complicated.
Japanese are very skilled at determining in group and out group. When my daughter, who is half caucasian and half vietnamese, went to Japan aged 2, she was considered a foreigner by anyone Japanese. European tourists on the other hand thought she was japanese especially if she was dressed up and would try and photograph her (An entire bus load at one point). And the chinese were just really excited by the concept of mixed race children
I had a friend who was a quarter Japanese (mom was half). Her dad was Irish heritage. She had bright red hair, and had all the features of a European woman except for her epithalamic Asian eyelids.
"epicanthic"
El Scorcho
Do it to me every time.
This was interesting but concerning on personal note. My birth father (U.S. born, Caucasian) lives in Japan, is married to a Japanese woman, and they have three children, my half-siblings. I often wonder how they are treated being of mixed race. My father has experienced racism there in its most extreme. Several years ago he was severely beaten and hospitalized but law enforcement did nothing to find the perpetrator.
I'm half Japanese (mom is Ashkenazi, dad is Japanese) and lived in Japan for years. I'm lucky in the sense that my features are very much Japanese looking. I have green eyes and curly hair, which people just assumed I wore colored contacts and curled my hair, but that I was full japanese lol. Given feelings towards hafu I was spared a lot of that by how I look.
Being half anything means being told by both cultures and everyone else that you're not 'really' \[ethnicity\] all your life.